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

Options
Considered

User
Recs.

Dec 11, 2018

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

14 Options Considered

Best feature tracking/planning tools for small development teams	Price	Collaborative	Subtasks
89 Trello	-	Yes	Yes
-- GitLab issues	-	-	-
-- Pivotal Tracker	-	-	-
-- Quire.io	Free	-	-
-- UpWave	-	yes	yes

See Full List

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

Collaborative:Yes

Subtasks:Yes

Platforms:Android / Windows / Web

API:Yes

See All Specs

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

Can't create dependencies between cards

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

Can't get one view of cards across all boards

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

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

Not workflow customization

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

Weak search

No query language See More

Top Pro

Great native app for Android and iOS

Top Con

No status management

There is no such a thing as card status 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

Sub-tasks

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

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

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

No self-hosted solution

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 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

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

Good performance

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

See All

GitLab issues

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 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

Git:yes

Mercurial:no

SVN:no

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

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

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

See All

Pivotal Tracker

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

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

Uyy:Hhhj

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

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

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 Pro

Stories can contain media files

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

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

See All

UpWave

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

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

See All

Sprintly

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

See All

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14 Options Considered

My Recommendation for Trello

My Recommendation for Trello

Simple and easy to use interface

Managing large projects may be difficult

Cross-platform and cross-sync

Can't create dependencies between cards

Highly flexible workflow

Can't get one view of cards across all boards

Free for unlimited users

Not workflow customization

Great real-time team collaboration features

Weak search

Great native app for Android and iOS

No status management

Attach files to cards

No analytics

Sub-tasks

Not really a to do list

Action history log allows you to rapidly follow changes

No desktop client

Excellent for groups using agile software development

No self-hosted solution

Works well for visual thinkers

Light on features

Markdown support with well-rendered images

Lots of API integrations

Good performance

Functionality can be extended via plug-ins

Features to add voting on cards

Smooth media integration

My Recommendation for GitLab issues

My Recommendation for GitLab issues

Comes with integrated CI/CD solution

Search functionality is not that refined

Regular updates

Good web UI

Free and open source

My Recommendation for Pivotal Tracker

My Recommendation for Pivotal Tracker

Limited Work Flow & Process

Flexible

Non-Editable Default Templates

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

No Saved & Shared Views

Stories can contain media files

Not usable for multiple projects

No Kanban-board

My Recommendation for Quire.io

My Recommendation for Quire.io

Task board available

Nice looking

Free

Keyboard shortcuts

Mobile app is available

My Recommendation for UpWave

My Recommendation for UpWave

Intuitive interface

Not free

Integration with Slack

Easy to switch between different boards

Flexible layout to customise for different purposes

Free for up to 5 projects

My Recommendation for SquidHub

My Recommendation for SquidHub

Communication tool is already there

Todolist with categories combined with files

My Recommendation for ClickUp

My Recommendation for ClickUp

My Recommendation for Sprintly

My Recommendation for Sprintly

Integrations & Extensions

No local installation, everything is foreign cloud hosted

Intuitive UI

No free option that can get expensive

My Recommendation for Gqueues

My Recommendation for Gqueues

Free for single user

Quick use

My Recommendation for KanbanFlow