Numerous reports have been published suggesting productivity at UK companies is stagnant – despite the burst of new technologies to aid us.
The reason why is still not known. However, the introduction of project management software tools can help businesses streamline their processes and maximise efficiency.
We take a look at some of the best to consider this year.
Best project management software 2023
Trello
Trello is best known for its board consisting in columns (representing the stages of projects) and tickets for projects and tasks.
Once a task has been completed, it can be moved into the next column ready for the relevant team to pick up. Each ticket can be assigned to an individual and set a deadline for completion.
Another feature Trello offers is an automation bot (called Butler) which picks up repetitive tasks and suggests automations based on them. It can also automatically send an email to the relevant stakeholders once a project has been completed and post messages to Slack channels.
Pricing:
- Free – up to 10 boards
- Standard – $5 – extra features including unlimited boards and up to 250MB uploads
- Premium – $10 – extra features including unlimited automation runs
- Enterprise $17.50 – extra features including admin dashboard
All prices are per user and per month when paid annually.
Trustpilot score: 4.0
Asana
With Asana, you can enter a project and its description, select the team to assign it to and format it as a list, timeline or within a calendar.
These projects can then be duplicated, moved to another team or archived.
Asana does offer templates which they feel are best for certain groups – like design, sales and IT teams – but it is also possible to create custom templates for organisation-specific projects as well.
The platform allows users to break up the project into sections, so project members can visualise the workflow stages or priorities, for example.
Its free option offers more than that offered by Trello.
Pricing:
- Basic – £0 – unlimited projects and tasks
- Premium – £9.49 – extra features including timeline and unlimited dashboards
- Business – £20.99 – extra features including goals and advanced reporting
All prices are per user and per month when paid annually.
Trustpilot score: 2.5
ClickUp
From a project management perspective, ClickUp perhaps best demonstrates the overall project situation out of all the tools on this list.
You can visually see the project status and how close it is to completion, the workload on certain teams, upcoming tasks and how many are remaining.
There are also various customisable boards, AI tools to help speed up processes and 24/7 customer support.
Pricing:
- Free – for personal use
- Unlimited – $7 per user per month – for small teams and unlimited storage
- Business – $12 per user per month – extra features including more guest seats for freelancers and contributors
- Business Plus – extra features including custom permissions and priority support
- Enterprise – request quote – for large teams, organisation customisation and extra permissions
All prices are per user and per month when paid annually.
Trustpilot score: 3.4
Jira
On the face of it, Jira’s board view looks very similar to Trello (they’re both Atlassian products) but Jira initially came about as a bug tracking tool as this is still reflected in the amount of IT teams using the tool and the labels for some of the features.
Users of Jira can create an issue, upload an image, move the issue in ‘in progress’ and then move to ‘Done’.
Pricing:
- Free – up to 10 users
- Standard – $7.75 – up to 35,000 users and customer support
- Premium – $15.25 – extra features including project archiving, 24/7 support and unlimited storage
- Enterprise – Request quote – extra features including unlimited sites and extra security
All prices are per user and per month when paid annually.
Trustpilot score: 3.7
Zoho Projects
Zoho allows users to break down tasks into milestones and subtasks – viewing them as Kanban boards (columns and tickets) and Gantt charts.
Teams can assign tasks, roles, set work hours and add reminders. The biggest distinguishing feature from the others on this list, though, is the ‘Dependencies’ feature, which shows which tasks need to be completed before another one can start – all of which can be visualised using the Gantt chart.
Pricing:
- Free – up to three users and two projects
- Premium – £3.20 – unlimited projects and 100GB of storage
- Enterprise – £7.20 – extra features including 120GB of storage and 30 project templates
All prices are per user and per month when paid annually.
Trustpilot score: 4.5
Monday
Monday displays the task, date, status and timeline in a list, Gantt or Kanban view – so how a team’s tasks are displayed can be different depending on team member preferences.
Monday also comes with 24/7 customer support and real-time dashboards with over 30 widgets displaying different information.
Pricing:
- Free – up to two users and three boards
- Basic – £7 – unlimited teams and prioritised customer support
- Standard – £9 – extra features including timeline, calendar and Gantt views
- Pro – £17 – extra features including time tracking and private boards
- Enterprise – request quote – exclusive features such as tailored onboarding and premium support
All prices are per user and per month when paid annually.
Trustpilot score: 3.8
Moxo
One of the aims of Moxo is to streamline external client interaction workflows. Instead of focusing solely on project management internally, Moxo allows users to interact with external clients and manage communications with them.
You can designate roles to clients – like document signing – account managers and partners and then mark tasks as complete.
Pricing:
- Starter – $900 a year – up to 10 active users with client, business and admin portals
- Business – $4,320 a year – extra features including automations, live chat and DocuSign integration
- Advanced – Request quote – custom user packs
Trustpilot score: N/A
Smartsheet
With Smartsheet, the project manager will be able to focus on the high-level charts displayed in the overall project dashboard, while team members can focus on their own tasks report.
The dashboard can be customised, fitted onto a page and sent to clients for a project update.
It certainly isn’t the best-looking option (if that matters to you) as it is formatted in a similar way to a list you may find on some of the other options but in Excel form.
Pricing:
- Free – up to two users, with Gantt, grid, card and calendar views
- Pro – £5 – up to 10 users with unlimited sheets, dashboards and 20GB attachment storage
- Business – £19 – extra features including unlimited users, 1TB attachment storage and unlimited automations
- Enterprise – request quote – extra features including enterprise plan manager
All prices are per user and per month when paid annually.
Trustpilot score: 2.0
Kantata
Like Moxo, Kantata allows collaboration with clients through project sharing, so they can keep track of milestones and approve as the team works.
It also offers integration with a range of popular apps, automations and a view on real-time insights – including financial targets for a project.
Pricing: Request quote
Trustpilot score: N/A
Wrike
With Wrike you can view detailed analytics in regard to a project, such as percentages of new, in progress and completed tasks by assignee and an overview of tasks by progress.
Its project management template allows visibility on which tasks are unassigned and which are due for completion on any given week.
Pricing:
- Free – Board view
- Team – $9.80 – Two to 25 users and unlimited projects
- Business – $24.80 – Five to 250 users, reports and unlimited dashboards
- Enterprise – request quote – Extra features including 10GB storage per user and admin permissions
- Pinnacle – request quote – Extra features including billable hours and advanced reporting
All prices are per user and per month.
Trustpilot score: 2.8
More on project management
Top five skills you need to forge a career in projectmanagement – Are you setting up a new project in your company? Here, we give five tips to help you with your project management
How project management tools streamline business workflows – Though project management tools are widely available, there exists a gap between the functionalities of these tools and what businesses want. Is one tool enough?
