If you have been looking at project management software options recently, you might have noticed a company called Trello come up. Trello is a project management tool that seems great for small businesses, teams, and even freelancers. It’s a free project management system that allows you to keep track of every aspect of your projects – from planning tasks to maintaining deadlines and goals.
Project management apps are all the rage in technology, but there are a few free software project management tools you should know about. Whether you want to improve your business practices or just want to be a better manager, these free project management programs can help. Maybe you’re just looking for software project management tools in general so you can learn more about it or even fix your current game plan — no problem. Below are some project management tools that might pique your interest.
Flowzone
Flexibility and customization are among the top requirements of any tool that caters to small businesses. In their initial stages, businesses deal with high-impact projects and need to deliver results with consistency. Flowzone can help you with that. Being true to its name, this small business project management software tool comes with an inherent flexibility that makes it a great fit for any industry.
From the simplest projects to complex setups, Flowzone has everything you need.
- Simplified task and project management features
- Team views for transparency
- Separate project scheduling system for remote teams
- All communication in a centralized location
Contrary to the pricing structure of many tools in this list, Flowzone does not limit its features based on the plan you purchase. All features are available from day one and the only limit is on the number of users.
Here are the plans:
- 10 – 50 users: Monthly charges of $12/user. The minimum number of users is 10.
- 51 – 100 users: Monthly charges of $9/user.
- 100+ users: Monthly charges $6 per user.
Nifty
Nifty is a new-wave project management tool that reduces project development cycles and improves team productivity by combining all of the important features of project management into one software. The end result is milestone-driven progress that keep teams inspired, insuring organizational goals remain on schedule. Nifty’s software allows you to manage tasks through both kanban or list view, has a built in calendar that can be integrated with Google, as well as file and document sharing. Collaborating on Nifty is natural because each project has an individual discussion thread encouraging project specific communication. Nifty also has an integration with Github that truly makes Nifty unique by encouraging cross departmental collaboration like no other.
Pricing: Nifty’s pricing ranges from $39 for 10 team members, $79 a month for 25 team members and $124 a month for 50 team members. In each plan teams can invite as many guests or clients as they would like for no extra charge.
Website: www.niftypm.com
Trello
Trello is known for visualizing project tasks on a cardboard-like dashboard that’s great for managing short and quick everyday assignments.
Top features: Create Free Amazon Business Account
- Simple task management on a cardboard
- Creating unlimited task lists
- Image and file sharing
- Organizing lists by dates or priority
- Commenting and collaboration
What’s special about this tool: From startups to Fortune 500 companies, Trello is the most visual way for teams to collaborate on any project.
Pricing: Free for personal use, $9.99 user/month for businesses
nTask
New on the market, nTask is still in its burgeoning state of development, with new features and AI that are being introduced as the tool matures. Its intuitive software design that is easy on the eyes as well as easy to adopt, is one of the many reasons why start-ups, solopreneurs, and even enterprises will readily switch to this newcomer pm tool.
Features
- Task & Project Management: Simple task & project creation using task checklists, updates, progress meter.
- Risk Management: Use a risk matrix to identify and assess potential risks and their frequency of occurrence.
- Issue Management: Create and manage issues with customizable severity, priority, and status options.
- Time Management: Beautifully designed weekly timesheets with manual hours linked to a suitable task or a project.
- Resource Management – Manage resource allocation, project budget, and currency using the Project Planner.
- Meeting Management – Schedule multiple meetings at a time with a clear concise agenda, discussion points, and follow-up actions
ProofHub
ProofHub gives a centralized workspace for task lists, workflows, Gantt charts, discussions, calendars, and documents. It helps you plan, organize, and keep track of your team’s tasks. It also makes collaboration easy within teams as well as with external clients. There are plenty of reports like workload and resource reports.
With an emphasis on simplicity, ProofHub has very few integrations and very limited task management. It’s good for both freelancers and businesses of all sizes.
Pricing: ProofHub has no cap on the number of users and offers a flat fee irrespective of the number of users. There are two plans: the Essential plan is priced at $50 per month while the Ultimate Control plan costs $99 per month.
Airtable
Airtable puts the best features of spreadsheets and databases together. It’s customizable and easy to use and works well for businesses of all sizes. It lacks robust reporting features which might problematic for some users.
You can store information in the database which can be used for task management and project planning. Many users love the versatility of data organization that’s possible with Airtable’s spreadsheets. There are multiple views like Kanban, list, grid, and calendar.
Pricing: Airtable has a free plan that supports essential features like rich field types, multiple views, and collaboration. Paid plans start at $10/user/month for companies with higher data storage requirements. Their Pro plan offers advanced features like custom branded forms, personalized views, and domain restricted sharing.
Deskaway (Brightpod)
Brightpod is a specialized project management system for marketing teams that uses flexibility, visualization, and simplicity to optimize performance. Being designed for marketing project management does not mean that Brightpod can’t work in other industries. For small businesses, the ability to adapt quickly and communicate effectively are paramount for success.
A project management tool like Brightpod can help you achieve that with the following features:
- Excellent visualization
- Task delegation and tracking
- Workflow automation
- Specialized widgets for content and social media strategy
- Task and project management
The pricing structure of Brightpod is also favorable for small businesses. Instead of paying for additional features depending on your requirement, Brightpod allows you to pay one flat rate for all services. You’ll pay for the number of users and projects you can run. Here are the 4 plans they offer:
- Professional ($29/month) – All the features with 5 users, 15 projects, and a maximum 10 GB storage.
- Studio ($59/month) – All the features with 12 users, 50 projects, and 100 GB storage.
- Agency ($99/month) – Unlimited projects for 25 users with 250 GB storage and advanced insights.
- Agency Plus ($199/month) – Unlimited projects for unlimited users with 500 GB storage and multiple add-ons.
Blocksted
Blocksted is a small business project management tool that focuses on minimizing clutter by focusing only on the important things. This tool is specially designed for small businesses and allows managers to keep an eye on all ongoing processes in only a few clicks.
Here are a few key features of Blocksted:
- Task and project management
- Kanban boards
- Reporting analytics
- Task delegation
- Timelines
Unlike many other options, Blocksted offers a very simple pricing structure. There are only two plans:
- Personal ($0) – Absolutely free for up to 10 users and 10 clients. You have 3 projects and storage of 1 GB
- Business ($76/month) – Unlimited users, projects, and clients. This plan offers 500 GB storage space along with access to priority support at any time.
monday.com
monday.com is an award-winning project management software used across diverse industries by companies like Hulu, BBC Studios, Coca-Cola, L’Oréal Paris, Adobe, and Deezer.
monday.com features for managing projects include resource and project management, time tracking, collaboration, and reporting features. For example, users can upload and attach files to cards, make comments, mention teammates, and more. It also offers a great project reporting dashboard that can collect data from multiple boards, allowing better tracking abilities of progress. And while monday.com doesn’t offer a complete set of tools for project accounting and invoicing solution as other tools, you can use monday.com to track hours, timelines, and invoices.
Overall, it’s a highly customizable tool that lets you work in whatever methodology—Kanban or otherwise—that fits your project and team. You’ll also find some useful workflow tools for automating parts of your process. Read our in-depth monday.com review for a complete overview of the tool, as well as a short video tutorial of basic features.
monday.com’s integrations include project management apps like Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform and many more, accessible via Zapier.
monday.com is free to use for up to 2 users. Paid plans start from $11/user/month and come with a 14-day free trial.
Pros
- Huge focus on collaboration
- Long list of supported integrations
- Easy to customize a workflow or Board
- Helpful visual/color coding customization
Cons
- Complex pricing rubric
- Gantt charts locked to mid-level plan
- May be too robust for small teams
ClickUp
ClickUp is a project management software tool with powerful features for managing and completing all your team’s projects in one platform. Users can plan projects, schedule tasks, and manage resources in a centralized workspace, as well as communicate and collaborate with team members and guests.
Task management features include task checklists, subtasks, and task templates, as well as the ability to filter, sort, search for, easily reorder, and view tasks in the manner most convenient for the team. Users can also create Gantt charts, calendars, and timelines to visualize tasks.
ClickUp also includes features for creating, sharing, and collaborative editing for Wikis and documents. Users can comment on documents and tasks, assign comments, and chat with other team members for increased communication and collaboration. Reporting features include the ability to create custom dashboards, as well as six built-in report types for team reporting.
ClickUp offers native integrations with Slack, G Suite, Dropbox, and many more tools, as well as over 1,000+ integrations through Zapier.
ClickUp’s free plan is robust and includes all primary features. The unlimited plan starts at $5/user/month and offers additional functionality.
Pros
- Free forever plan allows unlimited members
- Unlimited file storage on all paid account tiers
- Can email (set-up) a task directly from Outlook
Cons
- Read-only guest permissions are limited to paid account
- Reporting suite is limited to paid plans only
- Granular customization options results in a time consuming set-up
Conclusion:
We can’t all be born project managers, and even if we are, that doesn’t mean we have time to learn about every project management tool available online. Learning about software for project management is time-consuming and frustrating without having an expert to clarify the details.