The Best Project Management Software for Beginners

Before choosing the right project management software for an organization, stakeholders evaluate and compare the top available options. There are over 100 project management software solutions on the market, each with unique strengths and areas of focus. Thursday, choosing the project management software that best fits your team’s needs can get difficult.

To make it easy to decide, I have researched, tested, reviewed, and compared the most popular project management tools with my team. Based on my observation and analysis, I have shortlisted the best tools to feature on my project management software comparison list.

Along with the features of good project management software, I have kept ease of use, learning curve, pricing, and scalability at the core of my comparison. This is because I believe first-time users of project management software need beginner-friendly software that is easy to use, budget-friendly, easy to learn, and scalable.

I have explained for ‘whom’ and ‘what’ each software is “best for”. For example, ProofHub is best for ease of use, Wrike is for advanced dashboards and analytics, and Asana is for workflow automation.

Read this comprehensive comparison and review of top project management software to make an informed decision.

Key features of project management software

Certain features must be present for software to be qualified as project management software. Each software has its own nomenclature of features. That’s why we will look at the top capabilities of project management software for ease of understanding.

• Ability to break a project into tasks and create a project plan: Project management software must allow you to break a project into smaller tasks and subtasks. It’s necessary to develop a plan for the project. As tasks in a project are interdependent, it should provide you with capabilities like a Gantt chart to plan, set, and manage dependencies.
• Task management: Project management software must provide you with the capability to create, delegate, and track the progress of tasks. This is because the purpose of project management is to complete a project within budget and time. It can happen only when you have control over project tasks.
• Communication and collaboration: Working in a team productively relies heavily on effective and efficient cooperation. Project management software must enable you to communicate with your team in real-time and collaborate on shared files.
• Reporting and dashboard: There are multiple stakeholders in a project. Project management software must provide you with the capabilities to create project reports so that you can share progress with stakeholders easily to make quick, data-driven decisions.
• Resource management: Resource allocation and management are a crucial part of project management. Project management software must provide you with the capabilities to view the workload of the resources so that you can easily reschedule the resources to complete a project on time. Calendar, time tracking, timesheets, and resource utilization reports are among the top features utilized in resource management.

These are the five must-have function areas that project management software needs to address. You must look for these features when choosing project management software. However, the list of features and capabilities can include integrations, automation, customization, AI assistance, and more.

Project management software comparison chart

Top project management software review and comparison 2025 

Here is my in-depth and detailed project management software comparison:

1. Sco o: Best for project resource and finance management

Scoro is a project management software that helps you take control of your finances. It enables you to manage a project’s finances with four simple steps: create a quote for the project, plan and book resources, create tasks and track progress, and issue invoices. Every task is tracked, billed, and accounted for.

Why is Scoro best for project resource and finance management?

Most of the project management software offers basic built-in budgeting, resource planning, and invoicing capabilities and relies on third-party apps for time tracking, budgeting, and invoicing.

However, Scoro comes with an advanced level of resource management and billing features and is designed for these functions. For example, you can define the charges of the resource based on the role.

Also, you can plan the resource capacity based on availability using advanced workload charts and percentage allocation.

Like this, it has a suite of features oriented towards budget and resource management.

Thus, it is an ideal project management software for agencies that need advanced project finance and resource management capabilities.

Key features

• Quotes to estimate project costs and convert them into projects
• Booking to visualize resource capacity and book your team
• Task management to collaborate on tasks with team members
• A planner to visualize projects on the calendar
• Time tracker to track time spent on tasks, and invoices to convert tracked time into invoices automatically

Pros

• Integrates project management with financial tracking
• Manage contacts, leads, and deals in one place with Pipeline

Cons

• Comes with a steep learning curve
• Pricing is not suitable for small businesses

Pricing

Scoro offers four paid plans:

• Core: $19.90 per user per month, billed annually
• Growth: $32.90 per user per month, billed annually
• Performance: $49.90 per user per month, billed annually
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Ratings

• Capterra: 4.6/5
• G2: 4.5 5

2. Write e- Best for enterprises

Wrike is a work management solution designed for enterprises. It brings projects, documents, people, and reports to one place to work together effectively.

I found the Wrike architecture similar to ProofHub in my testing. You create a project, add tasks to it, and each task has its dedicated space to collaborate with a team, such as @mentions to tag people, attachments to share files, and proofing to review files. Just like ProofHub, you need to change the status of a task to move it from one stage to another in a workflow designed for the project. However, I recommend Wrike for enterprises.

Why is Wrike best for enterprises?

First, Wrike is too costly for small and medium-sized businesses.

Second, its suite of features is designed for enterprises.

For example, it has ‘customizable dashboards’ that come with advanced analytics and BI to analyze and compare multiple projects across a portfolio.

Similarly, it has ‘advanced budgeting and resource bookings’ to estimate and track financials across all your projects in the portfolio in one place.

In addition to that, the platform also offers enterprise-grade security.

Offering all these features comes at a higher price point.

Also, this extensive range of advanced features makes Wrike difficult to learn. You need to invest in training the team to understand the tool. Enterprises have considerable resources to train teams. Thu, Wrike is the best project management software for large companies with extensive resources.

Small and medium-sized businesses with less complex project operations may not need all the advanced features of W ike. They might need a platform with simple task management, reporting, and tracking capabilities, such as ProofHub.

Key features

• Advanced project resource planning, budgeting, and scheduling capabilities
• Gantt charts are used to create a project schedule and manage dependencies
• Real-time collaboration with file attachments, cross-tagging, and Wrike Document Editor to corresponding tasks
• Powerful, customizable, real-time dashboards to overview project progress
• Workload charts and real-time reports to manage and reschedule resources

Pros

• Granular administration to control and manage access
• Advanced security features such as 2FA, SSO, and SOC2, ISO27001, and HIPPA compliance

Cons

• Steep learning curve. The team members require training to learn how to use Wrike.
• Higher pricing tiers can be expensive for small teams
• Advanced features are reserved for premium plans only

Pricing

Wrike offers five plans:

• Free: With limited features
• Team: $10 per user per month, 2-15 users, billed annually
• Business: $25 per user per month, 5-200 users, billed annually
• Enterprise: Custom pricing, 5 to unlimited users, billed annually
• Pinnacle: Custom pricing, 5 to unlimited users, billed annually

Ratings

• G2: 4.2/5
• Capterra: 4.3 5

3. mon ay.com: Best for visual work management

Monday.com is a popular work management platform that has made its name for its intuitiveness and customization. To manage projects on monday.com, you need to create a board for each project, add tasks and subtasks to it, and use the custom fields to add all the details required to complete a task.

Like Wrike and ProofHub, you can delegate tasks, share files, and view the tasks in multiple views like Gantt and Kanban. Tho gh monday.com does not have real-time chat like Proo Hub. It is a discussion space for every task to collaborate with the team on tasks in real-time.

Recently, monday.com has dramatically improved its automation and integration capabilities, making it comparable to Wrike for enterprises. It’s an excellent solution for large to mid-sized teams looking for a modern-day, intuitive work management solution.

Why is monday.com best for visual work management?

First, monday.com has a spreadsheet-like interface but is far more intuitive, and second, the platform uses a lot of different colors (I call it colorful software). This makes it easy to visualize progress.

Key features

• Goal & strategy to set company and project-level objectives
• Resource and workload management to visualize resource capacity and plan resources
• Project planning with Kanban, Gantt, and Calendar
• Integration and automation to automate the workflow

Pros

• Highly intuitive interface
• Easy to build automation

Cons

• Learning curve due to a wide range of features
• Limited built-in communication features
• Less flexibility in the pricing

Pricing

Monday.com offers five plans:

• Free: $0 for up to 2 users
• Basic: $27 per month for three users, billed annually
• Standard: $36 per month for three users, billed annually
• Pro: $57 per month for three users, billed annually
• Enterprise: Contact sales for pricing

It does not charge you per ser. Instead, it charges you for a group of users. The minimum group is three users—customer pricing for more than 40 users in each plan.

Ratings

• G2: 4.7/5
• Capterra: 4.6 5

4. Basecamp: Best for simplified project collaboration

Basecamp is an ideal software choice for teams looking to simplify and streamline project collaboration. It doesn’t come with the complexity of Monday.com or Wrike, but instead uses simple project pages where tasks, files, discussions, and everything related to the project are all present. You can communicate with team members in real time, plan resources, and track progress with reports.

Why is Basecamp best for project collaboration?

Basecamp creates a project page for each project and adds tools such as Message Board, To-Do lists, Docs & Files, Chat, and Schedule for each project to simplify and streamline collaboration. Thu, all the data, discussions, and documents of the project are stored in one unified place.

Key features 

• Message boards to collaborate with the team and share project plans & updates
• Calendar to plan the project’s timelines, milestones, and deadlines
• Chat for one-on-one or small group chats
• Docs & files to share, access, and collaborate on documents
• Basic reports to track progress

Pros

• Easy to use with a minimal learning curve
• Simplify and streamline project collaboration

Cons

• Basic reporting capabilities
• Lack of project planning features

Pricing

Basecamp has three plans:

• Free: Run one project at a time
• Plus: $15 per user per month, unlimited projects, billed annually
• Pro Unlimited: $299 per month for unlimited users, billed annually

Ratings

• G2: 4.4/5
• Capterra: 4.5 5

5. Tre lo- Best Kanban boards for simple task management

Trello by Atlassian is a popular Kanban board-style task management software that is known for its intuitiveness, ease of use, and simplicity.

The platform features a straightforward system of boards, lists, and cards to manage the entire workflow. To execute a project, you need to create a board. Each board contains lists that showcase a stage in the workflow, and each list includes cards that represent tasks.

Cards are the space that keeps your essential information related to a task, such as due dates, files, and conversations, in one place. All of the collaboration happens on the cards to streamline operations.

If you need a visually intuitive tool like monday.com but without its advanced capabilities and complexity, then Trello is the best project management software for small teams.

Why is Trello best for simple task management?

Trello strikes the perfect balance between the board, lists, and cards. It does not complicate the platform with an extensive range of features. This makes it easy to use, set up, and learn. Advanced capabilities are accessed through power-ups and integrations. However, Trello has announced features like Inbox and Planner to extend its task management capabilities.

Key features

• Customizable Cards to capture all the essential information related to a task
• Drag and drop Kanban boards with custom backgrounds and colors
• Multiple workspace views, including Table and Calendar, to view progress from different angles
• Advanced filters to sort cards and find information quickly

Pros

• An easy-to-use tool with a highly intuitive interface
• An extensive range of templates
• Integrates seamlessly with Trello apps and third-party apps

Cons

• Relies on the power-ups and integrations for project reporting, time tracking, team communication, and resource planning capabilities
• Costly if teams need all the project management capabilities, as you have to pay extra for third-party subscriptions

Pricing

Trello offers four different plans:

• Free: Ideal for individuals
• Standard: $5 per user per month, billed annually
• Premium: $10 per user per month, billed annually
• Enterprise: $17.50 per user per month, billed annually

User ratings

• G2: 4.4/5
• Capterra: 4.6 5

6. Jir – Best for software development teams

Jira is another work management software designed by Atlassian, but specifically for development teams. It enables you to plan projects, create tasks, delegate to team members, and track progress from a single, centralized location.

Why is Jira best for software development teams?

The platform offers the best-in-class software development project management capabilities. It’s depicted in the entire architecture and every feature of the software.

For example, Jira manages tasks using ‘issues’. An issue is a task space where you can capture all the details of the task you need to complete. Jir allows you to label an issue as a bug, story, or task. The development teams know what type of task they are working on.

Jira has a feature called backlog prioritization. It’s your responsibility to prioritize your Project Backlog with ease using ICE, RICE, WSJF (SAFe), or create your own custom priority matrix.

Similarly, Jira has Agile Scrum and Kanban boards that directly support Agile project management methodology and its frameworks.

Having said that, it does not mean you cannot use the other software mentioned in the list to manage software development projects. However, if you are a software development company looking for the best cloud project management software, it is highly recommended to use Jira.

Key features

• Scrum and Kanban boards to manage the project work of software development teams
• Issue management to create, prioritize, assign, and track issues
• Timeline to visualize the project plan, roadmap, and responsibilities
• Burn-down charts, velocity charts, and cumulative flow diagrams for  data-driven insights into project performance

Pros

• Integrates natively with most third-party apps used by software developers, such as GitHub, VSS, and other CI/CD & testing apps.
• Highly customizable dashboard allowing you to display key metrics and monitor project performance effectively.

Cons 

• Steep learning curve. My team member took three days to explore Jira
• Not an ideal work management solution for non-technical teams

Pricing

Jira offers four plans:

• Free: Free for up to 10 users
• Standard: $8.60 per user per month, billed annually
• Premium: $17 per user per month, billed annually
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Ratings

• G2: 4.3/5
• Capterra: 4.4 5

7. As a Best for integrations and automation

Asana is one of the market’s most well-organized work management software solutions, enabling you to manage projects, teams, and teamwork from a single place. The platform manages the entire work: set goals, create projects, collaborate with a team, and track progress.

My first impression of Asana was that it is a platform with a simple, sleek, and formal design. It’s designed so that anyone can easily use the most complex features and perform complex actions.

Why is Asana best for integration and automation?

First, Asana comes with an extensive library of templates. The e-templates come with built-in integrations with third-party apps. It makes it easy to manage the work. Second, a comprehensive list of pre-built rules allows you to build automation within seconds.

Key features

• Set goals at the company, project, team, and personal levels
• Multiple project views, including board and timeline to visualize progress
• Reporting to provide an overview of the project progress
• Portfolios to help you visualize and manage projects
• Message to communicate with the team on projects

Pros

• Formal and simple interface
• Highly organized platform and easy to use

Cons

• More expensive than other PM software in the market

Pricing

Asana offers three plans:

• Personal: Free up to 10 team members, but without automation and AI
• Starter: $10.99 per user per month, billed annually
• Advanced: $24.99 per user per month, billed annually

Ratings

• G2: 4.4/5
• Capterra: 4.5 5

8. Cli kUp- Best for an extensive set of native features

ClickUp is a task management software with the most extensive set of features. It enables you to plan projects, manage tasks, track progress, collaborate with team members, and more, to enhance productivity.

My first impression of ClickUp was that it was utterly the opposite of Aanaa. The interface was quite complex, cluttered, and filled with endless features.ClickUpp knows this thing very well. That’s why the platform prompts the option to place a call to help you with the onboarding. The platform also has a lot of training videos to help you learn the tool.

Why is ClickUp best for an extensive set of native features?

ClickUp offers everything you need natively to manage work, such as tasks, chat, Gantt chart, dashboards, whiteboard, proofing, docs, reports, and time tracking.

Key features

• Clear project hierarchy- Space, Folder, List, Tasks, Subtasks, and Checklists- to plan projects and organize tasks
• Multiple project views to view progress from different angles
• A suite of collaboration tools such as Chat, Comments, Whiteboards, Docs, and proofing
• ClickUp AI to help you create, analyze, and summarize content

Pros

• An extensive library of templates to help you get started quickly
• A vast range of features in one place at a competitive price

Cons

• Complex interface and steep learning curve
• Slow loading speed
• Priority support is reserved only for the enterprise plan

Pricing

ClickUp offers four plans:

• Free: Free for small teams, with basic features and limited storage
• Unlimited: $7 per user per month, billed annually
• Business: $12 per user per month, billed annually
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Ratings

• G2: 4.7/5
• Capterra: 4.6 5

9. Zoh  Projects: Best for end-to-end work management

Zoho Projects is a feature-rich project management software that manages projects and facilitates team collaboration. The platform offers a similar set of features to ClickUp, but with a better interface. This is because the platform takes a different approach to work management. It sees the Zoho suite of apps to help perform advanced operations rather than cluttering the platform with features. This makes the Zoho experience better.

Why is Zoho Projects best for end-to-end work management?

Zoho Projects has a vast suite of apps in the following categories: Sales, Marketing, Commerce and POS Service, Finance, Email and Collaboration, Human Resources, Legal Security and IT Management, BI and Analytics, and Project Management. This ensures that you do not need any other app outside the Zoho ecosystem.

Additionally, Zoho is more affordable than other project management software on the market, offering excellent value for its price. Thu, it is an ideal choice of project management software for small businesses that need an end-to-end work management solution from scratch.

Key features

• Gantt charts are used to create a project plan, break a project into tasks, and set dependencies between tasks.
• Task management to create, delegate, and manage tasks
• Time tracking to log every minute of billable and non-billable hours to timesheets
• Task automation helps you automate tasks or actions in a workflow
• Integrate with the Zoho suite of apps for end-to-end work management

Pros

• End-to-end work management solution
• High value for money

Cons

• Slow loading speed and buggy integration with other apps
• Tech support can be improved

Pricing

Zoho Projects offers three plans:

• Free: For up to three users
• Premium: $4 per user per month, billed annually
• Enterprise: $9 per user per month, billed annually

Ratings

• Capterra: 4.4/5
• G2: 4.3/5

10. Sm tsheet – Best for spreadsheet-based work management

Imagine spreadsheets with superpowers, and you have a Smartsheet! Sma tsheet is an enterprise-grade, highly customizable work management platform that helps you plan, manage, and track the projects of the entire organization from a single place. The platform features a similar interface to spreadsheets but offers advanced capabilities, including automation, resource management, a dashboard, reporting, and collaboration.

Why is Smartsheet best for spreadsheet-based work management?

The interface of Smartsheet is similar to that of spreadsheets. It manages work using rows and columns. For example, when you comment on a sheet, it mentions the row and the tagged ask. You have options for rich-text formatting.

Key features

• View all workspaces in one place to easily access projects
• Dashboard and reports to view project status using various data points
• Conversation to mention people on the sheet to collaborate
• Workload tracking and resource management to identify workloads and allocate resources
• Admin controls, custom roles, and permissions to manage access
• Automation to automate workflows

Pros

• Built-in templates to get started with project management
• Customizable dashboards and reports for real-time insights

Cons

• It comes with a steep learning curve
• Need to purchase add-ons or upgrade to paid plans for advanced features such as workload tracking, unlimited automation, and time tracking

Pricing

Smartsheet offers three paid plans:

• Pro: $9 per user per month, billed annually
• Business: $19 per user per month, billed annually
• Enterprise: Contact the sales team

Ratings

• Capterra: 4.5/5
• G2: 4.4/5

How to choose the right project management app for your business?

Every organization has unique needs and requirements. Therefore, it is essential to consider the following factors while choosing the right project management app for your business:

• Features: Create a list of the features you need. Software should provide you with the following basic capabilities: project planning, task management, project reporting, team collaboration, and stakeholder management. Apart from that, look for additional features and capabilities you need in project management software, such as budgeting, automation, or integration with a specific app your company uses.
• Ease of use and learning curve: The software should be easy to use and learn, especially if your team is using project management software for the first time. Look for easy-to-learn and use software with a minimal & flat learning curve, and an intuitive & simple user interface.
• Pricing & scalability: The biggest problem with project management software is that they do not scale cost-effectively. Look for software that fits within the budget and scales cost-effectively. Choose the software that offers the best value for money and is suitable for your team size.
• Security: The software must adhere to industry-standard data security protocols. It ensures your data is safe and protected. Com on security standards include TLS/SSL and AES Encryption for data and data transfer security, SOC 2 certification for robust security practices, and single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) for authorized access.
• Reviews & free trial: Before making a final decision, read the user reviews on independent websites like Gartner, PCMag, G2, Capterra, and Fo bes. It helps you gather insights on ease of use, customer support, and overall satisfaction. Enroll in a free trial to get hands-on experience with the software and make a final decision.