project-management.com is free because select vendors may pay us for referrals. Our writers and editors are editorially independent, so we consider all vendors, even those who don’t pay us.
There are numerous project management software options for small teams and businesses to help streamline their workflows, improve productivity, and stay organized. From task management apps to collaboration software, each has its own unique features and benefits.
Choosing the right project management tool for your team can make all the difference in achieving your goals. We’ll recommend and will review these top five software management tools tailored for small project teams to help you decide.
| Our Pick | Best For | Pricing Starts At |
|---|---|---|
 Try Asana | Best for Flexibility | Free to try • $10.99 per user/month Read details |
 Try Trello | Best for Kanban Boards | Free to try • $5 per user/month Read details |
 Try Wrike | Best for Collaboration | Free to try • $9.80 per user/month Read details |
 Try Nifty | Best Simple Project Management App | Fee to try • $5 per user/month Read details |
 Try ClickUp | Best for Customized Project Views | Free to try • $5 per user/month Read details |
project-management.com is free because select vendors may pay us for referrals. Our writers and editors are editorially independent, so we consider all vendors, even those who don’t pay us.
Featured Partners: Project Management Software
Methodology
Our Picks: Top Project Management Software for Small Teams
Best for Overall Flexibility
Asana offers a range of features to help teams stay organized, collaborate more efficiently, and complete projects on time. One of the key highlights of Asana is its task management feature, which allows teams to create, assign, and track tasks from start to finish. With Asana’s task management feature, teams can easily break down projects into smaller tasks, set deadlines, assign responsibilities, and track progress in real-time. Asana’s task management feature makes it easy to attach files, comments, and due dates to tasks, making collaboration more seamless and organized.
Another highlight of Asana is its collaboration features, which allow teams to work together more efficiently, no matter where they are. Asana’s collaboration features include the ability to comment on tasks, tag colleagues, and have conversations in context, reducing the need for lengthy email chains.
Asana even offers a team inbox, which allows teams to collaborate and manage communication in one central location. With Asana’s collaboration features, teams can work together seamlessly, save time, and get more done.
Asana dashboard, accessed July 25, 2023
Key Features
- Task Management: Asana’s task management feature allows teams to create, assign, and track tasks from start to finish; for example, teams can easily break down projects into smaller tasks, set deadlines, assign responsibilities, and track progress in real time.
- Collaboration: Asana’s collaboration features allow small teams to comment on tasks, tag colleagues, and have conversations in context as well as access a team inbox to collaborate and manage communication in one central location.
- Customizable Dashboards: Teams can stay organized and focused on what matters most by customizing their dashboards according to their preferences with custom lists, boards, and calendars as well as custom fields to track important information specific to their projects.
- Integration With Other Tools: Asana integrates with other tools that small teams use on a daily basis, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Slack, ensuring that everyone can seamlessly transition between different tools without losing any information or disrupting their workflows.
Pros & Cons of Asana
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Intuitive and easy-to-use interface makes it simple for teams to get started and use the tool effectively. | Learning curve for users not used to project management tools. |
| Powerful task management allows teams to break down projects into smaller tasks, set deadlines, and assign responsibilities. | Pricing can be expensive for small teams if they want advanced features. |
| Collaboration features allow teams to work together seamlessly, from anywhere, without the need for email. | Limited reporting compared to other tools. |
| Customizability enables you to tailor the tool to specific needs. | Native time tracking only available for Business and Enterprise plans. |
| Easy integrations with other tools you already use to improve productivity. | Dependency on the internet, as this is a cloud-based tool. |
Why We Picked Asana
Asana is a great option for small teams looking for a powerful yet easy-to-use project management tool. It offers flexibility that small teams can use to improve productivity, stay organized, and collaborate effectively from anywhere.
It’s versatile: Asana can be used for personal projects to keep track of tasks with reminders, and it keeps professional teams connected and on track for paid work. There is no wrong way to create and set up a project, whether you prefer list format, board, timeline, calendar or dashboard views.
The interface is clean and distraction-free, which helps keep the focus on work and minimizes the feature-heavy project management tool look and feel. You can get up and started in minutes on any project and have 30 days of free trial period, so you can decide if the free version still works for your project or if you need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Read our review of Asana
Best for Kanban Boards and Agile Workflows
Trello is a web-based project management tool that helps teams organize and prioritize tasks and projects using visual kanban boards. Users can create boards, lists, and cards to track the progress of their work.
One of Trello’s key features is its visual interface, which allows users to easily see the status of their projects and tasks at a glance. Users can even collaborate with team members by sharing boards, adding comments, and assigning tasks. In addition to its visual interface and collaboration features, Trello offers several other notable features. Users can customize boards with a variety of backgrounds and colors, making it easy to differentiate between different projects.
Trello integrates with a wide range of other tools, making it easy to bring together all of the information and resources needed for a project. It also offers a variety of automation features, so users can set up rules to automatically move cards between lists or trigger actions based on certain events, further streamlining project management.
Trello dashboard, accessed July 25, 2023
Key Features
- Task Management: Trello helps small teams stay organized and focused using kanban boards, where users can create cards for individual tasks and move them between lists as they are completed for simplified progress tracking.
- Automations: Butler is Trello’s built-in automation tool, which allows users to streamline workflows and reduce manual tasks by setting up rules to automatically move cards between lists, assign tasks, add labels, and more.
- Custom Integrations: Trello’s API allows it to integrate with a wide range of other tools, and it offers a variety of Power-Ups, so small teams can streamline their workflows, access advanced automation capabilities, and more.
Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Offers one of the best free plans on the market. | Not good for complex tasks with multiple dependencies. |
| Quick learning curve for most users. | Security concerns with storing sensitive data unless you pay for Atlassian Access. |
| Simple visual way to organize projects with kanban boards and mimic agile format. | May be cost-prohibitive for some teams to access advanced features and functionality. |
Why We Picked Trello
Trello’s simple kanban-style interface and flexible design makes it easy for small teams and individuals to organize, prioritize, and keep track of their projects and tasks. We love the board-style drag-and-drop format, which lets users quickly create cards and move them through the process from start to finish. It leaves more time for doing the work because users don’t have to waste valuable time trying to navigate a confusing interface. The ability to automate repetitive tasks and processes saves so much time as well, giving small teams the advantage of time which is money.
Read our complete Trello review
Best for Collaboration
Wrike is an all-in-one cloud-based platform that offers a range of features designed to help small teams streamline their workflows and boost productivity. One of Wrike’s key strengths is its flexibility and scalability, making it suitable for a wide range of teams and industries to effectively collaborate on projects.
Some of Wrike’s most notable features include real-time collaboration, task management, custom workflows, and reporting tools. Wrike’s collaboration features allow teams to work together on projects in real time, while its task management tools make it easy to assign and track individual task assignments. The tool’s custom workflows feature allows teams to set up processes that match their unique needs, while the reporting tools provide insights into team performance and progress.
Wrike dashboard, accessed July 23, 2023
Key Features
- Customizable Dashboards: Wrike allows users to create custom dashboards that display the information they need most. This can be especially helpful for small teams, as they can easily track their progress, view upcoming deadlines, and see what tasks are assigned to team members.
- Collaboration Tools: Wrike offers a variety of collaboration tools that can help small teams stay connected and productive. Users can comment on tasks, tag team members, and share files all within the platform.
- Time Tracking: Wrike’s time tracking feature can be especially helpful for small teams with limited resources, as it can help teams identify areas where they are spending too much time, so they can make adjustments to optimize their workflows.
- Project Templates: Wrike offers a range of project templates for different types of projects, such as marketing campaigns, product launches, and event planning, which can help small teams save time and resources in setting up new projects.
Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Wide range of customization options to tailor workflows. | Steep learning curve. |
| Ability for teams to work together in real time no matter the location. | Limited integrations with popular tools and services. |
| Powerful reporting and analytics tools to make data-driven decisions. | Costly pricing plans for small teams. |
| Prebuilt project templates to get started quickly. | No chat option. |
| Ability to create, assign, prioritize schedule, and update tasks all via email. |
Why We Picked Wrike
Wrike is a powerful and flexible project management tool that can help small teams stay organized, efficient, and productive. While it may have a steeper learning curve and higher cost compared to some other tools, its collaboration features, customization options, and reporting tools make it an attractive option for teams looking to optimize their workflows.
Read the complete Wrike review
Best Simple Project Management App
One of the standout features of Nifty’s project management is it’s all-in-one platform, making it the ultimate project management operating system (OS). It combines project management, team communication, and task collaboration tools in a single app interface, so teams can stay organized and focused on their tasks without having to switch between different software tools.
With its focus on team collaboration and remote work, Nifty PM is an excellent choice for small distributed teams looking for an all-in-one project management solution.
Nifty PM dashboard, accessed July 25, 2023
Key Features
- Powerful Project Dashboard: Nifty PM’s project dashboard gives teams a real-time overview of their tasks, deadlines, and project progress. Teams can also use public dashboards to share status outside of the immediate team as well as folder projects into programs and structure projects the way they work.
- Time Tracking and Billing: Built-in time tracking and billing features give management insight and the ability to track billable hours and generate invoices. These insights can help teams increase productivity, stay within budgets, and invoice when the work is done.
- Integrations: Nifty PM integrates with over 1,000 other software tools, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and GitHub, allowing teams to seamlessly manage their projects across different platforms.
- Resource Management: The resource management features of Nifty PM enable project managers to manage project resources such as team members, budgets, and equipment, and make the most of every project with powerful planning capabilities.
- Discussions: This unique Nifty PM feature supports collaboration, helps facilitate discussions, and has the power to engage key team members to participate in meaningful decision-making. Discussions enable real-time communication between the right people at any time.
Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Highly customizable toolset. | Limited mobile functionality. |
| Robust document management system. | Moderate learning curve. |
| User-friendly interface with build-in chat. | No time tracking reminders to start and stop. |
| Affordable pricing model for small teams. | Limited Gantt chart capabilities. |
| Good customer support. | Limited automation options. |
Why We Picked Nifty PM
Nifty PM is impressive in the variety of industries, niches, and workflows it can accommodate. It’s affordable for small teams and expansive in its capabilities to support different industries.
Nifty PM is easy to use and helps teams get organized to accomplish day-to-day work with an intuitive interface and design — and without the fancy bells and whistles of larger, more expensive solutions. This tool offers everything a small team could want in a project management software without high cost, learning curve, and complex features that won’t get used.
Read our Nifty review
Best for Customized Project Views
ClickUp is a feature-rich cloud-based all-in-one project management tool. One of ClickUp’s key strengths is its flexibility. It is highly customizable, and this flexibility extends to the way tasks can be organized, with users able to choose between different views such as list view, board view, and calendar view.
Another highlight of ClickUp is its robust set of features, including task management, time tracking, collaboration, reporting, and numerous integrations with popular tools such as Slack, Trello, and Google Drive.
ClickUp dashboard, accessed July 25, 2023
Key Features
- Task Management: ClickUp provides a simple and intuitive interface for creating and managing tasks. It allows users to create and assign tasks, set deadlines, track progress, and organize tasks by projects, lists, and folders.
- Time Tracking: Built-in time tracking gives managers and users the ability to track the time spent on each task and project. This can help identify areas where you are spending too much time and make necessary adjustments to your workflow for improvement in efficiencies.
- Collaboration: ClickUp includes a range of collaboration features such as comments, mentions, checklists, and file attachments, so teams can collaborate. Users can also set up custom workflows to streamline their entire team’s processes.
- Customization: This highly-customizable tool opens up the possibility for users to create custom fields, workflows, statuses, views, templates, and dashboards to suit their specific needs. ClickUp’s customization options are one of its key strengths to help teams stay expertly organized and productive.
- Reporting and Analytics: ClickUp’s detailed reporting and analytics enables project managers to track their team’s productivity, identify bottlenecks, and make data-driven decisions. A range of reporting capabilities, including Gantt charts, burndown charts, and custom reports helps users monitor project progress and identify areas for improvement.
- Automation and Integration: Teams can save time and improve efficiency by setting automatic task assignments, task status changes, and more through a variety of automations and integrating with other tools they already use and own.
Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Versatility makes it suitable for teams of all sizes and industries. | Learning curve may be steep for some users needing more advanced features. |
| Highly customizable. | Can be overwhelming for users used to simpler tools. |
| Numerous integrations, so you can stay in one place for everything. | Mobile app limitations. |
| Robust automation features to save time. | Pricing can be expensive, making it hard to justify cost. |
| User-friendly interface is easy to navigate. | Limited Gantt chart capabilities. |
Why We Picked ClickUp
We choose ClickUp over other tools because of its versatility. From standard project management features like task and time tracking and collaboration to more complex needs such as customizations, integrations, and automations, users can virtually set this tool up to work however they see fit. ClickUp’s range of features makes this a versatile project management tool choice for teams of all sizes and industries.
Read our ClickUp review
What Are the Key Features of Project Management Software for Small Teams?
When shopping for project management software for small teams, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the dozens, sometimes hundreds, of features the software offers. But there are five key functions to look for.
What Are the Key Benefits of Project Management Software for Small Teams?
Here are five benefits for most users look for when researching their PM software options.
FAQs: Key Questions to Ask While Evaluating Your Options
How to Choose the Best Project Management Solution for Small Teams
When looking to purchase a project management tool for your small team, consider trying out a few free trials and narrowing down the choice to one or two options that work best for your industry and type of work. In addition to cost, it is important to take several factors into consideration. Here are three key factors to keep in mind as you shop.
State your specific needs and goals
Consider what you need the project management software to accomplish.
Do you need a tool that can help you track tasks and deadlines, manage resources, and collaborate with team members? Are you looking for software with advanced reporting and analytics features to help you make data-driven decisions?
Make a list of your specific needs and goals to ensure the software you choose can meet them.
Prioritize user experience and ease of use
The usability and user experience of the software are critical factors to consider. The software should be intuitive and easy to navigate, with a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to manage tasks, communicate with team members, and track progress.
You can ask for a free trial or demo to evaluate the software before making a purchase.
Consider the cost and value
Consider the total cost of ownership, including the upfront and ongoing costs of the software. Look for software that offers a pricing model that is transparent and aligned with your budget. Beware of hidden costs, such as training fees or additional fees for support or upgrades.
Consider the value of the software based on the features and benefits it offers, and whether it can help you achieve your specific goals.
Helpful suggestions
- If you are looking for project management software that offers integrations with other tools you already use, such as email, chat, or calendar applications, to help streamline your workflows, consider ClickUp.
- Consider the level of customer support and training available, including online resources, tutorials, and live support, to ensure you can get help when you need it. If this is top of list for you, then consider trying out Nifty PM or Asana.
- Be aware of the risks of vendor lock-in, where you become reliant on one vendor’s software and are unable to switch to other software options in the future. Consider choosing a vendor that offers open APIs and data export options, so you can easily transfer your data to another system if needed. ClickUp, Wrike, and Trello are good choices when considering future needs.
Featured Partners: Project Management Software
Featured Partners: Project Management Software
1 Wrike
Wrike is the ultimate solution for managing projects.
Discover the power of Wrike’s award-winning project management software. Maximize productivity using Gantt charts, Kanban boards, and calendars. Streamline resource allocation, drive team alignment, and enhance forecasting. Benefit from AI-driven automation to save time on admin. Deliver impressive results, hit deadlines, and stay within budgets while elevating your team’s performance.
2 Jira
Simple and powerful way to track and manage issues. It handles all kinds of issues (bugs, features, enhancements, and tasks) and can be used for bug tracking, development help, project management, or group task cataloging.
3 Trello
Organize anything, together. Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, know what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in a process.
