You’re a developer, and if you’re in charge of developing an app, website or software, managing the tasks and making sure everything is done on time can quickly become difficult. It’s easily to miss deadlines and create deliverables that don’t match what the client wants. Making sure everything is on track and meeting deadlines can be a full-time job. However, with help from project management software, it doesn’t have to be. With project management software, you can create a schedule for your team members, departments and everyone else involved in development. This lets everyone know what needs doing and when it needs to be done. It eases the pressure of having to keep track of all your tasks and ensure deadlines are met. It takes a lot of stress away from you as well as your team who are working hard every day on something that they’re passionate about. So what is the best project management software? How do you choose which one is right for your team?
A project without a process is a disorganized one. The purpose of this post is to explore the best project management software. We will be focusing on implementing tools that can help you get more organized, time-efficient and work productively!
The best project management software for software development is Trello. Trello is a cloud-based tool that is easy to use, and it’s free. You can use Trello to manage projects, tasks, and even your personal life. Trello’s boards are made up of cards that can be moved around as necessary to get stuff done. The cards have descriptions on them so you can see what needs to be done at a glance. You can also add comments and checklists directly on the card itself, which makes it easier to stay organized during the process.
The software development process is complex, no doubt about that. Each product development company has their own approach to project management. Some do things more manually and others try to automate their work (because software for project management is designed for just that). But in the end, you need a project management system so each step of your product development process is clear to everyone working on the project. And such system doesn’t have to be a huge enterprise solution like Jira or Bugzilla. What you need can be simpler, but still effective (and not waste too much time).
Best project management software for software development
Project Management software is used to help plan, manage, and track tasks for all manner of projects. As developers, we use project management tools to help keep the software development cycle on track and ensure the software development team is able to deliver a product on time, on budget, and with no errors. In this article, we will look at the best PM tools and software for software developers.
Before we begin looking at our selections, there are a few things to note. First, the software development tools listed in this article are in no particular order. Further, this is by no means a complete list. There are no doubt, countless project management tools that won’t appear on this list. However, the ones we include are considered some of the best in terms of software development collaboration tools.
What Features Are Best for Project Management Software?
When looking for project management software for development teams, the following is a list of features we consider “must-haves”:
- Task Management
- File Sharing
- Schedule Management
- Invoicing and Bookkeeping
- Reporting and Analytics
- Bug, Error, and Issue Tracking
Add features, such as Gantt Charts, Kanban Boards, and collaboration features to round out the suite of developer tools.
If your development team practices Scrum or Agile development practices, you will want to include PM software that offers Sprint tracking, velocity charts, Scrum boards, and burn-down reports.
Bonus features include cross-platform functionality such as support for mobile apps and the ability to add third-party vendor enhancements like Slack, Google Drive, and GitHub code repositories.
Top Project Management Software for Developers in 2021
Below is a list of the top project management solutions for developers in 2021. We highlight features that are important to development teams and pricing structure, where available.
Wrike Project Management Tools
Wrike is a feature-rich, cloud-based project management tool perfect for software development teams. Wrike is used by some of the biggest names in the tech world, including Google, Dell, and Airbnb – to name but a few. It comes with the usual project management features, including tools for planning, collaboration, reporting, and invoicing. Wrike also integrates with third-party software such as Google Drive, Gmail, Dropbox, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, and Tableau – among others.
Benefits of Wrike for developers:
- Assign tasks to one or more projects
- Time tracking and time management features
- Kanban boards
- Gantt charts
- Calendar views and notification pinning
- Third-party integration with popular developer tools
Wrike Project Management Pricing
Wrike project management software has several pricing tiers. For small development teams of 5 or less, Wrike is free, although somewhat limited in its features. The Professional tier (5, 10, and 15 users) is just under $10 per user per month and offers full project planning and collaboration. Other tiers include Business for 5-200 users at $24.80 per user, per month, and Enterprise for 5 to unlimited users.
For a full review, check out the Wrike Software Review for 2021.
Trello Project Management Tool
Trello is an online project management tool that is simple to use. It has a very low learning curve, making it ideal for small developer shops. Getting set up initially requires minimal effort and managing the project management tool is fairly easy as well.
Trello started off as a simple visual dashboard of sorts, featuring boards, cards, and lists that companies could use for task management. It has since grown and added some new features to its interface, making it a good software development management solution for small, medium, and large-sized businesses.
Benefits of Trello for developers:
- Cloud-based boards that allow for greater workflow and task visibility.
- Timeline view for an overhead view of the complete project.
- Drag and drop due-date timelines for easy deadline adjustment.
- Cross-platform support for desktops, mobile devices, and tablets.
- Developer API and third-party app integration, including e-mail integration.
Trello Project Management Pricing
Trello offers a free version with unlimited cards, users, storage, and activity logs. They also have a Business option that upgrades users to unlimited boards, several view options, and admin and security features not available in the free version. Business costs $10 per user.
For a full review, check out the Trello Software Review.
Monday.com Project Management
Monday.com is an online product development software that offers all of the traditional project management features, alongside a slew of “bonuses” for development teams and software project managers. One of the most powerful features of Monday.com is its third-party app integration, for which it has an entire marketplace dedicated to 14 categories of add-ons, including collaboration tools, customer relationship management plugins, and reporting functions.
Benefits of Monday.com for developers:
- Gantt Charts
- Kanban boards
- Bug tracking
- Backlogs and product roadmaps, including iteration planning
- Third-party tool integration including Slack and Zoom
Monday.com Project Management Pricing
All told, Monday.com has 5 levels of pricing, beginning at $0 for two “seats” and moving up to the Pro level of $16 per seat, per month. An Enterprise edition also exists.
For a full review, check out the Monday.com Project Management Software Review.
Jira Agile Project Management Software
Jira project management software from Atlassian is an ideal PM tool for agile development teams. One of the most well-known and powerful software development solutions on the market, Jira offers features that are directly related to the application development lifecycle. It has the usual offerings of task management, reporting, and file sharing, alongside some tools that will be familiar to agile developers.
Benefits of Jira project management software for developers:
- Track releases and built-in version management
- Designed for Agile development teams
- Scrum boards and sprint planning
- Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and roadmaps
- Technical documentation capabilities
Jira Project Management Pricing
Jira features a wide-range of pricing, which include levels from Free, Standard, Premium, and Enterprise.
For a full review, check out the Jira Project Management Software Review.
Zoho Projects
Like competitor Jira, Zoho Projects is a project management tool that is specifically designed for software development teams. That isn’t to say you can’t use it for other projects – such as marketing or creative purposes – you can. However, Zoho Projects shines when it comes to helping software development project managers keep their development teams on track.
Centered around Scrum development cycles, Zoho focuses on developer sprints. It has the traditional project management functions and a few others that specifically support dev teams.
Benefits of Zoho Projects for software developers:
- Sprint tracking
- Built-in CRM
- Milestone and bug tracking
- Dependency management
- Third-party integration with developer tools like Jira, GitHub, Slack, and Dropbox
- Gannt charts and dependencies for bottlenecked tasks
Zoho Projects Pricing
There are three pricing levels available for Zoho Projects users. The Free level covers up to three users. Premium covers 50 users at $5 per user, per month. Finally, Enterprise has unlimited users at $10 per user, per month.