Managing a team is very complex. There are a lot of aspects to keep in mind, from delegating tasks and managing a budget to making schedules and keeping everyone in the loop. It is almost unimaginable to do this without a team management tool to help you.
In this article we’ll explain:
- What team management software is,
- Why is it useful, and
- List the top 20 team management software platforms.
Table of Contents
What is team management software?
Team management software refers to the tools that enable you to organize your work, teams, and projects without stress.
They help make communication quicker and information flow easier.
These apps shape your entire workflow, so it is important to choose the right software for your needs.
Why is team management software useful?
The pandemic changed working conditions permanently, it would seem. A lot of workers have gotten used to working remotely. In fact, Gallup’s State of Workforce study found that among remote workers:
- 49% wanted to remain fully remote,
- 45% prefer a hybrid arrangement, and
- 6% wanted to be fully on-site.
This means that a lot of team members work together without ever seeing each other. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure easy and productive communication and overall organization of projects in a virtual environment.
The simplest way to do this is to have a platform that all members can access.
💡 Plaky Pro Tip
If you want to learn why proper communication and team development are important in project management, check out these links:
20 Best team management software
Out of the vast number of team management software available, here is a list of the top 20 team management tools you may want to try.
Plaky — best for project management overall
Plaky is team management software that helps you keep track of your work and teams, improve your planning, and finish tasks easier.
It offers unlimited use of all the essential features for free. You can have a board for each of your projects and quickly make new boards using templates. If you wish to track time on tasks, you can integrate it with Clockify.
Who is Plaky best for?
Plaky is best for small to medium-sized businesses regardless of the industry.
Plaky’s key features
- Unlimited boards and items — track as many projects and tasks as you need,
- Different views — switch to a table, Kanban, or Gantt view of your projects,
- Activity log — keep track of all that is happening on a board or in an item,
- Sort — you can sort and subsort tasks by adding multiple custom fields,
- Administration — as an administrator, you can make boards private or public, limit what members can edit boards, and give each team their own space, and
- Security — Plaky offers high security for your data, and it’s ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certified and GDPR compliant.
Available for: web, Android, and iOS
| Type of plan | Plaky free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Paid plans | Starting from $3.99 per user per month |
monday.com — best for complex workflows
monday.com is a management software that allows you to organize tasks, communicate with your team, and centralize all of your work in one place. It offers several end-to-end products:
- monday sales CRM,
- monday work management,
- monday dev,
- monday projects, and
- monday marketer.
Who is monday.com best for?
monday.com is a good choice for both small and large businesses. However, beware that its free plan is highly limited.
monday.com’s key features
- Multiple views: Kanban board, Gantt board, calendar, timeline, map, chart, and workload,
- Integration with tools you already use, such as Slack, DropBox, Google Docs, Zoom, etc,
- Co-editing docs in real-time,
- Time tracking, and
- Automatization that eliminates repetitive work.
Available for: web, Android, and iOS
| Type of Plan | monday.com free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes (for up to 2 seats) |
| Paid plans | Starting from $9 seat/month |
💡 Plaky Pro Tip
If you want a tool that offers more unlimited features for free, you can try this monday.com alternative.
Asana — best for aligning company goals
Asana is an easy-to-use work management platform that helps you make project plans, track and manage team projects, set goals, and much more. Its free plan includes unlimited tasks, projects, and file storage. But, if you are looking for a tool that offers unlimited users and workspaces for free, it’s better to go for an Asana alternative.
Who is Asana best for?
Asana is best for small teams and businesses, since it offers a free plan for up to 15 people.
Asana’s key features
- Turning common processes into templates,
- Multiple views: Kanban boards, list view, timeline, and calendar,
- Automatization of tasks, such as assigning work or setting due dates, and
- Integration with over 200 tools, such as Clockify, Google Calendar, Google Docs, DropBox, etc.
Available for: desktop, Android, and iOS app
| Type of plan | Asana free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes (for up to 15 people) |
| Paid plans | Starting from $10.99 per user per month |
💡 Plaky Pro Tip
Asana is also one of the best Kanban tools today. See how it compares to its competitors below:
Clockify — best for time tracking
Clockify is among the most popular time tracking software and a timesheet app that enables you to track working hours, manage projects, monitor progress, and track project profitability. All information is clearly represented on dashboards, so you can see the amount of time spent on different projects and what your team is currently working on.
Who is Clockify best for?
Clockify is a good choice for client-based businesses and other businesses that track time for bureaucratic reasons.
Clockify’s key features
- You can track billable and nonbillable hours, holidays, and time off requests.
- You can create invoices from your billable hours.
- It integrates with 80+ apps, such as Pumble, Gmail, Google Docs, Github, Plaky, etc.
- It offers a kiosk version which you can log into from a shared device with a PIN code.
- It is available in 8 languages.
- You can track GPS locations and see current locations and location histories of your team members.
Available for: web, Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and Kiosk app
| Type of plan | Clockify free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Paid plans | Starting from $3.99 per user per month |
💡 Plaky Pro Tip
Clockify also appears on our list of the best productivity apps overall. Check out the full review below and see how it compares to other tools available on the market today:
ClickUp — best for visual collaboration
ClickUp is a comprehensive team management tool that can be used to divide complex projects into manageable tasks. It makes your ideas flow more easily with visual collaboration on whiteboards.
Who is ClickUp best for?
ClickUp can be useful for both small and large businesses, working in project management, engineering, sales, marketing, IT, design, finance, and HR.
ClickUp’s key features
- It is an end-to-end tool that includes all your docs, chats, and goals.
- It integrates with tools you already use such as GitHub, OneDrive, Clockify, Outlook, and many more.
- It allows you to automatically assign tasks, comment, update statuses, and sync with other tools.
ClickUp doesn’t offer the possibility of having unlimited teams for free. However, there are ClickUp alternatives that have these features as a part of a free plan.
Available for: Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android, and iOS
| Type of plan | ClickUp free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Paid plans | Starting from $5 per member per month |
💡 Plaky Pro Tip
For a more detailed look at ClickUp’s pricing plans, check out this guide:
Notion — best for collaborative note-taking
Notion is a team collaboration and note-taking tool that provides you with a place for all your teams, projects, and documentation. Its personal plan is free and is intended for individuals to help them get more organized.
Who is Notion best for?
Notion is best for a small business or for personal use.
Notion’s key features
- Notion offers thousands of free templates to choose from. One of them is the product wiki template which is a great place to store all your product-related documentation.
- You can customize Notion to fit your needs, from dashboards and docs to the website and system.
Available for: Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS
| Type of plan | Notion free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Paid plans | Starting from $4 per month |
💡 Plaky Pro Tip
Notion doesn’t provide users with unlimited users or teams, but if that’s what you need, take a look at this Notion alternative.
Trello — best for Kanban teams
Trello is a team task management software that uses Kanban boards that help you plan projects. It has several view options: timeline, calendar, dashboard, table, map, and workplace. Trello’s free plan includes unlimited cards and up to 10 boards per Workspace. If you need unlimited boards for your project, there are alternatives to Trello that don’t limit the number of boards you can make.
Who is Trello best for?
Trello’s free plan is a good fit for individuals and small Kanban teams, while its premium model is intended for teams up to a hundred.
Trello’s key features
- It has the option to create your own commands, rules, cards, and board buttons to make your workflow more automated.
- It supports integration with apps you might already use such as: Toggl, Jira Cloud, DropBox, Slack, Chanty, etc.
- The 2-factor authentication is included in every plan, from free to enterprise.
Available for: web, MacOS, Windows, Android, and iOS apps
| Type of plan | Trello free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Paid plans | Starting from $5 per user per month |
Teamwork — best for managing client work
Teamwork is a project management tool that is created for client work. It has a workload planner, resource scheduler, and a number of templates to make your daily work easier. It offers Kanban, Gantt, calendar, and table views.
One interesting task Teamwork is used for is profitability tracking, which lets you oversee the financial efficiency of your projects and team members and compare it with the client’s budget.
Teamwork has several platform add-ons:
- Desk — helpdesk software,
- Chat — video chat software,
- CRM — sales CRM software, and
- Spaces — document management.
Who is Teamwork best for?
Teamwork is designed for businesses that work with clients. It’s best suited for agencies, marketing teams, product teams, project management, and professional services.
Teamwork’s key features
- Profitability tracking,
- Project time tracking,
- Billing and invoicing, and
- Integrated team chat.
Available for: web, MacOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS
| Type of plan | Teamwork free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes (for up to 5 users) |
| Paid plans | Starting from $9.99 per user per month |
Pumble — best for remote team communication
Pumble is a team communication and collaboration tool that makes your everyday contact with the team simple and effective. It offers one-on-one chats, group channels, and voice and video calls. Pumble offers unlimited history and unlimited number of users for free.
Who is Pumble best for?
Pumble is a sound choice for both small and large businesses in different fields such as software development, healthcare, education, financial services, etc.
Pumble’s key features
- Public and private channels — You can create public channels, where the entire team can stay informed, share posts, or comment. Also, there are private channels, where only selected individuals are members. This means that everyone receives info relevant to them.
- Video conferencing — you can have one-on-one meetings with a member of your organization, and you can also share your screen to make communication faster and easier.
- Status — everyone can set their status to show they are away, in a meeting, on lunch break, out sick, on vacation, or create another custom status.
- Reminders — reminders can be set up for messages of your choice, if you’ve read them but want to respond later.
- Pin option — any message in a chat or channel can be pinned to make it easily accessible at all times.
- Separate spaces — you can have several completely separate spaces in Pumble, which is very useful if you have more than one company or more than one team to manage.
Available for: web, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS
| Type of plan | Pumble free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Paid plans | $1.99 per user per month |
Wrike — best for team organization
Wrike is a work management software platform that offers customizable dashboards, Gantt charts, templates, and online Kanban boards.
Who is Wrike best for?
Wrike’s is best for mid-sized to large businesses.
Wrike’s key features
- It has an online proofing platform, where you can proof different file formats (documents, images, videos, web pages, etc.), invite external collaborators, and automate the approval process.
- You can choose from 400+ tools to integrate into Wrike.
- Wrike offers a resource management feature, where you can store all your resources and team members can access them. This makes it easier to stay on budget, anticipate resource demand, set priorities, and optimize performance.
Available for: web, MacOS, Windows, Android, and iOS
| Type of plan | Wrike free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Paid plans | Starting from $9.80 per user per month |
Free Wrike alternative
If you’re considering Wrike — try Plaky, for unlimited number of tasks.
Podio — best for team collaboration
Podio is an online team collaboration and communication tool where you can have everything connected to one job on one page (or item, as it is called in Podio). It has 3 types of workspaces:
- Open workspaces — anyone in the organization can be a member,
- Private workspaces — you have to be invited, and
- Employee workspaces — everyone with the company email is a member.
All files added to Podio are easy to access and revise. The history of the document is visible for everyone, so you can simply go back to the previous version whenever you need to.
Who is Podio best for?
Podio is great for larger teams looking for a tailor-made solution since it offers custom plans and pricing.
Podio’s key features
- Automated workflow,
- Reminders of upcoming deadlines,
- Task management with personal, shared, and recurring tasks, and
- Integrated file sharing.
Available for: web, Android, and iOS
| Type of plan | Podio free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes (for up to 5 employees) |
| Paid plans | Starting from $11.20 |
ProofHub — best for team coordination
ProofHub is a project management platform that offers project managers control over the access to their projects with custom roles (such as manager, trainee, client, executive, etc). You can keep all your files and documents in one place and keep several versions of one document at a time.
Who is it best for?
ProofHub is a good choice for large businesses, since it has a flat paying rate.
ProofHub’s key features
- Timesheet — keep track of working hours, add multiple timesheets, and make time estimates,
- Languages — ProofHub interface is available in 9 languages,
- Chat — communicate quickly with direct messages, including one-on-one and group chats, and
- Proofing — review, proof, collaborate, and approve them with ProofHub proofing software.
Available for: web, Android, and iOS
| Type of plan | ProofHub free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | N/A |
| Paid plans | Starting from $45 per month |
Hubstaff — best for improving productivity
Hubstaff is a time and productivity tracking tool. It allows you to keep track of your employees’ working hours, automatically generate timesheets, and manage shift schedules. It offers 3 main plans with different price options:
- Hubstaff Time — simple time tracking and reporting,
- Hubstaff Desk — team management, time tracking, and proof of work, and
- Hubstaff Field — GPS location tracking and team management.
Who is Hubstaff best for?
Hubstaff is a good choice for remote and field service businesses, such as construction, cleaning, ecommerce, and software development.
Hubstaff’s key features
- It supports both manual time entries and an employee hours tracker in the form of an employee stopwatch that is activated with one click.
- Hubstaff offers a GPS time clock app that employees can download on their phones. It monitors both their time and location and generates timesheets based on information from that day.
Available for: web, Windows, Linux, MacOS, Chrome extension, Android, and iOS apps
| Type of plan | Hubstaff free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes (for one user only) |
| Paid plans | Starting from $5.83 per user per month |
ProWorkflow — best for remote collaboration
ProWorkflow is a project management platform, with features such as project boardview, task scheduling, Gantt timeline, resource allocation, file sharing, etc. It offers several ways of time tracking (manual, live tracking, drag and drop, timesheets, or through the mobile app).
Who is ProWorkflow best for?
ProWorkflow offers an advanced plan that is best suited for enterprises.
ProWorkflow’s key features
- A plugin to handle your invoices, which can be created either from the invoice tab or within a project,
- A messaging system that lets you communicate across a project or a single task, and
- Active staff view which enables you to see which team members are logged in and what they are doing.
Available for: web, MacOS, Windows, Android, and iOS
| Type of plan | ProWorkflow free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | N/A |
| Paid plans | Starting from $18 per user per month |
Hive — best for hybrid teams
Hive is a project management platform that is shaped by users. The workspace is customizable with custom notifications, emojis, company logos, and action statuses.
Who is Hive best for?
Hive is best for enterprises, agencies, startups, and nonprofits.
Hive’s key features
- Time tracking — automatic and manual,
- Different views — Kanban, Gantt, Calendar, Table, My Actions, and Portfolio,
- Automatization — repetitive tasks are automated to make work simpler and faster,
- Chat — individual, in a group, or in a project, and
- Hive Notes — a document all team members can edit in real time before, during, and after meetings.
Available for: web, Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS apps
| Type of plan | Hive free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Paid plans | Starting from $12 per user per month |
Scoro — best for running an agency
Scoro is a work management tool that is useful for project management, automated billing, and time and profitability tracking. It offers a Gantt chart that is always up to date and presents you with information in real time.
Who is Scoro best for?
Scoro can be of use to businesses in different areas of work such as architecture firms, marketing agencies, financial, legal, and professional services, etc.
Scoro’s key features
- Integration with 1,000+ tools such as Gmail, DropBox, Slack, Github, etc,
- Activity logs that enable you to see when someone logged in and out and all modifications and changes made,
- Centralization of work and data that makes your job simpler and more efficient, and
- Dashboards and reports which let you keep an eye on all processes, performance, problems, and opportunities in real time.
Available for: web, Android, and iOS apps
| Type of plan | Scoro free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | N/A |
| Paid plans | Starting from $26 per user per month |
Harvest — best for expanse tracking
Harvest is a time tracking tool that helps you track working hours and create and manage invoices. It offers invoice and timesheet templates to make your work simpler.
Who is Harvest best for?
Harvest is best for client-based businesses.
Harvest’s key features
- It helps you keep projects within budget by updating your budget when team members put in their hours.
- It integrates with PayPal and Stripe, making it easy to bill invoices.
Available for: web, Mac, Windows, Android, and iPhone
| Type of plan | Harvest free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Paid plans | Starting from $10.80 per seat per month |
WorkOtter — best for project portfolio management
WorkOtter is a project portfolio management platform that enables you to handle multiple projects in a roadmap. This cloud-based platform is useful for resource management.
Who is WorkOtter best for?
WorkOtter is a good choice for businesses in various industries such as manufacturing, education, IT, healthcare, insurance, etc.
WorkOtter’s key features
- Integration with other apps you use, such as DropBox, Google Drive, and JIRA,
- Almost 200 pre-configured dashboards and reports that can be customized, and
- Automated two-way data sync, which means that, when you make a change in one system, it is automatically shown in the other.
Available for: web
| Type of plan | WorkOtter free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Paid plans | Starting from $10 per person per month |
Basecamp — best for project collaboration
Basecamp is a project management platform that lets you keep all information connected to a project in one place. Each project gets its own page in Basecamp.
Who is Basecamp best for?
Basecamp is best for freelancers and small to medium-sized businesses.
Basecamp’s key features
- Each project gets its own page,
- Integration with apps you already use,
- To do list that helps you keep track of all your tasks and deadlines,
- A calendar where you can see all your meetings, deadlines, and events, and
- A customizable homepage with all your projects, assignments, calendar, and recently visited projects.
Available for: web, Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS
| Type of plan | Basecamp free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Paid plans | $11 per user per month |
Slack — best for customizing team communication
Slack is a team communication platform that enables you to message, call, and share files with your teammates. You can do all this through direct chat or private and public channels.
Who is Slack best for?
Slack is a good choice in different areas of business, such as education, media, and financial services.
Slack’s key features
- Integration with 2,000+ apps and services,
- Automation of repetitive tasks, and
- Slack Connect which lets you cooperate with people from other companies.
Available for: web, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS
| Type of plan | Slack free plan & pricing |
|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes |
| Paid plans | Starting from $7.25 per user per month |
Conclusion: What team management software is the best?
There are a lot of team management platforms on the market, so it may be difficult to choose one. You should start by deciding what you need the most.
Is it a tool to help you communicate with your team or to make time tracking easy and simple? Or do you need a platform to assist you in managing your projects? Maybe it’s all three?
In this list of team management software, you can see the main characteristics of each one, along with the price, making it easier to compare them and choose the one that suits you best.
Free project management software
If your priority is to better organize projects and tasks, try Plaky.
