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DevelopmentProject ManagementWebProductivity

What are the best feature tracking/planning tools for small development teams?

25

Options
Considered

69

User
Recs.

Jul 23, 2020

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

23 Options Considered

Best feature tracking/planning tools for small development teams	Price	Platforms	Collaborative
83 Trello	-	Android / iOS / Windows / Web	Yes
-- GitLab issues	-	-	-
-- Redmine	-	Windows, Linux	-
-- Zenkit	Free / paid	Web, Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iPhone	Yes
-- Evernote	$0-$89.99/Y	Android / iOS / WP / OSX / Windows / WebOS	yes

Trello

Top Pro

Simple and easy to use interface

There are two primary columns: the board is shown on the left and all the other controls on the right. The main means of interaction is dragging and dropping to-do cards into the various lists. The board structure is very customizable, and includes a variety of features that help along the way: color-coding, due dates, card images, checklists with a graphics bar that allows following progress easily, and card aging for cards that haven’t been touched in a long time. See More

Top Con

Managing large projects may be difficult

Trello works best with medium to small projects and with very high-level overviews. It is less effective for projects that require very granular management due to the fact that it becomes considerably more difficult to keep track of various cards and priorities as they are pushed off the screen. See More

Zhekaus's Experience

I was tried to use Trello in a very small project with a small team. Finally I moved to JIRA which has a very low price for small team. I've configured everything I need in JIRA. Using Trello for software development is bad idea. However, now I understand the difference, at least. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android / iOS / Windows / Web

Collaborative:Yes

Offline access:yes

Top Pro

Free for unlimited users

Trello offers a very generous free version that has no ads, no restrictions on the number of users, and very little restriction on how the program can be used. The paid features are generally cosmetic, such as the ability to change the background, add stickers, etc. See More

Top Con

Can't create dependencies between cards

prestonpug's Experience

I used Trello for quite some time now. I really love the boards. personally I use Trello for personal use. But recently I started working on a marketing project at my company, and it comes a problem. Trello doesn't have a place for me and my team to dump ideas and organize them in a hierarchal way. Then my coworker found Quire (https://quire.io/). Quire has both a task list view and a board view for projects, which are great for dumping ideas and then tracking the progress. They even had a blog about this. https://quire.io/blog/p/To-Do-List-and-Kanban-What-Project-Management-Did-Wrong.html which was very helpful! I have also found another post from Quire sharing about how to migrate from other solutions to Quire, so helpful! https://quire.io/blog/p/How-to-migrate-to-Quire-Copy-and-paste.html See More

Top Pro

Sub-tasks

Each card can have one or even multiple task lists. See More

Top Con

No status management

There is no such a thing as card status See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform and cross-sync

Trello works on all modern devices through the web application and has native apps for iOS, Android and Windows 8/10 devices. See More

Top Con

Not workflow customization

Top Pro

Good performance

Top Con

Not really a to do list

Trello is much more a workflow and project management program than a typical to-do app, which makes it overwhelmingly robust for those looking to jot down their shopping list. See More

Top Pro

Highly flexible workflow

Trello calls items used in the workflow “cards.” Cards are double-sided and can contain subtasks as well as notes and other details. Card columns can be used to simulate a workflow by moving cards from left to right as they are completed, or as a way of indicating task priority. The workflow is highly flexible as the columns are completely customizable to suit the task flow. For example, tasks can be put through a workflow "idea > approved > in-progress > pending review > released" or simply "ideas > released" depending on the granularity level needed. This makes Trello a great solution to feature management as it's possible to set up boards to handle everything from agile sprints to a more generic to-do list, all with status management. See More

Top Con

No self-hosted solution

Top Pro

Great real-time team collaboration features

Trello has permissions at the board level as well as the ability to assign multiple people to each card. There are a lot of sharing options available and boards can be made visible for the public. It's also possible to subscribe to a card to be notified of its progress. The simplicity of the UI makes collaboration easy because it’s very simple to see the progress of each card and who is responsible for it. It also updates constantly to reflect real-time changes in progress. The simplicity of the UI makes collaboration easy as it’s very simple to see the progress of each card and who is responsible for it. It also reflect changes on boards in real-time. See More

Top Con

Can't get one view of cards across all boards

However, you can view all cards assigned to you. See More

Top Pro

Great native app for Android and iOS

Top Con

Weak search

No query language See More

Top Pro

Attach files to cards

Keep all of your files (images, documents, etc.) organized on their relevant cards. See More

Top Con

No analytics

No at all. 3rd party plugins are weak and not worthy to try. See More

Top Pro

Action history log allows you to rapidly follow changes

There is a global history system which allows to rapidly follow changes. There is also a notification system if another user updates the board while you're watching it. See More

Top Con

No desktop client

There is no Windows or Mac client now but you can still access all of the features through your web browser. See More

Top Pro

Excellent for groups using agile software development

The responsiveness and layers of customization make it easy for team members of various disciplines to collaborate on the same task board. See More

Top Con

Light on features

Trello is focused on simplicity and as such forgoes certain common features that may or may not be important to you. See More

Top Pro

Works well for visual thinkers

The UI is based around Kanban, so you can see all your tasks and their status clearly. See More

Top Pro

Markdown support with well-rendered images

Trello supports Markdown, meaning that HTML input is represented appropriately. Cards with attachments are also rendered well. For example, images are shown correctly on the card, bug links are detected etc. See More

Top Pro

Lots of API integrations

Top Pro

Functionality can be extended via plug-ins

Voting, view, and calendar plug-ins further increase the functionality. See More

Top Pro

Features to add voting on cards

Trello offers support for features to add voting on cards, often referred to as 'power-ups'. See More

Top Pro

Smooth media integration

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GitLab issues

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Top Pro

Free and open source

Gitlab is a free open source project licensed under MIT. Source code for Enterprise Edition can be found here and Community Edition here. See More

Top Con

Search functionality is not that refined

While you can search for users or projects, you cannot search for a filename. This makes GitLab's search one of the weak points in an otherwise great tool. See More

Specs

Top Pro

Good web UI

GitLab's UI is clean and intuitive. Each view is designed to not fill the screen with useless information. It displays the activity in a feed-type way in the most prominent part of the view. On top of that, there's a toolbar with buttons which can filter this feed by pushes, merge events or comments. On the left, there's a menu that displays all the links that take you to the different views. For example, a file directory which displays all the files in that repo, a commit view which displays all the commits in cronological order, a network and a graph view that display important information graphically etc... All these details make GitLab's UI extremely intuitive and easy to use, no view is overflown with information and every view displays only the most useful and crucial information needed at that time. See More

Top Pro

Comes with integrated CI/CD solution

GitLab CI makes it easy to set up CI and deployment for projects in GitLab. It supports parallel testing, multiple platforms, Docker containers and streaming build logs. See More

Top Pro

Regular updates

GitLab is being constantly worked on and has a new release every month on the 22nd. Updating is also very easy through a single upgrade script. See More

Redmine

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Top Pro

Visually appealing and has high usability

Redmine's UI is very simple and easy to learn to use. It does not overwhelm users with many options and information at once. See More

Top Con

No hosted solution

In order to use redmine you have to install it into your own server or computer where you also need to have Ruby installed first. While it's not extremely hard, it's not an easy feat for a beginner. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux

Top Pro

Built In Wiki

Top Pro

Built in Integration for GIT, SVN, & CVS

Top Pro

Free and open-source

Redmine is a free and open source tool. See More

Top Pro

Plugins support

If there is additional features set you want you can find or write plugins to extend the ability. See More

Evernote

Top Pro

Premium allows search in attached files and documents

With a premium account you are able to search through PDFs and Office Docs. See More

Yanis's Experience

Great to manage all your archives... and use tags !! See More

Specs

Platforms:Android / iOS / WP / OSX / Windows / WebOS

Collaborative:yes

Offline access:yes

Top Pro

Trustworthy to store data in the long term

With many utility tools being constantly shut down by their creators, it's really important to consider the long-term risks of picking a home for all your notes. Evernote is a $1 billion company with a track record of exceptional security and goals of becoming a "100 year old" company. See More

Top Pro

Consolidates all your information

Evernote is designed to store a lot of different types of information from a lot of different sources in one place. Using the Web Clipper, native integrations, or a service such as IFTTT (If This Then That) you can use Evernote to store all your ideas, notes (both handwritten and typed), tasks, reading lists, receipts, and more. See More

Top Pro

Powerful note formatting

Evernote has an extensive range of formatting options and note types. You can create checklists, reminder alerts, audio notes, or add images and attachments. It also has an awesome speech-to-text feature if you prefer to dictate aloud. See More

Pivotal Tracker

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Top Con

No Kanban-board

To get a good overview often Kanban boards are used. You can somehow imitate a board, but it is not comparable to a real Kanban-board. See More

Top Pro

Flexible

While not perfect kanban, Pivotal is somewhat flexible in that you can mark sections of stories. So rather than (or in addition to) a normal sprint, you can put a marker in to define all cards above that point as part of something, for example a release. Further, you can override the auto tracker and define how many points in a sprint. So there is some degree of flexibility which sometimes you don’t find in “purist” agile or scrum tools. See More

Tom Maiaroto's Experience

Fine for small teams and projects. Disaster at scale. Poorly designed UI. See More

Specs

Top Con

Limited Work Flow & Process

Few story states. If your process involves some sort of QA and sign off, forget it - you get started, deliver, accept/reject, and finished. No way to customize this to your process. Sad miss for an easy fix/configuration. See More

Top Pro

Great software to use in conjunction with a disciplined agile/scrum development philosophy

Pivotal Tracker has a Kanban feel to it, but takes a more opinionated “Agile” approach to feature management: It encourages items in the flow to be user stories with effort points associated to them to allow Pivotal to calculate your team’s velocity. If you agree with the workflow, Pivotal offers a ton of functionality not provided by more generic tools like Trello. You can see your team’s velocity over time, organic smaller Stories into “Epics” (huge features) etc. See More

Top Con

Non-Editable Default Templates

Templates for defining stories and bugs save time. Pivotal has a default for story and bug. However you can’t edit these. So when you go to add your own, the titles can be confusing to users. Maybe title like “Our User Story” and “Our Bug”? Users will see all templates in the drop down and it’s confusing, so you end up with peope using the wrong templates which adds to process problems. See More

Top Pro

Stories can contain media files

Easy to create features/bugs/chores with embedded files (screenshots, docs, videos). See More

Top Con

No Saved & Shared Views

Everything is in a column. Aside from destroying Kanban, it also gets confusing. The real downside here is that there’s no way to save a set of columns and pin for others to quickly see. Everyone on the team is usually looking at a completely different set of work. This is literally the definition of not being on the same page. See More

Top Con

Not usable for multiple projects

If you want / need to have an overview of all the tasks going on over different projects and if you have these organized in different projects, there is no way to get an overview beside reporting. Just take a look at the screenshot and you see what you can expect. See More

Google Drive

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Top Pro

Mobile integration

You can work from any device, especially mobile. See More

Yanis's Experience

The place to go when it comes to sharing and commenting documents. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; OSX; Linux; Android; iOS

Project management:Yes

Word processing:Yes

Top Pro

Cheap for extra storage

$1.99 per 100GB, for up to 16TB. See More

Top Pro

15GB free

This space is shared across Drive, Gmail & Picasa. See More

Top Pro

Integrates with other Google services

For example, you can use search to search through both Drive and Gmail. See More

Top Pro

Indexes images

You can search images by object, place, or face when they've been added to your google photos collection. Google Assistant also helps you find screenshots that could be archived, images that aren't in the correct orientation and pictures that would work well as animations or albums. See More

Dropbox

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Top Pro

Up to 18GB of free storage space

Dropbox personal accounts start out free, with 2GB of space, but users can get extra space by recommending the site to friends, or taking part in events like "Dropquest", where users can win extra space by solving puzzles. See More

Top Con

Too little free space

There is just too little of free space available comparing to the competition. See More

Yanis's Experience

Still a very useful app... but beware of Google Drive, though. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, OSX, Android, iOS, Windows Phone

Offline access:Yes

Top Pro

Reliable

Top Con

Low bandwidth

Top Pro

Allows sharing a single file via link

Whether using desktop client or web interface, simply right click on the file you want to share and select Dropbox > Share link, then send the link to the people you want to share the file with. The recipient does not require a Dropbox account. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

You can use Dropbox via website, by installing a desktop client that creates a folder that you simply drag and drop files into, or with their mobile app. Everything synchronizes across all devices used and cloud storage. And Dropbox offers easy methods of sharing whatever is within it. See More

UpWave

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Top Pro

Intuitive interface

On UpWave you only have three "rows": To Do, In progress and Completed making it very easy to get an overview. See More

Top Con

Not free

After a 30-day trial the price is $4 per user, per month. See More

Lynette Chia's Experience

It's surprisingly adaptable with its flexibility in layout for different boards. See More

Specs

Collaborative:yes

Offline access:no

Top Pro

Integration with Slack

Top Pro

Easy to switch between different boards

Top Pro

Flexible layout to customise for different purposes

Top Pro

Free for up to 5 projects

The free service offers you to have a maximum of 5 projects simultaneously See More

Sprintly

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Top Pro

Integrations & Extensions

Deep integration with GitHub (items can be commented on, closed, updated via commits or pull requests, support for multiple GitHub repositories, etc.). Also integrates to Slack, BitBucket, others. See More

Top Con

No local installation, everything is foreign cloud hosted

No option for local installation - cloud only that is hosted on foreign servers to the US. See More

Top Pro

Intuitive UI

Different types of items (User Stories, Tasks, Bugs, and Tests) show as a different color. Items can be tagged and then tags can be used to filter, sort and search for items. Different views show progress against milestones, and how many items are assigned to each team member. See More

Top Con

No free option that can get expensive

Pricing starts at $19 for 6 team members and range all the way up to $399 a month for the enterprise edition. See More

Quire.io

Top Pro

Task board available

Multiple configurable task boards (kanban-like) are available for all projects. See More

Kamil Renczewski's Experience

Full of features, nice design. Mobile apps also available. See More

Specs

Platforms:Mac, Windows, iOS, Android

Project management:Yes, Quire has simple progress stats for each projects

Top Pro

Free

Free (for the time being), later on paid options will be added. See More

prestonpug's Experience

My coworker recommended Quire (https://quire.io) to me a while back ago, we are both project managers, which means that we got to handle several projects at the same time. and Quire helps me to do that really well. I can jot down all the details and tasks that I need to finish in the list view and use the Kanban board to track the progress. The board is especially helpful since I can oversee the entire workflow at a glance. I will know which tasks are still stuck in the beginning. I definitely recommend Quire to other managers out there like myself. I also found some posts about migrating from other solutions to Quire, which was also very helpful. https://quire.io/free-asana-alternative-migration https://quire.io/blog/p/How-to-migrate-to-Quire-Copy-and-paste.html See More

Top Pro

Nice looking

Nice looking modern GUI. Easy to use. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard shortcuts

Useful keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+F1 gives pop-down help) gives faster task manipulation. See More

Top Pro

Mobile app is available

The app is available for both Android and iOS devices. See More

TimeGuru

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Top Pro

Simple userinterface with advanced functions

Specs

Platforms:PC, Mac, Tablet, Phone

Collaborative:Yes

Price:From $0.00

Top Pro

Helpful support

Top Pro

has every function you need and more, incredibly easy setup guide when you create the system

Even with the app missing, this the most userfriendly system I have tried so far. When creating the system, you follow a very simple guide, that walks you through all the system's modules and functions, and allows you to customize it all to fit your needs. Also, you can easily get the app icon on your phone, that opens up the system in your browser when you click it. It works just as good as an actual app in my opinion. See More

ClickUp

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FeedBear

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Huboard

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Winio

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