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Project management and collaboration skills play a major role in every business and often the outcome of a project is highly affected by the initial planning and monitoring stages of a project. Project management is especially important for small and flexible businesses where all the work is based on a few people who have to communicate and develop the workflow. Globalization has made collaboration even more essential since many modern businesses like web design agencies don’t even have a constant address – people all around the world are working from their home.
Web-based project management and collaboration tools are the top choice of hundreds of entrepreneurs and thousands of small and medium size businesses. These tools will maximize your productivity, organization, and help you keep on top of your projects effortlessly. Keep track of your projects, manage your workers, set milestones, schedule your work, upload your files, send invoices, sync with your mobile – all of these features and more make these apps almost necessary.
Continue reading if you’re looking for your first project management app or just seeking to check out alternatives. With a lot to choose from it might be frustrating to find the right app for you. This article presents some of the best project management and collaboration tools out there. There are also tools for brainstorming ideas, hosting conversations and even managing a newsroom. Each of them share common general features, however each of them also has something unique to offer. Most of these tools come with a fixed monthly price, some of them you’ll have to pay for per user and month. Also a trial period is available with most of them so you’ll have the chance to examine and check out if it’s the right choice. Each description contains brief features the service offers as well as the pricing plans.
Teambox is voted the best online project collaboration software for project managers, contractors, freelancers and teams. Teambox is the pioneer in joining social collaboration tools with online project management. It’s mission is to change the way people work by making it easier and more fun to get things done.
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Projecturf is the Web-based project management app that helps individuals and businesses manage projects, people, and tasks. A project can be big or small, personal or business. Once a project is created, you add team members to the project who gain instant access to it via the Web. Within a project, there are tons of features and functions that can be done, such as creating and managing tasks, events on the calendar, and discussions; uploading and storing designs and documents; and analyzing project data using the Dashboard activity history and reporting.
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Apollo is project and contact management done right. Using Apollo, you will realize that it’s built to help you get things done, quickly and efficiently. With Apollo, you will always know where your projects, your contacts and your life are at and you will feel on top of everything — regardless of how hectic your schedule is.
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Basecamp is the top choice for entrepreneurs, freelancers, small businesses, and groups inside big organizations. Projects go well when people talk to each other, discuss issues openly, and communicate clearly. Basecamp is focused on making this easy.
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5. Huddle
Huddle is the world’s leading cloud-based collaboration platform, used by 90,000 businesses and government organizations in more than 180 countries.
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Lighthouse will simplify your workflow so you can do the job you were hired to do. Collaborate effortlessly on projects. Whether you’re a team of 5 or studio of 50, Lighthouse will help you keep track of your project development with ease.
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Goplan lets you keep track of your projects and collaborate with your colleagues securely through an intuitive user interface. Goplan was developed to scratch developers own itch – they needed a better tool to manage our projects, communicate with clients, and organize our personal lives. Goplan has become a consumer-facing product ever since then.
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Action Method by Behance is a task-management methodology designed to help creative thinkers push their ideas forward. Based on the power of capturing and managing tasks you need to complete, Action Method ensures ideas are executed. From beautifully designed paper products, to Action Method Online, to Action Method for iPhone, this system of products works together to maximize productivity, organization, and accountability.
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Rule – one application to make your business simply productive. People, CRM, Projects, Documents and more- all interacting and coexisting with total transparency online in an activity stream — so you can finally manage your business under one rule.
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Freedcamp offers unlimited user and unlimited project solution for everyone, completely free, forever. By offering an amazing web application Freedcamp believes there will finally be a standard in project management.
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Onehub makes large file sharing easy. Secure, fast and easy to use file sharing for any size business. Manage projects, share files and collaborate with others. With Workspaces and Transfers products Onehub has solutions to help growing businesses work more efficiently by improving communication and information sharing.
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Keep on top of your projects with So1o. Intelligently track how much time you’ve spent and what you’ve spent it on. See how many days to deadline, what you’ve quoted and how close a project is to completion. Beautifully designed graphs show a visual breakdown of your project.
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WORKetc combines CRM, project management, billing, sales, support and more with a powerful automation engine to help take your small business to the next level.
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ProWorkflow is the top project management software currently helping thousands of customers globally to optimize their business processes, manage staff resources, track projects, tasks and time and keep on top of it all.
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activeCollab is a project management and collaboration tool that installs on your server or local network. activeCollab gives you full control over your files and communications, with unlimited users, unlimited projects, and unlimited storage space – it grows with your company, with no monthly fees.
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Teamwork Project Manager is an easy-to-use online teamwork & project management software application that helps managers, staff and clients work together more productively online.
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Conceptboard offers real time teamwork on thoughts and documents which you can share and discuss with your colleagues, customers & friends. Conceptboard is a great work space for your ideas, documents and pictures. It’s very intuitive and makes online collaboration easy as pie.
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Zoho Projects is an online project management software with collaboration and bug tracking that allows project teams to collaborate and get work done faster. Planning and Tracking helps you keep your project on schedule. Collaboration helps improve the communication within the team and keep everyone on the same page.
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TeamLab is a web-based platform for business collaboration and project management. It has been developed by Ascensio System Limited, a fast-growing company that offers IT-solutions for personal and corporate use.
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SaaS, Open-Source, AMI: free
DeskAway is a web-based project collaboration software that provides teams a central location to easily organize, manage and track their projects & work. DeskAway is carefully hand-crafted by a small team of developers and designers. Each feature is custom-made to give you the ease of use and power to help you grow your business.
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Working on a Product Launch? Got a Team? Producteev is a dead simple, fast, smart Task Management platform connected to your daily communication services.
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Kapost is an online newsroom for web publishing also used by 1stwebdesigner. Kapost handles the entire content production process: from pitch to payment and everything in between. Enable your editorial team to focus on audience and content, not administrative tasks. Easily scale your set of contributors.
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Campfire is a web-based group chat tool that lets you set up password-protected chat rooms in just seconds. Invite a client, colleague, or vendor to chat, collaborate, and make decisions. Link to a room on your intranet for internal communications.
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Socialcast is an enterprise collaboration platform that unites your company’s people, data, and applications in real-time. Socialcast’s software creates a flexible, simple, data-rich collaborative space where employees can find information from applications, systems, and people across the enterprise.
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Flowdock creates a bridge between conversation and knowledge management. You don’t have to use clumsy tools like instant messaging, IRC or email for group conversation on one hand, and wikis, ticketing systems etc for knowledge management on the other. With Flowdock, you can reduce your ways to a light-weight, effortless process, where the conversation flows and the barrier of creating knowledge is diminished.
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Whether you want to brainstorm ideas for your next big project or you just want to keep track of tasks, Thoughtboxes makes it fun and easy. With a single click, you can share your thoughts with anyone, or collaborate privately with your friends, family, and co-workers.
Peers.me offers hosted conversations to keep everyone involved in an easy way. By using Peers.me for group communication your email inbox stays clean. No fancy stuff, Peers.me is all about communication. And Peers.me is free up to 10 users.
BrixHQ makes online agile project management and collaboration easy and cost effective.
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Podio is an online platform with a new take on work and how it gets done. It gives people more power than they’ve ever had before to do everyday work better, smarter and in their own way. Podio is used by a variety of teams and organizations for a wide range of purposes. For the first time ever you can create your own work tools and shape the way you work.
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Scadaplan is a project management and collaboration tool for small and middle groups. There are many similar programs can be found across the internet, which consist of functions like Tasks, Deadlines, Calendars, Comments, etc. The Scadaplan team has tried using dozen of similar programs, working in the design and development industry for 9 years. This is why they have decided to develop something of their own and to let the people use their product.
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Tuesday, May 8th, 2012 08:19
Very nice list, thanx! We use in our company another task tracking software from Comindware. Very comfortable and flexible solution with generating reports in real time and tracking a few projects at the same time. You should try it.
Thursday, April 26th, 2012 10:21
Very Nice! list for project management tools, i would like to add another one which we recently started using i-e http://www.vkolab.com and the results are awesome we are now managing our team and keeping track of projects like never before. Thought I should share it with the world.
Thanks.
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 21:42
Are the apps sorted in any order? May be an alphabetic order would work best.
Also, I’m surprised 5pm did not end up in the list. I would include it in the top 5 right there with Basecamp.
Thursday, October 20th, 2011 16:41
Wow. This is a huge list of project management collaboration tools. There are plenty of great web-based apps here for a web designer to choose from. I would also recommend checking out Interval, a project management app with a focus on time tracking and task management.
Thursday, October 6th, 2011 13:16
nice article on collaboration tools, thank you very much
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011 10:19
Excellent list mate, gives me a good starting point in finding something that fits my needs. Good on ya
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 14:02
Hi Daniels,
Tnx for mentioning Peers.me. Can you mail me your emailaddress. I got something interesting for you.
Tnx!
Daniël
Friday, August 19th, 2011 05:53
Hey Daniels! Thank you very much for add Teambox as #1 in your list :) We really appreciate it! It will be a pleasure help your visitors to change the way they work. See you soon, cheers!
Thursday, August 18th, 2011 03:28
Great tools… Unfortunately I still use Google calendar. I practically have no team to network with…
I work alone!
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 11:20
Hey,
Amazing and resourceful article. We really appreciate you mentioning DeskAway in the article. Thank you.
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 13:45
Having teams working remotely in over 5 countries, we have tried a variety of combinations of PM software, from Basecamp to activeCollab. Most recently I found Podio and have been in love with it since.
It’s truly one of the most innovative platforms for not only project management but also to manage your business. We use it for Human Resources (with the HR Apps), Billing (with the Freshbooks App), Development, Client relations, and customer service.
The main difference is Podio’s flexibility.. I used Basecamp with a large company with over 70 employees and it was excellent. But we always had to work within it’s workflow.. which was not always suitable for us. activeCollab was a similar scenario, although you could customize it with some coding. Podio on the other hand offers a marketplace of Apps.. which is brilliant! You can find almost anything you need.
I’m in love with Podio and its cost is more than justified with the time saving and excellent workflow it’s allowed me to create for my business. I have all my clients, employees and all my freelancers on Podio. We’re running an account with about 30 people and I’ve not once had to deal with any administration issues.
Only problem, as with all hosted software, is that sometimes Podio is down for maintenance. But they’re usually really fast about resolving downtime. It has never lasted more than a few minutes.
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 17:14
Thanks for including Kapost in this great roundup of project management collaboration tools!
As Kapost users on 1st Web Designer, we love hearing customer feedback so if there’s anything we can help answer or include in our newsroom, just let us know. We’re happy to help.
Any questions? You can reach me at grace at kapost dot com
Cheers!
Grace Boyle
Director of Marketing and Sales @Kapost
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 15:36
Hi Daniel,
Have you checked out Wiggio.com? Wiggio is a free online toolkit that provides private groups with an easy way to schedule, share content, plan, conference and communicate in real-time. Features include the ability to upload an unlimited number of documents, sending mass voice/text messages, video conferencing, real-time polling, scheduling events on a shared calendar with e-mail/text reminders, and more.
Check it out for free at Wiggio.com!
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 05:02
It’s very useful to have such list.
Thank you!
Monday, August 15th, 2011 23:57
Daniel I have to congratulate you on making one of the most complete project management application lists I have seen. Thank you for the Freedcamp review.
I also wanted to just let everyone know we are launching Version 2.0 in 2 weeks which will have a new set of applications like CRM, Wiki’s, Intranet, Bug Tracking, and so much more!
Monday, August 15th, 2011 22:51
My favorite system, and what I use now, would be WORKetc. I tried using many apps on this list with my team, but trying to manage your business through 3+ apps (i.e. for CRM, projects, billing) is just foolish when you can do it all with one. WORketc puts sales, contact management, project management, toDos, calendars, invoicing, time tracking, support, collaboration, and other stuff into one system, and we’re effectively using it to manage every aspect of our business, in one place. Collaboration goes business wide. All data in one place gives us extensive reporting options. We track client relationships from start to finish in one software (with fantastic client histories). Would suggest looking into, great app!!
Monday, August 15th, 2011 15:44
Daniels, thank you for such a useful list and for covering Teamlab!
In addition I would like to say that Teamlab also has a powerful Document Management Module, represented by Open Office and Online Document Editor, so that users can create and edit docs and spreadsheets right in the portal.
Sunday, August 14th, 2011 17:48
Great list Daniels! Thanks for sharing. Brix and Team Work PM are really neat!
Sunday, August 14th, 2011 20:07
Thanks for compiling this list!
I’ve been working with Basecamp on some projects and with Wikis (Confluence/Jira) on others. We’re also trying Yammer for corporate market monitoring.
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Mandie
Sunday, August 14th, 2011 17:48
Great list Daniels! Thanks for sharing. Brix and Team Work PM are really neat!
Grace Boyle
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 17:14
Thanks for including Kapost in this great roundup of project management collaboration tools!
As Kapost users on 1st Web Designer, we love hearing customer feedback so if there’s anything we can help answer or include in our newsroom, just let us know. We’re happy to help.
Any questions? You can reach me at grace at kapost dot com
Cheers!
Grace Boyle
Director of Marketing and Sales @Kapost
David
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 13:45
Having teams working remotely in over 5 countries, we have tried a variety of combinations of PM software, from Basecamp to activeCollab. Most recently I found Podio and have been in love with it since.
It’s truly one of the most innovative platforms for not only project management but also to manage your business. We use it for Human Resources (with the HR Apps), Billing (with the Freshbooks App), Development, Client relations, and customer service.
The main difference is Podio’s flexibility.. I used Basecamp with a large company with over 70 employees and it was excellent. But we always had to work within it’s workflow.. which was not always suitable for us. activeCollab was a similar scenario, although you could customize it with some coding. Podio on the other hand offers a marketplace of Apps.. which is brilliant! You can find almost anything you need.
I’m in love with Podio and its cost is more than justified with the time saving and excellent workflow it’s allowed me to create for my business. I have all my clients, employees and all my freelancers on Podio. We’re running an account with about 30 people and I’ve not once had to deal with any administration issues.
Only problem, as with all hosted software, is that sometimes Podio is down for maintenance. But they’re usually really fast about resolving downtime. It has never lasted more than a few minutes.
Shannon
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 15:36
Hi Daniel,
Have you checked out Wiggio.com? Wiggio is a free online toolkit that provides private groups with an easy way to schedule, share content, plan, conference and communicate in real-time. Features include the ability to upload an unlimited number of documents, sending mass voice/text messages, video conferencing, real-time polling, scheduling events on a shared calendar with e-mail/text reminders, and more.
Check it out for free at Wiggio.com!
Vladimir
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 05:02
It’s very useful to have such list.
Thank you!
Nina
Monday, August 15th, 2011 15:44
Daniels, thank you for such a useful list and for covering Teamlab!
In addition I would like to say that Teamlab also has a powerful Document Management Module, represented by Open Office and Online Document Editor, so that users can create and edit docs and spreadsheets right in the portal.
David M
Monday, August 15th, 2011 22:51
My favorite system, and what I use now, would be WORKetc. I tried using many apps on this list with my team, but trying to manage your business through 3+ apps (i.e. for CRM, projects, billing) is just foolish when you can do it all with one. WORketc puts sales, contact management, project management, toDos, calendars, invoicing, time tracking, support, collaboration, and other stuff into one system, and we’re effectively using it to manage every aspect of our business, in one place. Collaboration goes business wide. All data in one place gives us extensive reporting options. We track client relationships from start to finish in one software (with fantastic client histories). Would suggest looking into, great app!!
Angel Grablev
Monday, August 15th, 2011 23:57
Daniel I have to congratulate you on making one of the most complete project management application lists I have seen. Thank you for the Freedcamp review.
I also wanted to just let everyone know we are launching Version 2.0 in 2 weeks which will have a new set of applications like CRM, Wiki’s, Intranet, Bug Tracking, and so much more!
Walter
Sunday, August 14th, 2011 20:07
Thanks for compiling this list!
I’ve been working with Basecamp on some projects and with Wikis (Confluence/Jira) on others. We’re also trying Yammer for corporate market monitoring.
Michael Francis
Thursday, August 18th, 2011 03:28
Great tools… Unfortunately I still use Google calendar. I practically have no team to network with…
I work alone!
Erica
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 21:42
Are the apps sorted in any order? May be an alphabetic order would work best.
Also, I’m surprised 5pm did not end up in the list. I would include it in the top 5 right there with Basecamp.
David
Thursday, April 26th, 2012 10:21
Very Nice! list for project management tools, i would like to add another one which we recently started using i-e http://www.vkolab.com and the results are awesome we are now managing our team and keeping track of projects like never before. Thought I should share it with the world.
Thanks.
David Meyers
Tuesday, May 8th, 2012 08:19
Very nice list, thanx! We use in our company another task tracking software from Comindware. Very comfortable and flexible solution with generating reports in real time and tracking a few projects at the same time. You should try it.
John
Thursday, October 20th, 2011 16:41
Wow. This is a huge list of project management collaboration tools. There are plenty of great web-based apps here for a web designer to choose from. I would also recommend checking out Interval, a project management app with a focus on time tracking and task management.
Nicolo Totti
Thursday, October 6th, 2011 13:16
nice article on collaboration tools, thank you very much
Víctor González
Friday, August 19th, 2011 05:53
Hey Daniels! Thank you very much for add Teambox as #1 in your list :) We really appreciate it! It will be a pleasure help your visitors to change the way they work. See you soon, cheers!
Daniël Steginga
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 14:02
Hi Daniels,
Tnx for mentioning Peers.me. Can you mail me your emailaddress. I got something interesting for you.
Tnx!
Daniël
Craig
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011 10:19
Excellent list mate, gives me a good starting point in finding something that fits my needs. Good on ya
Mayur
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 11:20
Hey,
Amazing and resourceful article. We really appreciate you mentioning DeskAway in the article. Thank you.