If you find it difficult to manage your team and projects or find difficulty in keeping them at top productivity levels, then a project management tool is your best bet to see better results. To help you find the finest project and task management tool, we’ve compiled below a list of 10 project management services that offer essential features at zero or minimum cost.
These tools keep your projects and team organized under one roof and on the same page as a project develops. Some of these tools include time-tracking and invoicing tools, commenting systems and version controls, and intuitive interfaces to keep everyone on track to achieve their milestones.
Freedcamp
Freedcamp is an effective project management tool that keeps your work and schedule organized at a single place. It houses unlimited users and projects, and offers 200 MB free storage for your project files and other team data. You can use it to manage your business team, wedding plans, school projects, travel plans and more.
Freedcamp offers super useful features including these highlights:
- tasks management via to-do lists or sticky notes (kanban board)
- sync with Google Calendar
- extendable with extensions
Con(s): Despite this being a free tool, some of the nice features it has to offer are under premium upgrades. This includes CRM, issue trackers, invoices, larger storage and data backup. The good news is they are modular, so you only pay for what you need.
Taiga
Taiga is an award-winning, open-source project management for agile development, designed to make work management flexible. It supports elasticity among all industries and all types of work. And it lets you list the issues that require enhancement and allows tasks management to accomplish each goal including its sub-tasks.
Taiga offers highlights such as:
- issue tracker which classifies the issue and lets you assign a person in charge of it
- integration with various tools like HipChat, Slack, and more
- Taiga’s API is made available
Con(s): Projects under the free plan are made public. If you want to use Taiga and keep your project private, you get 1 private project for free for up to 25 members, any more than that and you’ll have to opt for a paid plan starting from $19/month.
Restya
Restya is home to the Restyaboard, an open source, self-hosted, kanban-type project management tool, which allows adding boards easily and features offline sync (an awesome feature). Restya is heavily inspired on Trello and allows the importing of Trello’s data including boards, organizations, and members. To get a feel of how Restyaboard works, check out the demo here.
Some highlights Restyaboard has to offer include:
- extensibility with apps such as Slack, GitHub and more
- supports workflow automation with more than 500 apps via Zapier
- integration with Amazon Echo (premium feature)
Con(s): Restyaboard’s UI is based on the kanban board and card style. If this is not your cup of tea, you might be better off with other tools in this list.
Bambam
Bambam is an advanced task management tool that adapts to the various needs of different industries, with its customizable workflow and layout manager. The same data set can be displayed in different layouts for different viewers eg developers, designers, clients etc. You can assign tasks, set milestones, prioritize work, and add filters to easily identify and manage the tasks among your teammates.
Bambam offers among its many features:
- smart news streams
- unlimited disk space
- permission management
- custom apps and triggers
- time tracking
Con(s): This extensive project management tool does not come with Gantt Charts. Plus, there is no free plan, only a 2-week free trial with no limits on the number of users. After the trial period is over, pricing plans start from $10/mth for 1-3 users.
AceProject
Unlike other complex tools, AceProject doesn’t let you wrack your brain and helps you find the options easily in its simple, easy and intuitive user interface. It also comes with email notification. The free plan gives you 250 MB free storage, 50 active tasks (if you deactivate the task, it doesn’t count to the total), 2 projects and 5 users only.
Some highlights of this AceProject are such as:
- Gantt charts
- a time tracker & expense reports
- document sharing & permission management
Con(s): There is no management of product backlog like Taiga does, even though it is supposed to facilitate agile development.
ProjectPlace
ProjectPlace is an all-in-one project management platform, which improves online collaboration and engagement among teams. You can communicate in real-time and share media resources with your teammates on a single dashboard. Moreover, you can manage workload, secure accounts with two-factor authentication, integrate using API’s, and do much more.
Some of ProjectPlace’s highlights are the ability to
- customize kanban boards to suit preferences
- grab files from cloud storage (integrated feature)
- utilize commenting systems that work with @mentions
Con(s): While it has the feature to screenshare with up to 100 members, Gantt charts as well as version control for your document management needs, these are only under the Enterprise (paid) plan. It also does not have product backlog management.
Updatey
Updatey is a simple and minimal project management platform with an elegant interface where all the options are easily accessible and you can view your project in the big picture to be aware of your goals and other important details. You can also share snapshots with your teammates, and share the progress of the work to keep them up-to-date.
Updatey offers various good features which include:
- centralized project notes for easy access by all team members
- timing log (time-tracking)
- screenshot sharing for tasks
Con(s): Updatey does not come with role-based permission management and is not customizable for a more personalized appearance. It also does not feature Gantt Charts.
Twoodo
Twoodo keeps your work and team organized and lets you your assign projects directly from conversations, giving this project management tool a “social” twist. Twoodo uses hashtags (#) to keep a topic organized with a particular set of people. You can also generate actionable workflows from team discussions and that doesn’t require filling additional forms or templates.
Along with its social allure, Twoodo also lets you:
- add tasks by drag and drop & sync with Google Calendar
- work with integrated cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive
- work with task management and collaboration services like Trello, Slack, Bitbucket etc
Con(s): There are limitations to the free plan as in only 100MB of free storage, and 5 allowed integrations. The paid version gives up to 20GB free storage and user rights management, but no Gantt Charts.
HiTask
HiTask is a project-sharing platform that doubles as a to-do list. It synchronize tasks among co-workers, and also integrates with Google Calendar. With HiTask, you can avoid the headache of completing large projects with benefits like email integration, import and export tool, media attachments, developer APIs, etc. It’s also a big fan of the drag-and-drop movement which makes changes easier to make and reorganize.
Among some of the cooler features HiTask has include:
- custom reporting
- issue tracking
- smart grouping for better organization
Con(s): You can’t set user permission for edit or viewing roles, and with its focus on its reporting features, there isn’t a Gantt chart available.
Comindwork
Comindwork is a premium cloud-based tool with integrated CRM, featuring time tracking, billing management, and customizable Gantt charts for better collaboration with team and co-workers. With Comindwork, you can manage your tasks easily by auto-scheduling your work. Comindwork is a centralized program which keeps your work organized and allows early-bird view on project statuses.
With Comindwork, you can:
- prioritize your work and milestones
- get unlimited customizable options as well as ready-for-business apps
- get weekly backups and a data import tool
Con(s): Comindwork does not have a free plan but you can fill in a form to request a personalized demo for you to try out. The Starter plan charges $10 per user, up to 10 users per month. External users like partners, clients and vendors can use it for free though.
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