If you are often dealing with managing projects, knowing the candidates of the best project management tools can be quite handy for your company. Managing a project and making sure that it runs well and perfect to meet the final goal isn’t easy.
You have a lot of things on your hands. Keep in mind that managing a project often involves systematic work organization and effective planning. You need to define the project objectives, assign tasks, make schedules, distribute workload and responsibilities, and make sure to keep up everything to obtain the goal.
Since the job isn’t easy, getting help from some of the most reliable and popular project management tools won’t hurt you. The use of a calendar, mind map, status table, and such things alike can help you with the effective flow of work. A lot of people claim that these tools are truly beneficial because of their functionality. And now it is your turn to find the perks of each of these tools.
11 Best Free Project Management Tools Open Source For Your Company In 2021
1. WBS Chart
The first software project management tool is WBS. Basically, WBS is short for Work Break Structure and it helps you in breaking down the entire work into manageable sections and each of them can be effectively monitored and scheduled. With the tool, you can visualize the entire scope of the project and then divide them into smaller (but manageable) parts. The structure itself is pretty simple.
The overall task is located on the top, and there are project sections below it. Further downward, there are individual tasks. Rest assured that you can manage the entire projects easily with this tool – at least it simplifies your projects. When you break it down into smaller sections, you should be able to manage and handle each section. It also makes work distribution easier.
2. ClickUp
One of the coolest features of this tool is the free service. Whereas other providers may charge the work for premium price tags, ClickUp is able to do it without requiring you to pay anything. You can custom the views and enjoy the custom fields feature. You can have the extra columns for budgets, notes, contact info, and such thing alike. Each of the (team) members can also take part in the schedule and planning, including about how they work. They have access to the board, box, list, or calendar to know what they are responsible for.
The tool also includes priorities so everyone can know what they need to do first. And there is also the goal, where the entire team can use together. Each member can have a simple and straightforward yes or no for the completion. They can also set numerical progress or track tasks. Even with the free service, you can enjoy unlimited features, up to more than 50 kinds of them. Read Also: 8 Free Legal Case Management Software
3. Scoro
The tool has it all, including billing, team collaboration, reporting, contact management, quotes, or projects and tasks features. You can enjoy the handy features like the shared meeting schedules and team calendar, KPI dashboard in a real-time manner, work time tracking and also billing, and also detailed reports on the projects’ finances and progress.
As one of the best project management tools, Scoro offers an efficient way to streamline your work (and its progress) so you won’t need to have other tools for each task. It’s like having one-in-all tool that can manage your entire project. Unfortunately, this is a paid service where you need to spend around $26 per user a month. If you seriously need a management tool, such an amount is nothing compared to the efficient result that you can enjoy. If you want to, you can try the trial period for free for 2 weeks (14 days).
4. TeamWeek
If you are into Gantt charts so much and visualization is crucial for you, they should have a look into TeamWeek. With this tool, you can see the important due dates and deadlines all presented in the calendar. It is directly visible whenever you log in. This tool can also act like a resource management tool meaning that you can see the schedules of other team members. With it, you can also find out which team member is overloaded.
The tool comes in the free version as well as the paid ones. For the free version, you can enjoy the free mobile app, unlimited tasks, unlimited projects, and the ability to accommodate 5 team users or members. A lot of people claim that this tool is pretty functional although the administrator can add more functions to the free version of the tool.
5. ProofHub
If you use this tool, you will see that it is like having various management projects into one. Not only it can replace the conventional emailing system, but it also offers effective integration to different features of project management. One thing to like about the site is the well-designed layout and the straightforward user interface system – helping each of the team members to work together more effectively.
The tool provides a safe file storage system, project history tracking, and reporting, task assignments and delegation, online team chats and discussions, and assigned user roles. For such an efficient tool, it has its own price. You will have to subscribe to the service. It costs you around $10 a month (for 10 projects) to around $150 a month for unlimited numbers of projects. If you often deal with projects, this is a worthy tool to try although it will cost you. As one of the best project management tools ever existed, this one is proven to be functional and helpful.
6. Todoist
The basic idea about this tool is to capture ideas and thoughts and then be efficiently reminded about them later on. If you have ideas and thoughts, you can scribble them out in Todoist as well as adding deadlines. The app will remind you about them within the scheduled tasks or deadlines. You can plan your own to-do lists and then get a week-advanced view of what’s happening.
Of course, when you upgrade to the Premium Plan, you can reveal more features, such as storing templates, creating your tags, or setting your views or themes. These are the things that you won’t find from other tools. If you want to view it from a different approach, this tool is more like personal task management instead of a project management tool, but it can be quite handy for collaborations or businesses. The free plan has limited features and it takes quite a while to master the learning curve.
7. Basecamp
Do you need the best project management software? If you like a modern tool that can be useful for your project management team, then this one would be right up your alley. This one provides carefree features for team collaboration. Not to mention that its design and layout are modern with social media-like design and interface.
Some of the winning features include message boards (which can be handy for discussing ideas or new projects), project performance reports, team’s in-app collaboration, a different dashboard for clients, desktop and email notification, and more. The tool is completely free for students and teachers, but the subscription can cost you $99 a month.
8. Trello
Are you looking for project management tools open source? This is a project planning tool that is super handy to manage everyday tasks and to manage short and quick assignments. It is also great for visualizing projects and the nice design (with the cardboard-like dashboard) makes it easy to view the tasks and who is responsible for each of it.
It is one of the best project management tools on the list, mostly because of the useful features. You can expect features like file and image sharing, collaboration and commenting, simple and straightforward task management, organizing lists by priority and dates, and creating an unlimited task list. Whether you are dealing with small projects or big ones, you can be sure about the function of the tool. It is considered as the most visual method so team can work together in any project. The great thing about personal use is that it is completely free. But for business, it is going to cost them around $10 per user a month.
9. Airtable
You can say that the Airtable is a beautiful and well-designed tool. Think of it as the combination of Google Sheets and Excel, and put them together in a modern design and layout. You can consider it a handy spreadsheet that can be used to bootstrap CRM, list the reference items, or track the inventory. This is a non-intimidating and friendly tool that can be handy to manage your work and your projects.
If you are used to using Excel in the past, then you should have no problem using this tool as your spreadsheet. The tool comes with both a free version as well as the paid ones. For the free service, you can enjoy rich field records, unlimited bases, historical data for 2 weeks, commenting, and also 2 GB for storage. The downside is the lack of follow-up and reminder features, which is too bad because they can seriously improve the function and quality of the tool.
10. Asana
If you want a handy tool that combines several features together, then Asana would be the perfect option. It has the combination of handy collaboration, file storage, and project management and it can manage it all without using email. The top features include project updates notification, task organization into roadmaps and timelines, project dashboards, and work breakdown to smaller tasks so you can delegate them to other team members.
With the simple look and easy operation, it is no surprise if Asana becomes one of the most likable and also the best project management tools that personal and business-like. Another cool thing about the tool is that it is completely free but only up to 15 members. If you upgrade it to Premium Plan, it will cost you $8.33 per user a month.
11. Podio
The last project management software is Podio. Not only it is a good tool to manage your project, but it can also support team communication. Business people would call it the hybrid of the chat app and project management. Members can converse with each other within the app. They can view all the available tasks. The tool can also be integrated into other software like Google Drive, Evernote, and ZenDesk. The free version will get you integration, 5 users, unlimited workspace, and chat. If you want to upgrade it to Premium, you will have to spend $24 per user a month.
Those are some of the best project management tools and software that can improve your work efficiency. For those of you who are looking for free project management software, I hope you switch to the premium version because there you will get many powerful features to help your company’s performance better.