Let's say you build houses. It's a complex process, and most of the tasks must be done in an exact order. You can't install windows if you haven't put up the walls. You probably have dozens of specialists working on the buildings, and you have to know when they're available to pour the foundation, lay the tile, wire the electricity, and so forth. And what if it rains one day? The whole schedule may change. You need a project plan. The way to manage task scheduling and dependency in a complex project like this is to use project management software.

PCMag has been testing project management apps since 2015. In that time, we've tested (and retested) more than 25 project management tools. Here, we tell you about those services that scored the highest in our ratings, with a few notes about what makes them different. Below our recommendations is more information on what project management software is, how we classify it for this article, and advice on how to shop for the right app for your business or team. If you manage less complex projects, you can save a lot of money and get a better tool for your needs by exploring the best collaboration software instead.

What Is Project Management Software?

Project management software, sometimes called PM software, is a type of online collaboration tool. All the people working on a project log in and see what they're supposed to do and when. These workers also record their progress on those tasks and add relevant details, such as notes about any changes. With the appropriate permission level, people can also learn more about what everyone else is doing, what requirements must be met for them to get it done, and when.

For the project manager and any stakeholders, the project management app gives a clear overview of each project's progress, including the work breakdown structure within each project when relevant. Are all the tasks on track to be completed on time? If one task is late, how does it affect the projected deadlines of other tasks and deliverables? Is someone available to pick up an urgent task if the person assigned to do it is ill? Plus, if the project management app supports tracking finances, the app will also tell the people in charge whether the project is running on budget.

The very best project management apps give everyone who works on the project some level of visibility into how it's all going. A project manager may want to limit visibility in some cases. For example, if your organization develops projects for outside clients, you may want the client to be able to see the overall progress but not the details of each task and comments that employees make on the tasks.

How We Choose the Best Project Management Software

For this list of the best PM software, we evaluated and tested more than 25 project management platforms and include the products with the highest scores here. Inclusion is based on PCMag's independent testing and evaluation. In determining scores, we consider the needs of various business types, including small businesses on a budget and large organizations that need to manage many complex projects, people, and budgets simultaneously. We also look at ease of use, features, and value.

For this category, we stick to traditional project management apps only. These apps are specifically created to manage projects. A project is a set of work with a start date, an end date, and a deliverable. We don't include apps for managing ongoing work, such as answering support emails.

To be included in this list, the app must offer Gantt charts, a type of timeline view commonly used in project management. All the apps included here also have other standard tools besides Gantt charts for tracking, organizing, and scheduling project-based work.

While many excellent workplace collaboration apps and task management apps are sometimes called "project management apps" (such as Trello, Basecamp, and Airtable), we don't include them here. Collaboration or work-management apps are very capable when it comes to managing certain kinds of work, but they aren't necessarily designed for juggling the complexities of dozens or hundreds of projects and their schedules simultaneously. Therefore, we don't include them here.

(Credit: Zoho/PCMag)

What Can You Do With Project Management Software?

Project management apps let you track progress and manage nearly any kind of project, such as creating a new product, building a house or website, or launching a marketing campaign. Teams that use project management apps tend to track multiple projects at a time. The software helps them figure out when to schedule work based on when things need to get done and the human resources available to do them.

The best project management apps detect problems before they happen through detailed task management. By tracking the progress of work and individual tasks (for example, having completed six hours of a task estimated to take a total of eight hours), project management apps can sound an alarm when a deadline is in danger of slipping, but before it happens. The most powerful project management apps also automatically reflow the project schedule when tasks fall off track. They generate reports that give project managers insight into which team members have too much or too little work assigned. Some let you track project budgets and log billable hours so that you can send invoices to clients for time worked.

(Credit: TeamGantt/PCMag)

What Is the Best Free Project Management Software?

A few of the best project management software systems have a free plan. The only truly free one that made this is Redmine—more on that service momentarily. The free plan for most apps is severely limited in some way. For example, you might be allowed to manage only one or two projects at a time or invite only a handful of people to work alongside you. In the paid plan, you might get unlimited projects. Plus, you usually don't get all the most advanced features of the paid plan in the free plan. Still, it might work if you have a small team and only need to manage one or two projects. Free versions also let you try the app before deciding whether the paid plans meet your needs.

You can get a free account from Zoho Projects, Teamwork, Wrike, TeamGantt, ProofHub, and others that did not make this list, such as AceProject. 

Redmine is a 100% free PM tool, but you have to install and maintain it yourself. It's not an off-the-shelf product but rather an open-source alternative that requires you to have your own tech support. If you're looking for something simple to use right away, Redmine isn't it. For simplicity, you're better off with Zoho Projects, TeamGantt, or AceProject.

(Credit: Teamwork/PCMag)

What Project Management App Is the Easiest to Use?

If you're new to project management and especially if your organization doesn't have a dedicated project manager, you need a project management app that's easy to use.

TeamGantt and GanttPro are the easiest project management apps to learn and use. They are both designed for beginners and other people inexperienced in project management.

Many of the project management apps we've reviewed are easy to use, provide good video tutorials, and work well for beginners, but after testing dozens of them, we believe GanttPro and TeamGantt are best.

In testing, we found that some rather popular and well-known project management apps, such as Microsoft Project, are not especially easy to use if you are new to them or not a professional project manager. While we have reviewed many of those tools, not all scored high enough to be included in this list of the best project management apps.

What's the Best Project Management App for a Small Business?

If your project team needs to manage and track a couple of projects, but you're less concerned with employee scheduling, collecting time sheets to bill clients, and comparing the progress of multiple projects in development, a low-cost tool such as Zoho Projects (starting at $5 per person per month for Premium) is your best bet. What we especially like about Zoho Projects is that it scales easily if your team grows and needs more features. Zoho, the company, offers a wide range of other business apps that can connect to Zoho Projects to expand what you can do with it.

We also like GanttPro as a low-cost option. It's one of the easiest tools to use and is great for people with limited or no prior experience with project management.

There's no need to spend more than about $15 per person per month if you won't use the tools unique to more expensive software, so stick with something inexpensive.

What's the Best Project Management App for Large Organizations?

Large organizations have starkly different needs than small businesses. Organizations with hundreds or thousands of employees and hundreds of projects use project management apps for scheduling, insights into their resources, budget-tracking, revenue projection, and time-tracking for billing purposes, among other reasons.

For a large company, it's important to be able to manage not just individuals but also teams. If you have 15 hours of work for a junior designer, and it doesn't matter which junior designer does it, you want to see how much work each junior designer has assigned to them and whether you can free up one of them for the task.

For the same reason, all the managers and team leads in your company should be able to see what high-priority tasks and which projects are in danger of slipping so that they can triage accordingly.

If your organization handles complex projects and has many team members collaborating on projects, we recommend Celoxis or LiquidPlanner.

What Project Management Software Has the Best Special Features?

Teams that are neither small businesses nor enormous organizations may have special needs they want their project management software to address.

Our top pick in this category is Teamwork, which specializes in handling client work. Teamwork should be on your shortlist if your team primarily completes projects as billable work for clients. It includes billing and invoicing, as well as the ability to create intake forms for new projects. Paymo, which didn't quite score highly enough for this list, is another app that also has built-in billing and invoicing tools.

There are other areas of specialization for project management software, of course. If you're looking for a tool to manage project and non-project work, we recommend Wrike or Celoxis. If your team spends a lot of time discussing and iterating visual assets, ProofHub is a great choice. Smartsheet is good for building automation into your project management.

The Best Project Management Tool for Your Team

Choosing the right project management software can take time, but it's worth having as much nailed down as possible before rolling the solution out to an entire team. Project management apps typically have a significant setup cost. Even when they are simple to learn to use and let you import project data, it still takes time to fine-tune the app to do what you need it to do and then get everyone on board using it.

It's also important to consider what kind of work your team does, how many people are in the organization, and how you want to run your business. There are a lot of excellent options to fit every budget.

With a reliable project management solution, people can collaborate more easily on project-based work. Plus, small business owners and team managers can get useful insights into how their teams work, whether projects are on track, and how to guide them back to a successful place when they slip.