Today we take a look at software and web apps to help you manage your freelance projects. An essential tool for any freelancer who wants to stay organised, keep the client up to date and keep records of milestones, deadlines and project files…
Web-based Applications
Basecamp - I personally use this for organising all my projects, I dont have clients any more but I use it to organise tasks with my employees, on internal projects, who are situated around the world; it works like a charm!
From their website : “Basecamp takes a fresh, novel approach to project collaboration. Projects don’t fail from a lack of charts, graphs, stats, or reports, they fail from a lack of clear communication. Basecamp solves this problem by providing tools tailored to improve the communication between people working together on a project.”
Active Collab - Plan your projects and track their progress… activeCollab lets you assign tasks to people, define what is urgent. See what your team is doing and what they need to do, discuss stuff that you are working on and more
Go Plan - Manage multiple projects with ease using Goplan’s intuitive user interface. Track project progress through task management, calendaring, note sharing and issue tracking. Additionally, real-time in-browser chat lets you converse with team members
Copper - Project management software designed to help creative teams manage clients, projects, tasks, files, budgets, and events
Wrike - Wrike is a leader in on-demand Online Project Management. Wrike helps to save time for marketing agencies, software development teams, event organizers, publishers, financial services firms, process engineering companies and many others
Nozbe - Nozbe is a web-based task manager and to-do list gtd software that will help your personal productivity - project management and time tracking. Nozbe’s gtd software is available in your web browser and on your mobile phone and Apple iPhone
Redmine - Redmine is a flexible project management web application. Written using Ruby on Rails framework, it is cross-platform and cross-database
ActionThis - ActionThis delivers task management for teams. ActionThis helps teams and small businesses define goals, assign and track tasks, and improve their overall execution. The service combines project management with collaboration and business intelligence to deliver teams and small businesses greater value from their existing software investments
Achievo - Achievo is a flexible web-based resource management tool for business environments. Achievo’s resource management capabilities will enable organisations to support their business processes in a simple, but effective manner
Zoho Projects - Online Project Management Software , Easy Web Based Planning and Tracking Tool
Project 2 Manage - Project2Manage is a free hosted project management solution that virtually anyone can use. Project2Manage is a great tool to keep you organized. It has a ton of features that allow you to create, manage and complete projects in your day to day activities as well as your professional life
DevShop - Devshop is a hosted project management application specifically designed for planning software projects. Not planning weddings, or building roads - just software
Desktop Software
Open Workbench - Open Workbench is an open source desktop application that provides robust project scheduling and management functionality. Already the scheduling standard for more than 100,000 project managers worldwide, Open Workbench is a free and powerful alternative to Microsoft Project
dot Project (open source) - dotProject is a web-based project management application, designed to provide project layout and control functions.
dotProject aims to provide the project manager with a tool to manage tasks, schedules, communication and sharing. But beware, dotProject will not be all things to all project managers - you may find that other FOSS tools are more appropriate to your particular requirements. You will need to do some investigation and testing to find the product that best suits your requirements
Task Juggler - TaskJuggler is project management software for serious project managers. It covers the complete spectrum of project management tasks from the first idea to the completion of the project. It assists you during project scoping, resource assignment, cost and revenue planing, risk and communication management
I’m surprised you didn’t mention Basecamp. Is there a reason? 37Signals defines Basecamp as a project management tool. I know they have blurred the lines between Basecamp and Backpack with the recent updates. Do you believe that Backpack now passes Basecamp as a PM tool?
Brett - you waont believe this, I do actually use Basecamp!
Ive listed the wrong above, doh.
Changing it now…
oli, just as a side note, the image still links to backpack
Good Article Oli, very useful. I translate it to Brazilian Portuguese, and add two new suggestions for your list:
Open Source Desktop App: OpenProj and Streber(That I think its the greatest open source web-based project management)
The post is a useful collection of links, but I would be even more useful if you could say a few words on each tool. For example, I use Wrike and I love it. You want to know why? It’s integrated with my inbox and I can make up tasks like emails and send it to the system. It’s very convenient, cause I can work with my clients without making them log on to the site, they just reply my email and the tasks gets automatically updated. I couldn’t get my clients to use Basecamp, but they love Wrike, cause it’s easier for them. That’s my experience, hope it is helpful.
Let me tell you what is the best project management:
ClockingIT
Check it out, it’s impressive.
And i believe basecamp is the most over-rated app in the web.
[...] 18)Freelancers: Manage your projects- Essential tools and web apps for any freelancer who wants to stay organised, keep the client up to date and keep records of milestones, deadlines and project files… [...]
[...] 18)Freelancers: Manage your projects- Essential tools and web apps for any freelancer who wants to stay organised, keep the client up to date and keep records of milestones, deadlines and project files… [...]
Very useful links…
I just want to add two open source web-based apps : Project Pier and Collabtive.
Hello,
Have you tried using SmartDraw to create graphics/charts for project manaegment? It’s great for workflows, gantt charts, timelines, schedules, and more. You can download a free trial here: http://www.smartdraw.com/specials/project-software.htm
Hope that’s helpful.
Another mention of ProjectPier ( http://www.projectpier.org ) an open source fork of the original ActiveCollab
[...] Online PM Tools [...]
[...] Freelancers: Manage your projects (tags: internet) [...]
Huddle might replace Basecamp for me. After checking out the free trial, I was pretty impressed that it’s a definite contender to Basecamp. It feels right in so many ways. Check it out:
http://www.huddle.net/
[...] Tutorialblog sind einige Webapps und Tools unter die Lupe genommen worden die genau bei dieser Aufgabe [...]
It would be nice to place ProjectOffice.net among these PM solutions, since it has most of the features the ones listed here have.
Additionally, we just had a new release, full with new and improved features.
On Monday we are releasing ProjectOffice.net Buzzer (desktop notifier for recent changes) and iGoogle, Netvibes, Pageflakes gadgets.
The best of all, everything is free.
Try it let us know what you think.
For hosted project management, I would recommend TeamWork Live: http://www.teamworklive.com
It’s easy to use (like Basecamp) but more full-featured. Some features I really like are its email integration (you can reply to messages and add comments just by replying to notification emails) and the way it automatically connects related information like files, messages, and comments together with the relevant tasks.
[...] Freelancers: Manage your projects [...]
You also might consider mentioning ]project-open[ in your list. The interface needs an overhaul but from my POV it is the most complete solution currently offered in the OSS/FOSS space. Including mot only all what you would expect from a PM tool like collaboration, file sharing, time sheet but also offering Financial Project Management and invoicing.
I use http://assembla.com, is very nice.
Very nice list of project management tools! I loved some of them like Basecamp and Active Collab. Thanks for the useful listing!
Thank you for this Oli.
Its sad tough that this blog is slowly dieing
[...] Tutorial Blog - Freelancers: Manage Your Projects [...]
Very nice list of project management tools! I loved some of them like Basecamp and Active Collab. Thanks for the useful listing!
Another vote for Copper Project (http://www.copperproject.com) the best out of this list by far. If you’re serious about creative project management software, then I’m not sure why you’d use basecamp.
[...] In the meantime the world still needs project management, so here’s a long list of both web and desktop software that may help you to organise your projects and tasks: http://tutorialblog.org/freelancers-manage-your-projects/ [...]
I would recommend checking 5pm: http://www.5pmweb.com.
This is one of the latest project management services with a very unique interface and approach.
just as a side note, the image still links to backpack
I’m a big fan of http://www.assembla.com/ too. Surprised its not in list.
Great free svn and trac account, so code and project management is tightly integrated.
Do any of the other tools come with svn repository?
lazytodo is unique to manage everything, worth a try !