15 Best Agile project management tools in 2023

Progress tracking and team collaboration are vital for maintaining the flow of Agile projects.

With bug tracking, user stories, and iteration, it’s imperative to find a way to track progress effectively — finding ways to distribute tasks in such a way that every member of your project team can see and understand.

This is easily done through Agile project management tools.

In this article, we will take a look at the 15 best Agile project management tools that you’d want to use in your Agile management ventures in 2023.

What is an Agile project management tool?

Before we provide you with a list of tools, we must determine what we expect from an Agile project management tool.

As it is firstly a PM tool, we expect task management options, with features that lead to better team collaboration. 

These options would allow us to assign members of the team, priorities, descriptions, or time restraints to tasks. 

PM software might also integrate with other tools your project might be using, like graph visualization or database tools.

Agile PM software is expected to expand upon these requests, adding features that are specifically useful for Agile project management.

These features include: 

• Kanban boards, 
• Backlog management, 
• Scrum boards, 
• Sprint planning options, etc.

In essence, these features should serve to support the flexibility, variety, and iterative nature of the Agile project management methodology.

#1: Plaky — best free Agile tool

As a free online project management platform, the versatility of Plaky makes it a great tool for Agile teams. 

Plaky makes it easy to set up sprints, having an intuitive and smooth task creation process. Getting immediate feedback, as an Agile necessity, is heavily encouraged in this software, with multiple avenues for getting updates on tasks.

If you prefer the Kanban framework, Plaky also offers a Kanban board view to work with.

Pros of Plaky for Agile teams

Some of the most notable Plaky pros are:

• Intuitive interface — The UI design is smooth and simple to use, with plenty of options that are easy to find and implement.
• A wide array of board templates — Plaky offers a large selection of project management templates you can choose from. It has a dedicated template page, which can help you easily set up your Agile project. 
• Integration with the Clockify time-tracking app — Plaky has an integration with the Clockify time-tracking app, which will greatly improve your project time management. Simply install the browser Clockify plug-in, and you’ll get a button for every task that lets you start tracking your work (you can even add the time manually if you forgot to track it).
• Centralized project feedback — All information relevant to a task is kept within the task card itself. There’s no need to waste time digging around for documents when all the relevant info is in one place.
• Free for any number of users, projects, and boards — Plaky is a completely free app, offering all of its features and templates for any number of users, without the need for a paid plan.

Cons of Plaky for Agile teams

Some cons you might encounter when using this tool include:

• Limited board views, and
• Limited integrations.

Available for: web, Android, iOS

Type of plan	Plaky free plan and pricing
Free trial	N/A
Free plan	Yes
Paid plans	N/A

#2: Monday — best for visual progress tracking

Monday is an Agile project management tool that offers both free and paid plans. 

Monday is a great all-rounder for all your project management needs. Therefore, its capabilities are particularly suitable for Agile teams. 

If you choose this tool, your workflow will be eased with a mostly straightforward interface and intuitive, visual progress tracking.

Pros of Monday for Agile teams

As one of the leading tools in project management, Monday has many pros:

• Easy learning curve — Like most other software, Monday has a guide on their blog on how to use it and a tutorial on YouTube. However, what sets them apart is the UI design being seamless and intuitive in use.
• Customizability — Monday offers a wide array of board customization options. Anything from changing colors and themes to changing your views and adding useful widgets.
• Color-coded progress tracking — One of the options includes adding a progress bar, which allows you to track the progress of your project with just a glance.

Cons of Monday for Agile teams

Now that we’ve seen where it excels, we must also pay mind to what Monday lacks:

• Since the free plan allows for only 2 users, you’ll be sure to want more — which will require you to switch to a paid plan, with additional costs per user.
• Certain features are hard to find or get a hang of, like the subitem feature.

If these issues deter you from using this software, you might want to look into some Monday alternatives.

Available for: web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android

Type of plan	Monday free plan and pricing
Free trial	Yes (14-day free trial)
Free plan	Yes, up to 2 team members
Paid plans	Yes, starting from 8€ per user per month

#3: ClickUp — best for inexperienced users

ClickUp is a cloud-based tool for Agile project management. With plenty of templates and different ways to view your project, this tool aims to make your management experience as light as possible.

The UI design is very toned down in color, with small font and icons, giving it a more modern look. Depending on your preferences, this can feel anywhere from smooth and polished to difficult or annoying.

Pros of ClickUp for Agile teams

If ClickUp is the Agile tool of your choice, you can expect benefits such as:

• A plethora of views — ClickUp’s workspace has many different kinds of task views, but it also has plenty of page views — like chat or embed view — which allows you to use additional resources alongside your tasks.
• Plenty of available templates — Having a whopping 100+ templates to choose from, ClickUp offers help for when you’re just getting started and aren’t sure how to create your own board.
• Compatible with Google Sheets — You can integrate ClickUp with Google Sheets through tools such as Zapier or Integrately.
• Forever free account available — While limited and best for personal use, ClickUp does offer a free forever plan, which lets you try out plenty of its features.
• Built-in time tracker — Every task comes with a built-in time tracker that you and your team members can use to track your work without the need for third-party apps.

Cons of ClickUp for Agile teams

Some of the cons you might encounter with ClickUp are:

• The ClickUp free plan only offers 100MB of storage, so if this doesn’t suit you, you might want to look into some free ClickUp alternatives.
• Like with Monday, ClickUp paid plans require additional payments per each member.

Available for: web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android

Type of plan	ClickUp free plan and pricing
Free trial	Yes
Free plan	Yes, with unlimited members
Paid plans	Yes, starting from $5 per member per month

#4: Trello — best for smaller teams

Trello is software inspired by the Kanban system, so it is more than suitable for Agile project management.

You can manage tasks with checklists and a simple, easily understandable visual design.

This app is best suited for you if you have a small team or a small-scale project you are working on. 

Pros of Trello for Agile teams

As a simple visual tool, Trello is attractive for many reasons:

• Great for small teams — Trello’s view and task prioritization lends itself perfectly to smaller teams whose members need easy collaboration.
• Easy to use — Adding lists and cards in the Kanban view is easy, with plenty of drag-to-move ways of sorting items, which is highly intuitive.
• Plenty of automation options — Through custom rules, buttons, and commands, you can easily change multiple things on the board at once, removing repetition and optimizing work.
• Kanban-inspired, with a changeable view and customizable board — As we mentioned, the Kanban view provides a great overview of your tasks. To make your board more personalized, Trello offers a plethora of customization options, with our favorite — an option to add stickers to your board, serving just as a cute cosmetic for it.

Cons of Trello for Agile teams

Trello also has some downsides, such as:

• It’s not optimal for larger teams.
• The free plan has relatively limited options.

If your team is larger, Trello can get a bit pricey, so if you need a more affordable solution, you might want to check out some Trello alternatives.

Available for: web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android

Type of plan	Trello free plan and pricing
Free trial	Yes, for 14 days
Free plan	Yes, with unlimited members
Paid plans	Yes, starting from $5 per user per month

#5: Asana — best for third-party app integration

As another Kanban-based tool, Asana aims to help you run your projects with smooth design and great automation options.

Much like Trello, with its visual-oriented workspace, Asana’s interface is pretty simple to get used to.

If you are looking for a platform with all the necessary functionalities of Agile software and a pleasant interface design, Asana might be the tool for you.

Pros of Asana for Agile teams

Being in the business for more than 10 years, Asana has cemented plenty of strengths in its software:

• Tasks can be applied to multiple projects — Just by pressing Tab + P and using the plus button that appears, you can copy the task to as many projects as you want, eliminating repetitive work.
• Great task collaboration — Connecting to the previous point, being able to assign one task to multiple people and having the tasks connected to different projects means collaboration between teams is quick and easy.
• Many integration options — The most impressive thing about Asana is the sheer number of integrations it offers, making it very versatile in use with other apps.

Cons of Asana for Agile teams

Some cons you might encounter while working in Asana are:

• Plenty of useful features are only available in paid plans, like Asana’s highly praised automation systems.
• The free plan has a limit on the number of users, while the paid plans are quite costly, compared to the competition.
• Fewer functions for recurring tasks, which means you have to create the same tasks over and over again.

Being an Agile tool built for smaller projects, it can be frustrating for so many good features to be hidden behind a paywall, so you could also look into free Asana alternatives.

Available for: web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android

Type of plan	Asana free plan and pricing
Free trial	Yes, for 30 days
Free plan	Yes, up to 15 members
Paid plans	Yes, starting from $10.99 per user per month

#6: Jira — best for software development

Jira, made by Atlassian, is an Agile tool primarily made for IT professionals. It has an integrated environment for code development.

Jira puts a lot of focus on IT experts, for whom Agile was initially created. This is achieved with features such as the Jira query language, or providing plugins that connect it to GitHub — a hosting service for software development.

So, if you are looking for a great tool for software development planning, Jira might be a tool to consider.

Pros of Jira for Agile teams

Some of the best features of Jira include:

• Can be used in organizations of any scale — Jira is, like any Agile tool, great for small teams, but it also offers a lot of support for scaling and growth. 
• Good integrations with other software — Jira has plenty of integration options, sorted by team usefulness, all of them being software development-oriented — ranging from design to software engineering.
• Centralized administration over all Atlassian tools — Apart from third-party apps, Jira integrates even more simply with other Atlassian tools, like Trello. You can also easily switch from using one to another Atlassian product.
• Plenty of customization options — Like other Atlassian tools, Jira is also rich in customization options.

Cons of Jira for Agile teams

Jira can be a great tool for your team, but it’s not without its flaws: 

• The free plan offers a limited number of users.
• With plenty of complex features, Jira can become overwhelming, and the visualization can get unsatisfactory.

Even though Jira offers a free account for up to 10 users, for bigger teams, you must upgrade to a paid plan. If this and the previous issues seem bothersome, consider some free Jira alternatives.

Available for: web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android

Type of plan	Jira free plan and pricing
Free trial	Yes, for 7 days
Free plan	Yes, up to 10 users
Paid plans	Yes, starting from $7.75 per user (estimated) per month

#7: Notion — best for personal use

Notion is a tool built on a system of customizable notes, docs, project management, and wikis.

This tool is often recommended not only for organizations, teams, and companies but also for personal use — both for freelancing and day-to-day life.

Its simplicity and visual style make it a great tool for your Agile project management needs.

Pros of Notion for Agile teams

Notion and its Kanban style aim to improve your Agile management with:

• Useful database features — Creating a database in your workspace is seamless and easy, and you can import data from existing sources instead of having to input it manually.
• Plenty of features in the free plan — Most of the features you’ll need will be available to you in the free plan, like integrations and basic analytics. The only useful features not available are workspace analytics and advanced page analytics, which will be coming to Notion soon.
• Versatility in use — Aside from Agile management and personal planning, Notion can be used for just about any kind of project (For example, a friend uses it as an advanced note-taking app).

Cons of Notion for Agile teams

Some Notion limitations include:

• Notion does not have an activity log on its boards.
• It has limited integration options.

Available for: web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android

Type of plan	Notion free plan and pricing
Free trial	Yes, for 7 days
Free plan	Yes, up to 10 members
Paid plans	Yes, starting from $8 per user per month if billed annually and $10 per user per month if billed monthly

#8: Wrike — best for resource management

Wrike is a project management tool that focuses on resource management in mid to large-scale organizations.

The tool offers plenty of options for Agile project management, including a Kanban view, Gantt charts, and a template that includes sprint management and bug tracking.

Pros of Wrike for Agile teams

Wrike is best suited for large companies, and some of its pros include:

• Great automation — While only available in some paid plans, Wrike has useful automation options, including commands like “when-then” and “if”, that trigger certain actions. As practitioners of Agile methods, this is something that IT teams will find very familiar and easy to use.
• Video onboarding tools for easier integration — The Wrike help center has plenty of onboarding videos to help you get started with the software.
• Sprint template — With a great sprint template and well-made board space, Wrike makes it easy to set up sprints.
• Chrome plug-in and desktop widgets — These functionalities make it easier to access the app from anywhere.

Cons of Wrike for Agile teams

However, Wrike is not perfect. Some of its cons include:

• The free plan only allows 1 user, and
• Although Wrike offers video materials to ease your onboarding process, that’s only because the process is not as intuitive as with some competitor tools.

Available for: web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android

Type of plan	Wrike free plan and pricing
Free trial	Yes, for 14 days
Free plan	Yes, up to 5 users
Paid plans	Yes, starting from $9.80 per user per month

#9: Smartsheet — best for project scaling

Smartsheet is an Agile project management tool that comes with a variety of features and interface customization options.

This number of options is great for Agile, as it’s very useful for its ever-changing project needs.

Pros of Smartsheet for Agile teams

Some of the main features that might make you want to use Smartsheet are:

• Easily scalable with customizable plans and packages — Smartsheet prides itself on its scaling options, even offering a webinar to help you with the scaling process.
• Plenty of integration options — Smartsheet offers over 90 integration options for any requirement.
• Helpful user forums and help pages — If your question is not in the FAQ section, there is a high chance someone has already asked it on the user forums and got a very useful reply you can take a look at.
• Customization options that let you control every detail of the project — You can set up anything from your brand colors and logo to custom alerts and requests.

Cons of Smartsheet for Agile teams

Once again though, there is a trade-off for pros:

• Smartsheet has no free plan.
• With such a robust set of features, Smartsheet can be difficult to learn.

Available for: web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android

Type of plan	Smartsheet free plan and pricing
Free trial	Yes, for 30 days
Free plan	N/A
Paid plans	Yes, starting from 6€ per user per month

#10: Teamwork — best for client work

Teamwork is an Agile tool built specifically for client work. It’s great for large companies, and it offers everything you’d expect from an Agile tool.

It has a smooth visual style, which helps you visualize the information about the progress of your tasks.

Pros of Teamwork for Agile teams

Improving on the expected features of Agile tools, Teamwork offers:

• Communication via Outlook — Aside from Gmail, the communication options also include Outlook.
• Great report and chart options — Teamwork allows for the creation of four different kinds of reports, as well as the easy creation of a Gantt chart.
• More affordable alternative to the industry “favorites”, with the same features — Teamwork is often praised for offering the same functionalities as the most popular PM software, but for a better price.

Cons of Teamwork for Agile teams

While using Teamwork, some issues you can encounter include the following:

• The interface on the mobile version is lacking compared to the desktop version.
• It offers no team chat option.
• Compared to some of the previous entries, the amount of integration leaves much to be desired.

Available for: web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android

Type of plan	Teamwork free plan and pricing
Free trial	Yes, for 30 days
Free plan	Yes, up to 5 users
Paid plans	Yes, starting from $9.99 per user per month, billed annually

#11: ActiveCollab — best for time management

ActiveCollab is an Agile tool that puts focus on time management, with Team Timesheets and Time Reports. 

It aims to give you complete control over your workflow, but you might start wishing for more automation options down the line.

Pros of ActiveCollab for Agile teams

Some advantages of using ActiveCollab include:

• Good visual clarity — With one of the smoothest visual designs on the list, it’s very easy to hop into ActiveCollab and quickly check the project progress, which is great for work efficiency.
• Plenty of report options — ActiveCollab offers a lot of reporting options, enough for them to be sorted into 10+ groups.
• Ease of use — We’ve previously mentioned visual clarity, and with this comes a manager’s favorite — ease of use. This means you’ll spend less time onboarding your team members with the software.
• Frequent updates — The development team is appropriately active with their work on ActiveCollab, giving frequent updates and bug fixes.

Cons of ActiveCollab for Agile teams

ActiveCollab also comes with some flaws:

• The simplicity of the interface may cause you to wish there were more options.
• One specific option that is lacking is the sprint planning option.

Available for: web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android

Type of plan	ActiveCollab free plan and pricing
Free trial	Yes, for 14 days
Free plan	Yes, up to 3 members
Paid plans	Yes, starting from $9.50 per 3 members per month

#12: Zoho Sprints — best for Agile chart analysis

As its name suggests, Zoho Sprints was created specifically for Agile, trying to make the lives of Scrum teams easier.

Progress tracking is easy in this software, with personalized scrum boards and easily managed user stories.

Zoho Sprints has great pricing plans and offers all functionalities you’d want in an agile tool, making it great and affordable.

Pros of Zoho Sprints for Agile teams

To make Agile teams’ lives easier, Zoho Sprints offers:

• Plenty of reporting and analysis tools — Making charts is quick and easy, with plenty of options for Agile-specific charts like burndown and burnup charts.
• Integration with other Zoho apps — Like Atlassian, Zoho also offers easy integration with other apps of their creation, or you can sign up for Zoho One, which lets you use all Zoho apps in one place.
• Great price compared to competitors — While it doesn’t have a free plan, the paid plans of Zoho Sprints are more than affordable.

Cons of Zoho Sprints for Agile teams

The main cons of Zoho Sprints are:

• It doesn’t offer a free plan, and you must request a demo if you want a free trial experience.
• The UI can be unintuitive and difficult to get used to.

Available for: web, iOS, Android

Type of plan	Zoho Sprints free plan and pricing
Free trial	No free plan, must request a demonstration
Free plan	N/A
Paid plans	Yes, starting from $1 per user per month, billed annually, with 12 users by default

#13: Pivotal Tracker — best for mobile app development

Pivotal Tracker is another tool that was created for software developers, more specifically web and mobile developers. It implements Agile principles to make its project management effective and useful.

Pivotal Tracker has existed for over 10 years, and it’s easy to learn, with all the relevant information available to everyone on the team.

Pros of Pivotal Tracker for Agile teams

Software developers will love this tool, for no shortage of reasons, some of them being:

• Collaborative workspace — Everyone in the project team can track and access all relevant information in all the projects.
• A large number of integration options — Pivotal Tracker has an impressive array of integration options and being an IT-centered tool, the most popular ones are GitHub and Slack.
• Great options around user stories — You can accept, reject, and track the features of the product you’re developing status easily.

Cons of Pivotal Tracker for Agile teams

Before using Pivotal Tracker, though, you should be mindful of its cons:

• There is a slight learning curve with using Pivotal Tracker.
• Handling multiple projects can become difficult and unclear.

Available for: web, macOS, iOS, Android

Type of plan	Pivotal Tracker free plan and pricing
Free trial	Yes, for 30 days
Free plan	Yes, up to 5 members
Paid plans	Yes, starting from $10 flat per month, for up to 10 members

Tool #14: Taiga — best for software modification

Taiga is free Agile project management software that comes with an interesting difference from the others mentioned in this article — it’s open source.

Since plenty of Agile practitioners are from the IT field, this can lead to increased customization and user control possibilities, allowing those capable to build upon the features existing in Taiga.

It also has a paid plan, which is just there to grant you better support and to serve as a way to crowdfund an open-source project.

Pros of Taiga for Agile teams

Aiming to put more control in the hands of the user, Taiga has created a simpler piece of software that comes with pros such as:

• Easy integration with other Agile tools — It only takes a few minutes to import projects from GitHub, Jira, or similar tools.
• Easy onboarding due to its simplicity — With a simple UI design and workspace, getting started with Taiga is a quick process.
• Good backlog management — Taiga has a backlog management tab in which you have access to all backlog user stories.
• The software is open source — This is always a treat for IT industry professionals. Experienced programmers may be able to take advantage of this feature to build upon the system and customize it more thoroughly to their needs.

Cons of Taiga for Agile teams

Yet, the idea behind it comes with its price, in the shape of a few cons:

• The software, website, or installation can be slow occasionally, and
• There’s a lack of templates.

Available for: web

Type of plan	Taiga free plan and pricing
Free trial	N/A
Free plan	Yes, for unlimited members
Paid plans	Yes, for $70 per month

Tool #15: Hygger — best for bigger teams

Hygger is an Agile tool with built-in prioritization for Agile teams. For such a lesser-known tool, you’ll be surprised at the functionalities that Hygger will offer you.

Hygger is an interesting alternative to some of the bigger names in the market, giving all the expected functionalities of an Agile tool, with little to no complaints about the way they operate.

As its free version offers unlimited boards and users, Hygger is great for bigger teams.

Pros of Hygger for Agile teams

Being a lesser-known Agile tool, Hygger still comes with plenty of pros:

• Plenty of features and templates — Hygger offers a wide array of templates to start with, which have useful tips and explanations embedded in them.
• A migration option from Trello to Hygger is available — You can quickly and easily import Trello projects.
• Allows unlimited users — The free plan allows an unlimited number of users — something very appreciated when the usual number of allowed users in free plans is 5 to 10.

Cons of Hygger for Agile teams

Still, there are downsides to using this software:

• The design leaves a bit to be desired — it does not feel modern or easy on the eyes.
• A lot of useful features are only available in paid plans.

Available for: web, macOS, Windows, Android

Type of plan	Hygger free plan and pricing
Free trial	Yes
Free plan	Yes, for unlimited members
Paid plans	Yes, starting from $7 per user per month

How to pick the right project management tool for you

The best way to pick the right Agile project management tool for you is to do exactly what we did in the process of writing this article — try them out.

Plenty of tools have free trials or free plans that you can use to gauge which one can be the right one for your Agile management needs.

Some important questions to ask yourself when determining this are:

• How big is my team?
• How much time and resources do I have for Agile tool onboarding?
• What will my team focus on most?
• What kind of reports and analysis do I expect from my Agile tool?
• Will I require templates for assistance in board creation, and what kind?

Ultimately, it all boils down to your individual needs.

For example:

Does your team consist mostly of IT professionals? Try Jira, Pivotal Tracker, or Taiga. 

Would you like great automation options? Work with Trello or Wrike.

Do you want free software with all the functionalities of most paid plans? Try Plaky.

Conclusion: Using a PM tool is essential for Agile and will yield great results

When you decide on an Agile project management tool, you’ll want to look at their help pages, forums, and tutorials to help with onboarding your team.

When you get your team used to a specific Agile tool, you’ll see efficiency in work and employee satisfaction skyrocket, with the tools allowing your projects to run more smoothly.

And as you venture into your Agile management, keep in mind that your software of choice can lead to great success in the efficiency of your projects, so choose your tools wisely.

✉️ Has this guide helped you choose the right Agile project management tool for you? Have you used any of these tools before? Let us know at blogfeedback@plaky.com, and we may include your answers in this or future posts. If you liked this blog post and found it useful, share it with someone you think would also benefit from it.