10 Best Project Management Software of 2026

Asana ranks first because its Starter plan covers the full loop of planning, tracking and deadline review without add-ons. The free Personal plan gives 2 users unlimited tasks and projects with list, board and calendar views, so a team lead can set up a pilot project at no cost. Starter costs $10.99 per user a month billed annually, or $13.49 billed monthly, and adds timeline and Gantt views with task dependencies, reporting dashboards, unlimited automations, intake forms that create tasks, custom templates and custom fields. It also removes the seat cap and lets clients and contractors join as free guests. Advanced at $24.99 adds portfolios, goals, resource management, approvals and proofing, and time tracking that compares estimated and actual hours. The weak points are the 2-user free plan and the jump in price for portfolio views, which matter most for teams running many projects at once.

ClickUp finishes a close second because it packs the most project features into the lowest per-seat price among the full-featured tools. The Free Forever plan allows unlimited members and includes unlimited tasks and subtasks, collaborative docs, Kanban boards, a calendar view, sprint management and time tracking, though storage stops at 60 MB. Core costs $9 per user a month billed yearly, against a $12 regular price, and adds unlimited Gantt charts, custom fields and task types, unlimited storage, goals, guest permissions and 1K automations a month. Business at $17 adds advanced dashboards, resource management, timesheets, private views and 10K automations. ClickUp says it connects to 1,000+ tools. The cost of all this is setup time: with spaces, task types, custom fields and AI settings to decide on, a team should expect to spend longer configuring ClickUp than Trello or monday.com before everyone is working in it.

monday.com ranks third and is the easiest tool here to hand to a team that has never used project software. Work lives on boards, and each row is an item that can be a task, a client or a request, so the same tool fits project tracking and intake. The Free plan covers up to 2 seats with 3 boards, 3 Docs and 200+ templates. Basic adds unlimited items and unlimited free viewers with read-only access, which helps when managers only need to check progress. Standard adds 3 workflows plus automations and integrations at 250 actions a month each, and every paid plan includes the Sidekick AI assistant with a monthly AI credit allowance. The integrations page lists 850+ integrations and apps. The drawback is that automations do not start until Standard, and our location only showed EUR prices, so we could not verify the USD starting price.

Jira is the pick for software teams that plan in sprints. The Free plan covers up to 10 users and already includes unlimited goals, projects, tasks and forms, plus backlog, list, board, timeline, calendar and summary views, so a small engineering team can run its whole process at no cost. Free is limited to 2 GB of storage and 150 automation steps per subscription a month. Standard costs $8.48 per user a month on the monthly view of the pricing page and adds user roles and permissions, external collaboration, Rovo search, chat and agents, 400 automation steps per user a month and 250 GB of storage. Premium at $15.56 adds cross-team planning, dependency management, approvals, unlimited storage and a 99.9% uptime SLA. Atlassian's integrations page cites over 3,000 apps. Marketing or operations teams can use Jira too, but its backlog-first structure is built around engineering work.

Trello is the simplest and cheapest tool here, which is why it scores highest on ease of setup. Tasks are cards on lists, and a new team can be working within minutes. The Free plan covers up to 10 collaborators per Workspace with unlimited cards, up to 10 boards, assignees and due dates, unlimited Power-Ups per board, 250 Workspace command runs a month and iOS and Android apps. Standard costs $5 per user a month billed annually, or $6 monthly, and adds unlimited boards, custom fields, advanced checklists, card mirroring and 1,000 command runs. Premium at $10 adds Calendar, Timeline, Table, Dashboard and Map views, unlimited command runs and admin features. The limit is planning depth: there is no dependency-aware Gantt chart, and deadline views only arrive on Premium, so teams with long multi-phase projects usually outgrow Trello.

Wrike suits teams that already plan with Gantt charts and want room to grow into resource management. The Free plan covers essential task management with board and table views and apps for Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android. Team costs $10 per user a month, billed on an annual per-user basis, for 2 to 15 users and adds interactive Gantt charts, a shareable dashboard and AI Essentials such as comment summaries and natural-language automation rule generation. Business at $25 per user covers 5 to 200 users and adds templates and a starter pack of AI Elite actions for AI agents. Pinnacle and Apex add advanced resource and capacity planning, budgeting with billable hours and advanced reporting, but both require a call with sales. The Team plan's 15-user cap and annual-only billing mean growing teams should check where they will land in a year.

Notion is the right pick when a team's project plans are as much about documents as about tasks. Projects and tasks live in databases that support subtasks, dependencies and custom properties, and the same workspace holds specs, wikis and meeting notes, with Notion Calendar for scheduling. The Free plan suits individuals, but pages and blocks are limited once 2 or more members join. Plus is for small teams and adds charts built from database data, custom forms and sites, and basic connections to tools like Slack and Google Drive. Business adds Notion Agent for multi-step tasks, AI Meeting Notes, Enterprise Search across connected apps, SAML SSO and private teamspaces. The tradeoff is structure: timelines and workload views require building database views yourself, so teams that mainly need a ready-made Gantt chart will set up faster in Asana or Wrike. Our location showed only EUR prices, so the USD price check is pending.

Smartsheet is the natural move for teams whose project plans already live in Excel. Each sheet looks like a spreadsheet with rich formulas, but it can switch to Gantt, board and calendar views. Pro costs $9 per Member a month billed yearly, or $12 monthly, for 1 to 10 Members with unlimited free Contributors, and includes unlimited sheets, forms and reports and 250 automations a month. Business at $19 per Member billed yearly requires 3 or more Members and adds unlimited free Guests, a timeline view, workload tracking, admin capabilities, unlimited automations and 1 TB of attachment storage. Enterprise adds scenario planning, portfolios and SAML-based SSO. There is no permanent free plan, only 30 days free, and workload tracking is not on Pro, so small teams that want to balance assignments should price Business from the start.

Basecamp takes a different approach from the rest of the list: it charges per account, not per seat, and puts project communication on equal footing with tasks. The free plan allows 1 project for up to 3 users. Freelancer costs $29 a month for 3 active projects, 10 GB and up to 5 users, Pro costs $79 for 8 projects and 10 users, Pro Plus costs $99 for 12 projects and 15 users, and Pro Unlimited costs $199 a month billed annually, or $329 monthly, for unlimited projects and people. Pro adds multiple message boards, chats and card tables per project plus reusable templates, and Pro Plus adds time tracking. Every plan includes ChatGPT and Claude connectors with MCP support. The limits are planning depth and project caps: the pricing page lists no Gantt or dependency tools, and the lower tiers count active projects, so busy agencies hit the ceiling quickly.

Airtable fits teams whose projects are really structured data, such as content calendars, product catalogs or production schedules with many linked records. Bases are relational databases, and project management features include Gantt and timeline views with date dependencies alongside grid, Kanban, calendar, gallery and dashboard views. The Free plan allows up to 5 editors per workspace, 1,000 records per base and 100 automation runs a month. Team costs $20 per user a month billed annually and raises limits to 50,000 records per base, 25,000 automation runs and 1-year revision history. Airtable bills only users with edit permissions, so read-only collaborators, form submitters and share-link viewers are free. Business at $45 adds more capacity and admin controls. As a general task tracker, Airtable costs more per seat than every other verified price here and needs more setup, which is why it ranks last for teams that only need tasks and deadlines.