The 7 Best Project Management Tools for Software Development

Doing a business has much in common with upbringing a child. If your efforts are wise enough, you will reap the rewarding benefits. However, it is not possible to predict everything and sometimes the process spins out of control. It doesn’t mean you are a bad parent. It just means you need more skills and reasonable management instruments.

Similar things happen during software development process, when projects start living their own life, expanding beyond budgetary and time frames. And here project management comes to the aid, which is basically an aggregate of knowledge, skills, instruments, and techniques, which are applied to project activities with the aim to meet its requirements.

Today, dozens of project management tools are at your disposal, covering all aspects of effective project handling. Which of them to choose and how to operate them effectively? Let us have a look into it!

Basecamp

This software solution is among the most popular project management apps, and it has the largest number of admirers around. Basecamp has a plain and user-friendly interface for cooperation between teammates and customers. With it, you can:

• Build up to-do lists
• Have performance records
• Manage and share files
• Setup discussions
• Schedule dates
• Report on project’s progress

The application is responsive, so you can enjoy all the options from any device on the move.

A competitive advantage: A great interface. A flexible tool full of plug-in services.

Cons: Some useful third-party products like Google Drive or Dropbox require additional services to be integrated.

Price: $99 per month for the plans with an unlimited number of users. Free subscriptions are available for teachers and students, 10% discounts for non-profit organizations.

Trello

This application focuses on visual effects. The team has a vivid demonstration of everyday project tasks on the dashboards, which is very useful for tracking ideas from the earliest concepts to the finished product. Trello allows to:

• Create personalized Kanban boards with no hassle
• Easily manage tasks on the cardboards
• Visually share the ideas with other colleagues
• Share files and images
• Create unlimited task lists
• Organize lists according to priority or by date

A competitive advantage: The most demonstrative and visual tool to collaborate within large teams. A lightweight and simple one.

Cons: Limited integration of calendar. No Gantt charts.

Price: Free. There are also premium subscriptions available at $9.99/year and $20.83/year.

Jira

This is a cross-platform issue-tracking solution, which is a shrewd choice for Agile and Scrum projects. Jira allows:

• Creating user stories
• Manage issues
• Distributing and prioritizing assignments across the development team
• Planning sprints
• Using customized Scrum and Kanban boards for the aims of iteration
• Tracking project performance

A competitive advantage: An impressive set of advanced features. API integration.

Cons: Jira’s UI is somehow not very user-friendly.

Price: $10/month for ten and fewer users, $75/month for fifteen users, $300/month for teams with fifty users.

Asana

Asana is one of the most powerful and effective task management tools for small-scale teams. With it, every team member knows who is doing what and by when. It is valued for the possibilities to:

• Create and follow various tasks, subtasks, projects, sections etc.
• Assign task to specific individuals; create descriptions, deadlines etc.
• Provide instructions and comments to the tasks
• Use reminders to always meet deadlines
• Engage into easy and effective communication (custom likes, voting etc.)
• Create templates for the workflows
• Gain great support

A competitive advantage: Very flexible and responsive. Ample opportunities for third-parties’ integrations: Google Drive, Chrome, DropBox, GitHub etc.

Cons: An app lacks some features like task duration and task dependency.

Price: Free for the teams of 15 users, Premium Subscription for $9.99 per month per member, and Enterprise Subscription as a special offering.

Redmine

Redmine is an open source project management app, which has been made very adjustable by the volunteer developers’ community. There are gazillions of plugins and themes available for it, with which your project can be radically and magically customized. Teams enjoy its features like:

• Facile time tracking
• Collaboration in wikis and forums
• Gantt charts
• Kanban boards
• CM integration
• Product roadmaps planning
• Email notifications

A competitive advantage: It is one of the most flexible and customizable project management apps. Multilanguage support.

Cons: Not very useful reporting and search features.

Price: Free.

Zoho Projects

Another project coordinator, widely used for team management. It covers pretty much every facet of the development workflow, keeping it organized. Its top features include:

• Creation of task lists with a possibility to set subtasks and milestones
• Gantt Charts for tracking and managing tasks
• Bug tracking
• Time sheets
• Document and file management
• Project feeds for better coordination
• Social media communication
• Integration with Google Apps.

A competitive advantage: The application can be integrated with various tools (including Zoho CRM) to manage almost every aspect of your project in one system.

Cons: Extra costs for a bug-tracking feature, project pages and chats, which are not included in standard plans.

Price: Free for one project (with 10 MB of storage). In case you need more storage space and projects to manage, be ready to pay $25 to $80 monthly (depending on the team’s needs).

Wrike

Wrike is another good choice of a project management tool with strong and secure features. While having a rich set of features, it doesn’t require much time to be installed and used.

• Managing projects in spreadsheets with columns that contain comprehensive information about the projects
• Project planning and dashboards
• Reporting and tracking performance
• Tracking tasks’ statuses and receiving reminders
• Viewing Gantt charts
• Quick setup
• Unlimited number of working projects
• API integrations

A competitive advantage: Allows team members to stay on the same page as if they all work in one room and are not dispersed around the globe. Good for large projects.

Cons: Rather expensive. Lack of intuitive UI.

Price: Free for 5 users with core features. Premium plans are available at $9.80/ $24.80/ $34.60 per user per month depending on the features needed.

Keeping this list of project management tools in mind, you are able to find the most effective solution for your team. All the above-mentioned tools offer free trials for their products, so you can test the product performance for free before buying a subscription.

What about your personal experience? Which marketing automation software does your team use and why? We would appreciate if you share your experience in comments!