Free project management tool that doesn't compromise on quality and functionality

Zoho Projects offers a free, feature-rich version that's perfect for small businesses and start-ups. Here's what you can do with our free plan:

Give structure to your work

Easily map out your work breakdown structure with our free project management software using core modules like milestones, task lists, tasks, and issues. Categorize and identify common work items by assigning tags in our free project management tool.

use Zoho Project's project planner free of cost to organize your work efficiently

You can't go wrong with the Gantt

Our free project planning software allows you to plan every step of your project and see how your timeline looks with our Gantt Chart view. We also support the commonly used finish-to-start dependency in our project management software.

Conversations that aren't in the dark

Whether you're in-office or working remotely, keep your entire team engaged in your project with collaborative features like the Feed, Forums, documents, and chat.

Conversations that aren't in the dark

Numbers can tell tales

We provide basic task and issue reports in our free project management software for you to analyze how many of them belong to different statuses, assignees, owners, tags, and other distinct factors.

Analyze data better with reports provide by our project management software free of cost
  • Save the date online

    The color-coded calendar module in Zoho Projects will keep you up to date of all your upcoming work items, events, and meetings. The best free project management tool will sync your data across all your accounts. In Zoho Projects, its easy-to-use calendar module can be synced with your Google Calendar and iCal.

  • Customize your work

    Free project management tools should also be flexible and customizable. In Zoho Projects, you can customize your portal with your company logo and unique domain name. You can also set up custom statuses that better fit your nature of work for both projects and tasks in our free project management software.

Team players yield the best results

Projects works well with Zoho applications like Zoho CRM and Zoho Meeting, and other third-party applications like Zapier. Whether it's importing data from Microsoft Projects and JIRA or integrating with Google apps, you can do it all with Zoho Projects.

Project management on the go

Manage your projects from wherever you are using our free project management software. Remote work and ad-hoc schedules are easily manageable using our Android and IoS mobile apps. Don't you think this makes us one of the best free project management tools?

What makes a free project management software stand out?

You know you've landed the right free project management tool when it perfectly tailors to your business' distinctive characteristics - the team size, the industry, goals and objectives, and even the organization's values. It is also important to consider ease of use, the learning curve involved in implementing the tool, intuitiveness and whether teams see themselves using it in the long run. This free project planning software should also be compatible with other applications already in use, and be equipped with integrative capabilities.

How To Choose the Best Free Project Management Software

When it comes to choosing free project management tools, there are some things that take priority, like basic features, ease of use, collaboration and integrations. Not only should free project management software be able to simplify task processes, your teams should also be able to navigate around the product with ease.

Essential features

  • Dashboards

    Have essential information at your fingertips and customize your dashboards to show you exactly what you need, when you need it.

  • Look up anything

    Whether it is searching for a particular task, issue or document, your project management tool should be able to do it for you at warp speed.

  • Reports

    Analyze progress better using graphical or extensive reports that can be shared across teams or to clients

  • Automation

    Automating your processes can help reduce time spent on routine work and thus fast-track results.

  • Timesheets

    Recording and tracking work hours calls for accountability and increased productivity.

  • Collaborate

    Stir up conversations over chat, calls or virtual meetings, on the go.

  • Document management

    Good free project management tools should also have a central repository that lets you store crucial documents, which can be accessed and shared within and across teams.

  • Prioritize tasks

    Identify critical tasks and create custom task views to prioritize tasks that need immediate attention, so you are on top of it all.

  • Issue tracking

    Any kind of bug should be closely monitored right from its discovery to its closure.

  • Security

    Make sure you opt for the best free project management tool - one that does not take privacy and security lightly. Data encryption, compliance, and user authentication are some of the factors to be considered.

  • Mobile access

    It's essential to have easy access to project updates over smartphones and tablets, wherever you are.

Compatibility

Be it third-party communication tools or any other software that's integral to your organization, your tool should be able to integrate seamlessly to ensure smooth delivery of tasks. Not just that, it should be able to accommodate the operating systems used by your teams, and also support desktop and mobile versions.

Ease of use

Before making a decision, ask your teams these questions - Does the product have a minimal learning curve? Can you pull up dashboards and reports in just a few clicks? Are you able to share updates via chat or call while on the move?

Remember, your teams will be extensively using the tool every waking hour of the day. Therefore, it's important for them to try and test out this free project management tool for themselves to acclimatize with it well.

Top 5 free project management tools:

At Zoho Projects, we offer a free plan with 2 projects for up to 3 users : perfect for freelancers, budding start-ups or any business in its nascency. If you wish to get the hang of the premium or enterprise version of our tool, a 10-day free trial is also available.

Meanwhile, we've listed down the top 5 tools that a quintessential free project management tool should constitute:

Work Breakdown Structure

It refers to the hierarchical deconstruction of a project into digestible work items that should be completed within a defined time period in order to achieve the set project goals. This allows you to visualize your project better, have all the essential steps outlined in the form of milestones, task lists, tasks and sub-tasks, and delegate work more efficiently. Execution of tasks is made simple since every task is given structure, and there's little chance of things slipping from your grasp.

Gantt Chart

A Gantt chart provides a visual representation of your project, including its timeline, a list of the various work items that comprise the project, their priority, and more, in the form of task bars that can be moved up or down the timeline and/or resized. . You should also be able to identify and set up related tasks that need to be carried out in a particular sequence. Moreover, pivotal tasks are well-defined in a Gantt chart, so that they can be taken up at the earliest to avoid slow-downs. A free project management software like Zoho Projects offers Gantt charts for you to organize, track and manage your tasks with increased efficacy.

Reports

Reports aid in communicating your project's progress with your teams and stakeholders. Real-time reports on projects, tasks, budget, issues, timesheets and more can be generated using infographics or by listing out comprehensive data. With Zoho Projects, you can create, customize, import or export reports in the form of PDFs or XLS sheets to team members or stakeholders, whenever the need arises.

Collaboration

Free project management tools should have collaborative capabilities, like central storage for documents that can be easily shared across to team members, and team communication to relay updates and other important project information. Zoho Projects provides upto 5GB of storage, and capabilities like social feeds and discussion forums let you post updates or announcements and keep everyone in the loop.

Calendar

Stay on top of your work items, scheduled events, meetings or calls through the Calendar. Always know what's on your plate in a given day or what's planned for the following week/month. Plan time-off, schedule work or set up meetings according to the availability of you and your team.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • 01. How free is our "free project management software"?

    Absolutely free! Just sign up to get access to our free version.

  • 02. How can you benefit from free project planning tool?

    This is more than just a to-do list. With Zoho Projects, you can break down your project activities, allocate resources, and schedule your work items using the Gantt chart.

  • 03. Does Zoho Projects offer a free trial?

    Yes, we do! If you'd like to get a taste of all that Zoho Projects has to offer, just sign-up and enable the 10-day free trial to our paid version.

  • 04. What is the best free project management software?

    The best free project management tool is one whose capabilities fit right in with the business needs of an organization, big or small. In that sense, labeling a project management tool is a subjective matter at best, and should be done with discretion. Having said that, we don't shy away from taking pride in being one of the best project management tools on the market — Zoho Projects is endowed with strong planning, tracking, and collaborative capabilities — you'd be surprised at what you can achieve with just our free plan.