A web-based project management system helps you plan, track, and coordinate projects from start to finish. Whether you’re launching a new product, redesigning your website, or building a company blog, project management software can help you do it more efficiently.
Projects often involve multiple contributors or remote teams, with numerous subtasks, dependencies, deliverables, and deadlines. Project management tools can help you oversee all that complexity, keeping you and your team organized, informed, and accountable.
This guide defines web-based project management systems and explores seven tools that can help your team stay aligned and keep moving forward.
What are web-based project management systems?
Web-based project management systems allow you to plan, track, and organize your work in one place and access it from anywhere via a web browser—no need to install software on individual computers. These tools help teams create projects, assign tasks and deadlines, and track progress throughout a project’s life cycle.
Businesses of all sizes use project management software to coordinate their work, standardize processes, streamline workflows, track project statuses, and increase communication and accountability.
While features vary by platform, most project management software have the following capabilities:
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Task management. Create projects, assign work, set deadlines, and track progress.
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Project views. Organize work as lists, project timelines, calendars, Kanban boards, or Gantt charts, depending on your preferred workflow.
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Team collaboration. Keep conversations in one place with comments, notifications, messaging, and file sharing.
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Integrations. Connect with commonly used business apps such as Zoom, Google Calendar, and Box.
No two project management systems are alike, and their features may vary widely beyond these core capabilities. Some offer lightweight task management for small teams, while others support complex projects and structured workflows, and provide features like reports, workflow automation, resource management, project portfolio management, and AI tools.
If you run a Shopify store, you may not need a separate project management tool for every operational task. Shopify includes built-in productivity features such as bulk editing and future publishing, as well as AI tools like Sidekick—an ecommerce assistant that can generate content and create to-do lists as you work on your store.
Top web-based systems for managing projects
The following project management tools were evaluated based on ease of use, the mix of core and advanced features, standout capabilities for specific use cases, and pricing. All the tools support baseline project management features including task management, list and board views, collaboration tools, and integrations.
Asana
Asana’s minimalist interface makes it easy to manage tasks across simple and complex projects. It includes over 100 business software integrations and integrates with task automation app Shopify Flow, so you can create Asana tasks from Shopify workflows. Paid plans include a no-code automation builder, dashboards, and advanced reporting, useful for teams looking for a high level of detail and control.
Pricing: The free plan supports two users, unlimited tasks and projects, and integrations. Paid plans start at $10.99 per user per month, billed annually.
monday.com
monday.com provides a highly visual, color-coded board workspace for project management. The free plan for very small teams is limited and includes two users and three boards. Paid plans allow for customizable views, workflows, and reports, as well as industry-specific workflow templates, including one for inventory management. Higher-level plans also offer over 200 integrations and prebuilt and no-code automations.
Pricing: The free plan supports two users and three boards. Paid plans begin at $9 per user per month, billed annually.
ClickUp
ClickUp has one unified system for project management, documentation, and team collaboration. Paid plans let you customize your workspace’s layouts, themes, fields, task types, dashboards, and data visualizations. The tool provides nearly 50 native integrations, with more available via third parties. Its free plan includes features that other project management software may charge extra for, including unlimited users and tasks and collaborative documents.
Pricing: In addition to a free plan, paid plans start at $7 per user, per month, billed annually.
Smartsheet
If your work involves a lot of spreadsheets, you’ll likely be comfortable with Smartsheet’s interface. The tool is known for its spreadsheet view with linkable cells, to which you can add comments, links, and formulas. Gantt and calendar views are also provided.
Smartsheet includes advanced reporting features and dashboards, prebuilt and custom automations, and 175 integrations. A higher-level plan includes an AI tool for formula generation, which may help with complex calculations.
Pricing: No free plan. Paid plans start at $9 per user per month, billed annually.
Wrike
Wrike has a clean, straightforward interface with task management, AI-assisted content creation, comment summaries, and whiteboards included even on its free plan. Its paid plans add recurring tasks and workflow automation, expanded AI features, and advanced capacity planning and resource management tools for complex projects. You also get more than 400 integrations with higher-tier plans, useful for teams that need task management capabilities as their needs become more complex.
Pricing: The free plan supports unlimited users. Paid plans start at $10 per user per month, billed annually.
Trello
The Kanban-inspired Trello has a simple visual interface for small or uncomplicated projects. It can’t handle complex dependencies, for example, and doesn’t include advanced reporting or dashboards, though you can add features like time tracking via integrations. Trello offers more than 200 integrations and also integrates with Shopify Flow.
Pricing: The free plan supports up to 10 users. Paid plans start at $5 per user per month, billed annually.
Basecamp
Basecamp is a project management tool that focuses on communication and collaboration. Its collaboration tools include message boards, direct messaging, and support for multiple chat rooms per project. It also has 10 types of reports and 80 integrations, but doesn’t have dashboards, automations, or AI tools.
One of Basecamp’s biggest advantages is a flat-fee plan that allows unlimited users and clients. If you have a large team—or plan to—and you don’t need all the bells and whistles of a full-featured project management system, that plan could offer better value.
Pricing: The fully featured flat-fee plan is $299 a month, billed annually. Basecamp also has a free plan that supports one project and up to 20 users and a per-user plan that costs $15 per month.
Web-based project management system FAQ
What features should a project management system include?
Most project management tools include core features for project scheduling and collaboration. This includes tools to create, assign, and track projects; multiple ways to view those projects; and in-app communication. Some of the best project management software has additional features like reports, dashboards, automations, integrations, resource management, and AI tools.
What is the difference between cloud-based and web-based project management software?
Web-based describes how you access the software, while cloud-based describes where and how the software is hosted. You access web-based project management software through a browser instead of an app installed on your computer. Cloud-based project management software is hosted on remote, scalable servers instead of on a single, fixed, on-site server. Nearly all of today’s project management software is both web-based and cloud-based. An exception is Microsoft Project, which has both cloud-based and on-premises options.
Why would my small business need project management software?
Project management software gives small businesses a central place to manage tasks, deadlines, files, and team communication. It can help reduce missed deadlines, improve accountability, and keep project team members and stakeholders aligned. Starting with a free project management tool can help you see how your business can benefit.
