Best Project Management Software of 2027

What separates the best project management software on this page?

Every tool here ran the same six-week project: 120 tasks, four milestones, two client reviewers. The scores come from task and workflow management (30 points), views and reporting (20), collaboration and integrations (20), ease and speed (10), and value (20).

ClickUp scores 9 at $7 a user. It carries fifteen views including Gantt, workload and mind maps, plus docs, whiteboards and time tracking. The trade-off is real: six hours of onboarding, and the app slowed with 120 tasks and many custom fields.

Jira scores 8.5 at $7.53. Sprint boards, backlog grooming, velocity charts and GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket integration. Non-engineers found it the hardest tool here, and configuring workflows and schemes took a day.

Asana scores 8.4 at $10.99. The team was productive in two hours, the fastest onboarding in the test. Dependencies, milestones and timeline handled every part of the project. Workload and portfolios need the $24.99 Advanced plan.

monday.com scores 8.1 at $12. Team members who dislike project tools liked this one. Seats sell in bundles: ten users cost $120 on Standard.

Trello scores 8 at $5, the simplest board here, with Butler automation included. Dependencies and timeline needed Premium and Power-Ups, and reporting is thin.

Notion scores 7.6 at $10. The project plan, meeting notes and specs live in one place, and the timeline view with dependencies handled milestones. Building the system took a day, and there is no workload view or time tracking.

Basecamp scores 7 at $15. Six tools per project, nothing to configure, clients join free. No dependencies, Gantt or workload by design.

What should I check before buying project management software?

Start with the plan the project actually needs, not the free tier.

• Dependencies and timeline: Asana includes them; Trello needs Premium and Power-Ups; Basecamp has none.
• Workload and portfolios: Asana puts them on the $24.99 Advanced plan; Notion has no workload view.
• Seat pricing: monday.com sells seats in bundles, so ten users cost $120 on Standard.
• Setup time: ClickUp took six hours, Jira a day for workflows and schemes, Notion a day to build the system.
• Who uses it: non-engineers found Jira the hardest tool here.

Which one for whom?

ClickUp suits teams that want every view, docs, whiteboards, time tracking and goals in one tool at $7 a user. Jira suits software teams running sprints, backlogs and story points with Git integration. Asana suits teams that want the fastest onboarding and dependencies, milestones and timeline without setup. monday.com suits non-technical teams that take to colourful boards and automations. Trello suits teams that want the simplest kanban board with automation built in. Notion suits teams that write up the work and want boards, timelines and dependencies inside those pages. Basecamp suits teams that want to-dos, message boards, schedules and docs per project with nothing to configure.

For a software team running sprints, Jira at $7.53 covers backlogs, velocity charts and Git integration. If you want every view and built-in docs, ClickUp at $7 gives you the most to configure. For the fastest start with dependencies and timeline, Asana at $10.99 had the team productive in two hours.