Streamlining Collaboration: The Top 9 Project Management Solutions for Small Teams (Reviewed)

Last Updated on February 5, 2023 by Arif Chowdhury

The name suggests that this software is designed to manage a small or large business project by giving access to various tools to make the whole operation easy to monitor, handle, and protect classified information.

A recent survey stated that 77% of small to large organizations use project management tools to handle their operations. This software makes it easy for the entire team to collaborate in real-time by sharing valuable information, tracking time, assigning and managing tasks, tracking performance, and sharing files without accessing any third-party application on the internet like Gmail, Yahoo, Dropbox, etc.

Best Project Management Solution for Business.

So, the question is – what is the best project management software for small teams or even large organizations?

Here is the complete list for you:

1. Wrike.
2. Monday.com.
3. ProofHub.
4. Backlog.
5. Proprofs project.
6. Clickup.
7. Asana.
8. Workzone.
9. Trello.

However, if you want to learn more, then keep reading.

In this guide, I will discuss several of my favorite Project Management Software that I have personally used and tested; I ranked them based on their affordability, security, and accessibility.

Let’s dig in.

1. Wrike.

Featured rich one-stop solution – free version included.

Wrike is an On-Stop solution for your Project Management operation. Collaborate with your team members’ work in one place and manage it with various useful tools.

It has a free plan available for an indefinite period; best to try it out before the purchase.

The most helpful feature for any project management would be working remotely without compromising security. And, if all employees can collaborate and collaborate from distant locations and all valuable information can be stored in clouds, that would be even better. It is what Wrike is offering and named “Digital Workspace.”

All your files, discussion records, and logs can securely synchronize in the cloud.

There is no need for email applications like Gmail or Yahoo; within Wrike software, all team members can instantly participate in live discussions and share files.

Customizable dashboard – a base for your operation.

You can change the digital workspace according to your needs and become 50% more productive. Personalize your priorities by customizing the dashboard, pin necessary logs, items, and tasks, and schedule upcoming events. In addition, it allows you to visualize your total workflows to present in front of the entire team for better collaboration or stakeholders.

Each member can have their workflow process to maintain tasks on time to avoid backlogs.

Communicating with the entire team and stakeholders will keep everyone updated with recent reports and events—no more missing emails or updates.

Real-time collaboration within an entire team.

Wrike has four subscription plans, including a free program with a $0 cost.

A free plan is best if you want to test out Wrike. But, if you mean serious business, you should check the Professional, Business, or Enterprise plan. Ranging from $9.80 per month per user to $24.80. Enterprise has an unlimited user feature, but you must contact them for a custom rate.

2. Monday.com.

The best project management software for small teams – free version for 14 days.

Monday.com is a gorgeous-looking operating system for your project management. This software can handle everything, whether a small or large organization.

The good news, it offers a 14-day free trial, and no credit card is needed.

They are trusted by over 100K organizations worldwide, including eBay, PayPal, Walmart, etc.

With a simple drag-and-drop feature, even an inexperienced can efficiently operate this software. Furthermore, with all the works, schedules, logs, and events, you can visually represent almost anything within this software, thus increasing productivity by reducing the complexity.

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Make repetitive workloads in automation.

Why waste time and effort on repetitive work? Instead, why not make it automated to reduce the workload, and by saving time, your team can focus on a more critical task where their talents are needed most?

You can easily collaborate with your coworkers within this internal network by integrating with social media like Facebook, Twitter, MailChimp, etc. And by doing so, you can do your project management from a single base of operation more accurately.

Track your project with a 360-degree view to check and maintain with ease—the project timeline, progress structure, problems, logs, employees’ tasks, and operation schedule. Every single part of your project now has a live visual outlook for your team and stakeholders. With this unique feature, you can track anything within a matter of moments.

Maintain overall progress within one single look.

Now let’s talk about their pricing option. First, you will get an 18% discount if you pay annually. They have four subscription plans available from Basic to Enterprise ranging from $39 to $79 per month per 5 users, and Enterprise has a custom rate for that you have to contact them.

If your team members increase, the price will also increase; for example – Basic plan, 20 members’ cost will be $159 per month.

In any case, you can always try their service for 14 days before making any decision.

3. ProofHub.

Flexible pricing option with excellent features.  

ProofHub is one of the most flexible in features and pricing plans, and by doing so, it’s getting one of the most popular Project Management Software.

Test ProofHub for 14 days without needing any credit card at all.

No messy installation is required, almost no learning curve means no extra hassle, and the drag-and-drop feature is easy to use. Even a kid can do this.

It is always stress-free when you can handle all your project tasks from a single spot, easy to track and maintain without much effort. ProofHub offers you just that; you have all the tools you need under one roof, instant communication between employees, sharing anything securely, assigning tasks between them, maintenance, and focus from a single software; what else do you need? But, of course, ProofHub might already have that.

Simple & effective team management strategy.

Say goodbye to the old style of sending emails to connect with coworkers. With their new innovative system, you can maintain collaboration efficiently and effectively among an entire group member, no matter how big.

You can easily plan with Kanban boards, custom workflows, and the Gantt charts for your project and showcase it before the entire team for review.

You can easily assign tasks to a single member or group with a single push of a button.

Just like a real-life chain of command, you can assign a team leader for a specific group and choose who will manage which project; you can also create custom roles to gain ultimate control over your task.

Digitalized instant collaboration among team members.

The best part of ProofHub is that it has no per-user pricing plans. All plans have unlimited user options. 1st plan, Essential, is for starters and will cost you $45 per month if billed annually, and the Ultimate control plan cost is $89 per month if you pay annually. However, it is a limited-time offer.

If you want to try out their service, start a free 14-day trial. No credit card is required.

4. Backlog.

Command & control project – free version included.

The Backlog is not just a business project management software; you can use it to manage your IT department project much faster and more systematically than ever.

It has a Forever Free plan for ten users & one project, enough room to test their software.

The backlog project management offers a work environment with a shallow learning curve, just like the Zoho projects management tool; almost anyone can quickly adapt to its simple yet powerful interface. Collaborate with an entire team, from coders to designers, developers, and clients, under one roof to make an efficient and effective team progress without much complexity and effort. Say goodbye to third-party applications such as google drive for sharing files; you can do it now effectively and securely using Backlog.

Visualizing several projects from top to bottom is a very effective way to focus and maintain. With Backlog, you can do it quickly and automatically.

Systematic collaboration makes progress much faster.

If it is an IT project, fixing bugs is much faster and more effective than before. With real-time notifications, a history thread of issues, and a drag-drop feature can eliminate hours of extra workload, and your team can focus heavily on the main problem.

There is nothing to hide, as every detail is visual and real-time; thus, it increases accountability and reliability for your development teams.

You can see your project’s timeline trajectory, allowing you to determine the performance and better prepare a visual plan.

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Track the performance of the project with a timeline trajectory.

Now let’s see the Backlog subscription plan in detail. They have five subscription plans and a Free Forever plan that only allows ten users and one project.

If you are serious about your project, consider looking at other plans. Starter costs $35 per month for thirty users and five projects. Standard is the most popular; it costs you $100 per month, while the Premium plan costs $175 per month and has no limit on users and projects. Their Enterprise plan has a custom rate and private server option for a large organization; you should contact them for custom pricing.

If you want to test their software before purchasing, go for a free plan.

5. Proprofs project.

Simple & powerful project management software.

ProProfs Project is an online project management tool with a simple and powerful feature to collaborate with coworkers to work much more effectively and efficiently.

Free Forever Plan has an indefinite time. However, all other paid plan also has 15-days risk-free test runs.

As technology develops, we need to take advantage to work more intelligently, not harder.

With ProProfs Project, any organization, no matter small or large, can easily manage projects from one single standpoint. Collaborating with multiple team members by assigning them a different task, creating a scheduled task, sharing files, get a notification in real-time within a single software environment; thus, effectively reduces the complexity and makes it more accurate.

At one glance, you can see all project’s current statistics in real time. For example, see how much time is required to finish a specific task and a current schedule of an employee, and even communication can be done entirely within this software without accessing any third-party email.

To manage a project from the beginning, 1st define your goals and objective, create tasks and subtasks, assign tasks to different team members and track their progress in real-time, set deadlines, and pursue them instantly by direct conversation with each member to generate project reports with built-in analytics. You may also use the Gantt chart for effective resource management.

You can also create task dependencies to save time. For example, set a timer for each task to alert your team; it can also encourage them to finish on time.

Become digitalized & work smarter, not harder.

Now, how about their subscription plans? Apart from their forever-free plan, three other paid plans. Solopreneur, Team, and Unlimited, ranging from $19 to $199 per month. For starters, Solopreneur would be best. However, a large team or organization should consider an Unlimited plan.

And, if you are not sure, just hit the button and start a free plan.

6. Clickup.

One app to rule them all – excellent free plan.

ClickUp is not designed to manage a project. Instead, it is intended to control nearly everything you possibly hope to manage.

It’s a free plan with only storage limitations; otherwise, it is enough for a single team to manage anything they want.

First of all, its design is stunningly beautiful and simple yet very powerful and flexible to manage almost anything you like, from a school task to a large organization’s multiple million-dollar projects.

Like all other project management software, it can collaborate all team members’ work in a single spot.

You can create a to-do list, complete multiple tasks and share them with team members, create a project management structure using a graphical presentation, and assign various tasks to different team members.

It can create beautiful and detailed docs, wikis, and knowledge bases for your entire project. Have a built-in spreadsheet; no need to visit google docs anymore.

Integrate with all email applications within ClickUp, synchronize the calendar, add a timeline, Gann chart within your task, a built-in reminder of a specific event, or all scheduled tasks.

Thus you will need nothing else to collaborate with a team and work within a single base for maximum efficiency.

Quick Note: When you are in a large organization, you may have to do lots of project planning. Managing projects effectively is challenging without software development for custom needs and effective team collaboration. And this is why you need project management software to make it easy to handle.

Now, what about their subscription plan? They have four plans, including a free one. An unlimited plan is only $9 per month with no limitation, while there is a Business plan and Enterprise plan for a large team.

If you are a single user or 2-3 team members and use basic tasks, then the free plan is acceptable; however, for the severe planner, you should consider looking at paid plans.

7. Asana.

Simplify complex coordinate tasks – great free plan.  

Asana makes complex tasks simple and coordinated in an organized way to make them accurate and perfect.

Superb free plan with almost all features included; paid plans have a limited trial period for a test run.

Asana has an even better free plan than ClickUp; it has only a 100MB per file storage limitation and rich features to manage your task.

Paid plan features are even better; you can easily plan and visually structure your work in a way that suits you best. Do follow-up projects and tasks at every stage using real-time collaboration among team members.

Create a visual map of the entire project timeline to quickly identify flaws and maintain them correctly with minimum effort.

Visual representation of workflows and collaboration.

For a large organization, stakeholders can log in as a guest to see the progress reports of their multiple projects all at once. Real-time communication and notification help them get updated results within seconds.

A physical board meeting is not necessary with project management software reporting as it covers all the aspects of a project.

Managers and team leaders can create and set rules within a specific team, assign multiple tasks to multiple members, and coordinate them from a single spot.

Thus, hiding information or lacing accountability is almost impossible as every report is in real-time.

Asana is hosted within clouds; therefore, any team member can actively connect from a remote place, no matter where they are.

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No matter where you are – be within your team.

Asana has four subscription plans, and Basic is free forever with a $0 cost. Premium is $10.99 per month; Business is $24.99 per month with some new and advanced features that the free plan does not have.

Enterprise is different for a large organization; you have to contact them for a custom rate. And, if you are not sure about purchasing, then go for a free plan; there is nothing to lose.

8. Workzone.

Simple & powerful project management software.

Workzone is not just project management software; it also helps to collaborate platforms, processes, and people to achieve a team-wide adoption.

All of its plans have a Demo request option available, contact them and get a quote.

Workzone provides a platform to maintain and collaborate on everything from a single standpoint and develop a robust systematic process to help your team to achieve success more accurately and effectively.

You and your team need to digitalize, and for that, Workzone provides a new collaboration system to change your old one. It guarantees a 2.7x more effective process for the long term.

Digitalization means every process will be computerized, making it more systematic and fast. For example, your project’s entire process from start to end can be visualized in Workzone. Thus it will be easy to monitor and control workflows.

All communications between team members can be done in real-time within this software, sharing files, activities, and notifications, even if you don’t need to use third-party email applications to communicate. By using Workzone, internal communication within a team is much faster and more effective.

An entire team can be managed remotely because all processes, activities, sharing, and communication can collaborate within Workzone and is hosted in the cloud.

Workzone has three subscription plans, Team, Professional, and Enterprise ranging from $24 to $44 per month. The good thing is that all plans include unlimited project and task management. However, starter and mid-level projects need only the first two plans, but if your project is large and you need all the advanced features, then go for the Enterprise plan.

If you are unsure, then “Request a Demo” and consult with them.

9. Trello.

Flexible & fun to manage the project – free plan included.

Trello is a cloud-based project management application that enables teams to collaborate on their work using boards, lists, cards, timelines, and visual workflows to maintain and coordinate their projects more effectively than ever.

Free Forever plan has no trial limit and enough to judge their overall service.

The first thing is that organized teamwork is necessary to make a project successful, no matter how small or big, and Trello offers just that.

With the intuitive feature, this software can easily handle hundreds of scheduled tasks, reminders of upcoming tasks, sharing files, presenting graphs, and internal communication more efficiently.

Even from a remote location, collaboration is still possible.

It enables you to see all helpful information at a glance. You can add unlimited personal boards, cards, and lists to organize complex teamwork in one place. One click can also make uploading relevant files, logs, and an attachment easy.

Create an advanced checklist to prioritize workflows and share it with team members for better collaboration.

Trello can seamlessly integrate with other 100+ third-party applications like Gmail, Dropbox, MailChimp, etc.

Have a unique automation processing system that can be run using pre-setting rules. It will boost the productivity and accuracy of the entire team by eliminating tedious tasks while robots can handle them automatically.

Let digitalization & automation work together.

Trello has three subscription plans available. Though its free plan is enough to get started for a severe organization, you need to look for more advanced features than only paid plans offer—business and Enterprise range from $12.50 per month per user and $20.83 per month per user. An enterprise plan is for large organizations with more users; you have more discounts they will offer.

And, if you are unsure what to do, keep using the free plan until you are satisfied with their service.

Executive Summary.

I have loved science fiction movies since I was a kid; however, nowadays, thanks to the evolution of technology, it is becoming a reality right before our eyes. If you have already read my above guide, you probably realize it by now. Thus, using this software, a business can automate almost all delicate tasks like managing, planning, communicating, etc., in a complete automation process.

What is left now? Every large factory uses an automatic production machine; for example, a BMW car is manufactured in an automated machine. By combining soft & hard tasks in the automation process, we reduce human manual function by almost 80%; another 20% is left for maintenance tasks that robots cannot do alone. And soon, they will be able to do it, and we will enter a new era of Robotic Civilization.

Anyway, I am so optimistic about it. In this guide, I have displayed a collection of my favorite Project Management software with excellent auto functionality that can significantly help your organization. I hope you like it. Please let me know what you think about Project Management Software & which one you have chosen. If you need further help, then don’t hesitate to ask me in the comment section.

Further readings: check this out about scheduling software that you might need soon – “Best Scheduling Software” & don’t forget to read my other guide about CRM software – “Best CRM Software.”