Free Project Management Software (2024 Rankings)

Monday workforce management includes a great project management solution for small teams. The free plan is limited to two users and includes up to three Kanban-style project boards, with teams being able to add up to 1,000 items or tasks to a board. Additional board views are not included in the free plan, so teams interested in a timeline, Gantt chart, calendar, map or chart view would need to upgrade to a paid plan.

The free plan does include unlimited docs and collaborative whiteboards within the monday.com platform, as well as a variety of templates to help teams jump start project boards. However, the free plan does not offer any of monday work management’s reporting capabilities, integrations or automations.

It’s also worth noting that teams using the free plan will only have access to customer support through the online knowledge base, as 24/7 customer support is only included in paid plans. Monday work management does offer a free trial of its Pro plan, so teams can test out some of the advanced features that are not included in the free plan. This can help give businesses a sense of whether the software will offer enough as a project management solution.

Wrike offers many workflow management features that make it an excellent choice for a free project management solution. The free plan allows for unlimited users and a simple folder hierarchy interface for managing tasks and subtasks. The table view and Kanban board view are included for free, but teams will need to upgrade to access calendar views or Gantt charts.

The free plan does not include customization features like custom fields or workflows. However, teams can still make the most of email integration and notifications with the Wrike free plan, in addition to all of Wrike’s Work Intelligence AI features. This is worth noting, as many software companies do not include their AI features in free versions of project management software.

The Wrike free plan also allows for integration with common cloud storage apps like Google Drive, but integration with other apps like Slack, Microsoft Office or Salesforce is not included for free.

Wrike also has unique capabilities that many of the other project management software solutions on the list do not. For instance, resource management, time tracking, risk prediction and budgeting are all features in the top paid plans that help team leaders with the strategic planning and execution of projects.

Smartsheet’s free plan offers limited versions of its major spreadsheet-style project management features. It’s limited to one user and two editors, meaning one person can set up sheets in Smartsheet and invite up to two people to collaborate without needing to upgrade to a paid plan. Smartsheet could be a natural upgrade for teams relying on Excel spreadsheets for project management.

The free plan does include all of the Smartsheet task views, including the grid view, Gantt chart, calendar and card view. It also allows for unlimited reports and dashboards, which makes it a great option for teams looking for robust reporting features within a free software. Automations are limited to 100 instances a month, and the free plan does not include Smartsheet’s AI features.

The free plan also allows for most of Smartsheet’s available integrations, including Microsoft Office, Google Workspace and Slack. However, teams won’t be able to integrate with Tableau, Power BI or Adobe Creative Cloud without upgrading to one of Smartsheet’s paid plans.

Customer support is available through Smartsheet’s online web support, which is essentially its robust help center offering. Teams can also take advantage of the Smartsheet Community forums for help.

Teamwork.com is a team collaboration platform that includes many helpful project management templates and offers a free plan for up to five users and five projects. Teams can use simple task lists and budget templates, with time tracking and timesheets included in the free plan. This makes the free plan a great option for teams that work with clients, considering Teamwork.com’s combination of project management functionality with tasks like invoicing.

Teamwork.com’s free plan includes all of their project board views, which are the list, table, Kanban and Gantt chart views. Teams can create task dependencies, milestones and task-level tags within project boards. Custom fields are available but not unlimited. The same goes for automated rules, with teams being able to run up to 100 automations a month.

Reporting features are limited to dashboards with no way to create custom reports on the free plan. Many integrations are included with the free plan, such as Slack, Zapier and Microsoft Teams. However, the Teamwork.com free plan does not include integration with Google Drive, Microsoft Office or QuickBooks.

ClickUp offers a free project management software that’s full of essential features for small businesses, with an emphasis on team collaboration. The free plan includes unlimited tasks for up to five “spaces,” which is ClickUp’s term for projects. Teams can visualize tasks within a space through multiple board views, including Kanban boards, calendars and lists.

ClickUp’s team collaboration features include collaborative docs, digital whiteboards and in-app chat. This makes it an excellent option for remote teams planning projects and collaborating virtually in real-time, especially with the ClickUp mobile app for Android and iOS.

One feature that sets ClickUp’s free plan apart is that it offers project board automations, though they’re limited to 50 active rules and 100 automation executions total. Despite these limitations, many free project management tools won’t include automation at all, so ClickUp’s free plan is great for teams that want to experiment with automating tasks for project management.

ClickUp limits other features to a certain number of “uses” within the free plan, like a limit of 100 dashboard uses for reporting or up to 60 uses for time tracking. The free plan is also not compatible with ClickUp’s AI-powered features. However, many of the customization features are unlimited, such as checklists, dependencies, tags and more.

Asana offers an extensive free version of its project management software for up to 10 users, which is more than many alternatives. It includes all of the essential features, like unlimited projects and tasks and the main project board views, like the Kanban, list and calendar view. Teams looking for a timeline or Gantt chart view must upgrade to a paid plan.

Asana is ideal for businesses with multiple teams that collaborate cross-functionally, earning it the title of Best for Team Collaboration. Users can create boards for different teams or functions, move task cards between those different boards, and create dependencies between different teams. The free plan is a great option for small teams because its main project management features are still available, even if sometimes limited.

The free plan does not include Asana’s automation features like custom rules, but integrations are allowed. Limited reporting capabilities are included, mostly allowing teams to export CSV and PDF files. None of Asana’s AI features are available with the free plan. Full 24/7 customer support is not available for the free version of Asana, but there is a robust help center for all users with video tutorials and live weekly training sessions.

Jira is an Atlassian project management software with a specific emphasis on software development teams, though it can be useful for any business. The free version of Jira is available for up to 10 users and gives teams access to unlimited project boards, a backlog, customizable workflows and integrations. Jira integrates with Atlassian’s marketplace of over 3,000 software apps, earning it the title of Best for Integrations.

One benefit of Jira’s free plan is that it doesn’t exclude automations and allows for up to 100 rule runs a month. This allows teams to still automate tasks within project boards without needing to upgrade to a paid plan. Users can still take advantage of some reporting features as well, with Jira offering 12 default report options within the free plan.

While Jira’s free project management software is full of useful features for small businesses, it does have its limitations. Teams won’t have access to AI features, and storage is limited to 2 GB. Additionally, customer support options are limited to Atlassian’s community support offerings. Teams must upgrade to a paid plan for more customer support options.

Notion is set up like a word processor with added project management features. Given that most people have used Google Docs and/or Microsoft Word before, Notion is intuitive and familiar enough to start using right away. Once you get more comfortable with Notion, you can start using its “blocks,” which are the different content and project elements that you can add to Notion pages.

There’s no limit to the number of users for the free plan, but teams with more than one user will not have unlimited blocks within pages. Teams can also add up to 10 guest collaborators, which is great for teams communicating with contractors or clients.

All project views are included, like the timeline, calendar and board view. Most project management functionality is accessible in the paid plan, like task dependencies or subtasks. There are some basic automations allowed, but the free plan is limited in terms of automating workflows within a project board. Custom automations are not included. However, teams can easily integrate with Zapier, Slack and other software with the Notion free plan.

Customer support options are limited with the Notion free plan, as paid plan customers are prioritized. Teams can export workspaces as HTML or CSV files, but won’t be able to export to PDF. Overall, Notion’s reporting options are limited, but teams will have access to basic page analytics with the free plan.

Airtable’s advanced spreadsheet software is an excellent project management solution and earns it the title of Best for Spreadsheet-Based Projects. The Airtable free plan is available for up to five users, with unlimited databases and access to the main project views. These include the grid, calendar, form, Kanban, gallery and list views. Teams will need to upgrade for timeline and Gantt chart functionality.

Teams can create projects, group tasks together, assign tasks to team members and then see insights about project progress. Airtable makes sense for Agile teams or cross-functional teams looking to stay on the same page from sprint to sprint.

While a team can create unlimited databases, each database will be limited to 1,000 “records.” Each record is essentially the same as one line of a spreadsheet. Teams can also run up to 100 automations per month.

Beyond this, the Airtable free plan is limited in terms of customization options, AI features and integration capabilities. Full integrations with other work apps like Google Drive or Slack will require teams to upgrade to a paid plan.

Trello is an Atlassian project management software similar to Jira but with an emphasis on simple, visual project boards. Trello’s free plan is available for an unlimited number of users and allows for unlimited task cards organized within up to 10 project boards.

Small teams can take advantage of the Trello free plan’s unlimited storage and unlimited “Power-Ups” for project boards. Power-Ups are widgets and quick integrations that teams can add to projects to help automate or enhance their workflows.

Trello allows teams to create tasks and organize them within a simple Kanban board view, which is why they’re named Best for Simplicity. However, the Trello free plan does not include additional project views, such as the timeline, table, calendar or map view. If your team is just looking for an easy-to-use Kanban board, Trello is a great fit. However, for visualizing task cards beyond a simple board, the free plan may not be enough.  Trello does offer built-in automations in every project board for all plans, making it easy for teams to streamline workflows within the platform.