I recently went down the rabbit hole of looking at the various project management tools in the market. There are dozens and at times it is exhausting because as soon as you think you have uncovered all potential options, you find another five. I’ve been a user and fan of Airtable for a while but I was looking for something simple to use for just a team of two. If you aren’t familiar with Airtable, it’s a project management tool that has become extremely popular. However, it isn’t necessarily the best choice for every business or individual, as it’s best suited to larger companies. I spent hours digging around like an archeologist so to save you time I wanted to share with you my brief review of the tools I looked at.
nTask is a task and project management tool that comes with a free plan option. It is an all-in-one platform that can work for both individuals and teams. It has an intuitive interface and to facilitate task management, nTask supports various collaboration, tracking, and reporting functionality. An interesting add on is that you can create meetings, send meeting invites, and capture the meeting notes and action items directly in the interface.
For a simple project management tool that’s great for individuals and smaller businesses, consider Asana. It’s super easy to set up projects and tasks using the Kanban board, and then you can create cards to help manage your tasks. I also like the fact that it has a calendar, and you can use it to track your time and manage schedules. With desktop and mobile apps, it’s easy to communicate with your team.
For freelancers and small agencies, I’d recommend taking a look at Plutio. It allows you to communicate in real-time with your team and assign tasks to them. As you can track the time you spend on each project, this can help you when billing clients by the hour. It’s not as robust as Airtable but simple.
Wrike is a great piece of software that makes it easy to create projects using their pre-made templates. It has Kanban and Gantt chart views which help you to visualize your projects as well as keep your tasks on track. It’s an excellent option for large businesses.
If you enjoy Kanban boards but are looking for a simple interface without having to jump through many hoops to create your Kanban board then you will like Quire, especially for creative teams as it seems to be designed with creative teams in mind. You can go from brainstorming to launch all in one centralized tool.
This all-in-one tool allows you to manage employees, clients and leads. You can even create your contracts and proposals and manage finances with Agiled. I really like the insights feature, as it allows you to track your team’s performance. For agencies with a large number of clients, this is a great choice for you.
Another good option for large companies is Basecamp. You can use this app to communicate with your whole company, as well as manage projects and teams. There are message board and campfire chat features included, which make communication quick and easy. It’s easy to access files, as they are all located in one place. It’s a little more pricey than some of the other options, but for bigger companies, it’s one of the top options.
Notion is mainly a note-taking app but it does have some core task management functionality that is simple to use if you don’t want all the bells and whistles. It helps centralize the work of a team into a central place with a good interface and document storage.
Created for enterprises, Quip helps you to manage your projects in Salesforce. Teams can collaborate on editing documents and slides, and there is a chat feature to communicate. I found it was quick to get started with, as there are many templates to use.
This is one of the most versatile project management tools, and it’s great for any size business. It uses both Kanban and Gantt view options, depending on what type of project you are working on. I also like the calendar view, which helps you to track your events, tasks and employees. With both a desktop and mobile app, it’s easy to use on the go or in the office.
Trello has become one of the most popular project management tools recently and is perfect for smaller teams or individuals. It’s really simple to use and has desktop, web and mobile options. The Kanban board helps you to view the different stages of your projects and allows you to set clear deadlines for your team.
Like most of the other options on this list, Zoho allows you to create projects and tasks, and assign them to your employees. It’s good for individuals, smaller and medium-sized businesses, and allows you to track your time spent on each task. With four different views available, it offers versatility depending on the type of project you are working on at the time.
I found Stackby to be the closest to Airtable in many ways, although it also offers APIs and automation. It’s perfect for large organizations and is a really collaborative platform allowing for plenty of customization. It has a web app and mobile app, and makes data reporting and managing content an easy task.
This tool from Citrix allows you to manage both your clients and employees. It has multiple view options for different tasks and projects and works in a similar way to many others on this list. It’s easy to use but doesn’t have the best interface in comparison to other options. It’s great for businesses of any size and has a wide variety of pricing options.
Which one of these alternatives to Airtable appeals to you most? Are there others you want to add to the list? There are so many options available today that it can get overwhelming but finding the right one for your specific needs can help save time, streamline your projects and potentially save noticeable cost as well.
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