Top 7 GanttChart Software For 2021
Project management as a practice wouldn’t be where it is today without Gantt charts. These visual, horizontal bars make project-related information more appealing and easy to grasp for all stakeholders involved. However, how do you know which one to choose?
To help you, we’ve compiled a list of the best Gantt chart software, including an overview of each tool, screenshots, key takeaways, and a chart (no pun intended) to compare Gantt chart software (cloud-based only). At the end, there’s also a bit of theory on how they evolved.
Gantt Chart Software
1. Paymo
Paymo is a solid project management platform that couldn’t be so without a robust Gantt chart module.
Its main advantage lies in the fact that tasks with a start and end date get automatically projected on the timeline. Don’t get me wrong, you can still draw your own task durations; yet this is great automation for those who want to ditch Excel for a simple Gantt chart generator.
From a planning perspective, you can link tasks and milestones with the help of dependencies to see which ones need to finish before others start. There’s also the possibility to account for overlap or delay in the project, something project managers working with cross-functional teams will appreciate.
BONUS: Save a project along with its tasks and dependencies as a project template; all project parameters will be remapped according to their duration and links once you add it again.
Speaking of visual indicators, Paymo’s got plenty of them. Past due dates and broken dependencies are signaled in red, while a task’s progress — a.k.a. the tracked time vs. the total hourly budget — is indicated by a darker green color over a lighter one. Or a shaded portion in case the budget has been surpassed.
When it comes to course correction, make adjustments manually, or use the auto-scheduling options. Beware though, there’s no undo button so you better be sure about your changes. Pair this up with the critical path functionality that highlights the shortest road to complete a project, and you’re one step ahead of delivering projects with minimal to no risk.
Key Takeaways
- Project templates with dependencies
- Automatic drawing of task durations
- Daily lead & lag time
- Auto scheduling function
- Critical path
- Export to PDF
- Portfolio Gantt chart
Pricing
- Free — 1 user (no Gantt chart)
- Small Office — $11.95/user/month (no Gantt chart)
- Business — $18.95/user/month
2. TeamGantt
TeamGantt is on a mission to replace desktop-based Gantt charts with a clean and collaborative experience.
Because of this, the interface is quite easy to grasp. You can draw task groups, tasks, and milestones on the timeline with a click and drag action. Even turn a task into a group of tasks or milestones, in case you want to change its scope. Color coding is included as well.
The way you set up dependencies is the same as with any Gantt chart timeline software. Too bad that you can’t edit or remove a dependency once you click on it, you’ll have to open the task details in order to do that. The absence of lead and lag time, as well as the critical path, is a pity too.
Like Paymo, TeamGantt allows you to set an estimated time budget for a task and track time against it. There’s also a % complete field to signal the task progress, which is independent of the hours tracking mentioned initially. I find this a bit odd, but in some industries, the task progress is not directly related to the tracked time (like agile software development).
Where this Gantt chart drawing software stands out though is the baseline feature. This basically allows you to take a snapshot of the current planning and compare it with the actual progress at different points in time. Meaning you can correctly identify when and where did the project go sideways and by which margin.
Another great feature is the guest user access. People outside your company can view projects and comment on tasks, or just view them if you share a view-only project URL. As a last resort, there’s also the possibility to print the Gantt chart as a PDF.
In terms of the Portfolio Gantt chart, there’s not too much to say about it. You can either toggle between the people or timeline view, with the last one displaying only the projects’ timeline — no more additional details. So I would rather call it a simplified grid view, than a portfolio one.
Key Takeaways
- Project templates with dependencies
- Convert tasks to task groups & milestones
- Percentage complete progress
- Estimated hourly budgets
- Baselining
- Guest user access
- Export to PDF
Pricing
- Free — 3 users, 1 project
- Standard — $24.95/user/month
- Advanced — $29.95/user/month
3. GanttPRO
An online Gantt chart maker that’s gradually expanding into the project management software realm is GanttPRO.
And you can tell. The moment you create a project, you can import it from a CSV or JIRA to make the process much more straightforward. Even define the working days & hours, which will play a role later on when you want to adjust the project schedule.
Speaking of structure, projects are formed of subprojects (read task lists), sibling tasks (read tasks), and milestones. Each of them has a start and end date, hourly estimate, status, and priority. All dependencies are covered, including lead and lag times. However, this is only possible at an hourly level; wish there was a daily auto-scheduling option too, like in Paymo.
Baselines are an integral part of GanttPRO and I dare to say are much more intuitive than in TeamGantt from a UX, not necessarily a UI perspective. Adjustments can be automated based on the task durations and project working days, while the critical path will point you towards the shortest project path.
You can also manually set a % of task completion, a measure that is still not anchored in the actual task hourly budget. GanttPRO addresses this problem through precise cost tracking and budget reports. These show you the total cost of a task (based on the assigned user’s hourly rate or the task’s fixed price) compared to the actual cost (based on the current tracked time), so you can realistically monitor the budget variance.
Sharing-wise, this Gantt chart software allows you to set a secret link to share it with people outside of your team. Or export it as a PDF, PNG, Excel, or CSV file for convenience. If you want to invite stakeholders in, you can add them as a virtual resource with viewing access only.
Creating a Portfolio Gantt Chart is also intuitive, you just need to have more than 1 project and select the ones which you want to be included. This means you can have more than one portfolio, something PMO’s will appreciate. Too bad you can’t unfold each project level by level, GanttPRO redirects you to each project if you want to access these details.
Key Takeaways
- Project templates with dependencies
- Hourly lead & lag time
- Critical path
- Baselining
- Cost budget tracking
- Export to PDF
- Portfolio Gantt chart
Pricing
- Individual — $15/user/month for 1 user, billed annually
- Team — $8.9/user/month for 5 users, billed annually
- Enterprise — Custom
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🔹 Read the full article on Paymo’s website and give Gantt charts the ❤️ they deserve🔹
