10 Best Cloud-Based Project Management Software Platforms of 2024

Today’s range of cloud project management software solutions allows organizations of all sizes to leverage enterprise-grade project management features, including streamlined project workflows, enhanced collaboration tools, real-time project data access from anywhere, and generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. We evaluated the top products on the market to see how they compared pricing, features, integrations, and customer support—here are our picks for the top cloud project management solutions for 2024.

• Asana: Best for Support, Collaboration, and Reporting
• Jira: Best for Software Teams and Customizable Dashboards
• monday.com: Best for Pre-Made Templates and Customizability
• Smartsheet: Best for Industry-Specific Applications
• TeamGantt: Best for Visualizing Workloads and Team Availability
• YouTrack: Best for Extensive Customization and Collaborative Tools
• Zoho Projects: Best for Time-Tracking and Resource Management
• Wrike: Best for AI-Powered Automation
• Basecamp: Best for Simple, Innovative Features
• Trello: Best for Visual Kanban Collaboration

Top Cloud Project Management Software Comparison

At a glance, here’s how the top cloud project management software solutions stack up in terms of their key features, benefits, and pricing:

Asana

Best for Support, Collaboration, and Reporting

Overall Rating: 4/5

• Core Features: 4/5
• Additional Features: 4/5
• Integrations: 5/5
• Support: 4/5
• Vendor Profile: 3/5
• Product Design: 5/5

As a “born-in-the-cloud” offering, Asana was one of the first to break the mold of traditional desktop project management software applications like Microsoft Project. To this day, the leading cloud-based project management platform is a favorite among large and small teams alike.

Asana may be focused on delivering an intuitive, user-friendly mobile/cloud-first interface, but under its hood is a powerful and comprehensive feature set for effectively managing tasks, projects, and collaborations that rival most desktop-only project management solutions. Recently, Asana has developed tighter third-party integrations with leading CRMs like Salesforce and Hubspot—and even competing project management tools like Jira.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• $24.99 per user, per month
• Free tier available

Features

• Lets users view tasks individually and within overarching project schedules
• Comes with a wide range of pre-built project templates
• Integrates with other office and business productivity tools/platforms like Google Workspace, Slack, and Salesforce

Product Design

Asana’s reporting dashboard allows users to track project performance and offers a big-picture view of organizational KPIs. Customizable widgets let users add different kinds of charts to visualize existing project data, and the KPI business dashboard displays key performance metrics in table and graph formats.

Product Development

Asana’s latest improvements used AI to make project management dashboards more efficient. Asana Intelligence is powered by Work Graph Technology, which enhances Asana’s project managers’ efficiency and collaboration by using comprehensive dashboards. These dashboards allow users to have real-time updates, task dependencies, and resource allocation insights.

Why We Picked It

Asana’s product development is based on its user-centric design and data-driven insights. The dashboard’s design focuses on user experience, making it easier to navigate for any kind of projects and portfolio management. Asana stands out because of its combined efficiency, collaboration, and innovation, making the project management process faster and easier.

Jira

Best for Software Teams and Customizable Dashboards

Overall Rating: 4/5

• Core Features: 4/5
• Additional Features: 4/5
• Integrations: 5/5
• Support: 4/5
• Vendor Profile: 5/5
• Product Design: 5/5

Like Trello and YouTrack, Jira is primarily geared toward software project management. However, the leading project management platform has also gained a following outside of software circles. The solution features a customizable workflow, a multi-faceted issue-tracking system, and other features that help to streamline the management of complex projects.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• $8.15 per user, per month
• Free tier available

Features

• Integrates seamlessly with popular code versioning tools like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket
• Support for Agile software development and modern software engineering practices like Scrum and Kanban is fully available
• Backlog grooming/management, sprint planning, and release tracking are available on top of standard task and project tracking features

Product Design

Jira’s dashboard is extensively customizable, as it comes with various tools that track many elements of agile methods within the dashboard. It has widgets for sprint health, burndown charts, and high-priority issues and provides a complete overview of project status and progress.

Product Development

The merging of Jira Software and Jira Work Management into a single platform streamlines project management for all teams by improving workflows and communication. Notable improvements include goal-tracking tools that let teams view task alignment with higher-level objectives, as well as AI-powered shortcuts that ease frequent pain spots and recommend work breaks.

Why We Picked It

Jira’s deep connections with Confluence and Loom enable greater knowledge sharing and cross-functional connectivity, resulting in enhanced collaboration and efficiency. Companies such as Roblox have experienced considerable cost savings after merging numerous technologies into Jira, while new accessibility features use Atlassian Intelligence to automate activities and increase information clarity.

monday.com

Best for Pre-Made Templates and Customizability

Overall Rating: 4/5

• Core Features: 5/5
• Additional Features: 3/5
• Integrations: 3/5
• Support: 4/5
• Vendor Profile: 2/5
• Product Design: 5/5

monday is another born-in-the-cloud project management solution geared for enterprise and corporate users, with both Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) modes and a local/on-premises Windows/macOS version. The solution offers a visually appealing UI, intelligently designed dashboards, unified workflows, and collaborative spaces for planning, executing, and tracking projects.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• $9 per user, per month
• Free tier available

Features

• UI allows for customizations and unique workflows/project timelines/progress indicators
• Automation capabilities streamline common and repetitive tasks
• Ample pre-built, ready-to-use project management assets
• Over 200 ready-made templates, no-code automation snippets, integration connectors

Product Design

monday.com’s dashboard allows users to visualize project data and communicate with dashboard team members on specific task items, media, and documents. Each dashboard widget and viewing setting are customizable, letting users save their preferred default view settings. It also comes with insights and workload management to monitor team workload and identify task progress. These are presented using tailored charts to make it easier for a project manager to identify areas that need priority.

Product Development

monday.com continues to grow and innovate to provide the best project management for different industries. It has gained the trust of more than 100,000 businesses worldwide, and its continuous product innovation allowed it to launch specialized dashboards for sales, web dev, project management, and work management. monday has leveraged AI and established its data infrastructure, called mondayDB, to offer faster and more secure data management.

Why We Picked It

monday.com is a highly customizable dashboard that adapts team members’ specific workflows by providing Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and calendar views. Its detailed reporting allows project managers to monitor progress, identify bottlenecks, and make better-informed decisions as projects progress. The company has been continuously innovating and expanding the application marketplace to cater to specific requirements for each organization.

Smartsheet

Best for Industry-Specific Applications

Overall Rating: 4/5

• Core Features: 5/5
• Additional Features: 4/5
• Integrations: 5/5
• Support: 4/5
• Vendor Profile: 3/5
• Product Design: 5/5

Smartsheet is flexible, highly configurable project management software as a service (SaaS) for business users who need access via multiple devices. The solution provides task management and content collaboration tools, as well as spreadsheets and dashboards for bolstering office productivity.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• $9 per user, per month
• Free trial available

Features

• Includes specialized applications for different industries (e.g., retail barcode scanning feature to quickly track items and automatically input them into a spreadsheet)
• Integrates with popular applications for streamlining project management workflows

Product Design

Smartsheet dashboard’s customizable widgets let you add reports, tasks, and project and campaign overviews. You can also add media and web content to the dashboard to give a better view of existing projects. Using a heatmap to identify task status, project managers have a clear overview of the overall status of the entire project.

Product Development

Smartsheet recently released a range of AI features to transform data management by making formula generation easier and letting users articulate their notions in straightforward terms. These AI-powered tools also support text production and analysis to help you write convincing ad content, extract insights, and even translate other languages. The most recent product version also includes a selection of prebuilt dashboard themes that let you construct customized dashboards consistent with your own design. Smartsheet has also expanded its workload tracking tools, including a workload heatmap and timetable.

Why We Picked It

Smartsheet effortlessly incorporates extensive project management capabilities and sophisticated communication tools, allowing teams to improve processes, remove unnecessary chores, and increase overall productivity. This platform is intended to create a more efficient and unified work environment, making it an essential tool for teams seeking peak performance and successful outcomes. Whether managing major projects or organizing basic chores, Smartsheet gives you the flexibility and control you need to handle the challenges of the modern workplace successfully.

TeamGantt

Best for Visualizing Workloads and Team Availability

Overall Rating: 4/5

• Core Features: 5/5
• Additional Features: 3/5
• Integrations: 3/5
• Support: 4/5
• Vendor Profile: 3/5
• Product Design: 5/5

TeamGantt is an easy-to-use project management tool that, like Wrike, centers around the Gantt chart model. The solution has a low learning curve and is ideal for small to medium-sized teams. Organizations can utilize this project management software to continuously monitor existing projects, manage portfolios, and identify specific tasks through a work breakdown structure.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• $49 per month, per manager
• User-level access is free

Features

• Allows simple Gantt charting with a minimal learning curve
• Extensive tutorials make getting up to speed easy
• Provides visibility for workloads and team availability

Product Design

TeamGantt offers a chart-centric design that lets users plan tasks, manage workloads, and visualize work in a variety of formats. This also includes Gantt, lists, and a calendar view of assigned tasks and project status. In addition, the TeamGantt dashboard has resource management tools that help balance workloads among team members.

Product Development

TeamGantt has redesigned its platform to make collaboration easier and more efficient. Now, all plans contain the Teams feature, which improves team collaboration; however, some plans may require an upgrade for full access. They’ve also updated the Gantt view by addressing issues such as overlapping columns and drag control to make project monitoring easier. Its built-in collaboration features have been improved, making it easier for teams to interact and handle projects collectively. These enhancements demonstrate TeamGantt’s dedication to making project management simpler for everyone.

Why We Picked It

TeamGantt provides user-friendly interface, continuous refinement, and adaptable pricing. It simplifies collaboration and task management, accommodates diverse methodologies, and offers affordable pricing for small businesses. The interactive Gantt chart feature provides a dynamic, visual approach to project timeline management.

YouTrack

Best for Extensive Customization and Collaborative Tools

Overall Rating: 4/5

• Core Features: 4/5
• Additional Features: 4/5
• Integrations: 4/5
• Support: 3/5
• Vendor Profile: 5/5
• Product Design: 5/5

Czech software vendor JetBrains is perhaps best known for its software development integrated development environment (IDE), IntelliJ, and the Java-compatible Kotlin programming language. The company also develops YouTrack, a universal project management system used by over 85,000 teams across the world.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• $4.40 per user, per month
• Free tier available

Features

• Easy-to-use task manager
• Strong permissions management and agile workflow tools

Product Design

YouTrack dashboards are customizable, letting you display collections of reports and other helpful information on a single page. Team members can create endless dashboards for personal, team, and client requirements and share them with other YouTrack members or publish them publicly, for anyone with the access link to view.

Product Development

YouTrack recently updated its help desk to make it easier to submit, edit, restrict, and recover tickets. The system automatically documents the history of ticket edits and changes, providing a clear audit trail. The recent innovation includes 100 percent local, AI-powered, full-line code completion that lets you code faster and ensures the semantic correctness of the generated code. It performs multiple checks before it shows code suggestions. These enhancements reinforce YouTrack as a comprehensive project management system that gained the trust of thousands of users worldwide.

Why We Picked It

YouTrack is best for its agile project management, which offers highly customizable workflows and issues a tracking system that you can tailor according to different project management styles for every organization. It offers seamless integration with various popular integrated development environments that makes it easier for developers to use.

Zoho Projects

Best for Time-Tracking and Resource Management

Overall Rating: 4/5

• Core Features: 5/5
• Additional Features: 2/5
• Integrations: 4/5
• Support: 4/5
• Vendor Profile: 5/5
• Product Design: 5/5

Zoho has long been regarded as an affordable, enterprise-focused alternative to many of Microsoft’s Office tools. These days, Zoho Projects offers a full-featured cloud project management platform ideal for small and medium sized organizations.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• $5 per user, per month
• Free tier available

Features

• Offers built-in time-tracking and resource management reports
• Tracks and alerts on project budgets
• Project templates and workflows are customizable

Product Design

Zoho Projects dashboard displays important progress indicators, graphs, statistics, and key performance metrics. It has repositionable widgets and customizable chart styles that provide an overview of work items and project progress.

Product Development

Zoho has used various improvements to improve productivity and user-centric design. The whiteboard functionality enables teams to brainstorm and discuss quickly, removing the need for mouse dragging. The Workload Report gives a full snapshot of team capacity, allowing for more effective job distribution. Zoho’s interface has been upgraded to include enhanced navigation and 20 new project templates. Its mobile app update is designed to be as efficient as the desktop interface, letting you manage projects while on the go.

Why We Picked It

Zoho is not just a cloud project management platform; it also offers a customer relationship management (CRM) tool suitable for sales, marketing, and customer support. The platform’s powerful analytics provide important insights into customer behavior and campaign performance that enable more informed decision-making. Zoho’s seamless connectivity with various business software allows organizations to build a cohesive ecosystem that enhances efficiency and productivity while providing excellent customer service.

Wrike

Best for AI-Powered Automation

Overall Rating: 3.7/5

• Core Features: 5/5
• Additional Features: 3/5
• Integrations: 3/5
• Support: 3/5
• Vendor Profile: 3/5
• Product Design: 5/5

As a project management tool, Wrike is most well-known for its strong Gantt chart creation features and options. The veteran project management player has managed to stack up an impressive list of industry awards and citations over the years for its user-friendly interface, real-time collaboration tools, automation capabilities, and features for helping manage complex projects more efficiently.

Recent Wrike updates include a refresh of its dashboards and user interface (UI), including a new look and feel for widgets and new automation and generative AI capabilities.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• $10.00 per user, per month
• Free tier available

Features

• Includes interactive project timelines for easily visualizing timelines and dependencies
• AI-powered features like project risk predictions/recommendations save time by automating tasks
• Integrates with popular tools like Salesforce and Adobe Creative Cloud

Product Design

Wrike’s project management dashboard provides next-generation analytics that allow users to build custom views for individual, team, or executive use cases. The next-gen feature allows users to pivot tables for quick data summarization and activity stream widgets for collaboration insights. Personalized dashboards can be customized to reflect business objectives. It has clean and data-rich dashboards that offer a detailed overview of project data and the progress of the team.

Product Development

Wrike’s latest innovation, Work Intelligence, a cutting-edge AI-powered application, was selected “Best Team Collaboration Software” by MarTech Breakthrough. The system includes such capabilities as job prioritization, risk assessment, and workflow optimization to promote a smarter, more intuitive work environment. It also offers document digitalization, a digital assistant, and real-time campaign performance reporting.

Why We Picked It

With over 400 third-party applications, Wrike’s interface enables end-to-end campaigns, creative projects, and event management, establishing new standards for team collaboration, efficiency, and success in the digital era. Its AI-driven features and customizable solutions allow streamlined workflows and improved collaboration among its customers and partners.

Basecamp

Best for Simple, Innovative Features

Overall Rating: 3/5

• Core Features: 5/5
• Additional Features: 2/5
• Integrations: 3/5
• Support: 3/5
• Vendor Profile: 4/5
• Product Design: 5/5

Chicago-based 37signals first released Basecamp back in 2004 with the intent of bringing project management to the web. Today, the platform continues to lead in the cloud project management space—currently, at version 4, Basecamp continues its reputation for clean and sensible interfaces, as well as plentiful and easy-to-use integrations.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• $15 per user, per month
• Free trial available

Features

• Straightforward, minimalist UI is designed for simplicity
• A range of premium features include task, project, milestone, and timesheet management

Product Design

Basecamp offers a straightforward one-page dashboard for projects, tasks, and schedules. Features include messages for conversations, to-do lists for managing tasks, and a “Campfire” for real-time group chat. Basecamp provides a unique approach to Kanban and Hill Charts to give teams a more intuitive and comprehensive way to track and communicate project progress.

Product Development

Basecamp recently introduced new and unique tools that improve project management and communication for its users. The newly designed homepage lets you prioritize teams and projects, while filterable list views and keyboard shortcuts make navigating through the page a lot easier. The new card table tool and lineup give you visual timelines, while enhanced people management lets you distinguish participants and observers in the dashboard. Figma, Airtable, Zoho, Adobe, Notion, and other apps have been added to give more options for cloud file support.

Why We Picked It

Basecamp’s unique approach to project management collaboration allows its users to message within the dashboard and offers a simple scheduling system, collaborative writing, and file sharing. It is suitable for small businesses looking for simple-to-use cloud project management software that needs an all-in-one platform for both communication and project management.

Trello

Best for Visual Kanban Collaboration

Overall Rating: 3/5

• Core Features: 3/5
• Additional Features: 1/5
• Integrations: 4/5
• Support: 3/5
• Vendor Profile: 3/5
• Product Design: 5/5

For years, Trello’s no-nonsense, effective Kanban solution has been the project management tool of choice for teams looking to ramp up quickly with minimal user training. The tool’s visually minimalistic system of boards, lists, and cards for organizing tasks and projects makes it easy to get up to production speed.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

• $5 per user, per month
• Free trial available

Features

• Card covers can be customized to spruce up UI
• Advanced checklists allow for more granular task tracking
• Automation via Butler, Trello’s AI help bot

Product Design

Trello’s dashboard is known for its dashboard view, which lets you visualize and communicate your teams’ work statuses with reporting tools. It provides customizable charts and lets you create reports on particular data such as due dates, card assignments, and cards per label.

Product Development

Trello’s boards, lists, and cards form a digital canvas, allowing team members to collaborate, exchange ideas, and move projects ahead in real time. Its latest update, Butler, is an AI bot you can use to construct custom workflows, automate tasks, and optimize repetitive processes, increasing its versatility and intelligence. Trello’s power-ups turn boards into customized processes like CRM solutions, support ticketing systems, and social media calendars.

Why We Picked It

Trello is a strong tool for visual thinkers and organizers that provides a clear and manageable workflow and provides non-subscription users with free boards and cards to use. Its card-based ecology allows for a comprehensive perspective of projects and activities, encouraging innovation and strategic thinking. Trello’s interface is straightforward, providing a bird’s-eye view that elevates project management to better user experience.

Key Features of Cloud Project Management Software

Project managers have myriad options for cloud project management at their disposal these days with competent offerings that address any number of unique requirements, use cases, and environments. In general, cloud project management software should allow for project creation, planning, management, and reporting, with tools that support the following activities and processes.

Collaboration

Collaboration features include tools that facilitate communication and the sharing of project information among team members.

Task Management

Task management features include tools and functionality for creating task lists and controls for project/item tracking.

Time Tracking

Time tracking tooling includes utilities for tracking time allocated/in-use/expended for items and tasks and overall projects.

Scheduling

Scheduling features encompass functionality for assigning due dates, creating forecasts and projections, and managing project deliverables

Scalability and Localization

Scalability and localization features include built-in support for distributed/international teams and locations.

To select the best product management software for your organization, determine which key features mean the most for your teams: flexibility, scalability, and accessibility, as well as specific features that facilitate project collaboration, planning, and execution. For example, software teams may benefit more from a solution like Jira, while creative/design teams may prefer a solution like Basecamp.

How We Evaluated Cloud Project Management Software

To evaluate the top cloud project management solutions, we scored them on a weighted scale of zero to five on how well they met the criteria outlined below and then ranked them based on their aggregated scores.

Core Features | 20 percent

These include essential project management tools like scheduling, task creation/management, and project tracking, to name a few.

Pricing | 20 percent

These include options to leverage cloud project management software via different pricing structures beyond the typical consumption models.

Support | 15 percent

This includes available documentation, vendor-provided support options, self-support, and more.

Integrations | 15 percent

These include connectors and hooks into third-party applications (existing or new) like CRM platforms, finance applications, file-sharing tools, and more.

Product Design | 10 percent

This category shows how dashboards are designed and is graded according to their ease of navigation and overall user experience, design consistency, relevance of metrics, effectiveness in report delivery, and ability to be shared among team members and public viewers.

Vendor Profile | 10 percent

This category represents the track record, reputation, and longevity of the vendor.

Additional Features | 10 percent

These include features and functionality that enhance and supercharge the tool’s core features, such as artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) and social networking.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What Are Cloud Project Management Tools?

Cloud project management tools are online platforms that facilitate planning, collaboration, and organization of tasks, resources, and timelines for projects, enabling teams to work efficiently and access project information from anywhere with internet connectivity.

How Do They Differ from Traditional Project Management Tools?

Cloud project management tools are web-based platforms accessed via the internet, providing real-time collaboration and data storage, whereas traditional project management tools are locally installed software, limiting accessibility and necessitating manual updates for collaboration.

What Key Features Should I Look for in a Cloud Project Management Tool?

When selecting a cloud project management tool, it’s crucial to prioritize features such as a user-friendly interface, robust collaboration tools, task tracking, customizable dashboards, and seamless integration capabilities for optimal project planning and execution.

Can These Tools Integrate with Other Software Commonly Used in Project Management?

A highly effective cloud project management tool should possess strong integration capabilities with third-party software, streamlining workflows by seamlessly connecting with tools like communication platforms, document management systems, and other essential applications.

How Much Should I Expect to Pay for Cloud Project Management Tools?

The cost of cloud project management tools varies widely, ranging from free or entry-level plans with basic features to premium subscriptions that can cost anywhere from a few dollars to several hundred dollars per user per month, depending on the platform and the level of functionality required.

Bottom Line

Cloud project management software has come a long way already, and the market can expect to see accelerated innovation in the space over the coming months—especially in the domain of project analytics and data-driven optimization. And of course, AI/ML features and enhancements will continue to automate manual processes, enhance project managers’ decision-making capabilities, and improve overall project performance and delivery. All of the tools included in this product guide are feature-rich, powerful solutions; selection will come down to your organization’s specific needs.

Cloud project management solutions are just one tool in an organization’s data management toolbox. Learn more about why data management is so important to enterprise organizations, or find out what experts say are the best practices for implementing it.

This article was updated in May 2024 by Datamation Staff Writer Kaye Timonera.