The best free project management software in 2026

Everyone has a different way of managing projects. Some people like to use their inbox to keep track of tasks. Others prefer to visualize work on a Kanban board or in a calendar view, while some even prefer the old pen and paper system.

That's fine on an individual level, but when you collaborate on projects as a team, you need a flexible and capable project management tool that works for everyone. And with so many teams working remotely, there's an even more pressing need for a task management app that can help you track projects, collaborate, and keep everyone in the loop.

As a freelance writer, I've worked inside tons of different project management setups across my clients—I've seen how each app approaches the standard features, the potential of great, streamlined collaboration, and the consequences of poor project management. The good news: free project management software can give you the flexibility you need to manage tasks, communicate with stakeholders, and maintain project visibility, without paying a cent.

I've been updating this list for several years. This year, I considered more than 70 free project management tools, and after extensive testing, I've settled on my top seven picks.

The best free project management tools

• Trello for visually managing projects

• Asana for teams

• ClickUp for customized task views

• Wrike for spreadsheet-like features

• Airtable for building a customized project management app

• Jira for developers

• Zapier for AI orchestration and automation

What makes the best free project management tool?

To narrow down the list of the best free project management online tools, I looked for apps that met the following criteria:

• Free for unlimited projects. All the project tracking software I chose lets you manage an unlimited number of projects for free.

• Hosted. There are a lot of great, free, self-hosted project management applications, but they take longer to set up and manage. I was looking at task management software that's hosted by the companies that provide the tools. If you're interested in free, self-hosted project management software, I'd recommend checking out Taiga, Lavagna, and Redmine.

• Collaboration and sharing features. The free project management apps included here make it quick and easy to add team members to your project management setup and control user types and permissions.

• Flexibility. The best project managers are flexible enough to handle multiple teams, project types, and organization styles, so I looked for apps that support a number of different views and project management methodologies.

• Scalability. You're looking for a free tool now, but as you grow, you want a tool that can scale with you. I looked for relatively affordable upgrades and only recommended apps whose features scale with your team.

• Integrations. A great project tracker should fit seamlessly into the rest of your stack, so I've only included apps that integrate with other popular software like email and Slack, calendars, and document storage.

After filtering for those criteria, I ran each remaining contender through a similar testing protocol that included:

• Going through the signup process and any onboarding provided

• Creating a new project and choosing a primary methodology (Kanban, Scrum, Gantt, etc.) or view (list, table, calendar, etc.) for it

• Creating a number of new tasks and adding various details, like due dates, links and attachments, and user assignments

• Toggling between view options and testing out any additional methodologies offered

• Inviting new users and setting permissions

• Toggling between team-wide and individual views

• Testing out any unique features like time tracking, client views, or AI

After running each app through that workflow, I landed on the top seven free online project manager tools you see below.

The best free project management software at a glance

Best free project management software for visually managing projects

Trello (Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android)

Trello pros:

• Super customizable boards with unlimited Power-Ups

• Most visual interface of any of the apps I tested

• Tons of templates to get you started

Trello cons:

• Free users are limited to Kanban

• User/team management features require an upgrade

Trello is simple project management software that gives you a way to organize your projects with Kanban boards. And with a generous free plan that allows for 10 boards per workspace and unlimited cards and users, it's a tool that anyone can use. Freelancers can use Trello to plan their assignments on a personal board, and teams can use Trello to build a complete project workflow with visibility at every stage.

Start by creating a new board from scratch or choosing a template from dozens of options across marketing, sales, design, team management, and beyond. Add a handful of lists for your tasks (each list is a column), and customize those lists with the steps in your workflow (e.g., to-do, doing, and done) or as separate parts of your project (e.g., development, design, and distribution). Next, add your tasks as visual cards in each column—with labels, due dates, members, checklists, images, attachments, and comments to keep everything in one place.

As you start completing tasks, simply drag the cards to the appropriate list. You can keep track of all comments and tasks that mention you—or that you're watching—from the activity menu.

The newly released Inbox feature lets you dump to-dos—directly or via email, Slack, Teams, etc.—before scheduling or adding them to a particular project board. Just click on the Inbox tab along the bottom to pull up the list along the left-hand side. From there, you can drag and drop tasks onto any board (or vice versa).

For more features, Trello's Power-Up options (unlimited even on the free plan) let you view tasks on a calendar, add voting options on tasks, fade away old tasks automatically, and much more. And you can make Trello boards for everything—personal and work tasks alike—to get your work done in a way that best fits your needs.

For even more flexibility, use Trello's Zapier integrations to connect Trello with your favorite apps, like Gmail and Slack. Learn more about popular ways to automate Trello, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Trello price: The free plan includes unlimited cards and members, 10 boards per workspace, unlimited Power-Ups, and 250 automated commands/month; upgrade for $5/user/month (billed annually) to the Standard plan that includes unlimited boards, custom fields, advanced checklists, up to 1,000 automated commands/month, and more.

Best free project management software for teams

Asana (Web, iOS, Android)

Asana pros:

• Flexible with project management methodologies between projects and users

• Great, focused My Tasks view

• To-do list style made better with team features

Asana cons:

• Expensive upgrade

Your to-do list isn't bad—you just need a few more features to manage your team projects. Asana offers just that. It's a project management tool that lets you break projects down into sections and sub-lists, along with dashboards to see how much of the project has been completed already. You'll add, rearrange, and complete tasks the same way you would in a to-do list app, but with the collaboration and organization features you need to work as a team.

For your personal tasks—or the things at work that don't fit into a precise project—you can make extra lists in Asana that are only shared with specific people. Your own assigned tasks will also show up in your My Tasks view for a quick way to see the things you need to take care of.

Whether you're working solo or with a team, you can automate Asana with Asana's Zapier integrations, letting you connect project information to other apps. Try one of the workflows below, or get inspiration from these popular Asana automations.

Asana price: The free Personal plan includes unlimited projects, tasks, and storage; 2 users; and list, board, and calendar views. Upgrade for $10.99/user/month (billed annually) to the Starter plan that adds Gantt and timeline views, extensive reports, and Asana AI.

Best free project management software for customized task views

ClickUp (Web, iOS, Android)

ClickUp pros:

• 13 different task views to choose from

• Generous free plan

ClickUp cons:

• More involved setup process

Most project management apps let you choose from only a handful of task views, like a list, calendar, or Kanban view. Additional views, especially Gantt charts, are usually a premium feature. ClickUp is different.

It's a simple and free project management app that lets you choose from 13 different views, including Gantt charts, along with Chat (which displays conversations alongside your tasks), Docs (which lets you create docs, wikis, and knowledge bases), and Embed (to add apps and websites next to your tasks).

Note: ClickUp has been reining in its free plan, and some of these views are limited on the free plan now. Overall, the plan is still more generous than most, but I'm keeping an eye on these changes.

ClickUp's dashboards are just as customizable, letting you choose from tons of different widgets, so you can only highlight the most important project information. Plus, with a revamped task details screen, you can view details, create subtasks, and add attachments really easily—you can even track time right inside the task.

There's a lot to parse when you're first getting started with ClickUp. The onboarding process won't be as simple as Trello, for example, but the extra customization is worth it, especially when it's completely free. Plus, the company has done a great job with guided in-app onboarding to get you started.

And with ClickUp's Zapier integrations, you can connect ClickUp with your favorite apps. Try one of the automations below, or read about how to automate ClickUp with Zapier.

ClickUp price: The free plan includes unlimited tasks and users, up to 100MB of storage, limited access to Gantt charts, workload, and timeline views, and more. Upgrade to the Unlimited plan for $7/user/month for unlimited list, board, calendar, and Gantt views, limited access to mind maps, and guests and permissions.

Best free project management software for spreadsheet-like features

Wrike (Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android)

Wrike pros:

• Spreadsheet-esque interface

• Best-in-class project tracking features

Wrike cons:

• More limited free plan than most

• Less customizable

If it were up to you, would you manage your projects in a spreadsheet? If so, you might like Wrike. Wrike offers the same flexibility of a spreadsheet, with columns for every bit of info you want to track about tasks. (If you like spreadsheets but need even more customization, head down to Airtable.)

Wrike lets your team update the status of tasks at various intervals: in-progress, on hold, canceled, or completed. Additionally, you can set the status of projects to new, in progress, completed, on hold, or canceled, making it easy to create your weekly project status reports.

While you can do a lot with Wrike's free plan, its best features—including time tracking, Gantt charts, and custom dashboards—do require a premium plan. If you're running a small operation now but planning to scale in the future, Wrike grows alongside you, giving you all of the tools you need to run both a single small project and many concurrent large ones.

If you're interested in the free plan, Wrike's Zapier integrations can help you do more with the project management app, like automatically creating tasks in Wrike from other tools. Learn more about how to automate Wrike, or get started with one of these templates.

Wrike price: The free plan includes unlimited projects, up to 200 active tasks, and basic AI Essentials features; upgrade for $10/user/month (billed annually) to the Team plan that includes Gantt charts, unlimited tasks, custom fields, and more.

Best free project management software for building a customized app

Airtable (Web, iOS, Android)

Airtable pros:

• The most customizable app on this list

• Lots of templates to help with initial setup

• Generous AI usage on free plan

Airtable cons:

• More involved setup process

• Less familiar interface than most

• Most expensive upgrade on this list

If you've tried other project management software and haven't found the one, Airtable will let you build it. The app is ready out-of-the-box with a default view similar to a spreadsheet, and it suggests a handful of templated projects based on your team within the company. The AI Cobuilder can help you get started building your base, but based on my testing, you're farther ahead starting from one of the suggested templates—or you can build your own project (called a "base") from scratch.

But the real power of Airtable happens when you customize it. It will take some upfront effort to tailor Airtable to be exactly what you need—but if you're willing to spend the time, the sky's the limit. You can customize everything from the methodology and view type to column headers, field types, and data validation.

Airtable is also among the most generous when it comes to AI features on the free plan, with 500 credits per editor per month. You can prompt Omni—Airtable's AI chatbot—with basic things like "find the tasks assigned to [name] that are due soon" or "show me tasks currently marked as in progress." Or get even more analytical, asking Omni to "analyze task completion rates broken down by assignee" or tell you "which task has the longest duration and who is assigned to it."

Head over to the Marketplace to choose from over 150 apps that help you integrate, analyze, and enrich your projects, or build your own custom apps. Airtable also integrates with Zapier, so you can do things like automatically track important information in Airtable or get notifications for activity in your Airtable base. Learn more about how to automate Airtable, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Airtable price: The free plan includes unlimited bases, up to 5 editor users, 1,000 records per base, 8 visualization options (including grid, calendar, and Kanban), and 500 AI credits per editor per month; upgrade for $20/user/month to the Team plan for 50,000 records per base, Gantt and timeline view, 15,000 AI credits/user/month, and more.

Best free project management software for Agile software development teams

Jira (Web, iOS, Android)

Jira pros:

• Purpose-built for developers and engineers

• Prominent issue tracker

• Over 1,000 integrations

Jira cons:

• Not as flexible for use across diverse teams

Jira is built for Scrum and Agile workflows. When you first sign up, the onboarding flow asks a few questions about your team's projects, level of experience with different methodologies, and deadlines—then it recommends a methodology and project template for you.

For Scrum projects, you can add issues to your backlog individually, filling in details and assigning them to sprints. Project tracking happens on a Scrum board—you can customize column headers and edit task details and status.

Jira's catering to developers and engineering teams doesn't stop there: the app also integrates with other development tools like GitHub, GitLab, Sentry, and Jenkins to make quick work of updating and tracking your backlog. And while you can't control user access on the free plan, it does include up to 10 users, so it's ideal for self-contained or smaller dev teams.

You can get more out of the free plan by using Jira's Zapier integrations to automatically create new issues in Jira based on Slack messages or GitHub issues. Try these Zaps and check out more ways to automate Jira.

Jira price: The free plan includes unlimited projects on 1 site, backlog, list, board, timeline, calendar, and summary views, and up to 10 users; upgrade to the Standard plan for $7.91/user/month for more granular user permissions, AI features, 250 GB of file storage, and more.

Best free project management software for automation

Zapier (Web)

Zapier pros:

• Automates repetitive tasks across 8,000+ apps

• Build custom tools with Forms, Tables, and Agents

• Built-in AI to generate workflows and handle task logic

Zapier cons:

• Not a full-featured project management app on its own

Zapier isn't a traditional project management app—but that's the point. Instead of conforming your workflow to a pre-built system, Zapier gives you the building blocks to create your own. Start with Zaps to automate repetitive tasks across your favorite tools—like updating tasks, sending reminders, or syncing due dates between apps like Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Slack, and Google Sheets.

Then, layer in Zapier Forms to create task submission forms your team can use to kick off workflows. Add Zapier Tables to store project data, track submissions, or manage dynamic information. And if you need extra intelligence behind the scenes, use Zapier's AI Agents to make decisions, route tasks, or respond to incoming messages on your behalf.

Whether you want a simple automation that notifies the team when a task changes status, or a full internal tool that manages client intake, assigns work, and tracks deliverables, Zapier gives you the flexibility to build exactly what you need. And with the free plan, you can start experimenting right away.

Learn more about how to automate your project management with Zapier, or get started with one of these pre-built templates.

Zapier price: The free plan includes 100 tasks/month, unlimited two-step Zaps, access to Forms, Tables, and AI Agents, and 8,000+ app integrations. Upgrade to the Starter plan for $19.99/month to unlock multi-step Zaps, filters, branching logic, and more.

What's the best free project planning software?

Honestly, online project management tools are a dime a dozen. And a lot of them will advertise "free" plans that aren't really free—meaning you can't actually manage all your projects without upgrading. The best free task management software will let you do what you need to do without spending a dime. And, as your needs change, they'll support you with more robust features at higher tiers.

The good news: free project planning software is...free. So you can test your options, see what you like (and what you don't), and then decide. Here are more tips on how to choose online project management software.

Related reading:

• The best AI project management tools

• RACI: A map for team structure (with template)

• ClickUp vs. monday: Which should you use?

• 21 project management templates to organize any workflow

• How to use Excel for project management (with 11 free templates)

Originally published in May 2017 by Matthew Guay, this post has had contributions from Jessica Greene, Maria Myre, Emily Esposito, and Nicole Replogle. The most recent update was in December 2025.