Plan marketing projects with tasks, timelines, and owners, and see progress across the team.
Project management software should make ownership, deadlines, dependencies, status, and workload visible enough for a team to execute. The products differ in how opinionated they are: some use structured projects and portfolios, others rely on configurable boards, and some combine tasks with docs or client-service workflows. The right choice depends on project complexity, reporting needs, and how much customization the organization is willing to maintain.
By SEM Solutions Editorial Team. Researched from vendor documentation, not hands-on testing. Ordered by Overall Score. Checked October 6, 2026. How we research
For structured cross-team projects
#1 of 11 in Project Management
Asana provides projects, tasks, dependencies, timelines, portfolios, goals, and workflow automation for coordinating work across functions. Consider it when teams need a consistent project system with visibility above individual task lists; portfolio views help managers connect individual projects to broader team priorities.
Feature consolidation
#2 of 11 in Project Management
ClickUp brings tasks, dependencies, docs, whiteboards, time tracking, dashboards, and automations into the same workspace. It earns its place when teams want project execution, documentation, and productivity tools connected without maintaining many separate products; project records can therefore sit beside the documents and discussions that support execution.
Configurable project boards
#4 of 11 in Project Management
monday.com lets teams model projects with customizable boards, statuses, columns, automations, dashboards, and different views. Consider it when project processes vary by department and teams want to configure the system around those differences. Teams can create different views without duplicating the underlying project information.
Simple visual boards
#5 of 11 in Project Management
Trello organizes work through boards, lists, and cards, with automation and integrations layered on top. Its Kanban-style model is easy to understand and works well for straightforward projects, editorial calendars, and lightweight team workflows. The simplicity is valuable when the team mainly needs visibility into work stages and ownership.
For client-service projects
#11 of 11 in Project Management
Teamwork emphasizes project delivery for agencies and professional-service businesses, combining project tasks with time tracking, resource planning, client work, and profitability-oriented operations. It pays off when project management needs to connect directly to billable delivery. The service-business focus links delivery work directly to utilization and project economics.
Ranked by Overall Score: our Editor Rating and Market Signal, 50/50. Market Signal uses Ahrefs and Semrush data through September 2026, pulled October 6 to 17, 2026. How we score
Work management platform tying tasks and projects to portfolios, company goals and team workload.
Best for: Cross-functional teams, such as marketing and operations groups, that want projects, objectives and capacity tracked in one shared workspace.
Work management app combining tasks, Docs, Chat and whiteboards, with separately sold AI.
Best for: Marketing and cross-functional teams that want tasks, documents, chat and reporting in one workspace with many ways to view the same work.
Workspace combining docs, wikis, relational databases and AI agents for team knowledge and projects.
Best for: Teams that want documentation, project tracking and intake forms in one shared workspace, with the full AI feature set available on the Business plan.
Configurable work platform for project management, CRM and development workflows.
Best for: Organizations that want configurable work tracking across projects, sales, development, and service processes on a shared platform.
Kanban-style boards of lists and cards, with Butler automation and Power-Up add-ons.
Best for: Small and midsize teams that want a visual kanban board for tasks and content, with light automation and links to Atlassian and Google tools.
Relational app-building platform combining flexible databases, interfaces and automations.
Best for: Operations, marketing, product, and creative teams that need configurable internal applications built on shared relational data.
Issue and project tracking with boards, workflows, automation, and development integrations.
Best for: Software and cross-functional teams that need structured issue tracking and configurable workflows.
Enterprise work management platform for projects, requests and proofing.
Best for: Enterprise and cross-functional teams that need configurable workflows, request intake, proofing, resource planning, and portfolio reporting.
Enterprise work management built around sheets, automation, portfolios, and connected data.
Best for: Operations and project teams coordinating repeatable workflows, portfolios, and cross-system work.
Project collaboration system centered on message boards, to-dos, schedules, files, chat, and client access.
Best for: Small teams and agencies that prefer straightforward project communication and client collaboration over complex workflow configuration.
Client-work management platform for projects, resources and time tracking.
Best for: Agencies and professional-services teams that need project delivery tied to billable time, resource planning, budgets, and client profitability.
Task management focuses on individual pieces of work and their status. Project management adds dependencies, milestones, timelines, workload, budgets, risks, reporting, and coordination across many tasks. Small projects may not need every one of those layers.
A Kanban board can be enough when work moves through a simple set of stages and dependencies are limited. As projects become more interconnected, teams may need timelines, portfolios, resource views, milestones, and cross-project reporting.
Yes, Asana, ClickUp, Notion, monday.com, Trello, Airtable, Jira, Wrike, Basecamp and Teamwork all offer a free plan. Free tiers usually come with usage limits, so check whether they cover your volume before relying on them long-term.
Among the tools listed here whose main product is in this category and whose pricing we've verified, Trello has the lowest listed starting price: $5 per user/mo (annual billing). Starting price isn't the whole picture, so check what's included at that tier before deciding.