Top 5 Free Microsoft Project Alternatives in 2022

• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube

Nowadays, the majority of firms must practice good project management hygiene. Using a project management tool effectively entails much more than only keeping track of everyone and ensuring that everyone submits their work on time. It may be claimed that a good solution will bring the client and the team together and make sure that everyone has the same goal in mind.

Choosing which excellent Microsoft Project Alternatives will offer the sophisticated project management capabilities you require can be challenging because there are so many project tools available.

Microsoft Project is a solution for project management that is difficult to ignore. With your favorite Microsoft Office products already integrated into the program, this application essentially has all the functionality your team requires to facilitate and complete a project properly. 

Table of Contents:

• 1. Jira
• 2. Asana
• 3. Monday
• 4. ClickUp
• 5. Trello

Additionally, it has some notable features such as:

• Resource Management
• Project Planning 
• Task Monitoring
• Time Monitoring
• Project Cost Analysis

Handpicked Must Reads:

• ASANA VS. JIRA: THE 6 KEY DIFFERENCES
• ASANA VS MONDAY: THE KEY FEATURES AND DIFFERENCES – 2022
• CLICKUP VS ASANA – WHICH IS SUITABLE FOR YOUR PROJECT MANAGEMENT? [2022]
• TRELLO VS JIRA: 8 MAJOR DIFFERENCES YOU SHOULD KNOW

To assist you in selecting the finest solution that will enable you to manage complex projects across your entire team, we’ve examined the top five Microsoft Project alternatives that you can try for free. They are:

1. Jira

Jira is a project management software used mostly by software companies and freelancers. It is a 21st-century project-based collaboration software that offers a web-based interface.  It is also a web application that is less resource intensive than Microsoft Project. Jira can be used in remote collaboration too, which is probably the main reason for its popularity.

Features:

• Jira is designed to track a single item of any kind, known as an issue, from beginning to end. A project is a group of problems that need to be tracked; problems are further divided into stories and tasks.
• Scrum, Kanban, and bug tracking boards are included with the software so that development teams can select a project based on their needs.
• It is effortless to track, record, and fix bugs because the software includes a bug tracking template.
• At every level, from planning and tracking concerns until final delivery, more than 15 reports can be generated. Reports, including time tracking reports, control chart reports, resolution time reports, and sprint reports.
• Jira templates are completely editable, and you can make changes to them even after you begin filling them with data.

2. Asana

Asana is a straightforward, user-friendly project management tool that enables colleagues to monitor development in real time. The self-hosted software can be used for endless projects for a nominal monthly cost or for free. It is primarily utilized by businesses that have a large workforce and need to keep track of projects in real time.

Features:

• Asana helps teams manage projects effectively by giving them access to a common workspace and cutting-edge capabilities like different work views.
• Custom rules can be established by teams to automate handling of routine, repeated operations.
• The software creates visual reports and real-time charts to show workload, status, and progress.
• Users can browse and store project templates in the software’s template library.
• Its functionality can be expanded by more than 100 app connectors, giving teams more complete options.

3. Monday

Monday is a project management tool that is simple and very straightforward. It is a lightweight piece of software that requires only a little training. Even first-timers will have no trouble navigating through the software.

Additionally, it works with various project management tools. It supports a wide variety of file types and enables users to upload and exchange documents, resources, and progress updates. It may be downloaded and installed on several operating systems and is accessible online or as an app.

Features:

• You may combine it with your current tools to complete more tasks faster.
• You can work together with your team on a common workspace.
• Offers options for syncing timelines with the calendar as well as colored timelines.
• Workflows are incredibly customizable.
• Helps you to organize your team at any time or place.
• For projects that are location-based, it offers a map view.

4. ClickUp

A well-integrated project management tool is ClickUp. This software approaches project development entirely differently than Microsoft Project does. The program is free and open-source, to begin with. 

If you find the pre-built workflows to be overly constraining, you can construct your own workflows since it is free and open-source. Additionally, ClickUp offers several integrations. The use of this product is made much simpler by these integrations.

Features:

• Gives customers eight alternative view choices to aid in organizing tasks and managing projects.
• For each distinct project, users can generate custom statuses that can be modified, rearranged, and colored to suit the requirements of the business.
• Within ClickUp, managers may delegate duties to numerous individuals at once and handle multiple jobs in a fluid manner thanks to table view and multitasking technologies.
• The board view in ClickUp offers an agile perspective created for the Scrum approach, delivering a straightforward but extremely informative display.
• The platform enables customers to use ClickUp’s patented automatic importing method to import data from external project management apps.

5. Trello

Trello is an online project management platform that makes it simple to collaborate on projects, organize and prioritize tasks, and allocate tasks to specific people. 

Every activity can have checklists and attachments attached to it, making it incredibly easy to prioritize activities and organize your to-do list. It also has mobile app versions, but for someone with full-time work, who is not very techie, or who only needs to track a few things, the online web version is more preferred.

Features:

• Trello employs a Kanban board system for organizing, prioritizing, and scheduling activities using labels and due dates.
• Time tracking is an additional “power-up” option that is accessible. You may track the time spent on tasks with this tool, and then either bill that time to clients or utilize it to make improvements to how projects are carried out.
• Every card in Trello has an attachment option that you can use to connect to other services like Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive as well as upload files and images.
• Each Trello card has a comment space at the bottom where you can link more Trello cards, tag other users, add emojis, and more.
• The entirety of Trello’s home page serves as a team dashboard, showing the tasks, their progress on the board, and who is working on what.

Choose the One That Best Fits Your Project Needs

For any project management tasks in 2022, you need a project management tool that’s in tune with this century of technology. While most project management tools today are compatible with Microsoft Project, not all of them are consistent with the basics of Microsoft Project. 

With that said, the list of five tools provided is project management alternatives capable of replacing Microsoft Project and still functioning like it.

Every team functions differently, and every project has its own unique needs, objectives, and financial constraints. You, therefore, require a project management platform that can be tailored to your needs and modified to meet both your present and future project management requirements. 

Depending on your scenario, your industry, the size of your teams, the number of projects, their complexity, and how involved you need to be in the specifics of each project, each program, and platform on this list may be a suitable Microsoft Project alternative.

For more information on project management software and methodologies read our blogs.

For courses on project management and tools please check our course list.

Handpicked Related Reads:

• Top 10 Essential Microsoft Project Templates for Project Management
• Microsoft Planner vs Project – The 5 Key Differences [2022]

Frequently Asked Questions

Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!