Trying to make a decision about which project management or collaboration software to use for your business?
Take a look at the list (and table) below. We’ve put the most popular hosted software options under the microscope by comparing must-haves and other essential features (including mobile compatibility, price, and more).
We love (and use) Basecamp for its mind-bending simplicity, but it still leaves much to the imagination. Incidentally, there’s a full list of collaboration tools we use to manage remote teams on our blog here.
Here are the contenders:
(Listed in descending order from most popular to least popular based on Alexa rankings).
Basecamp – simple to use and very popular. One of many popular products that flys under the 37 Signals banner.
Zoho Projects – a wide range of applications available on top of project management including CRM, calendar, chat and a wiki. Over 3 million users.
Freshbooks – a very popular invoicing application that includes time tracking, task and project management. Over 2 million users.
Central Desktop – 425,000 users, includes real time integration between Microsoft office and the central workspace.
Manymoon – A project management tool focused on integration with Google Apps, recently purchased by Salesforce.
Deskaway – includes timesheets, calendar, contacts and a micro-blogging status update feature.
Smartsheet – project management, CRM and other features based around using online spreadsheets.
5pm – very colorful interface, and lots of features including time tracking, contacts and an iPhone app.
Teamworkpm – includes time tracking, contacts and calendar.
activeCollab – includes invoicing, time tracking and email reports.
Ace Project – some HR and expense management features.
Teambox – includes a twitter style updates feature.
Feng office – includes time tracking, calendar and contacts.
Huddle – integrates with Microsoft office so you can save Microsoft files directly to a shared workspace.
Comindwork – includes Gantt charts, and a business wiki.
Nozbe – project management based around the David Allen “Getting Things Done” methodology.
Harvest – focused on invoicing and time tracking, a competitor to Freshbooks.
Wrike – some unique features such as the ability to create and update tasks via email and timeline view of project plans.
Goplan – includes a twitter like activity stream.
EGroupware – Consists of multiple installable applications and includes a calendar app, address book, eMail, project management, timesheet and others.
Clarizen – many features including budgeting, billing, Gantt charts.
Hyperoffice – has a hosted email service and contact management.
LiquidPlanner – project scheduling, time tracking and lots of graphs and analysis.
Severa – includes CRM and invoicing.
And here are a few more hopefuls:
TeamWork Live, Nirvana, Projectplace, Intervals, ProWorkflow, Teamly, Glasscubes, Copper, Workspace, Tenrox, Journyx, Clientspot, Vertabase, Celoxis, 24sevenoffice, Project Spaces, PlanDone, Teameffect., Attask.
Some notes about this list
This is only hosted SaaS online project management software. There are other open source projects however these will not be hosted set and forget solutions (you have to install them yourself), so we haven’t included them on this list. We have also not included products more focused on CRM or products that are more bug tracking focused such as Jira. We also excluded sites that did not have their pricing listed on the site. We know that the ranking of sites is not completely accurate, but it’s the best we could find. Compete or Quantcast are other alternatives for ranking sites but we decided to use Alexa.
Project management software comparison table
We have started an open Google document with a list of all SaaS project management providers here. Please add any project management software that you feel is missing on this list.
I came across this PM tool,BootStrapToday at http://www.bootstraptoday.com. I have been using it since few weeks and found it very useful for high end developers. It adds intelligence to the processes and automation and integration are yet unique features. Apart from the cloud based model it is also available as In-house set up. I am planning to install one. Would you give me suggestions on installing In-house set up.
…and another to add to the list (I also add trouble collaborating on the Google Doc – looks like it’s ready-only for me) Eclipse PPM. It’s SaaS, has a clean and simple interface, has customizable dashboards, web-based, and services companies in North America: http://www.eclipseppm.com
Awesome list! It’s so nice to have variety out there. I will check out some of them for sure. I just want to bring some attention to the latest and greatest I have been introduced to http://www.PureProjectTools.com. It’s the one site that I have found that is able to handle the capacity of my work and it’s super intuitive which is great for my company, since I don’t have the time to train everyone – especially since not all my workers are situated in the same city. This tool is free, which is a big plus too. I am a certified project manager and have been introduced to many PM softwares and this is hands down the best one I have found.
We are using Celoxis (http://www.celoxis.com) for more than a year now and are quite satisfied. A very comprehensive product. Especially like their interactive gantt. It’s the best that I’ve ever seen in a web based product. Reports are quite good and so is their “workflow” component. Highly recommended.
I came across this PM tool,BootStrapToday at http://www.bootstraptoday.com. I have been using it since few weeks and found it very useful for high end developers. It adds intelligence to the processes and automation and integration are yet unique features. Apart from the cloud based model it is also available as In-house set up. I am planning to install one. Would you give me suggestions on installing In-house set up.
Great resource for those looking to implement the right project management application for their business. Another one to the consider is Trakeze http://www.trakeze.com/. It’s a web-based system that includes easy-to-use project planning, Gantt charts, task management, requirements management, time tracking, CRM, and collaboration applications.
Wow, that’s a comprehensive list. I just released a site in this space that takes a different approach. It mashes up a PM system with gaming awards that lets you level up at work. See it here: http://propstoyou.com. You see, I’ve used these things for 20 years — long before they arrived on the web — and the one thing that never changes is that they’re boring as watching paint dry and people never use them for long. I’m hoping to change that. Check it out!