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Project management software platforms are used by millions of businesses to plan and deliver projects. The problem lies in deciding which is best for your business, with hundreds of different options on the market. That’s why we’ve tested a range of project management tools ourselves. Over the course of our research, we found monday.com to be the best project management tool on the market.
monday.com makes advanced features like its automation builder incredibly easy to use, and has a clean, uncluttered interface – so it’s perfect for beginners and less tech-savvy teams. However, it isn’t the cheapest provider, and if pricing is a dealbreaker, Teamwork or Jira might be a better fit.
To find the best project management software platform for your business, take a look at our shortlist below, and for more information, simply scroll down to the review sections contained within this article.
Key Takeaways
- We rated monday.com the top project management software, because of its easy-to-use and flexible interface, and excellent customer support options
- Teamwork is another strong option for small teams, and we would recommend Asana for businesses who need strong data visualization tools and a solid app marketplace
- Businesses can expect to spend between $5 to $12 per user per month on project management software
- monday.com, Asana, and ClickUp all offer free plans, however these come with limitations such as less features and limited user options
- When choosing a project management software, you should consider your team’s size, technical experience, and what features you will need
The Best Project Management Software: At a Glance
Below, you’ll find our list of the best project management tools. Click each provider to be taken straight to their review section.
- monday.com – Best overall
- Teamwork – Best for small teams
- Asana – Best for visualizing data
- ClickUp – Best for complex projects
- Wrike – Best for integrations
- Trello – Great for basic project management
- Smartsheet – Best for spreadsheet lovers
- Jira – Best value for money
- Zoho Projects– Cheapest starter plan
Best Project Management Software Reviewed
Every year at Tech.co, we test the top project management software tools on the market, putting them through their paces with our custom testing criteria built around the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.
We’ve looked at the interface, infrastructure, standout features, user experience, pricing and plan tiers, and more to determine the strengths and weaknesses of each tool.
This year, we narrowed our pool down to 9 providers that all provide general-use software that’ll suit the vast majority of businesses. You can view them at a glance in the table below.
Price From All prices listed as per user, per month (billed annually) | Score The overall score obtained from our most recent round of project management software user testing. | Best For | Pros | Cons | ||||
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Best Overall | Best for Small Teams | Best for Visualizing Data | Best for Complex Projects | Best For Integrations | Best For Basic Project Management | Best For Spreadsheet Lovers | Best Value For Money | Cheapest Starter Plan |
4.7 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.0 |
Overall & Easiest to Use | Building automation | Displaying Project Data | Task Management & Collaboration | Integrations | Customer Support | Great Security & Customer Support Options | Value for Money | Cheapest first paid plan and great security features |
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Visit monday.com | Compare Deals | Compare Deals | Compare Deals | Visit Wrike | Compare Deals | Visit Smartsheet | Compare Deals | Visit Zoho |
Below, you can also find:
Test Summary
I’ve tested 9 major project management providers and, although it’s pretty close, monday.com edges out Teamwork to secure top spot. It’s by far the easiest to use, as well as the most suitable for standard project management.
Crucially, monday.com isn’t as cluttered as Wrike, Smartsheet, or Jira, and it has first-class customer support options – I got stuck during one of my platform tests, and within minutes, monday.com’s customer service team walked me through the problem using the live chat function.
However, although monday.com was the easiest to use, Teamwork definitely impressed me. It’s very similar to Asana in its structure but some of the advanced features are easier to get to grips with. It’s a great option if you want speedy, “classic” project management software.
ClickUp on the other hand, with its powerful task management tools and useful “Chat” view, will be the best choice for businesses wanting a central hub for day-to-day work management.

Note: All the images used in this article were taken during Tech.co’s project management user testing series. For more information on how we test project management tools, as well as other products, visit our product research page.
1. monday.com – Best Overall
- Pricing from: $9 per user, per month
- Key features: 24/7 live support, Kanban board, Gantt chart, custom fields
- Free plan? Yes
Perhaps the most famous name on the list, monday.com provides a flexible project management tool that’s incredibly easy to get to grips with thanks to a drag-and-drop functionality, editable columns, and a simple, board-based default layout.
In fact, monday.com scored 4.2/5 for functionality on our last round of testing, meaning it was only narrowly beaten in this category by last year’s top-rated tool ClickUp. However, the service is so easy to use and has such excellent customer support options that it overtakes ClickUp, our top-rated provider last year, as our best project management software tool for 2025.

Pros
- Highly customizable platform
- Custom fields feature available on all plans (including the free plan)
- Rule-based automation can be used to complete simple tasks, like archiving items
Cons
- Free plan has 2-person user limit
- Limited third party integrations
- Higher tiers required for basic features
monday.com key features and user experience
monday.com’s simple, modern interface makes it a much easier-to-use software tool than many of its competitors – some of our testing team found both Jira and ClickUp a little overwhelming compared to monday.com due to their raft of features.
“I think the user experience is very intuitive. I just guessed where I thought things would be and they ended up being there, which was great.” – Stephanie Lennox, Tech.co ease of use testing participant.
You’ll be able to master monday.com quickly, even if you’re an inexperienced beginner. If you do need some help though, monday.com offers live chat and email support across all tiers, as well as live chat support.
When I was using monday.com, I found that the information in my main table wasn’t automatically saved in the Gantt chart view when I switched between them. This was because I hadn’t selected the information I wanted to include in my Gantt chart, so I used this as an opportunity to test the software’s live chat function and ask for help.
Impressively, monday.com’s support team sent me a video recording showing me where I was going wrong, shortly after I reported I was having difficulties. It took just minutes to resolve the issue.
There are some downsides though. You might miss some third-party integrations. Both Wrike and Asana have a larger library of apps that they connect to. What’s more, you’ll need at least the Standard plan to integrate with any software at all.
But you’re less likely to need to call on the functions and features of other software simply because monday.com’s software has so much of the stuff that businesses need to carry out projects successfully.

The Kanban board view in monday.com makes it easy to view and move tasks. Image: Tech.co’s testing process
Who is monday.com for?
With five pricing plans, monday.com can easily accommodate businesses of all sizes, but we’d recommend it most to small and medium-sized teams where not everyone is necessarily the most tech-savvy.
monday.com will also be a top option if your business simply can’t afford any downtime – troubleshooting issues and making contact with customer service is really quick, so the turnaround time after technical issues is never very long.
For instance, if you work in a small marketing agency that juggles a number of clients, monday.com is a great option. It’s easy-to-navigate interface will ensure that none of your client work gets lost, and any potential technical issues will be resolved quickly, so you can keep your clients happy.
However, larger businesses that need more tools for task and project management might be better off looking into Teamwork, which excels in terms of functionality.
What's new in monday.com in February 2025?
In February, monday.com introduced a series of tweaks to its service to keep things fresh and optimal. Among them, users can now sort everything in their workspace alphabetically on the left-hand vertical pane. With this, it’s now easier than ever to organize all your boards, documents, and dashboards.
What’s more, it’s now possible to star your favorite apps in the monday.com marketplace, meaning that you can later navigate back to your most-used apps with ease.
For Enterprise users, meanwhile, monday.com has made some changes to its workflow management. Now, when configuring conditions, you can simply toggle between “yes” or “no” on your desired branch, rather than having to configure branches from scratch.
monday.com pricing
There are five tiers of monday.com pricing plans: Individual (which is free), Basic, Standard, Pro, and Enterprise. Here’s a little more detail on what you get on each of the provider’s plans:
Price (annually) The amount you'll pay per month, when billed annually | Users | Projects/Boards | Number of automations | Gantt Chart | Resource management | Time Tracking | ||
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2 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | ||||
3 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | ||||
None | None | 250 actions/month | 25,000 actions/month | 25,000 actions/month | ||||
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Check out our monday.com review to see the full results of our testing and learn more about its features.
2. Teamwork – Best for Small Teams
- Pricing from: $10.99 per user, per month
- Key features: two-factor authentication, automations on all plans, task dependencies, sub-tasks
- Free plan? Yes
Teamwork offers a great service and, like monday.com, is particularly strong when it comes to ease of use and security, with two-factor authentication available on all plans aside from its free plan.
Teamwork is pretty good value for money, with robust features and plans that can compete with the likes of Wrike, Smartsheet, and Asana. What’s more, it has a range of easily accessible tools, meaning that it’s great for task management and workflow creation.
With the wide array of features available on the modestly priced first plan (just $10.99 per user, per month), Teamwork is a great option for small teams that don’t need to keep up with dozens of colleagues.

Pros
- Lots of collaboration tools
- Kanban-style boards and Gantt charts available
- Affordable pricing and solid free option
- Great security options
Cons
- Limited built-in integrations
- Data visualization isn't the easiest
Teamwork key features and user experience
Managing complex tasks is where you’ll find Teamwork particularly useful, regardless of the plan you choose. Task dependencies and sub-tasks are available on plans and will bring some clarity to the most complicated tasks present in your project, while Gantt charts, calendars, and Kanban boards can be used to track project progress.
I (along with others in our testing group) was really impressed by how easy it was to access different features and views in Teamwork. It’s very intuitive, at least compared to a program like Jira.
During testing, we found it easy to manage budgets – which can be assigned to projects on all plans and to individual tasks on the higher tiers. With other providers, adding budgets is strangely difficult. What’s more, Teamwork also integrates with finance platforms like Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Blinksale, and Harvest.
For 2025, Teamwork now offers some sort of automation capability on all of its plans, including its free plan. There’s a total of 10 categories of automation overall. Personally, I love the automation builder. There were so many good examples for inspiration, but actually just building one yourself by following the instructions, which is what I ended up doing, was pretty straightforward.

Users can quickly add team members within Teamwork, using the invitation form. Image: Tech.co’s testing process
Who is Teamwork for?
Teamwork is a great platform that provides a surprising number of features on its free and first paid plan, so will be an excellent option for small businesses that don’t have a big software budget.
Teamwork is a great all-around pick for “traditional” project management. While we’d suggest looking elsewhere for really data-intensive or highly complex projects involving multiple teams, Teamwork will be more than sufficient for most, small-to-medium scale projects run by small teams that just want to get organized.
Groups that extensively deal with client work, including sales teams, will relish the built-in billing and invoicing features. However, it can be tricky to navigate, which might overwhelm users who are not familiar with project management tools, such as an inexperienced sole trader.
What's new with Teamwork for February 2025?
In February, Teamwork rolled out a new integration with Salesforce. As one of the biggest CRM platforms in the world, this is a massive boost for users. With it, you can take your Salesforce data and build out the customer lifecycle into meaningful day-to-day client work in Teamwork. As well as this, you’ll cut out inefficiencies and the potential for human error in manual project creation.
Teamwork has also introduced a new feature known as Placeholders. Now, you can plan work without needing to assign it to a specific person. Simply leave a placeholder to signal the expertise that you will require, and later assign it to the right person when you have a better idea of resources.
Teamwork pricing
Teamwork has a free tier available, though it caps teams at five users, 100MB of file storage, and two active projects at a time. However, it does have a wide range of tools for a plan that won’t cost you a cent, including a Gantt Chart and Kanban board. Here how all of Teamwork’s plans compare:
Price (annually) The amount you'll pay per month, when billed annually | Users | Projects/Boards | Storage | Number of automations | Kanban Board | Gantt Chart | Custom Chart Builder | Resource management | Time Tracking | ||
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5 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||||||
2 | 300 | 600 | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||||||
100 MB | 100 GB | 250 GB | 500 GB | 500GB | |||||||
100/month | 5,000/month | 20,000/month | 50,000/month | 50,000/month | |||||||
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3. Asana – Best for Visualizing Data
- Pricing from: $10.99 per user, per month
- Key features: portfolios, in-built messenger, chart customization
- Free plan? Yes
Asana is easy to navigate and includes some great features, such as customizable task fields, task dependencies, and a timeline view. Like Teamwork, our testing group was particularly impressed by how easy and useful Asana’s automation builder was – a stark contrast to ClickUp’s, which we found a little clunky.
If you’re working on a data-intensive project, Asana’s clean interface will make it easy to view everything that’s going on. However, it’s by no means the cheapest platform on the market, with more expensive plans than ClickUp, mond