Project management software is the software used to handle tasks of a project, such as monitoring time and cost or keeping track of all the tasks within a project. It helps in the proper execution of tasks and projects.
There are many project management software available for free for an individual to use. These include apps and tools that can be used for managing your personal tasks as well as those related to the project you’re working on.
Airtable
Airtable is a beautifully designed, table-meets-database solution. It takes what you love about Excel and Google Sheets and puts a modern web-based project on it.
Think of Airtable as a fancy spreadsheet that helps you track inventory, lists of reference items, or as a bootstrap CRM.
Essentially, Airtable is a super-friendly, non-intimidating database for the 21st century, disrupting traditional database management systems that rely on SQL or other complex languages.
If you’ve used Excel as a project management tool in the past, then you may want to look at Airtable. However, we don’t recommend spreadsheets for project management.
Why?
Because dedicated top free project management tools do the job better!
Take a closer look at the tool in our Airtable review.
Here’s What You Get In The Free Version of Airtable:
- Unlimited bases
- Unlimited scheduling views
- Rich field records
- Commenting
- 2GB of storage
- Two weeks of historical data
What People Think About Managing Projects with Airtable:
“I hate that it doesn’t have reminder/follow up capabilities especially knowing they advertise as a team collaboration tool that’s used for customer service.” — G2Crowd
Compare Airtable and ClickUp for project management.
Wrike
Wrike stands out as an exceptional project management tool for teams who want the option to customize workflows and edit and revise projects from within the platform itself. The tool offers the ability to color code and layer calendars, and its mobile app allows colleagues to update project information on-the-go. You can add comments to sections, videos, or documents, and create custom fields to export data most relevant to your company.
Features include:
- Security measures to ensure only authorized personnel can access information
- Activity Stream to allow project managers to micromanage small tasks, see activities in chronological order, and tag team members
- The option to unfollow activities to declutter your own personal Stream
- Email and calendar synchronization
- Built-in editing and approval features
Pricing: Free; $9.80/user/month (Professional); $24.80/user/month (Business); Custom (Enterprise)
TeamGantt
Like how Gantt charts make everything clear as day?
Then TeamGantt is made for you.
It’s a free project management software with a sole focus only on Gantt charts.
This software tool is impressive at building out and visualizing Gantt charts so you can see what tasks may overlap and who’s responsible for what.
It’s also a great tool for measuring team and individual progress against project milestones.
The funny thing is for a software that takes pride in their Gantt charts, you get just ONE Gantt chart in the free plan. Yikes!
Here’s what you get in the free version of TeamGantt:
- One project
- Basic project planning and collaboration
- Three users
- Team availability and workload
What people think about TeamGantt:
“The free version only allows one project. The next step up is not that expensive though.” — G2 Crowd
Looking for great Gantt chart software? Read our article on the top free Gantt Chart software and if you’re a construction company, our article on the best construction project management software.
Freedcamp
Freedcamp gives you multiple views, including a list, Kanban board, and Gantt chart view.
It also has a wall for social communication and private tasks, along with white labeling for client spaces, invoicing, and CRM capabilities.
But here’s the thing, the free plan is very limited, and the paid plans begin at $1.49 per user per month.
And in their own words, it’s a “minimalist” plan!
We wish that they went even more minimalist with a free plan, though.
Here’s what you get in the free version of Freedcamp:
- Unlimited users and tasks
- Time tracking
- Discussion boards
- Password manager
- Personal task manager
- Subtasks
What people think about Freedcamp:
“I don’t like the fact that it has no mobile application. That would be great to communicate and manage tasks straight from the mobile.” — G2Crowd
Redbooth
Need to streamline your team’s work and to help them focus on your most important tasks? Redbooth has you covered.
It features a simple, user-friendly interface that helps teams feel comfortable right away. Managers feel empowered to change workloads and resources very easily.
On the downside, Redbooth doesn’t let you assign tasks to multiple people.
Clearly, the fact that there’s no “I” in “team” doesn’t apply here.
Here’s what you get in the free version of Redbooth:
- Assigned users
- Tasks
- Gantt charts
- Conversations
- 2GB of storage
- Community forums/email support
What people think about managing projects with Redbooth:
“File storage is extremely unhelpful. When you upload attachments to tasks, they are just stored as files within a master file, and it takes significant time to organize them separately. We wound up ignoring this feature altogether.” — Capterra
Check out how ClickUp compares to Redbooth.
Nutcache – Best free project management software with custom workflows
Teams of up to 20 members can easily plan and manage projects.
Nutcache is a free project management tool that provides an integrated workspace for managing projects. It includes unlimited projects and tasks, as well as project budgeting, task management, time tracking, expense tracking, online invoicing, and reporting capabilities.
The tool includes a suite of collaboration features such as live editing, commenting, and mentions. Nutcache is fully customizable and allows you to create custom workflows. It offers multiple views for projects, including Kanban boards or list views, as well as simple time tracking.
Nutcache’s free plan is robust and includes all project-related basic features. It also includes 10 GB of document storage for any number of projects.
Integrations include Dynacom Accounting, PayPal, 2Checkout, Stripe, Authorized.Net, Google Sign In, and GitHub.
Nutcache costs from $6/user/month with a PRO plan with a minimum of 5 users.Visit Website
- freemium version
- 15 days free trial
- From $35/month (Includes 5 user)
Kissflow Project – Best free project management software for non-project managers
Kissflow Project allows users to plan team work, see who’s working on what, and deliver great results with minimal tracking.
Kissflow Project is a free collaborative project management solution tool designed to focus on collaboration, transparency, coordination, and productivity. The tool also includes streamlined tracking features to provide visibility into items and tasks.
Kissflow Project is customizable and can be adapted to your team’s needs. It offers multiple views for projects, including Kanban boards, list views, and swimlanes. The project states function allows team members to mark tasks with one of three statuses — on hold, in progress, and done — which helps users reduce the amount of tracking they need to do.
The tool allows users to share project plans and documents and includes other file sharing features for discussing projects directly within the software. Team members also get reminders when due dates are approaching. Another great feature is the ability to set priorities and assign team members to them.
Kissflow integrations include native Microsoft and G suite integrations, and the platform offers a REST API and webhooks.Visit Website
ProofHub
ProofHub is a versatile project management software used by leading organizations like NASA, Disney, Taco Bell, and many more. This all-in-one tool comes packed with powerful features to eliminate the need of depending on tens of different tools to run your project.
Whether you’re a team of 10, 50, or 500 project members, ProofHub is an extremely scalable solution for managing project activities. Managers can use it to take charge of all kinds of project tasks, side-by-side full control on project communication. One of the highlights of ProofHub is that it brings must-have project tools such as files, time tracking, team chat, calendar – everything you can imagine in a neat web portal.
The latest release is ideal for work-from-home teams and outsourced projects because it’s 100% cloud-enabled. Team members can log in to a single project management tool for all their project needs. Using the secured IP feature that lets you restrict IP addresses accessing your ProofHub account, you can truly ensure data security and safe telecommuting.
Another useful highlight of ProofHub is its digital proofing feature. Cross-functional teams that work on web design, social media, advertising projects can greatly streamline their creative process. Organize project flows into “pending”, “in-review” and “approved” stages with all the key stakeholders chiming in seamlessly.
Features:
Task Management
Managers can hand out tasks in a detailed and organized way. Each task comes with useful context points such as due date, billed time, assignees, files, and comments. This ensures that the team members always know what to do and how to do it.
Time Management
ProofHub comes with its own timesheets feature that lets team members record time spent on tasks. This is very useful when the project is billed by the hour as the managers can accurately plan the project ahead. It makes client communication much more transparent, enabling teams to never struggle while getting bills cleared.
Project Communication
ProofHub offers three tools for communication – Discussions, 1:1 Chat, and Group Chat. Alternatively, team members can also share ideas and thoughts in task comments.
Discussions are Slack-like shared talk boards wherein everyone can post updates for the entire team to take note of. Best for holding discussions, openly sharing feedback, and making topical announcements. Discussions can be subscribed to, just like a Slack channel.
1:1 Chat is meant for personally reaching out to team members. It supports emojis, file attachments and works smoothly in the mobile app.
Group Chat lets teams of all sizes create their own chat groups for sharing internal updates. Any three members can create a group of their own for a more focused discussion experience.
Collaboration
As ProofHub brings all kinds of Project Management Tools under one umbrella, it makes collaboration a breeze. Team members can simultaneously work on the same document, send messages, and update tasks without changing the window. The proofing tool, which comes with in-file annotations further enhances the collaboration experience.
Project Planning
Managers can use nifty tools such as Gantt Charts and Project Timeline Calendar to stay on top of the planning process. These tools directly pull data from the task lists to create a visually perceptible project planning environment. This contributes to fewer missed deadlines, and timely actions whenever there is a roadblock.
Project Reporting
Managers also get insights into critical parameters such as team productivity, time spent on tasks, tasks completed in a week, and so on. These reports make it easy for the manager to make well-informed decisions. If the team is underperforming or if a certain member is off-schedule, the manager will always know. This improves both the quality and timeliness of their decisions.
- freemium version
- 30 days free trial for paid plans
- From $10/user/month
Teamwork – Best for Kanban boards feature
Teamwork offers a Kanban board and other task management options.
Teamwork lets your team manage multiple complex projects so you can scale your project portfolio. Trusted by over 20,000 businesses such as PayPal, Netflix, and Spotify, Teamwork offers simple-to-use Gantt charts, portfolio management, dashboards, and workload management features to simplify huge projects. By offering hundreds of simple integrations, teams can easily connect with the tools they know.
Teamwork is best for creative product and marketing teams working remotely and that need assistance with complex task management and project planning.Visit Website
- freemium version
- From $7.20/month
Pricing: ProofHub and all of its Project Management Tools come with a flat fee of $89 per month, regardless of the number of users. A free trial is available for new users.
- freemium version
- 14 days free trial for paid plan
- From $24.95/month
TeamGantt – Best for creating Gantt charts
Create clean Gantt charts with drag-and-drop functionality.
Used by Amazon and Netflix, TeamGantt is a project management tool with a freemium version for smaller groups and teams who don’t yet need an upgrade to a paid plan. Obviously, TeamGantt specializes in Gantt charts and other task planning capabilities but they also track workloads and team availability, offer collaboration features like chat and tagging, and offer customizable alerts.
The free version of this tool limits you to 3 users and 1 project, which is a constraint users should be aware of. The dependencies can be a bit tricky to navigate, as the more you have of them, the more likely a wrong move will shift everything you have done.
TeamGantt scores well in the Usability segment of the evaluation criteria, as it is incredibly flexible to use. The tool accommodates however you may want to set up and track your projects, no matter their structure or constraints. Additionally, providing an easy “read-only” URL makes it great for sharing with outside parties for input.
TeamGantt is free to use for up to 3 users.Visit Website
Podio – Best for task management capabilities
Use Podio to easily check the status of different clients, leads, and associated tasks.
Podio defines team roles and how your team works best by tailoring project processes step by step. Podio shines in its ability to build low code and customizable solutions, as well as its accessible, seemingly endless features. Web and mobile capabilities, task management, apps, and workspace management are all available with the free plan that offers up to 5 users.
If you have fewer project needs, you’ll be more than fine with Podio’s free plan, but in my opinion, larger teams will be more suited to the tool’s paid plans.Visit Website
- freemium version
- 14 days free trial for paid plans
- From $2.99/user/month
Conclusion
I bet you’ve been there before. You need to get your team on board with a project, but you can’t seem to find the perfect tool for the job. We live in the information age, yet online task management tools seem to be lacking. The reasons behind it are quite obvious to those who have been involved in developing project management software products.