Anand Srinivasan — April 20, 2017 Every industry needs a tool to manage and run their projects. According to a study published by the US based Project Management Institute (PMI), businesses in the United States lose as much as $ 122 million in poor project performance for each one billion dollar invested. Another study found that fewer than a third of all projects are completed on time and on budget annually. One of the many reasons contributing to the poor execution of projects is the lack of proper planning. A report published by Pricewaterhouse Coopers found that nearly 44% of project managers used no software to manage their projects.
Given how critical project management is to a business, it is not surprising that project management tools cost a lot of money. A team of 20 could be spending as much as $ 6000 a year just on a tool like Wrike and this can be a lot of money. In this article, we will take a look at five free project management alternatives that you could use for your business.
Trello
Free users: unlimited
Free projects: unlimited
File size limit: 10 MB
Trello is by far the most popular free project management out in the market today. With access to unlimited participants and the ability to have as many boards as you would want, it is not surprising that the tool is used by more than 17 million users today. As a free user, the only major catch is that file uploads are limited to 10 MB. This can be a problem if you are in the multimedia industry and are used to sharing large sized files. Also, Trello has a ‘Power Up’ feature that lets you integrate the product with third party extensions and this is limited to one per board for free users.
Hubbion
Free users: unlimited
Free projects: unlimited
File size limit: none
Hubbion is the new kid on the block and is not as widely known as some of the other tools in this list. However, this is one of the few truly free project management tools in the market today. The tool lets an unlimited number of users create an unlimited number of projects with no real file size limit. From an interface perspective, Hubbion also provides its users an easy to use calendar interface that will give you a bird’s eye view of the active tasks. Hubbion is also not as feature-rich as some of the other tools in the market today. That however works to the advantage of the product since it’s minimalistic and makes Hubbion extremely simple and easy to use.
Asana
Free users: up to 15 users
Free projects: unlimited
File size limit: N/A
A lot of the features that make Asana a great project management tool are actually for the paid users. However, they do offer a free plan if you have less than 15 users in your team. This free plan still lets you create an unlimited number of projects although the rest of the tool is really bare-bones. Features like custom fields, admin controls and task dependencies are not available to free users who have access to a basic version of the dashboard and search features.
Wrike
Free users: up to 5 users
Free projects: unlimited
File storage limit: 2 GB
Wrike is known for their paid version that comes with a number of features like time tracking, sub-tasks and third party integration. However, none of these features is available for free users. As a free user, you can only collaborate with five other members. Also, the list of features available to you is rather limited. Users can store up to 2GB of file which may be exhausted quite easily if you routinely share large size files.
Freedcamp
Free users: unlimited
Free projects: unlimited
File size limit: 10 MB
Freedcamp closely replicates Trello in its freemium strategy. Users in the free plan may collaborate with as many members as they would like. That also comes with an unlimited number of projects and file uploads with an upper limit of 10 MB. Other features that come integrated in the free plan include Google Calendar integration, time tracking, subtasks and milestones.
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