Operations
Project management tools
Project management tools hold a team's work as tasks in lists, boards, timelines and calendars, with owners, due dates and dependencies, so everyone can see what is done and what is late. Most add rules that move or assign work automatically, and AI that writes task descriptions, summarises progress and answers questions about a project.
Asana
Work management with prebuilt AI Teammates, an AI chief of staff, and unlimited automations from Starter
monday.com
Board-based work management with AI agents and credits on every paid plan, sold in seat buckets from 3 seats
Trello
Kanban boards with built-in automation and an Inbox for to-dos from email and chat, free for 10 collaborators
Jira
Atlassian's project and issue tracker with Rovo AI agents on paid plans and a free plan for 10 users
Wrike
Work management with request forms, proofing and AI agents, billed annually per user from $10
Basecamp
Project management with flat monthly packages and no per-user fees, plus connectors for ChatGPT and Claude
Linear
Issue tracking and product planning for software teams, with a built-in agent that can write code
Teamwork.com
Project management for client-services teams, with time tracking, budgets, invoicing and AI teammates
Open source
Plane
Open-source project management and wiki with AI agents, on Plane's cloud or self-hosted, including air-gapped
OpenProject
Open-source project management with Gantt charts, agile boards and cost tracking, self-hosted or EU cloud
Side by side
How to choose
- 1
How does your team plan: boards, lists, timelines with dependencies, or sprints and issues for software work?
- 2
What does a seat cost at your team size? Some sell seats in fixed bundles or with a minimum, and guests or viewers may be free.
- 3
How many automation runs and AI uses does each plan include, and which plan unlocks them?
- 4
Does it connect to the tools the work comes from: email, chat, forms, a code repository or a CRM?
Also worth a look
Tools listed elsewhere that do this job too.
ClickUp
Work management app combining tasks, docs, chat and AI in one workspace
Smartsheet
Spreadsheet-style work management for projects, programs and processes
Guides
Questions
What are project management tools?
Project management tools hold a team's work as tasks in lists, boards, timelines and calendars, with owners, due dates and dependencies, so everyone can see what is done and what is late. Most add rules that move or assign work automatically, and AI that writes task descriptions, summarises progress and answers questions about a project.
Which project management tools have a free plan?
Of the 10 listed here, 10 have a free plan: Asana, monday.com, Trello, Jira, Wrike, Basecamp, Linear, Teamwork.com, Plane and OpenProject. Free plans are limited; each tool's page lists the limits.
Which of these project management tools costs least to start?
Of the tools here with a published price, the lowest entry price is Trello's Standard plan at $5/user/mo billed annually, as published on its pricing page on 21 October 2026. The cheapest plan is not always the best value: check what each plan includes.