🖖 Our Perfect Project mgmt tool *Decision* [❤️ Save this]

Hey all, this week, we planned to finalize on the perfect project management tool for us.

The whole exercise took us a couple of days. We signed up & tried all the tools one by one. In the end, we believe this time was worth it! Below is the summary of all the options which have most of the features, an indieHacking team requires to kickstart the collaboration. At the bottom of this post, I have revealed which one we decided to go with and why.

(None of the links I have put are affiliate links except Slack, and the reason for Slack is mentioned at the bottom of this post )

If you want to convert this to youtube or podcast content, feel free to do so. Remember to tag PhotoATM.com :D

Our requirements:

Tasks, Subtasks, Chat, Documents, Comments, Free external users(contract people/interns/freelancers), Budget-friendly, and more than 15 projects allowed.

1. Notion

Notion - The all-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases.

• Super Flexible Tasks Management
• Knowledge base for everything
• You can also sell content externally.
• Price: $10/user/month

2. Asana

Manage your team’s work, projects, & tasks online * Asana

• Perfect Tasks Management
• Files can be attached to tasks. Links of master and other docs can be added to any project.
• Can add Unlimited Guests who do not count in the billing
• Upselling banners & pages doesn’t go away with this plan unless you get a $30/user/month Business plan. A lot of premium users are annoyed because of this all-the-time irritation.
• Price: $15/user/month But if you want to save money, you can start with a free account until you are just two people. For more people like contract/interns/freelancers - there is a way by creating multiple teams.

3. Quip:

Quip

• Blazing fast feeling on desktop app - like data is already on your device. I don’t remember seeing any loading bars anywhere.
• Tabs inside the app are fantastic for productivity. Can keep multiple contexts open with high-speed switching.
• Sidebar is not pinned. (So notion flow ‘seems’ faster than this, as you can jump from any page to any other page with a single click). Although tabs in Quip can fulfill that missing feel somewhat, I am not happy with Quip on this one.
• Like Notion but desktop-like experience and fast.
• Price: $12/user/month
• But for the first 5 users, pricing is flat, $30 per month. Thumbs up!

4. Jira

Jira | Issue & Project Tracking Software | Atlassian

• Tasks & Wiki (Jira and Confluence)
• Free till ten users.
• Adding members after existing ten won't be free. So you need to pay and upgrade if we need to add people.
• Little faster experience than it used to be before. Not snappy as Quip.
• Price: $7/user/month for Jira ( + $5/u/mo for Wiki. Total - $12/user/month)
• Just a small team with 100% transparency, it will be free forever.

5. Clickup

ClickUp™ | One app to replace them all

• Tasks, Wiki etc., all are there.
• Lots of features. Good UI but too much stuff. From popups to buttons etc. Not minimalistic. My friend uses this in their Company. They paid for 50+ people.
• Price: $4-7/user/month. (Annual plan only)
• Has a free plan for unlimited people like many other options, so we will mostly not use it. (Attachments on tasks, like screenshots, need to be paid account, so I am skipping the free option as I need lots of screenshots and other attachments. )

6. Basecamp

Replace all over the place with ONE place.

• Simple UI, zero cognitive loads. Looks are eye candy.
• Message, Documents, Tasks, Meetings - all-inclusive.
• Price: $99/month flat for unlimited users.
• Has free plan. With 20 users limit, consider this beneficial for the internal team (not contract) because permission management is unavailable.

7. TeamWork

Teamwork: Work & Project Management Software

• Clients and Viewers are not counted in paid plans.
• Docs, Wiki, Gantt, et al.
• All standard features. Good enough UI but not as beautiful as Asana.
• Price: $13/user/month
• We can only buy for the core team: $25/month. And add other people (contract etc.) as clients.

8. NiftyPM

Nifty: Manage Projects, Tasks, and Communications

• Chat and Tasks together
• Docs and Wiki possible here, Gantt, Files looks featureful!
• Unlimited Guests etc. is a plus
• Price: $49/month for 10 people.
• Looks what we need. If this was snappier. More eye candy. Cleaner.

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Runner ups:

9. Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams | Group Chat Software | Free Chat for Teams

(Slow and loading bar everywhere, otherwise it would have been my first choice - because of tabs.)

10. AirSend

AirSend

Something is missing. Not sure why, but somehow I didn't like the interface and the feel. Although features are good - no complaints there!

11. Rock.so

Not good UI - eye candy-ness needs to be improved. Tasks need to be improved in order to be used.

12. nTask

nTask - Free Online Task & Project Management Software for Teams - nTask

Although feature-ful, it somehow didn’t connect to this one when Asana and other tools are there

13. Flow

Flexible Project & Task Management Software for Teams - Flow

All good, not sure what is the issue, something seems missing, maybe the UI is a bit too bold/loud? [m on a monitor]

14. ActiveCollab

Collaborative Project Management Software · ActiveCollab

Free for three users and unlimited clients. It seems a little buggy here and there - not sure If I did something.

15. ORA

Ora - Task management done right!

Only one list is viewable at each time. It feels we will have to do too many clicks to juggle between tasks.

16. Nimbus Notes

Nimbus Note - One place to manage all your information | knowledge base | tasks | projects |, etc.

(Is more notes-oriented than chat. Although good features.)

17. Hive

Manage projects faster & collaborate better | Hive

(very good with most features we need. I could have selected this if pricing had been lower.)

18. ProofHub

ProofHub: All-in-One Project Planning Software | No Per User Fee

Beautiful pricing and features for the small team. We almost decided on this one. But we are missing a good sidebar with quickly switchable projects, And looks can be improved (i.e., eye candy)

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What we chose

We went through all the options and finally decided on Slack + Notion. We realised there is no silver bullet and to get best of both world, we will need to keep these both open all times.

Slack is best for communication, it has great looks and is eye candy that we were looking for. And it’s webhooks which we’ll be needing once our product grows.

Notion is great for document management. And it has a desktop app. Feels pretty fast and snappy. And the sidebar is great. I like the bookmark feature where you can expand the details. I use this feature a lot.

Try Slack today with our referral link: https://slack.com/intl/en-in/r/0257ja8mmy-025e9nn7mk

We both will receive 100USD credits inside Slack to begin with, which is rare to get in Slack these days.