11 Best FREE Microsoft (MS) Project Alternatives (Dec 2023)
Matthew Martin
Microsoft Project planning tool helps you seamlessly plan and track your projects. However, Microsoft Project needs considerable training and experience to use. Moreover, this project management tool does not allow you to focus on any specific industry.
Here is a list of Top Microsoft Project alternative tools and software. This MS Project alternative tools list, comprises both free (open source) and commercial (paid) project management tools with popular features and the latest download links.
Top Alternatives to Microsoft Project (Open Source/Paid)
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| Name | Monday.com | ClickUp | Smartsheet | Teamwork | Wrike |
| Features | ✔️ Manage everything in one workspace ✔️ Set up in minutes |
✔️ One app to replace them all. ✔️ All your work in one place: Tasks, docs, chat, goals, & more. |
✔️ Smartsheet allows automating actions using simple rules ✔️ Helps to simplify budget and planning |
✔️ You can track every billable minute and deliver every project. ✔️ Helps you to increase profitability and grow your business. |
✔️ Enables you to view real-time reports ✔️ It helps you to turn strategies into actionable plans to achieve success. |
| Price | Free Forever Plan | Free Forever Plan | Free Forever Plan | Free Forever Plan | Start for free |
| Review/Rating |  4.7 |
4.7 |
4.6 |
4.5 |
4.4 |
| Link | Visit website | Visit website | Visit website | Visit website | Visit website |
1) Monday.com
Monday.com is one of the best alternatives to Microsoft Project. It offers a clean and color-coded interface. It is capable of handling complex projects, and yet it is a user-friendly software that suits both small and large businesses. Monday.com, launched in 2014, is a powerful project management tool known for its intuitive interface and collaboration features.
It also offers a user-friendly mobile app and includes customizable workflows. Offering AES-256 encryption, it allows users to visualize projects with various views, such as Kanban and charts. It comes with a generous free plan providing 5 GB of storage for two users.
Supported Platforms: Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, and Web
Integration: Microsoft Teams, Dropbox, Slack, Zapier, Google Drive, etc.
Free Trial: Forever Free Plan
Features:
- Streamline work: Create a centralized place for all processes, tools, and work. Bind your team with one source of truth across the organization and keep everyone on the same page. Collaborate in real time and sync your timelines with the calendar for easy tracking.
- Custom workflows and reports: It lets you create a workflow for any part of the project without needing coding building blocks. You can create custom reports, tailor boards your way, and manage projects and departments.
- Portfolio and resource management: You get an in-depth, high-level overview of every project, from its progress to reporting. Its resource management allocates and balances workload among the team members.
- Integrations: It seamlessly integrates with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Google Calendar, Zapier, Slack, and Dropbox.
- Templates: You can use its pre-built templates for project management, sales and CRM marketing, software development, and HR.
- Support: Monday.com offers customer support through a contact form.
- Supported Platforms: Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, and Web
- Price: Plans start at $8 a month. 18% Discount on Yearly Payment.
- Free Trial: Lifetime Free Basic Plan
Pros
Cons
Life Time Free Basic Plan
2) ClickUp
ClickUp is one of the best Microsoft Project alternative created for all kinds of users. It helps you organize projects using a hierarchical approach. ClickUp, established in 2017, is an all-encompassing project management tool with advanced features like automation/slash commands and whiteboards.
It incorporates core capabilities of all the business processes, sales, marketing, design, and development. With AES-256 and 2FA encryption, users can enjoy 100MB storage in the free plan. It integrates seamlessly with platforms like Slack and GitHub, caters to diverse sectors with tailored templates, and simplifies tasks with drag and drop and much more.
Supported platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Web
Integration: Google drive, GitHub, Bitbucket, Cloud, etc.
Free Trial: Forever Free Plan
Features:
- Machine learning: ClickUp offers machine learning capability. This helps project managers create accurate and realistic estimates and timeframes to manage their projects.
- Customization: You can customize your project management with its 35 ClickApps. It helps project manager assign sprint points, add your own custom field data, and more. ClickUp also lets you visualize your work through views such as list, board, calendar, chart, and doc.
- Real-time reporting: ClickUp provides you with reports on the tasks every day by tracking the progress of the project in real-time with workload and box views. It lets you view automatic active reports powered by machine learning, measure goals, and more. ClickUp also centralizes everything to work effectively and efficiently from a single dashboard.
- Support: This alternative to Microsoft Project provides customer support through email, chat, and a contact form.
- Supported Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and Web
- Price: Plans start at $9 a month. 45% Discount on Yearly Payments.
- Free Trial: Lifetime Free Basic Plan
Pros
Cons
Life Time Free Basic Plan
3) Smartsheet
Smartsheet is a collaboration tool for your project management. It is a work platform that offers exceptional speed to business. Smartsheet, established in 2000, stands out as a multifaceted project management platform.
It offers versatile visualization options, advanced encryption, and seamless integration with tools like Salesforce and Slack. Catering to diverse sectors with pre-built templates, it provides a free plan with 500 MB storage, emphasizing user-driven and collaborative functionalities.
Supported platforms: Web
Integration: Slack, Tableau, JIRA, etc
Free Trial: 30 Day Free Trial
Features:
- Task Management: Smartsheet automates task management actions with simple rules. It offers statuses like not started, in progress, hold, complete, and canceled. SmartSheet also keeps you on track with its collaboration standardized key project elements.
- Security: With Smartsheet, you can securely manage your users using its single sign-on capabilities for secure and simple signing-in. You also get AES-256 and TLS 1.2 encryption to secure your projects.
- Real-time visibility: This free Microsoft(MS) project alternative tool includes real-time metrics. It can summarize project progress with rollups and provide project updates. It lets you view your project through Gantt, card, calendar, and grid views. Additionally, it provides powerful reporting and analytics.
- Support: It provides customer support through live chat, call, and a contact form.
- Supported Platforms: Web, Android and iOS
- Price: Plans start at $9 a month. 29% Discount on Yearly Payment.
- Free Trial: Lifetime Free Basic Plan
Pros
Cons
Life Time Free Basic Plan
4) Teamwork
Teamwork is an easy-to-use project management system. It helps you manage projects, freelancers, clients, and your unit in one place. Teamwork, initiated in 2000, is a comprehensive agile project management solution emphasizing collaboration, reporting, and efficient resource management.
With its AES-256 encryption, users can utilize diverse visualization options. Tailored for industries like marketing and engineering, it lets you manage scope creep, workload, and project delays. Manage team resources as well as Teamwork for both day-to-day and longer-term requirements. This helps you deliver the project within the deadline and the budget.
Supported platforms: Windows, macOS, Mobile, Cloud
Integration: Zapier, HubSpot, Xero, etc.
Free Trial: Forever Free Plan
Features:
- Complex project management: Teamwork provides advanced features to manage complex projects. It includes reporting dashboards and workload management. With Teamwork, you get powerful time-tracking features and Kanban, Gantt charts, board views, and much more. It also lets you create tasks list, tasks, and subtasks to break down the work into actionable items.
- Performance tracking: Using Teamwork, it becomes easy to prioritize your tasks with detailed reporting. This helps in eliminating unnecessary meetings required for updates. It also shows the actual utilization of the billable hours.
- Streamline client operations: Teamwork balances team capacity to maintain healthy employee utilization. You get one system of record to handle all client assets, timelines, financial reporting, and more. It also lets you optimize recurring revenue from the retainers.
- Integrations It integrates with Hubspot, Zapier, Slack, Dropbox, QuickBooks, Google Drive, and more.
- Support: Teamwork provides customer support through email, chat, and tickets.
- Supported Platforms: Windows, macOS, Mobile, Cloud
- Price: Plans start at $13.99 a month. 29% Discount on Yearly Payment.
- Free Trial: Lifetime Free Basic Plan
Pros
Cons
Life Time Free Basic Plan
5) Wrike
Wrike is a cloud-based collaboration and project management tool. It is one of the best MS Project alternatives that help you scale across teams in any business. This free Microsoft project alternative tool allows you to set priorities and aligns your team to work faster and smarter. Wrike, launched in 2006, is a powerful project management platform offering a range of views and robust AES-256 encryption.
With seamless 400+ integrations, including Salesforce and Slack, it caters to various sectors using pre-built templates. Wrike provides automated approvals that help in easy project management and guarantee 99.9% uptime.
Supported platforms: Android, and iOS
Integration: Salesforce, Tableau, Microsoft Teams etc.
Free Trial: Start for free (No Credit Card Required)
Features:
- Reports and analytics: Wrike provides real-time reports and statuses. It offers accurate, updated information that helps in meeting deadlines. Wrike integrates with Tableau to present you with advanced analytics and data insights. You can also visualize your project using various views like Kanban boards, tables, and Gantt charts.
- Smart decision-making: It allows the team members to schedule and share custom interactive reports that help in making smarter decisions. Additionally, it lets you turn your strategies into actionable plans.
- Intuitive project planning: Wrike has intuitive features that provide you with total control over the project. It has customizable dashboards and calendars, and extensive analytics is provided by Wrike Analyze.
- Support: This alternative to MS Project provides customer support through phone, email, and contact forms.
- Supported Platforms: Android and iOS
- Price: Plans start at $9.80 a month.
- Free Trial: Start for free (Credit Card not Required)
Pros
Cons
Start for free (No Credit Card Required)
6) ActivTrak
ActivTrak is one of the web platform project management apps that help you analyze your workforce and productivity. It lets you recognize your workflow bottlenecks of processes, employees, and technology. This tool lets you share productivity data with your team and helps generate a detailed report for the audit trail. ActivTrak, established in 2009, is a user activity monitoring tool designed for insights into productivity and efficiency.
It combines MFA and robust AES encryption, allowing customizable views like grid and list. With a free plan providing 3 GB storage for three users, it integrates seamlessly with tools like Slack and Zoom. It also offers pre-built templates for sales and marketing alongside detailed productivity reports and dashboard features.
Supported platforms: Web
Integration: Slack, MS Teams, Salesforce, etc.
Free Trial: Forever Free Plan
Features:
- Insights: ActivTrak helps you optimize hybrid work to view productivity with its location insights. You get meeting insights by combining calendar data and digital activity. With this tool, you can help employee balance their work and life as it also gives deep insights into every member’s working patterns.
- Workload management: It helps you identify underutilized employees to balance workload so there are no burnt-out team members. This ensures higher productivity and project quality.
- Alarms and website blocking: Create alarms based on your own set of rules and regulations or use its pre-built alerts. It notifies during actions like file sharing, user deletion, and other activities.
- Activity logs: View the detailed logs of the user activities and security events. This provides you with a clear idea of what exactly went down, when, and by whom. It also simultaneously offers insights to maintain compliance.
- Support: ActivTrak provides customer support through phone, email, chat, and contact forms.
- Supported Platforms: Web
- Price: Plans start at $10 a month.
- Free Trial: Lifetime Free Basic Plan
Pros
Cons
Life Time Free Basic Plan
7) Zoho Projects
Zoho Projects includes collaboration and project management features and is created by Zoho. The software helps you plan your projects, assign tasks, and communicate effectively. Zoho Projects, launched in 2006, is a robust project management tool optimized for diverse sectors, from restaurants to events.
Boasting AES encryption and customizable views, it ensures seamless task management and team collaboration. Its integrations include popular platforms like Slack and Github. The free tier provides 10 MB storage for three users, while automated notifications and in-depth reporting enhance user experience. The team will always access the latest version of all project documents, and everyone working on a project can view their billable and non-billable hours using timesheets. It also lets you create an issue and track them as they get fixed and tested.
Features:
- Task Management: Its task management includes issue management, breakdown structure of work, and a universal add tab for instantly adding new users. It also provides different task views, dependencies, recurrence, Gantt charts, reminders, sprints, and more.
- Time Management: You can enable timers when you start a task and log and track time spent on each task. It also provides invoicing, calendars, and budgeting.
- Charts and reports: Using Zoho Projects, you get task, issue, and timesheet reports. This feature includes a project dashboard calculation of planned vs actual cost per hour for every project, and it also has budget forecasting.
- Automation: Zoho Projects lets you design workflows to automate task processes and create escalation procedures. It can also automate business rules, notifications, Webhooks, and workflow rules.
- Support: This project management software provides customer support through phone, email, and chat.
- Supported Platforms: Android and iOS
- Price: Plans start at $5 a month. 12% Discount on Yearly Payments.
- Free Trial: 10 Days Free Trial (Credit Card not Required)
Pros
Cons
Download Link: https://www.zoho.com/projects/
8) Asana
Asana is an ideal project management software for small teams. It is available in three different versions Free, Premium, and Enterprise. Asana, established in 2008, is a powerful project management platform with features like drag and drop and diverse views. It can be integrated with tools such as Slack and Salesforce and is tailored with pre-built templates for multiple sectors. The platform ensures organized task progression statuses and offers a free plan with 100 MB of storage.
This free Microsoft project alternative tool allows the management of up to 15 team members. Its premium version offers an unlimited dashboard, custom fields, advanced search, and reporting. Additionally, the enterprise version allows managing multiple team members with advanced admin controls like service accounts and SAML. You also get 2FA, MFA, 128-bit, and TLS 1.2 encryption for complete security.
Features:
- Project management: It provides custom fields, project views, sprint boards, task breakdowns, and task organization. You can view your projects like board, list, timeline, files, calendar, and teammates. Moreover, you get project management statuses such as new, in-progress, ready, drafting, hold, and complete.
- Real-time tracking: Asana offers real-time tracking for your projects. It helps compare the time data with the project’s estimated schedule. You can then create data-backed timelines for new projects to meet deadlines accurately.
- Reporting: It enables you to build a dashboard where you can add charts with a single click. In the dashboard, you can customize your search filter, inputs, and much more. It also helps gather insights and reach the source to take required actions.
- Asana Intelligence: It has an AI named Asana Intelligence that can organize your work and identify blind spots, roadblocks, and more. This AI also answers project-related questions, helps in writing cleaner responses, and provides action items.
- Support: Its customer support is reachable through chat and contact form.
- Supported Platforms: Android and iOS
- Price: Plans start at $13.49 a month. 19% Discount on Yearly Payment.
- Free Trial: 30 Days Free Trial
Pros
Cons
Download Link: https://asana.com/
9) LiquidPlanner
LiquidPlanner eliminates outdated plans and missed deadlines and streamlines your work. It is one of the free Microsoft project alternatives that offers features for IT teams, project managers, development teams, and marketing teams. LiquidPlanner, launched in 2006, is an advanced and effective project management tool that emphasizes on predictive scheduling and intelligent insights.
With its SHA-256 encryption and integration capabilities with platforms like Google Drive, and offers prioritization features. Their free plan caters to three users, and the tool is enriched with drag-and-drop functionalities and custom reporting. The teams can share updates and recommendations to provide a clearer picture of the project. You can also visualize your project using various views like portfolio, project, board, and grid.
Features:
- Predictive scheduling: It is a great Microsoft Project alternative as it has an intelligent predictive scheduling engine. This engine runs multiple simulations across the projects and creates forecasts that are accurate and realistic, therefore helping control risks in real time.
- Workload balancing: View the capacity of your entire team for all the tasks and projects. The LiquidPlanner engine calculates the complexity of the project and members’ availability to model and optimize performance.
- Prioritization and estimation: You get structured prioritization to help you finish the most important task or project first. Its ranged estimation captures uncertainty to help project managers offer clients consistent results.
- Support: This alternative to MS Project provides customer support through email and contact form.
- Supported Platforms: Android and iOS
- Price: Plans start at $15 a month.
- Free Trial: 14 Days Free Trial
Pros
Cons
Download Link: https://www.liquidplanner.com/
10) Trello
Trello is a tool designed to replace your team’s use of email and chat for task-based communication. It is one of the best MS Project alternatives that allows you to collaborate on the project from beginning to end. Trello, launched in 2014, is a versatile project management tool with a focus on visualization and collaboration.
Its board-centric approach, enhanced by views like timeline and dashboard, facilitates easy progress tracking. Integration capabilities with apps like Slack and Evernote enhance its utility. The platform provides unlimited storage, cards, and users even in its free plan, and statuses like in-progress, to-do, and do keep projects streamlined. This open-source Microsoft project alternative tool allows your team to stay organized.
Features:
- Prebuilt templates: Trello offers pre-built templates for numerous use cases. These templates include education, product management, project management, remote work, sales, team management, and several other purposes.
- Automate with Butler: This tool offers automation with the help of Butler. It has a no-code powerful automation capability that takes care of your redundant activities.
- Trello plugins: Trello provides a vast pool of plugins for analytics and reporting, file management, IT and project management, communication and collaboration, and more.
- Support: It provides customer support through email.
- Supported Platforms: Android and iOS
- Price: Plans start at $5 a month. 17% Discount on Yearly Payment.
- Free Trial: 14 Days Free Trial
Pros
Cons
Download Link: https://trello.com/
11) Roadmunk
Roadmunk is a visual roadmap software that is helpful for project management. It is one of the best alternatives to Microsoft projects that offers advanced data protection to meet the needs of global enterprise clients.
Roadmunk, initiated in 2013, is designed to optimize project visualization and planning. With AES-256 and SHA-256 encryption, it prioritizes security. Its versatile views, ranging from list to table, provide easy visualization, and its drag-and-drop functionality makes it user-friendly. Integration with platforms like Jira is seamless, and pre-built templates span diverse sectors, from product to marketing. Roadmunk is a comprehensive project management tool that helps you select between a timeline view and a swimlane view. It also lets you mix and match multiple views of the roadmap.
Features:
- Roadmap creation: It helps you visualize your strategy on a timeline and meet deadlines by creating milestones. You can provide agile teams with swimlanes, create intuitive roadmaps with JIRA, and tailor them for specific audiences.
- Idea prioritization: Roadmunk helps you prioritize ideas with customer driver backlog and provides built-in templates to keep you prepared for your next project. This tool also lets you promote high-impact ideas to the product roadmap, add customer-validated ideas, and more.
- Capture feedback: You can centralize all feedback and link it to the product or feature directly. Roadmunk also lets you create a feedback portal to collect feedback from anyone and helps in filtering to view the required feedback alone.
- Support: It provides customer support through email and chat
- Supported Platforms: Windows, Mac, and Linux
- Price: Plans start at $19 a month.
- Free Trial: 14 Days Free Trial
Pros
Cons
Download Link: https://roadmunk.com/
FAQs
Best Microsoft Project Alternatives
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| Name | Monday.com | ClickUp | Smartsheet | Teamwork | Wrike |
| Features | ✔️ Manage everything in one workspace ✔️ Set up in minutes |
✔️ One app to replace them all. ✔️ All your work in one place: Tasks, docs, chat, goals, & more. |
✔️ Smartsheet allows automating actions using simple rules ✔️ Helps to simplify budget and planning |
✔️ You can track every billable minute and deliver every project. ✔️ Helps you to increase profitability and grow your business. |
✔️ Enables you to view real-time reports ✔️ It helps you to turn strategies into actionable plans to achieve success. |
| Price | Free Forever Plan | Free Forever Plan | Free Forever Plan | Free Forever Plan | Start for free |
| Review/Rating | 4.7 |
4.7 |
4.6 |
4.5 |
4.4 |
| Link | Visit website | Visit website | Visit website | Visit website | Visit website |