Let's say you build houses. It's a complex process, and some tasks must be done in a particular order. You can't install windows if you haven't put up the walls. You probably have dozens of specialists working on the buildings, and you have to know which days they're available to pour the foundation, lay the tile, and so forth. You also have to assign tasks so that they're done in the correct order. And what if it rains one day? The whole schedule may change. The way to manage task dependency in a complex project like this one is to use project management software.

PCMag has been testing project management apps since 2015. In that time, we've tested (and retested) more than 25 project management tools. Here, they tell you about those services that scored the highest in their ratings, with a few notes about what makes them different. Below their recommendations is more information on what project management software is and advice on how to shop for the right app for your business or team. If you manage less complex projects, you can save a lot of money and get a better tool for your needs by exploring the best collaboration software instead.

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Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks

Buying Guide: The Best Project Management Software for 2024

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What Is Project Management Software?

Project management software, sometimes called PM software, is a type of online collaboration tool. All the people who are working on a project log in and see what they're supposed to do and when. These workers also record their progress on those tasks and add relevant details, such as notes about any changes. With the appropriate permission level, people can also learn more about what everyone else is doing, what requirements must be met for them to get it done, and when.

For the project manager, the project management app provides a clear overview of each project's progress. Are all the tasks on track to be completed on time? If one task is late, how does it affect the projected deadlines of items on the task list? Is someone available to pick up an urgent task if the person assigned to do it is ill? Plus, if the project management app supports tracking finances, the app will also tell the people in charge whether the project is running on budget.

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How They Choose the Best Project Management Software

For this list of the best PM software, they evaluated and tested more than 25 project management platforms and have included here the products with the highest scores. Inclusion is based on PCMag's independent testing and evaluation. In determining scores, they consider the needs of a variety of business types, including small businesses on a budget and large organizations that need to manage many complex projects, people, and budgets simultaneously. They also look at ease of use, features, and value.

For this category, they stick to traditional project management apps only. These apps are specifically created to manage projects. A project is a set of work with a start date, an end date, and a deliverable. They don't include apps for managing ongoing work, such as answering support emails.

To be included in this list, the app must offer Gantt charts, which are a type of timeline view commonly used in project management. All the apps included here also have other standard tools in addition to Gantt charts for tracking, organizing, and scheduling project-based work.

While there are many excellent workplace collaboration apps and task management apps that are sometimes called "project management apps" (such as Trello, Basecamp, and Airtable), they don't include them here. Collaboration or work-management apps are very capable when it comes to managing certain kinds of work, but they aren't necessarily designed for juggling the complexities of dozens or hundreds of projects and their schedules simultaneously. Therefore, they don't include them here.

Zoho Projects' Gantt chart view (Credit: Zoho)

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What Can You Do With Project Management Software?

Project management apps let you track progress and manage nearly any kind of project, such as the creation of a new product, building a house or website, or launching a marketing campaign. Teams that use project management apps tend to track more than one project at a time. The software helps them figure out when to schedule work based on when things need to get done and the human resources available to do them.

The best project management apps detect problems before they happen through detailed task management. By tracking the progress of work and individual tasks (for example, having completed six hours of a task that's estimated to take a total of eight hours), project management apps can sound an alarm when a deadline is in danger of slipping, but before it actually happens. The most powerful project management apps also offer to automatically reflow the project schedule when tasks do fall off course. They generate reports that give project managers insight into which team members have too much or too little work assigned. Some let you track project budgets and log billable hours so that you can send invoices to clients for time worked.

TeamGantt's Gantt chart and workload view (Credit: TeamGantt)

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What Is the Best Free Project Management Software?

A few of the best project management software systems have a free plan. The only one that made this list that is truly free is Redmine—more on that service momentarily. The free plan for most apps is severely limited in some way. For example, you might be allowed to manage only one or two projects at a time or invite only a handful of people to work alongside you. In the paid plan, you might get unlimited projects. Plus, you usually don't get all the most advanced features of the paid plan in the free plan. Still, if you have a small team and only need to manage one or two projects, it might work. Free versions also let you try out the app before deciding whether the paid plans meet your needs.

You can get a free account from Zoho Projects, Teamwork, Wrike, TeamGantt, ProofHub, plus a few others that did not make this list, such as AceProject. 

Redmine is a 100% free PM tool, but you have to install and maintain it yourself. It's not an off-the-shelf product but rather an open-source alternative that requires you to have your own tech support. If you're looking for something simple to start using right away, Redmine isn't it. For simplicity, you're better off with Zoho Projects, TeamGantt, or AceProject.

Teamwork's project management dashboard (Credit: Teamwork)

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What Project Management App Is the Easiest to Use?

If you're new to project management and especially if your organization doesn't have a dedicated project manager, you need a project management app that's easy to use.

TeamGantt and GanttPro are the easiest project management apps to learn and use. They are both designed for beginners and other people who are inexperienced at project management.

Many of the project management apps we've reviewed are easy to use, provide good video tutorials, and work well for beginners, but after testing dozens of them, they believe GanttPro and TeamGantt are best.

In testing, they found that some rather popular and well-known project management apps, such as Microsoft Project, are not especially easy to use if you are new to them or not a professional project manager. While they have reviewed many of those tools, not all of them scored high enough to be included in this list of the best project management apps.

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What's the Best Project Management App for a Small Business?

If your project team needs to manage and track a couple of projects, but you're less concerned with employee scheduling, collecting time sheets to bill clients, and comparing the progress of multiple projects in development, a low-cost tool such as Zoho Projects (starting at $5 per person per month for Premium) is your best bet. What they especially like about Zoho Projects is that it scales easily if your team ends up growing and needs more features. Zoho, the company, offers a wide range of other business apps that can connect to Zoho Projects to expand what you can do with it.

We also like GanttPro as a low-cost option. It's one of the easiest tools to use and is great for people with limited or no prior experience with project management.

There's no need to spend more than about $15 per person per month if you aren't going to use the tools that are unique to more expensive software, so stick with something inexpensive.

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What's the Best Project Management App for Large Organizations?

Large organizations have starkly different needs than small businesses. Organizations with hundreds or thousands of employees and hundreds of projects use project management apps for scheduling, insights into their resources, budget-tracking, revenue projection, and time-tracking for billing purposes, among other reasons.

For a large company, it's important to be able to manage not just individuals but also teams. If you have 15 hours of work for a junior designer, and it doesn't matter which junior designer does it, you want to see how much work each junior designer has assigned to them and whether you can free up one of them for the task.

For the same reason, all the managers and team leads in your company should be able to see what tasks are high-priority and which projects are in danger of slipping so that they can triage accordingly.

If your organization handles complex projects and has many team members collaborating on projects, they recommend Celoxis or LiquidPlanner.

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What Project Management Software Has the Best Special Features?

Teams that are neither small businesses nor enormous organizations may have special needs that they want their project management software to address.

Our top pick in this category is Teamwork, which is specialized to handle client work. If your team primarily completes projects as billable work for clients, then Teamwork should be on your shortlist. It includes billing and invoicing, as well as the ability to create intake forms for new projects. Another app called Paymo, which didn't quite score highly enough for this list, also has built-in billing and invoicing tools.

There are other areas of specialization for project management software, of course. If you're looking for a tool that can manage both project and non-project work, they recommend Wrike or Celoxis. (LiquidPlanner is a good pick, too, but they think it's best for large groups.) If your team spends a lot of time discussing and iterating visual assets, ProofHub is a great choice. Smartsheet is good for building automation into your project management.

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Choosing the right project management software can take time, but it's worth having as much nailed down as possible before rolling the solution out to an entire team. Project management apps typically have a significant setup cost. Even when they are simple to learn to use and let you import project data, it still takes time to fine-tune the app to do what you need it to do and then get everyone on board using it.

It's also important to consider what kind of work your team does, how many people are in the organization, and how you want to run your business. There are a lot of excellent options to fit every budget.

With a reliable project management solution in place, people can collaborate with greater ease on project work. Plus, small business owners and team managers can get useful insights into how their teams work, whether projects are on track, and how to guide them back to a successful place when they slip.