Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
EDITORS’ NOTE
March 9, 2026: With this update, our lineup of recommended project management software remains unchanged. We are in the process of reevaluating Wrike and have vetted our remaining picks for currency and availability.
(Credit: GanttPro)
(Credit: GanttPro)
Pros & Cons
Competitively priced
Well designed and easy to learn to use
Includes custom fields for tasks, board view, critical path feature
Saves history for undo
No customizable reporting tools or customizable dashboards
No billing or invoicing
Light on integrations
Why We Picked It
With a good balance of features, an intuitive interface that anyone can learn to use, and reasonable pricing, GanttPro is one of the best project management tools available. We also appreciate that it includes a critical path feature, custom fields for tasks, a kanban board view, and a save history that supports multiple undo actions.
Who It’s For
Beginners: Thanks to its user-friendly interface and comprehensive suite of features, GanttPro is an excellent choice for beginners just starting out with project management software. Its critical path feature shows you exactly what you need to focus on.
Growing teams: Since GanttPro is easy to learn, you won’t have to dedicate a lot of time to onboarding new team members.
Specs & Configurations
Price Per Person Per Month
$9.99
Storage Included at Price Listed
5GB
Storage Space for Free Accounts
N/A
Number of Projects in Free Account
N/A
Customizable Roles/Permissions
Learn More
GanttPro Review
(Credit: Teamwork)
(Credit: Teamwork)
Pros & Cons
Straightforward interface
Top-notch customization options
Includes billing, invoicing, and proofing capabilities
Free tier available
Why We Picked It
Before Teamwork focused on organizations that take on client work, it was already a superbly designed project management platform. If you are new to project planning, you need only to spend a bit of time using Teamwork and watching some of its excellent video tutorials to get started. A free version is available, too.
Who It’s For
Client-facing businesses: Thanks to its billing and invoicing tools, Teamwork is a great choice for businesses that need to track who to bill and for what amount.
Visual learners: If you learn best through visual means, Teamwork’s top-notch videos and webinars should be particularly helpful. The company typically releases related learning materials when it introduces a new feature.
Specs & Configurations
Price Per Person Per Month
10.99
Storage Included at Price Listed
100GB
Storage Space for Free Accounts
100MB
Number of Projects in Free Account
5
Customizable Roles/Permissions
Learn More
Teamwork Review
(Credit: Zoho Projects)
(Credit: Zoho Projects)
Pros & Cons
Excellent value
Easy to set up and navigate
Supports multiple communication methods
Deep configuration options
Capable time-tracking tools
Slightly unusual resource management view
AI features won’t be relevant to everyone
Why We Picked It
Zoho Projects is one of the best project management apps because of its excellent value. It’s easy to set up and use, includes time tracking tools, and offers deep configuration options. You can create your custom project templates, although the app also comes with prebuilt templates to get you started.
Who It’s For
Small businesses: Considering its affordability and value, Zoho Projects is an ideal app for small businesses that don’t have a lot to spend on software.
Zoho users: If you use other Zoho apps, such as Meetings, Payments, Payroll, or more, incorporating Projects into your workflow is a natural next step.
Specs & Configurations
Price Per Person Per Month
$5 (Premium)
Storage Included at Price Listed
100GB
Storage Space for Free Accounts
5GB
Number of Projects in Free Account
3
Customizable Roles/Permissions
Learn More
Zoho Projects Review
(Credit: Celoxis)
(Credit: Celoxis)
Pros & Cons
Ample reports and other tools for decision makers
Excellent value
Easy to use and short setup time
Includes time tracking, budgeting, and resource management
No proofing tools
No billing or invoicing features
No free version
Why We Picked It
Celoxis is reasonably easy to use and keeps its setup process simple. Medium to large businesses should appreciate that it includes budgeting, resource management tools, and time tracking. Celoxis offers two plan types: a cloud-hosted one and an on-premise option that comes with custom pricing. You need a minimum of five users for any plan type, and the company provides custom price quotes for potential customers.
Who It’s For
Larger businesses: Celoxis is ideal for larger businesses because it provides a wide range of reports and other tools that decision-makers need. It’s fairly affordable, too.
Security-conscious companies: Celoxis offers the option to maintain your project management instance locally, which might be of particular interest to businesses handling especially sensitive data.
Specs & Configurations
Price Per Person Per Month
$25
Storage Included at Price Listed
2GB per User
Storage Space for Free Accounts
N/A
Number of Projects in Free Account
N/A
Customizable Roles/Permissions
Learn More
Celoxis Review
(Credit: Smartsheet)
(Credit: Smartsheet)
Pros & Cons
Extraordinarily flexible
Robust spreadsheet-based project management
Supports proofing documents and images
Impressive variety of automations and integrations
No free version
Confusing and expensive pricing
Shares user data with third parties for advertising
Why We Picked It
If you’re willing to invest the time to learn what Smartsheet can do and customize it to your specific needs, it’s a very powerful tool. It might become your go-to software not only for project management but also for other collaborative work. It stands out, in particular, for its wide range of automations and strong support for integrations.
Who It’s For
Automators: You should use Smartsheet if you love automation. All you need to do is set up “if this, then that” commands, which the software makes straightforward.
Maximalists: If you want to manage more than just projects in a single app, Smartsheet gives you document and media proofing tools. Enterprise and Advanced Work Management subscribers can even build WorkApps, which are essentially focused, individualized instances of the app.
Specs & Configurations
Price Per Person Per Month
From $9 per person
Storage Included at Price Listed
20GB
Storage Space for Free Accounts
N/A
Number of Projects in Free Account
N/A
Customizable Roles/Permissions
Learn More
Smartsheet Review
(Credit: Wrike)
(Credit: Wrike)
Best for Managing Projects and Ongoing Work
Wrike
Pros & Cons
Capable project management
Lots of customization options
Includes form building, proofing, and time tracking features
Free version is available
Expensive, especially with add-ons
Occasionally overwhelming interface
Lacks robust budgeting and invoicing tools
Why We Picked It
Wrike is a powerful tool that goes beyond project management to facilitate team collaboration and work management. It continues to grow by adding new work intelligence features that can, for example, predict when a project is at risk of falling behind and highlight potential causes.
Who It’s For
Industry specialists: Wrike offers several paid plans tailored to specific types of teams, including those in creative industries, marketing, or professional services. It’s very good at what it does, provided you put in the time to select the right plan and learn its features.
Teams with a dedicated project manager: Since your business will likely need to work with Wrike’s customer support during the setup process, ensure that you have a dedicated project manager to spearhead these efforts. In that sense, Wrike will appeal most to larger teams.
Specs & Configurations
Price Per Person Per Month
$10
Storage Included at Price Listed
2GB
Storage Space for Free Accounts
2GB
Number of Projects in Free Account
Unlimited
Customizable Roles/Permissions
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The Best Project Management Software for 2026
Compare Specs
Buying Guide: The Best Project Management Software for 2026
What Is Project Management Software?
Project management software, also known as PM software, facilitates online collaboration. All the people working on a project log into it and see what they’re supposed to do and when. They can also record their progress on tasks and add relevant details. With the appropriate permission level, people can also learn more about what everyone else is doing and what needs to happen before they complete their tasks.
Project management apps also give the project manager and any stakeholders a clear overview of each project’s progress. Are all the tasks on track to finish on time? If one task is late, how does it affect the projected deadlines of other tasks and deliverables? Is someone available to pick up an urgent task if the person assigned to do it is ill? Furthermore, if the project management app supports tracking finances, it can tell the people in charge whether the project is running on budget.
The very best project management apps give everyone who works on a project some level of visibility into how it’s all going. A project manager might want to limit visibility in some cases. For example, if your organization develops projects for outside clients, you might want the client to be able to see the overall progress but not the details of each task and the comments that employees make.
How We Choose the Best Project Management Software
For this list, we consider the needs of various business types, including small businesses on a budget and large organizations that need to manage many budgets, complex projects, and people simultaneously. We also look at ease of use, features, and value.
For this category, we stick to traditional project management apps. A project is a set of work with a start date, an end date, and a deliverable. We don’t include apps for managing ongoing work, which is the purview of work management software. While you might also group collaboration and task management apps with project management apps, we don’t include them here. Those can be useful for managing certain kinds of work, but they aren’t ideal for juggling the complexities of dozens or hundreds of projects and their schedules simultaneously.
To be included in this list, the app must offer Gantt charts, a type of timeline view necessary for project management. All the apps included here also have other standard tools besides Gantt charts for organizing, scheduling, and tracking project-based work.
Zoho Projects’ Gantt chart view (Credit: Zoho/PCMag)
What Can You Do With Project Management Software?
Project management apps let you track progress and manage nearly any kind of project, such as building a house or website, creating a new product, or launching a marketing campaign. Teams that use project management apps tend to track multiple projects at a time. The software helps them figure out when to schedule work based on the human resources available and the tasks at hand.
The best project management apps detect problems before they happen through detailed task management. By tracking the progress of individual tasks (for example, completing only six hours of a task estimated to take a total of eight hours), project management apps can sound an alarm when a deadline is in danger of slipping before it happens. The most powerful project management apps also automatically adjust a project’s schedule when tasks fall off track. 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/PCMag)
What Is the Best Free Project Management Software?
The free plans for most apps typically have severe limitations. For example, they might allow you to manage only one or two projects at a time or invite just a handful of people to work alongside you. In the paid plan, you might get unlimited projects. You also usually don’t get all of an app’s most advanced features in the free plan. Still, it might work if you have a small team and need to manage just one or two projects. Free versions also let you try the app before deciding whether the paid plans meet your needs.
You can get a free account from ProofHub, TeamGantt, Teamwork, Wrike, Zoho Projects, and others that did not make this list, such as Redmine. Redmine is completely free, 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 use right away, Redmine isn’t it. For simplicity, you’re better off with TeamGantt or Zoho Projects.
Teamwork’s project management dashboard (Credit: Teamwork/PCMag)
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.
GanttPro and TeamGantt are the easiest project management apps to learn and use. They both target beginners. Many of the other project management apps we’ve reviewed are also easy to use, provide good video tutorials, and work well for beginners, but they aren’t quite as approachable as GanttPro and TeamGantt.
In testing, we found that some rather popular and well-known project management apps aren’t especially easy to use if you are new to them or not a professional project manager.
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 collecting time sheets to bill clients, comparing the progress of multiple projects in development, and employee scheduling, a low-cost tool such as Zoho Projects (starting at $5 per person per month for Premium) is your best bet. We especially like how easily it scales as your team’s needs and size grow. 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. If you won’t use the tools unique to more expensive software, you don’t need to spend more than about $15 per person per month.
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 budget tracking, insights into their resources, revenue projection, scheduling, 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 high-priority projects and tasks are in danger of slipping, so that they can triage accordingly.
Recommended by Our Editors
If your organization handles complex projects and has many team members collaborating on projects, we recommend Celoxis or LiquidPlanner.
What Project Management Software Has the Best Special Features?
Teams that are neither small businesses nor enormous organizations might have special needs they want their project management software to address.
Our top pick in this category is Teamwork, which specializes in handling client work. Teamwork should be on your short list if your team primarily completes projects as billable work for clients. It includes billing and invoicing, as well as the ability to create intake forms for new projects. Paymo is another app with billing and invoicing tools.
Of course, project management software has other areas of specialization. If you’re looking for a tool to manage non-project work alongside projects, we recommend Celoxis or Wrike. If your team spends a lot of time discussing and iterating on visual assets, ProofHub is a great choice. Smartsheet is good for building automation into your project management.
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.
It’s also important to consider how many people are in the organization, how you want to run your business, and what kind of work your team does. There are a lot of excellent options to fit every budget.
With a reliable project management solution, people can collaborate more easily on project-based work. Small business owners and team managers can gain useful insights into how their teams work, whether projects are on track, and how to guide them back to success when they slip.
