Collaboration Tools for Project Management — Top 10 for 2024

In today’s world, with more projects being organized and completed online it’s clear that the importance of collaboration tools in project management can’t be emphasized enough.

Whether your team is remote or not, being able to share resources, updates, ideas, and everything else related to a project all in one location, undoubtedly has countless benefits.

Read on to discover 10 of the best collaboration tools for project management for improved efficiency and productivity — you’re sure to find a solution that ticks all the right boxes for you and your team.

The Best Project Management Collaboration Tools: Our Top 10 List

You don’t get any better than these 10 popular and reliable online project management and collaboration tools:

1. Monday.com — Overall the best solution for project management collaboration tools
2. ClickUp — Popular and affordable PM solution with fantastic built-in collaboration tools
3. Smartsheet — A flexible and intuitive spreadsheet-style project management and collaboration tool
4. Wrike — A feature-rich project collaboration tool for small and large-sized businesses
5. Teamwork — The best client collaboration project management solution
6. WorkOtter — A highly customizable online project management collaboration tool for larger businesses
7. Zoho — One of the best all-in-one collaboration tools for project management
8. Trello — One of the most popular project management online collaboration tools for small and mid-sized businesses
9. Miro — Best free online whiteboard collaboration platform
10. Hive — Has superb in-app collaboration features best for small business project management needs

Online Project Management and Collaboration Tools: Top 10 Reviewed

In the sections that follow, we’ll take a closer look at each of the 10 best collaboration project management tools.

From their features to the price tags that come with them, and every other important detail — you’re sure to learn all you need to know to make an informed decision on the best tool for you and your business.

1. Monday.com — Overall the Best Solution for Project Management Collaboration Tools

As one of the most renowned project management software solutions — whether you’re a small or large team or business, Monday.com is kitted with what you’d be looking for.

You get in-app tag-based messaging and updating, and built-in instant messaging capabilities — plus more to empower your team and boost collaboration on projects. Plus you have loads of other PM tools to help you and your teams manage multiple projects and tasks efficiently.

Special Features:

• Share documents, links, and files, and collaborate in real-time
• Kanban, Gantt, Calendar, and other layouts
• Automate manual work with custom workflows
• Integrate with over 40 external apps
• Live syncing and project updates
• Over 200 customizable templates
• Provide unlimited users with read-only access
• Brainstorm with shared collaborative whiteboards
• Visually track every task and projects progress

Pricing:

Monday.com has a free plan and these 4 paid options:

• Basic — $8/month — 5GB storage, unlimited boards, communication tools, Kanban view
• Standard — $10/month — 20GB storage, automation, integrations, advanced filtering, timeline, calendar, and map views
• Pro — $16/month — 100GB storage, time tracking, resource allocation, dependencies, budget management, chart, and workload view
• Enterprise — Contact the sales team — 1,000GB storage, advanced reporting, permission setting, portfolio management

There’s also the option of monthly billing, starting at $10/user/month, and on top of the free plan, there’s also a 14-day free trial.

Pros:

• Fantastic built-in collaboration tools
• Use shared whiteboards for brainstorming
• Highly customizable and intuitive

Cons:

• Advanced workflow automation is only on the higher plans

2. ClickUp — Popular and Affordable PM Solution With Fantastic Built-In Collaboration Tools

Who hasn’t heard of ClickUp? It’s by far one of the best and therefore certainly worthy of number 2 on our list for its project management and collaboration abilities.

With this tool, you can keep your teams in sync with real-time commenting and document editing, whiteboard collaboration, in-app chat (and email), tagging, commenting, and more!

Overall, you can keep all your communications organized — in fact, you can even set up dedicated chat sections for different projects or departments.

Special Features:

• Set up workflow automations
• Built-in time tracker and reports
• Create recurring tasks and notifications
• 15+ views including Kanban, Gantt, table, and mindmap
• Over 1,000 external app integrations
• Reporting to manage resources and track progress
• Custom notifications for project status changes, comments, etc.
• Assign tasks to more than 1 team member
• Share files, links, and updates

Pricing:

Besides the generous free plan, ClickUp also has these 4 paid plans for varying needs and budgets:

• Unlimited — $5/month — Unlimited storage, dashboards, custom fields, portfolio and resource management, 10 whiteboards, in-app chat, and email
• Business — $12/month — Unlimited teams, advanced automation, time tracking, workload management
• Business Plus — $19/month — Custom roles and permissions, team sharing, priority support
• Enterprise — Contact the sales team for a quote — White labeling

Pricing for monthly subscriptions starts at $9/user/month, and there’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee if you find that ClickUp isn’t for you.

Pros:

• Fantastic collaboration tools
• It’s flexible and highly customizable
• Provides built-in email and time tracking

Cons:

• There’s a slight learning curve
• Automation is only on the higher plans

3. Smartsheet — A Flexible and Intuitive Spreadsheet-Style Project Management and Collaboration Tool

Sheets, but on steroids! With Smartsheet, you get a grid view of your projects and tasks, but you can also use card, Gantt, and calendar layouts for complete flexibility.

And in terms of collaboration, you can work together with internal and external collaborators — sharing attachments, team proofing (and approvals), and more.

You can even have discussions on a specific row, card, or sheet, leave comments and set up alerts for mentions and sheet changes.

Plus, free users can view, edit, and update work that’s been shared with them, and you can easily set permissions and share sheets, reports, or dashboards with others.

Special Features:

• Create automated workflows
• Gather information with customizable forms
• Budget, portfolio, and workload management
• In-app time tracking capabilities
• Use cell and column formulas in your sheets
• Assign team members to individual tasks in your sheet
• Create and share in-depth dashboards and reports
• Use integrated alerts for Slack and Microsoft Teams

Pricing:

Smartsheet has these 3 plans:

• Pro — $7/user/month — Unlimited sheets, reports, and dashboards, all project views, automation, formulas, dependencies
• Business — $75/month for 3 users — Unlimited collaborators, document builder, proofing, custom branding
• Enterprise — Contact the sales team

You can also opt for monthly billing which starts at $9/user/month, and before committing, you can test Smartsheet for free with the 30-day trial.

Pros:

• Great content and resource management
• Lets you easily track multiple teams
• Deep integration with Slack and MS Teams

Cons:

• Conditional formatting could be improved
• The interface could be more appealing

4. Wrike — Feature-Rich Project Collaboration Tool for Small and Large-Sized Businesses

Although this tool is renowned for its project portfolio management capabilities, Wrike is worthy of a place on our list of top PM collaboration tools.

You can organize your projects, communications, and more, all in one location — plus keep everyone in the loop with real-time updates, shared team calendars, and visual project and task tracking.

And of course, you can also share files, tasks, and reports and you can collaborate with your team, contractors, and clients with live commenting, editing, and notifications.

Special Features:

• Create custom dashboards, workflows, and request forms
• Task and subtask management
• Get live updates on all project and task progress
• Kanban board, spreadsheet, and table views
• Track time and create billable reports based on time sheets
• Resource and workload management
• Manage project dependencies with Gantt charts
• Integrate with over 400 external apps

Pricing:

Wrike has a free plan plus a whopping 4 paid plans priced as follows (on a per-user basis):

• Professional — $9.80/user/month — Gantt charts, shareable dashboards, 2GB storage
• Business — $24.80/user/month — Custom fields and workflows, time tracking, resource management, approvals, workload charts, 5GB storage
• Enterprise — Contact the sales team — Permission and access controls, 10GB storage
• Pinnacle — Contact the sales team — Team performance dashboard, budget management, 15GB storage

You can test these premium features with the 14-day free trial.

Pros:

• Detailed analytics and custom reporting
• Fantastic project collaboration capabilities
• In-app time tracking and billing

Cons:

• The search function needs work
• The user interface could be improved

5. Teamwork — The Best Client Collaboration Project Management Solution

Teamwork is a favorite for those looking for a door to unlimited collaboration with clients, freelancers, and stakeholders — simply onboard them all for free!

From setting up real-time status updates and team calendars to in-app chat and video calling — collaboration couldn’t be any easier with Teamwork.

Plus, with this tool you also have the means to share files, create channels dedicated to specific projects, and turn chat messages into tasks with a click of a button!

Special Features:

• Monitor the time spent on projects
• Resource and budget management
• Automate tedious tasks for efficiency
• Access permission control
• Kanban, Gantt chart, and calendar views
• Integrate with Slack, Zapier, Xero, CRM software, and more
• Assign tasks to multiple members

Pricing:

Besides the free plan, Teamwork also has these 3 paid options for varying needs and budgets:

• Deliver — $10/month — 100GB storage, integrated team chat, billing and invoicing, templates, custom branding
• Grow — $18/month — 250GB storage, 50 project templates, more integrations
• Scale — Contact the sales team

Monthly billing, on the other hand, starts at $12.50/user/month, and there’s a lengthy 30-day trial for you to test Teamwork in all its glory for free before committing.

Pros:

• Unlimited free client users
• One of the best portfolio management tools
• Fantastic for project collaboration

Cons:

• There’s a slight learning curve
• The interface can be sluggish

6. WorkOtter — A Highly Customizable Online Project Management Collaboration Tool for Larger Businesses

WorkOtter is a highly flexible and customizable project and resource management tool that comes built-in with intuitive project collaboration tools — you can tag, follow up, share and upload unlimited documents, set up email updates, and freely share dashboards, charts, and reports.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the other game-changing PM tools on offer with WorkOtter.

Special Features:

• Build role-specific dashboards
• Plan project roadmaps
• Customizable reports and dashboards
• Resource and budget management
• Track tasks, risks, milestones, and dependencies
• Set up automated alerts and notifications
• Create custom workflow automations
• 15 chart type displays
• Control who can edit, filter, view, and build
• Create Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and more
• Time management tools

Pricing:

WorkOtter doesn’t display pricing on their website, instead, you have to request a quote so bear in mind that the pricing may be subject to change. These are the 3 plans that you have to choose from — one for contractors and consultants, teams, and managers:

• Time — $10/user/month
• Team — $20/user/month — Includes collaboration tools
• Manager — $35/user/month — Project, resource, and portfolio management, workflow automations

These prices, unfortunately, don’t include the one-time implementation fee and annual support.

Pros:

• Fantastic customer support
• Very intuitive and user-friendly
• Superb project tracking and collaboration tools

Cons:

• Doesn’t support multiple currencies and languages
• Limited mobile features

7. Zoho — One of the Best All-in-One Collaboration Tools for Project Management

Zoho Workplace is a dedicated platform built for team collaboration — allowing you to centralize all your communications, document storing, editing, and sharing, plus more.

Collaborate on files live, and communicate hassle-free with the built-in email, chat, and forum support — and it gets even better…

You can opt for the separate tools that you need, or you can go for Zoho One — the all-in-one business solution that includes customer relationship management software, Zoho’s Workspace, project management tools, and so much more!

Special Features:

• Customizable dashboards
• Set up notifications to alert team members of changes
• Built-in calendars and meetings
• Manage multiple sales pipelines
• Built-in email marketing and automation
• Customer management tools
• Project tracking and invoicing

Pricing:

Zoho Workplace starts at $3/user/month, or 1 dollar more with a monthly subscription, but we’d recommend opting for the full house, Zoho One which starts at $30/user/month — although far more costly, this does include all of Zoho’s 40+ apps.

Plus, there’s also a 30-day free trial and refund policy on offer.

Pros:

• Jam-packed with features
• Handle tasks, communications, processes, and more seamlessly
• Zoho Workspace is cheap for collaboration needs

Cons:

• There’s a higher learning curve
• Customer support can be improved
• Zoho One is expensive for smaller businesses

8. Trello — One of the Most Popular Project Management Online Collaboration Tools for Small and Mid-Sized Businesses

Our list of the very best simply wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t include the much-loved Trello.

With the visual project and task tracking and the in-app collaboration capabilities, Trello is certainly an efficient and affordable solution for varying needs.

Have your team know the status of projects and tasks at a glance, use and create templates and reusable checklists for efficiency, and communicate and collaborate directly on cards, plus get alerts on new mentions and comments.

Keeping your teams and their progress organized, doesn’t get much easier than with Trello.

Special Features:

• Assign members and set due dates with reminders
• Attach files and re-usable checklists to individual cards
• Automate your workflow for efficiency
• Manage permission settings
• Use custom fields and backgrounds
• Dashboard, timeline, table, calendar, and map views

Pricing:

Trello has a popular free plan, plus these 3 scalable paid plans:

• Standard — $5/month — Unlimited boards, advanced checklists, custom fields, automation
• Premium — $10/month — Project layout views, priority support
• Enterprise — $17.50/month — Access and attachment permissions, unlimited workspaces

Monthly subscriptions start at $6/user/month and there’s a 14-day free trial and a 30-day refund policy in place.

Pros:

• Fantastic project collaboration tool
• Affordable, feature-rich starter plan
• Extensive automation capabilities

Cons:

• It’s more ideal for smaller businesses
• To track subtasks you need to expand cards

9. Miro — Best Free Online Whiteboard Collaboration Platform

With Miro, you can get your team and stakeholders involved in organizing, strategizing, brainstorming, and visualizing the progress of your projects, and as one of the best online whiteboard solutions, you and your team can use sticky notes, images, mindmaps, drawings, and more to express and bring your creative ideas to life.

Miro is also one of the best visual product roadmap tools, and it’s incredibly valuable for businesses looking to give meeting presentations.

Special Features:

• Visualize projects with diagramming
• Build a shared team space for collaboration
• Plan with a shared calendar
• In-app video meetings and screen sharing
• Get a headstart with pre-built templates
• Embed documents, spreadsheets, images, and more to your board
• Integrate with over 100 external apps

Pricing:

Miro has a free plan, plus these paid options for businesses that need more functionality:

• Team — $8/user/month — Unlimited boards and visitors, projects, custom templates
• Business — $16/user/month — Unlimited external guests, smart diagramming, and meetings
• Enterprise — Contact the sales team

Overall, Miro offers fantastic flexibility that allows you to strategize and get your teams in sync — and it can be as simple or as intricate as you need it to be.

If you opt for monthly billing, you’re looking at $10/user/month and up.

Pros:

• Great for group calls
• Flexible external board sharing
• Fantastic for getting your teams aligned

Cons:

• The interface can feel a bit clumsy
• Editing sticky notes could be easier

10. Hive — Has Superb In-App Collaboration Features Best for Small Business Project Management Needs

A hive for all your storing, communicating, and project management needs — a place where your entire team can manage their daily tasks, and communicate in real-time with in-app email and messenger.

It doesn’t end there either, you can also collaborate with clients and contractors and use real-time editing, meetings, and more to boost efficiency without ever needing to leave Hive.

Special Features:

• Gantt, Kanban, calendar, table, and portfolio project views
• Add comments, sub-tasks, and attachments to cards
• Manage and automate the approval process
• Integrate with over 1,000+ apps
• Track time and create timesheets
• Access in-depth analytics and reports
• Project and workload management

Pricing:

The free plan is best for individuals, so for more, you’d want to opt for one of these options:

• Teams — $12/month — Time tracking, in-app calendar, shareable forms, Slack in Hive, Zoom from Hive
• Enterprise — Contact the sales team — Custom analytics and reporting

Monthly subscriptions start at $16/user/month on the Teams plan, and there’s a 14-day free trial and a refund guarantee if you’re dissatisfied with your choice.

Pros:

• The interface is incredibly user-friendly
• Collaborating couldn’t be easier
• Ideal for visual task and project management

Cons:

• Lacks automation
• There are limited plan options
• It can be a bit sluggish

Best Collaboration Project Management Tools: Table Comparison

Sometimes, making a decision is easier when you can have all the crucial details at a glance to compare each platform — so we’ve done just that:

What is a Collaboration Tool for Project Management?

Completing projects on time and on budget generally requires loads of collaboration to ensure that the project proceeds through its life cycle with minimal hiccups.

The best collaboration tools for project management include features like in-app communication tools and real-time live updates so that your entire team can be on the same page at all times.

These online project management and collaboration tools help businesses of all sizes keep everyone involved and up-to-date with project developments, and they allow for efficient cooperation between team members to help them deliver their best work.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the key benefits of this kind of PM software.

Why Do I Need Collaboration Project Management Tools?

Regardless of the size of your business or team, having project management software that’s been built with collaboration in mind will have a tremendous impact on the efficiency of your teams and your project management efforts as a whole.

Let’s explore reasons for project management collaboration tools to help you discover some of the key benefits of this software.

Centralizing Your Projects

One of the most notable benefits of these tools is that you’re able to keep everything related to your projects all in one location for you and your teams to access with ease.

Furthermore, the best PM solutions come with powerful tagging and filtering to allow you and your teams to access what you need when you need it — meaning less confusion and more organization and collaboration! It’s a win, win, win — but there’s so much more to look forward to…

Collaboration

Of course, one of the key benefits of project management software is the built-in collaboration tools that they provide you and your teams with.

From live commenting and editing to being able to attach files and having everything stored neatly in one online location for easy storing and retrieving has loads of benefits to improve efficiency, collaboration on projects and documents, and more.

Some also come with built-in chat and email support or there’s the option to integrate with popular external apps such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc.

Increased Efficiency

Besides having your entire team kept in the loop with real-time project status updates — these platforms also come with powerful automation capabilities that allow you to further boost your team’s flow of work.

With customizable workflow automations, you can set up things like automatic reminders, moving items on your board based on changes, sending alerts to assigned members so that they can crack on with their work, and more.

Imagine how much time you and your team can save when you can easily automate all the tedious tasks and instead focus on more important work!

The Best Project Information Management Collaboration Tools Free of Charge

Sometimes the best things in life are free, and depending on your needs, this may be true with project management collaboration tools — but this often isn’t the case, especially for businesses.

However, the below options may be suitable for individuals and startups:

As you can see in the above table, there’s no doubt that free project management collaboration tools come with immense limitations in terms of features, user count, storage, and more.

Paid versions are 100% worth the investment for anyone looking for the full functionality on offer with these solutions.

If you do opt for free project management software, be sure to take into account your growing needs and how much the platform will cost when you need to increase your limits or access additional features.

How to Choose the Best PM Collaboration Software for Ultimate Efficiency

Decisions like these are never easy, so to help you bear all important factors in mind before making your choice, we’ve outlined some of the key considerations below:

Ease of Use

Needing to learn cloud-based project management and collaboration tools can seem daunting, and it’s true that every software solution comes with varying learning curves and some are undoubtedly easier to get accustomed to than others.

Overall, though, all of the platforms mentioned above are fairly straightforward to use and they offer quality customer support and resources to help you on your feet if you do run into any problems getting you and your team set up.

And popular platforms like Monday.com and ClickUp certainly take ease of use to the next level — even if you’re the least tech-savvy person on earth.

Integrations

All of the best project management tools come with built-in functionality as well as support for external apps to allow you to connect with software that your business already uses — whether that’s client management software, messenger apps, or anything else.

This is important to bear in mind when making your decision as each platform has varying integration support, with some offering far more options than others.

Pricing

The best PM software solutions come at a price — and these costs can be a determining factor for you especially if you’re a small business owner.

So here are some things that you’ll want to keep in mind:

• Consider how many users you need now, and take your business’ future needs into consideration too
• Note what features are important to you to ensure that the plan you choose comes with this built-in functionality
• Be sure to test a platform if it has a free plan or trial, and keep in mind any refund policies or money-back guarantees

Thankfully, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll run into much, or in fact, any issues with one of the above platforms as they’re all highly popular and reliable project management solutions.

External Collaboration

Each project management solution comes with varying support for onboarding external viewers or guests — of course, this may vary in importance depending on your particular needs but it is nevertheless an important consideration to keep in mind.

Platforms like Teamwork allow an unlimited number of free client users, making it ideal for collaborating with freelancers, contractors, stakeholders, and more.

On a final note, in terms of external collaboration, visual display options (such as Kanban board software, Gantt charts, etc.) may also prove crucial for your business when communicating project developments to stakeholders.

Thankfully, all of the above tools offer various options to display your information to help you achieve just that — but some may not have the view that works best for you and your team.

Features

These are some of the other features you’d be looking for in the best project management tool for collaboration and improved productivity:

• In-app chat or email tools
• Live commenting or editing
• Time tracking
• Workflow automations
• In-depth reporting and analytics
• Loads of integration support
• Permission control settings
• Recurring tasks

Of course, the features that are important to you will depend on your specific needs, but these are some of the nice-to-haves in most instances.

At the end of the day, there’s no doubt that a decision like this can’t be taken on a hinge so these factors are important to consider when weighing up your options.

Conclusion: What is the Best Collaborative Tool for Project Management?

Monday.com is recommended by most, including us — it’s incredibly easy to use, has powerful built-in collaboration and automation capabilities, and so much more at an unbeatable price.

Whether you’re a startup, small, or large business owner, Monday.com is a quality project management collaboration tool worth every penny.

The competition is tough though because of course, our list is composed of the very best — and popular platforms like ClickUp and Smartsheet are also worthy of considering.

At the end of the day, you certainly can’t go wrong with any of the above platforms — they’re the best project management collaboration tools on the market, it just comes down to which of them suits your particular needs and budget best.

FAQs