KANBAN PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS: 22 Best Kanban Management Tools, Benefits, and Specifics

Powerful project management software can help your team today. Kanban project management tools can help teams visualize where they’re spending time and identify and address issues. Using a digital Kanban platform can benefit your company. In this article, we’ll go over the best 22 Kanban project management tools and which one is best for you.

Many Kanban-focused tools are available today. Who’s best? Which tool supports Kanban? We’ve narrowed the range to make this easier. In this article, we highlight the top 22 Kanban project management tools available. Before we get to the list, we must define Kanban and explain why it will benefit your business.

What is Kanban in Project Management?

Agile Kanban project management visualizes and improves workflows, reduces waste and inefficiency, and increases team focus by limiting work in progress. Kanban was created in the 1940s by Toyota engineer Taiichi Ohno.

What Are the Benefits of Using Kanban Project Management Tools?

Kanban boards offer overview and simplicity. One glance at the lists and cards shows how a project is progressing and who is performing what task, even in a busy environment. Because kanban is easy to understand, everyone can benefit from this experience.

22 Best Kanban Project Management Tools

Visual representations of project tasks and workflows eliminate wasteful work and inconsistencies. Kanban project management tools are used by project managers and other employees to manage business tasks. The tools help agile project management companies.

Project management software Kanban provide task and project management features, but they don’t integrate with other software. Task time must be calculated using time tracking software. This software differs from lean manufacturing, product management, and other non-project-related kanban tools.

Best 22 Kanban Project Management Tools

Here are our recommendations to help you switch.

#1. Hygger

Hygger is the most user-friendly Kanban tool for new project management software for development teams, product companies, startups, and SMEs.

Online Kanban boards with Swimlanes, WIP limits, and time tracking. Track multiple projects on your board. Swimlanes divide the board horizontally for easy task categorization. WIP limits define process bottlenecks and inefficiencies.

Pricing:

• Free trial available
• Standard – from $7 per user/monthly
• Enterprise – from $14 per user/monthly

Pros

• Colorful and intuitive online Kanban boards for various teams.
• Time-tracking convenience.
• Useful templates of different features and tools.
• Prioritization frameworks exist.

Cons

• Doesn’t allow linking multiple tasks at once (only one at a time is available).
• No report customization.
• No Kanban PDF export.

#2. Trello

Trello was created in 2011 to solve high-level planning problems. This Kanban-based tool helps you organize projects into boards and manage tasks, to-do lists, discussions, initiatives, and ideas.

Trello is user-friendly. Many industries need their free basic version to work. It looks good for anyone who needs a clear Kanban board. Trello has some flaws despite its usefulness. You must buy additional software for time tracking and other features.

Pricing:

• Free trial available.
• Business Class – $9.99 per user/monthly
• Enterprise – $1.50 per user/monthly

Pros

• Clear and simple Kanban boards.
• Excellent visibility for sharing projects and boards.

Cons

• When organizing boards, users often misplace them.
• Often-confused (not-always-needed) features.

#3. Asana

Asana is a San Francisco-based teamwork manager that helps teams know what to do, why it matters, and how to do it. Asana’s customers use it to manage company goals, digital transformation, product launches, and marketing campaigns.

Lists, Kanban boards, calendars, Gantt charts, and other features help you organize work. The iOS and Android apps provide access. The lack of a time-tracking feature makes the platform unsuitable for marketing, creative, and service agencies.

Pricing:

• Free trial available
• Premium – $10.99 per user/monthly
• Business- $24.99 per user/monthly

Pros

• Strong team-communication features (as well as with remote employees).
• Allows teams to track everyone’s achievements.

Cons

• Too cumbersome.
• Set up a time for seamless communication features.

#4. Kanbanize

Kanbanize is an Agile project management solution that helps you see the big picture. It creates a predictable workflow, so your team can work quickly and efficiently.

Kanbanize offers easy-to-edit Kanban boards at any project stage. You can adapt to frequently changing requirements. As you move cards, you can see your progress. Set a column or swimlane WIP limits. It includes timelines for planning, breaking down, and tracking projects.

Kanbanize has been successfully adopted by numerous work teams in various sectors, including product development, construction, aerospace engineering, IT, pharmaceuticals, architecture, etc.

Pricing:

• Standard – $99/monthly

Pros

• Flow analysis and lean management.
• If you’ve used Kanban tools like Trello, it’s easy and intuitive.

Cons

• Takes time to discover and use all features.
• No existing system interfaces. The tool should prioritize integration.

#5. Kanban

Kanban Tool is a visual collaboration tool that helps teams share workflows, and documents, and assess and improve processes. This platform lets teams manage multiple projects and communicate in real-time.

It offers data analysis tools to help users make smart business decisions and act decisively. The boards provide an online hub where members can organize their work and show others their progress.

Kanban Tool integrates reporting and analytics. Its users can create charts, graphs, diagrams, and other illustrations to display data easily.

Pricing:

• Free trial available
• Team – $5 per user/monthly
• Enterprise – $9 per user/monthly

Pros

• Multiple team members can comment on tasks in a collaborative space.
• It gives a good timeline overview.

Cons

• Lacks customization and personal settings but provides a high-level project management view.
• No effective communication.

#6. Hubstaff

This is one of the 22 best Kanban Project Management Tools. Hubstaff is time-tracking software for employee activities during work hours. The desktop app lets employees track time. Workers decide when to record time. The tool helps to fight inefficiency and work better with streamlined time tracking.

Hubstaff automates Kanban workflows. Visual online boards and columns help direct work. Set up custom workflows to advance tasks with a click and skip alerting and assigning. See team tasks and goals at a glance. Hubstaff integrates with JIRA, Asana, Github, and more.

Pricing:

• Free trial available.
• Premium – $5 per user/monthly

Pros

• Agile task management that feeds user timers.
• Good UI and reporting.

Cons

• The time off/holiday feature doesn’t allow decimal hours/minutes.
• Windows optimizations are needed.
• Updates sometimes freeze.

#7. Wrike

Wrike is a user-friendly Kanban project management tool. The tool quickly tracks collaborative projects and milestones. This collaborative work management platform helps businesses do their best work regardless of location.

As many companies move to a remote work environment, Wrike is a popular solution to ensure team collaboration and efficiency. It creates beautiful Kanban boards for home-based teams.

Pricing:

• Free trial available
• Professional – $9.80 per user/monthly
• Business – $24.80 per user/monthly

Pros

• Productivity-boosting task modeling and team-organizing tool.
• Suitable for large teams.

Cons

• Tutorials are needed.
• Better commenting is needed. Text block layouts can cause users to miss comments.

#8. Favro

This tool allows developers, marketers, and executives to plan, track, and evolve their ideas and tasks.

Favro is adaptable to any project. If needed, add extra features and integrations. The tool offers team boards, scalable backlogs, and aggregations.

Favro transforms companies into Agile businesses, enabling autonomous teams. It aligns leaders’ work with company goals. Favro integrates with Google Drive and Dropbox to attach files to planning boards.

Pricing:

• Lite – $12/monthly
• Standard – $16/monthly
• Enterprise – $30/monthly

Pros

• Great UI for Kanban-based products.
• Responsive and intelligent customer service.
• Project management agnostic.

Cons

• When subtasks multiply, the workflow can become chaotic.
• The mobile app is confusing.

#9. Hive

Hive is a cloud-based project management software designed for teams of all sizes to share files, chat, and automate task management. Workflow templates, group messaging, multiple task views, and 100+ app integrations are offered.

Hive improves team and company-wide efficiency. A Kanban board can help. Kanban-style status views let users track project progress, deadlines, and workloads. Project tasks can also be planned with the help of Gantt charts. Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive are accessible.

Pricing:

• Standard: $16/user/month

Pros

• Combining PM software features. Table, Kanban, Gantt, status, and calendar views are available.
• Integrations abound.
• Users can simultaneously query data.

Cons

• Each project has no search option.
• Disorganized notifications
• The desktop version is more responsive than the phone app

#10. MeisterTask

MeisterTask combines project management, collaboration, and task management into one platform. The tool simplifies project creation, adding team members, and task assignments.

You get project monitoring and collaboration features to boost productivity and speed up projects. It may work with Google Drive or Dropbox to provide a flexible platform.

MeisterTask’s Kanban-like boards help manage active projects, create project plans, and collaborate with team members.

Pricing:

• Free trial available.
• Starter – $19.99/monthly
• Professional – $49/monthly
• Team plan – $299/monthly

Pros

• Multitasking is simple.
• It is relatively easy to learn.

Cons

• No calendar that shows when tasks are scheduled and finished visually.
• Few analytics and reports.

#11. Kanbanchi

Another workflow dashboard app. Kanbanchi captures, stores, and distributes data easily. It has an easy-to-understand forum structure. The tool is PC-accessible without installation.

Its time tracker records employee time spent on different tasks. Managers can track daily productivity. Kanbanchi integrates Google Drive and Calendar. Subscriptions are monthly or yearly.

Pricing:

• Starter: $9.95/user/month
• Professional: $24.5/month/user
• Enterprise: $34.97/user/month

Pros

• Good for task management, scheduling, and teamwork.
• Great for Agile Scrum.

Cons

• No fanning option (when grouping them).
• No mobile app.
• It only works in the Google cloud, so your team must use the Google suite.

#12. Paymo

Paymo makes project management easy, even if you’re not a project manager. The tool offers time-saving templates, milestone alerts, and task lists to help companies achieve their goals. They have Kanban boards.

Many companies use Paymo for task management, team collaboration, automatic time tracking, timesheet reporting, creating Gantt Charts, etc. The app supports charitable nonprofits. A 50% discount for nonprofits

Pricing:

• Small Office: $11.95/user/month
• Business: $18.95/user/month

Pros

• Rich features for all-size projects.
• Has invoicing and time-tracking tools.
• User-friendly design.

Cons

• Adding items requires too many steps, which hinders use.
• Not real-project cost tracking.

#13. ZenHub

ZenHub natively integrates with GitHub. It lets developers work in their usual environment and gives project managers full visibility. Companies use ZenHub to organize, plan, and run sprints with GitHub issues and development flow.

Product and engineering teams use ZenHub without special training. Digital Kanban boards, to-do lists, Burndown charts, time estimates, Slack integration, etc.

Pricing:

• Growth Plan – $7.95 per user/monthly
• Enterprise: $12.45/user/month

Pros

• A helpful organizer that boosts confidence.
• A nice UI makes it easier to review projects and issues, especially with Sprints.

Cons

• Looks quite limited to Kanban. Teams can’t use different boards, so everyone uses the same.
• Updates sometimes disappear.
• No budget management and expense tracking features.

#14. Breeze

Breeze offers easy-to-use Kanban boards. This software is good for small businesses, remote teams, and freelancers who need to track everything.

Breeze is built on Agile and Lean principles that underpin Breeze. It includes to-do lists, project budgeting, time tracking, reporting, a calendar, and unlimited users. It’s Google Drive and Dropbox-compatible.

Pricing:

• Freelancers – $39 monthly
• Small businesses – $69 monthly
• Large team – $139 monthly
• Enterprise – $259 monthly

Pros

• Easy-to-use, powerful project management.
• Easy to use and an easy learning curve.

Cons

• Multiple alerts can be annoying.
• Software reports are limited.

#15. ProofHub

ProofHub is a SaaS-based project management software with group chat, quick discussions, workflows, reports, and Kanban-like boards. The platform enables easy and flexible project collaboration from a central location. Free trials are available before purchasing.

Proodhub can be integrated with popular collaboration tools like Google Drive and Dropbox as well as email servers. Its web browser works on iOS, Android, and Windows.

Pricing:

• Standard: $45/mo

Pros

• User- and setup-friendly.
• Offers powerful Kanban boards, tools, and storage.

Cons

• The user interface could be better.
• It provides too many notifications without the option to control or customize them.

#16. Leankit

LeanKit, a Kanban-based app, displays project tasks as cards on lanes. You can move cards from stage to stage and customize each card’s options. Leankit helps project teams implement Lean easily. You also get useful reporting and analytics metrics. JIRA, Zendesk, and other tools can be integrated.

Pricing:

• Standard – $20/month/user

Pros

• Visualizes work progress well.
• Customizable boards, lanes, cards, and reports.

Cons

• It sends many emails.
• Data import and export need improvement.
• A difficult-to-use interface.

#17. Blossom

Another app from the 22 Best Kanban Project Management Tools list for Kanban project completion. Blossom lists project stages. Blossom is different because each list is the next step. Add new cards to the leftmost column; the rightmost column has an archive button.

Blossom analytics shows how many cards were shipped and how long each one took. The integration updates only Slack.

Pricing:

• Standard – $19.00/monthly

Pros

• When a task is completed, Slack is updated.
• Simple and clean interface.

Cons

• No new tasks. Unfinished tasks can’t be removed, etc.
• The integration updates only Slack.

#18. Taiga

This cloud-based and on-premise Agile PM platform helps project teams collaborate, whether they use Kanban, Scrum, or just want to track issues.

Taiga’s intuitive user interface is useful for multi-functional or client teams. Backlog and sprint planning, sprint board with swim lanes; sprint dashboard with Burndown chart, and customizable Kanban boards with WIP limits, subtasks, issue tracking, and Wiki feature.

Specify team roles, estimate story points per role, and move unfinished user stories to other sprints.

Pricing:

• Free trial available.
• Premium – $5 per user/monthly
• On-Premise – $530 for 100 users/monthly

Pros

• It’s simple to use. Self-hosted.
• Friendly and colorful Kanban boards. Create team cards, track progress, and more.

Cons

• Different screens can be confusing.
• Basic functionality appears.

#19. ProjectManager

ProjectManager.com is used to manage tasks and projects of all sizes and durations.

The platform suits IT, marketing, and construction managers and teams. This online platform can handle any project. With this Kanban tool, you get online project management, time-tracking, and team collaboration tools. Managers can keep projects and teams on track with real-time kanban boards.

Pricing:

• Personal – $15 per user/monthly
• Team – $20 per user/monthly
• Business – $25 per user/monthly

Pros

• Planning is simple and effective.
• Creates timelines and milestones.

Cons

• Glitches sometimes limit the software’s potential.
• Some reports lack the necessary results.

#20. Taskworld

Another platform for teams to collaborate, share ideas and get work done. Taskworld makes project management and works tracking easy. Visual task management, project planning, and team messaging are combined.

Time tracking, automated notifications, dependencies, timeline views, and integrations are included. Your team can achieve better and faster results for every project and get things done.

Pricing:

• Professional – $13 per user/monthly
• Business – $30 per user/monthly

Pros

• Tracks multiple roles and responsibilities.
• Mobile and system software.

Cons

• Few features or integrations.
• When you copy a project there is no option to copy the time over with it.

#21. Smartsheet

Smartsheet’s project management app is used to track and manage work for large and small teams. This platform helps teams plan, track, and manage projects in real time.

It includes task management, document and resource management, project reporting, file sharing, and timeline tracking. The Smartsheet app helps mobile teams access project and workflow data. The app works on iOS and Android.

Pricing:

• Individual: $14/month
• Business: $25/user/month

Pros

• Provides Gantt charts for dependencies.
• Generous sharing permissions let non-paid users collaborate.

Cons

• Future automation improvements are possible.
• Limited dashboard widgets.

#22. Monday.com

Monday.com is a versatile Kanban project management tool. While its kanban boards are less spectacular than Wrike or Trello’s, they still beat the competition thanks to a great color scheme and smooth drag-and-drop functionality.

Monday.com tops any other list besides kanban boards. The built-in calendar allows you to see how due dates affect workflow, unlike in Trello.

Pricing:

• Basic: $39/ month
• Standard: $49/month
• Professional: $79/month

The list of the 22 top Kanban project management software programs is complete.

Is Kanban a Project Management Tool?

A kanban board is an agile project management tool designed to visualize work, limit work-in-progress, and maximize efficiency (or flow). It helps agile, and DevOps teams get organized.

Which Tool is Used for Kanban?

Azure boards offer Kanban functions for workflow management. It’s a powerful project management tool, from Kanban boards to KPI reports to monitor and improve processes.

What are the 6 Rules of Kanban?

The Six Rules of Kanban

• Never pass defective products. 
• Take only what’s needed. 
• Produce the exact quantity required. 
• Boost the production. 
• Fine-tune the production or process optimization. 
• Stabilize and rationalize the process.

Is Kanban Lean or Agile?

Kanban is a visual-based agile framework with a focus on optimizing the flow of work in a continuous delivery manner.

What is the Best Kanban System?

• Hygger – Best for software development
• JIRA – Best for tech teams
• Trello – Best for multipurpose project professionals
• Asana – Best for small and mid-sized teams
• Kanbanize – Best for Agile project management
• Kanban Tool – Best for all-size businesses carrying about productivity
• Hubstaff – Best for Agile capabilities
• Wrike – Best for scaling organizations
• Favro – Best for Agile distributed teams
• Hive – Best for flexible project views

Conclusion

Our picks for the best Kanban project management tools are above. Though other services offer kanban features, like Zoho Projects or ProofHub, this list of 22 Kanban project management tools providers represents the best boards we’ve seen while reviewing project managers.

Kanban Project Management Tools FAQs

References

1. Cloudwards
2. Welldoneby
3. Ntaskmanager

Related Articles

1. AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS: Definition ,Uses And List of APM
2. TRELLO PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Key Templates, Features & Uses
3. Project Planning Software: 60+ Best Software in 2022 (Free & Paid Options)
4. MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS: Best Time Management Systems
5. PROJECT TIME MANAGEMENT: Processes, Tools & Software for Effective Management