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10 ClickUp Alternatives For better Project Management

10 ClickUp Alternatives For better Project Management

By Anna Benzaquen

Published: May 24, 2023

As businesses deliver more and more projects remotely, having a project management solution that really facilitates team collaboration and suits your business needs is critical to success.

ClickUp is a cloud-based project management solution that offers many features designed for agile project management and team collaboration. Despite its upsides, ClickUp lacks some key benefits. In this article, we are going to look at 10 Clickup alternatives worth considering. We will review the set of features they offer for collaboration and team management as well as for task and project management. We will also review their price, the visual tools they provide - such as kanban boards - and how they integrate with other third-party tools.

Introduction to ClickUp and its Alternatives

While ClickUp provides features that help team members communicate and stay organized, let’s look at the reasons why ClickUp users sometimes need to look for other alternatives.

What is ClickUp and Why Do People Use it?

ClickUp is a popular cloud-based project management system. It provides a clean interface, plenty of features gathered in one unique platform, and offers useful communication tools which make ClickUp a good solution for teams.

Companies of all types and industries have decided to use ClickUp for the following reasons:

  • It is an all-in-one platform
  • It helps with task management and planning
  • Team members can customize many aspects of a team’s projects
  • It integrates with other tools
  • It provides a flexible Kanban board to create an agile workflow

But here's the thing. There are many alternatives to ClickUp that can offer the same benefits and more, and many of them might work better for your teams and your use case. In reality, ClickUp can't be the ideal solution for every business and has its own limitations

What are the Limitations of ClickUp?

While some teams find ClickUp to be an amazing software and are able to produce fantastic results using this all-in-one solution, others find ClickUp to have serious flaws. The main reasons these businesses feel ClickUp can't work as seamlessly as it should for their use case are:

The User Interface

Users get quite frustrated with the user interface and design as they find it to be confusing. This is definitely not something you want to have to deal with when handling an important task. User interface definitely needs improvement to become clearer and provide a better user experience for team members. If you prefer an intuitive design that is easy to figure out, you might need an alternative to ClickUp.

A Steep Learning Curve

Another recurring complaint is that ClickUp has a steep learning curve. This can be an issue if your team members don’t have a lot of experience using a similar app. Instead of your project management software helping you save time, it might just do the opposite. Overall, the Clickup learning process needs to be improved, and more guidance needs to be provided.

Functionality

Yes, ClickUp has a lot of features. But having such a range of features can be difficult to use in practice. In fact, most businesses need to do fewer things (and do them perfectly) and all the other features available can get in the way. As a result, many users claim that ClickUp takes too long to set up and is too difficult to organize for their needs.

Lack of Onboarding Support

Linked to the previous limitation, a lot of reviews mention the lack of onboarding support from Clickup. Teams in need of technical support are looking for more help getting started and learning how to work efficiently with their new tool. They would generally like more guidance and tools for configuring ClickUp for their business.

Price

ClickUp can be quite expensive for large teams, as it only offers "per user, per month" plans. While this model may be a good fit for some teams, others may prefer a simple flat fee per year, especially for companies with larger teams.

These are some of the limitations we have identified in ClickUp. Let’s now take a look at the reasons why some Clickup users prefer to opt for other alternatives.

Why do People Look For ClickUp Alternatives?

ClickUp’s tagline is “the one app to replace them all”. Unfortunately, it doesn’t live up to it, or at least not for all the companies that use it.

For some businesses, it is indeed a great all-in-one project management solution that provides very useful tools for team collaboration and productivity. For others, it is not as robust as they would like, it is too confusing and the planning and scheduling tools could be improved. The steep learning curve doesn’t help ClickUp gain popularity. Some team members get confused and frustrated with this solution, which holds back complete user adoption.

In the end, this is how many businesses go back to square one, in search for a project management tool that suits their needs. This is why we have decided to compare 10 fantastic alternatives to Clickup that your team might just love. But before we dive in, let’s take a look at some of the key features you need to pay attention to when looking for a ClickUp alternative.

What Are the Key Features of ClickUp Alternatives?

Project Planning/Scheduling

Managing projects and teams is not always easy or straightforward. Your project management solution should help you plan your projects and streamline processes for all team members.

Your ClickUp alternative should offer project planning capabilities that define key project goals, set clear tasks, and establish schedules and deadlines to help your team become more efficient and productive. It should allow you to create individual and group project team schedules that are easily visible through a comprehensive dashboard that displays the various projects underway and the team members associated with them.

This feature is especially useful for project managers, creatives, and team leaders.

Task Management

When managing projects, grouping multiple tasks and creating dedicated work queues for your team members can sometimes be challenging. In this case, it is crucial to have a solution that helps you distribute work among team members, track progress, and facilitate collaboration.

Task management features should let you create, manage, and assign tasks within a project. It should also allow you to break down a large project task into smaller subtasks, each with its own deadline. You could also benefit from using a solution that builds dependencies between interrelated tasks to ensure project work is completed correctly.

Collaboration

Email should not be your only form of communication. A key feature you need to look for in a ClickUp alternative is its ability to build a better way of working and communicating with your team: chats, comments, notes, shareable dashboards, change approvals...

Kanban Boards for Linear Task View

A Kanban board is an agile project management tool designed to help visualize work, limit work-in-progress, and maximize efficiency (or workflow).

Using a ClickUp alternative that provides Kanban boards and other visual tools will help project managers create the perfect agile workflow. In most use cases, a flexible Kanban board will help teams visualize work, analyze a project from any angle and keep tasks organized and prioritized. Team members should be able to arrange and customize their board as needed so it works best for them.

High Level of Customization

One size does not fit all. When considering a ClickUp alternative, make sure it offers high levels of customization. Your new solution should provide custom statuses and templates, as well as custom team spaces, custom workflows, custom features, tags, and privacy settings.

Integrations

The ability of a ClickUp alternative to integrate with other third-party tools can have several advantages. Useful integrations can help you increase team productivity, reduce costs, and collect more reliable data, just to name a few.

Comparison of ClickUp Alternatives

Asana

Introduction

Asana is a work management software designed to improve employee productivity and company efficiency. This tool helps teams organize their workflow and improve the coordination and management of their tasks and projects in order to move forward more quickly and with a clearer understanding of the team's plan and process. It also gives team members a better overview of their individual to-do lists for the day, week or month (thanks to a “My Tasks” view)

Pricing and Plans

Asana has three pricing plans you can choose from:

  • Basic: Free-forever plan with limited features. 15 team members max.
  • Premium: $10.99 per user/per month. Unlimited free guests.
  • Business: $24.99 per user/per month. Advanced features and advanced integrations.

Features and Capabilities

For Collaboration and Team Member Management

  • Teams
  • Collaborators
  • Guests
  • Permissions
  • Admin controls

For Task and Project Management

  • Projects
  • Tasks
  • Subtasks
  • Task assignees
  • Custom fields
  • Forms
  • Due dates & Times
  • Start dates
  • Timeline
  • Attachments
  • Multi-home tasks
  • Templates
  • Comment-only projects
  • Approvals

Kanban Boards and Other Visual Tools

Asana allows you to visualize your progress on digital Kanban boards so you can see your team move tasks from to-do to done. It also lets you quickly switch from a Kanban board view to a list, Gantt chart timeline, or calendar view so team members can visualize work the way they want.

Integration with Other Software and Tools

Asana integrates with many other apps such as Slack, Google Drive, Salesforce, Jira, Zoom and Zapier.

Trello

Introduction

Trello is a free project management software designed to help students and professionals plan and organize their teamwork. This solution brings together many tools in one platform to help users increase productivity and efficiency by improving team communication and workflow. It is a great system for collaborating on tasks with coworkers or clients.

Pricing and Plans

Trello has four different pricing plans, including:

  • Free: with limited access - the whole team can use it.
  • Standard: $5 per user/per month.
  • Premium: $10 per user/per month. Free trial.
  • Enterprise: $17.50 per user/per month.

Features and Capabilities

For Collaboration and Team Member Management

  • Shareable boards, cards, and lists
  • Content Publishing & Sharing
  • Conversations and Posts
  • Note Taking
  • Notes
  • Task Management
  • Task tracker
  • Task board
  • Comments

For Task and Project Management

  • Boards, cards, and lists
  • Trello’s Butler (to automate almost any action)
  • Automatic Actions
  • Priority Management
  • Task Management & Alerts
  • Validation Process
  • Flexible organization

Kanban Boards and Other Visual Tools

Similar to a Kanban board, Trello's lists and cards are a perfect match for the Kanban system, providing an efficient approach to organizing your team's work.

Integration with Other Software and Tools

Power-Ups and integrations allow you to bring additional features to your boards and integrate other apps into Trello, such as Slack, Jira, Google Drive, Confluence, Zapier, TeamGannt, GitHub…

Monday.com

Introduction

Monday.com is an intuitive project management platform that allows team members to collaborate, communicate and manage projects. Its user-friendly dashboard provides real-time visibility into the project progress and helps team members stay organized and on track.

Pricing and Plans

monday.com has five different pricing plans, including a free plan. Other pricing plans include:

  • Free: Up to 2 seats
  • Basic: $8 seat/per month
  • Standard: $10 seat/per month
  • Pro: $16 seat/per month
  • Enterprise: Contact monday.com for pricing

Features and Capabilities

For Collaboration and Team Member Management

  • Appointment Scheduling
  • Calendar Syncing
  • Collaborative Review
  • Create Tasks by Email
  • Event Scheduling
  • Managing Attachments
  • News Feed
  • Note Taking
  • Notes Sharing
  • Planning Overview
  • Scheduling
  • Shared Calendars
  • Shared Whiteboard
  • Task Management

For Task and Project Management

  • Custom Project Structure
  • Kanban Board
  • Prioritizing
  • Priority Management
  • Project Duplication
  • Project Planning
  • Project Portfolio
  • Project Templates
  • Projects Overview / Follow Up
  • Scrum Roles Management
  • Task Planning
  • Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Kanban Boards and Other Visual Tools

Monday.com allows you to add the Kanban View to your board to generate cards that represent labels from Status Columns.

Integration with Other Software and Tools

Monday.com offers plenty of software integrations, such as Slack, Trello, Dropbox and Google Drive, so you can incorporate your existing tools into your project management workflow.

Wrike

Introduction

Wrike is a cloud-based project management and collaboration software that helps teams streamline their workflow and improve communications. It was designed for businesses of all sizes and can be used in various industries. Unlike ClickUp, it has a fantastic minimal and straightforward interface.

Pricing and Plans

Wrike has four different pricing plans, depending on your team’s size and needs:

  • Free: Up to 5 users
  • Team: $9.80 per user/per month. Team management for 2-25 users
  • Business: $24.80 per user/per month. 5 to 200 users for any use case, with customized features
  • Enterprise: Unlimited users and enterprise-grade security. Contact sales for pricing details.
  • Pinnacle: Unlimited users, advanced tools and analytics. Contact sales for pricing details.

Features and Capabilities

For Collaboration and Team Member Management

  • Conversations and Posts
  • Create Tasks by Email
  • News Feed
  • Note Taking
  • Notes Sharing
  • Task Management
  • Communication
  • Mention Collaborators
  • Notifications

For Task and Project Management

  • Assessment of Tasks to Be Completed
  • Custom Project Structure
  • Kanban Board
  • Priority Management
  • Project Planning
  • Project Report
  • Project Templates
  • Projects Overview / Follow Up
  • Recurring Tasks
  • Resource Allocation
  • Resource Management
  • Task Planning
  • Time tracking

Kanban Boards and Other Visual Tools

Wrike allows you to build your own flexible, customizable in-cloud Kanban board that you can share with your entire team.

Integration with Other Software and Tools

Wrike currently lists more than 400 apps under their website’s integrations tab, which include Salesforce, Zoom, Slack, GitHub, Dropbox, Microsoft Teams, Gmail, Confluence and more.

Basecamp

Introduction

Basecamp is an all-in-one project management software designed to help remote teams collaborate, organize tasks and track project progress. Basecamp is a great alternative to ClickUp and is one of the most trusted project management programs out there.

Pricing and Plans

Unlike Clickup and most similar programs, Basecamp doesn't charge per user. Instead, they offer a free (but limited) version of the program or a paid plan with a flat rate of $99/month for businesses of all sizes.

Features and Capabilities

For Collaboration and Team Member Management

  • Conversations and Posts
  • Message Boards
  • Elections and votes
  • Knowledge Base, Wiki
  • Note Taking
  • Shared Calendars
  • Task Management
  • Scheduling events

For Task and Project Management

  • Project Planning
  • Project Report
  • Projects Overview / Follow Up
  • Customizable to-do list
  • Visual deadlines and tasks
  • Issue tracking

Kanban Boards and Other Visual Tools

Basecamp allows you to create a unique Kanban board for each individual project. This allows team members to know the status of each task or project at a glance.

Integration with Other Software and Tools

You can sync Basecamp to-do lists with Jira, Zendesk, HubSpot, Trello, Asana, Wrike, GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. Basecamp can also connect with 750+ business apps and enable you to automate a lot of your work.

Smartsheet

Introduction

Smartsheet is a cloud-based project management and collaboration tool designed to improve project transparency, increase productivity, and optimize workflows. It helps teams plan, track, and manage projects of all sizes across all types of businesses and industries.

Pricing and Plans

Smartsheet has four different pricing options, including:

  • Free: Free for small teams. 1 user, up to 2 editors, 2 sheets, 500 MB attachment storage, 100 automations per month.
  • Pro: $7 per month/per user. Up to 25 users. Unlimited sheets, unlimited free viewers, 20 GB attachment storage, 250 automations per month
  • Business: $25 per month/per user. Minimum of 3 users, unlimited editors, unlimited free viewers, unlimited automations
  • Enterprise: All Business plan features, plus advanced security features. Contact Smartsheet for pricing

Features and Capabilities

For Collaboration and Team Member Management

  • Workspaces designed to work collaboratively
  • Permissions
  • Comments
  • Attachments
  • Tracker for Sheet Changes
  • Gantt charts
  • Customizable work schedule
  • Critical Path Tracker

For Task and Project Management

  • Control Center (portfolio and project management solution)
  • Role Assignment Features
  • Timelines
  • Gantt Charts (allows project managers to track tasks, milestones and project timelines with great details)
  • Customizable Templates
  • Expense tracking
  • Kanban Board
  • Automation capabilities

Kanban Boards and Other Visual Tools

By default, Smartsheet opens in grid view. However, you can also use it with a Kanban board view called Card View.

Integration with Other Software and Tools

Smartsheet integrates with a range of third-party tools such as Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, Slack and Salesforce. Smartsheet Business and Enterprise plans also provide integrations with Brandfolder, Adobe Creative Cloud, Tableau and Power BI.

Airtable

Introduction

Airtable is a very popular alternative to ClickUp. This easy-to-use project management software helps teams and businesses of all sizes effectively manage their operations, improve their workflow and organize projects. It is also easy to adapt for beginners.

Pricing and Plans

Airtable has four pricing options you can choose from, including:

  • Free: Limited access. Up to 5 members
  • Plus: $10 per seat/per month.
  • Pro: $20 per seat/per month.
  • Enterprise: Unlimited workspaces and extensions, Advanced interface controls. Contact Airtable for pricing.

Features and Capabilities

For Collaboration and Team Member Management

  • Comments and record history
  • Team collaboration management
  • Centralized system to help collaboration
  • Easy to visualize schedules and upcoming projects or tasks with Airtable’s views
  • Centralized communications, files, and reports

For Task and Project Management

  • Custom Project Structure
  • Custom task fields
  • Kanban Board
  • Prioritizing
  • Private projects
  • Project Portfolio
  • Project Requests
  • Project Templates
  • Resource Allocation

Kanban Boards and Other Visual Tools

While an Airtable base can be viewed as a grid, a calendar, or a visual gallery, you can also choose to organize information into a Kanban board to visualize your workflow as rows of stacked cards.

Integration with Other Software and Tools

Airtable has sync integrations that can communicate with eight other major platforms: Salesforce, Google Calendar, Jira Server & Jira Cloud, Google Drive, Github, Outlook and Zendesk.

Proofhub

Introduction

ProofHub is an all-in-one cloud-based project management tool and a good alternative to ClickUp. Proofhub helps teams plan, organize, and collaborate on tasks in a central location. Managers use this tool to manage everyday tasks, communicate quickly with team members, track time with timesheets, and manage projects efficiently.

Pricing and Plans

ProofHub offers 2 fixed-price plans:

  • Essential: $45 per month when billed annually (no per-user fee). Only the core features are included. Limited to 40 projects, unlimited users, 15GB storage.
  • Ultimate control: $150 per month when billed annually. Core features + advanced features. Unlimited projects, unlimited users, 100GB storage.

Features and Capabilities

For Collaboration and Team Member Management

  • Calendar Syncing
  • Task Management
  • Chat Box / Instant Messaging
  • Group Chat
  • Public and private notes
  • One-click approval
  • Comments
  • Timesheets

For Task and Project Management

  • To-do lists
  • Gantt charts
  • Calendar milestones
  • Multiple assignees
  • Multiple task views
  • Tasks, subtasks and tasklists
  • Forms
  • Customizable workflows

Kanban Boards and Other Visual Tools

Proofhub allows you to visualize the status of your work by dragging and dropping tasks on a Kanban board from one stage to the next.

Integration with Other Software and Tools

Proofhub can integrate with many other tools used by your teams: Box, Dropbox, Slack, Onedrive, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Quick books, Freshbooks…

nTask

Introduction

nTask is a cloud-based project management solution designed to simplify team work, project planning and project management. It offers team workload management tools to align remote teams, and Kanban boards to create a project plan, visualize tasks and better collaborate throughout projects.

Pricing and Plans

nTask offers free and paid plans:

  • Basic: Free.Up to 5 team members, unlimited workspaces, and unlimited tasks.
  • Premium: $3/month billed yearly. Designed for individuals or teams just getting started with project management.
  • Business: $8/month billed yearly. Designed for more experienced teams that need to create projects and plans with confidence.
  • Enterprise: Designed for teams that need customizable solutions, enterprise-grade security, and advanced features. Contact nTask for pricing.

Features and Capabilities

For Collaboration and Team Member Management

  • Share Updates with Everyone
  • Reply-Later
  • Document Sharing and Files Management
  • Team Chat

For Task and Project Management

  • Gantt Charts
  • Project Planning
  • Task Tracking
  • Resource management
  • Financial summary
  • Task dependency
  • Project deliverable management
  • Milestones
  • Multiple Sub-Tasks
  • Set repeat task
  • Add assignees and attachments
  • Set planned and actual dates
  • To-do lists

Kanban Boards and Other Visual Tools

nTask Manager organizes workflows on Kanban boards that are visible to all team members. This provides a sense of transparency and lets everybody know what the team is doing.

Integration with Other Software and Tools

nTask integrates with a number of task management tools, such as Asana, as well as communication tools like Jira and other services like Google Calendar.

TaskQue

Introduction

TaskQue is a cloud-based software designed to enhance team productivity and help teams save time and work more efficiently together. It offers different workflow templates for various industries and departments, auto task assignment features, plenty of communication and collaboration tools on one single platform designed to help all team members, including remote workers.

Pricing and Plans

  • Basic: Free for life. Up to 10 users. With 5 MB attachment limit & 1 GB Space
  • Free trial: 60 days - experience premium features for free
  • Business: $5 per user per month, With 100 MB attachment limit & 5 GB Space - minimum 5 users

Features and Capabilities

For Collaboration and Team Member Management

  • Community support
  • Discussion
  • Multiple workspaces
  • Task Comments

For Task and Project Management

  • Progress tracker
  • Task assignee
  • Customizable workflows from templates
  • Notifications & Email management
  • Queue Manager
  • User view
  • Set task priorities
  • Reopen and rework on tasks
  • Convert to-dos into tasks
  • Calendar view for tasks and to-dos.

Kanban Boards and Other Visual Tools

Taskque offers a drag and drop feature between workflows in Kanban boards in order to make your business more agile.

Integration with Other Software and Tools

Taskque integrates with Slack, Google Docs and DropBox but is working on offering more integrations.

Clickup Alternatives: your Key Takeaways

Whatever your reason for looking for an alternative to Clickup, each solution on our list of great Clickup alternatives provides its own set of features, designs, templates and tools to help you improve the way your team works on projects and collaborates.

Before choosing one, be sure to analyze your business needs and specifics. You can even try some of these solutions for free for a while and see what works best for your teams.