When we talk about tools for product managers, we usually mean the conventional few that most product managers use on a daily basis. Product analytics software, development tracking tools, and road mapping software are examples of product management tools. This post will assist you in comparing and evaluating the best product management tools in a timely manner. You’ll find a tool shortlist, factors to consider when choosing a PM tool for your organization, and in-depth reviews for each tool.
List of the Best Product Management Software and Tools
Here is a list of the best product management software and tools that I’ve found:
- ClickUp is the best modular product management software available.
- Craft.io is the best product feature prioritizing engine.
- Monday.com is the best option for scalability.
- Walling is the best software to graphically organize project ideas and activities.
- QA Wolf – Ideal for businesses whose main product is web applications.
- ProdPad – Best Product Lifecycle Management Tools
- Productboard – Best product development based on client feedback
- ProductPlan is a product development software with a stunning user interface.
- Roadmunk – A well-known roadmap tool for visualizing product strategy.
- Dragonboat – Best for connecting product development to OKRs.
Overviews of the Best 10 Product Management Software Tools
#1. ClickUp – Best modular product management software
ClickUp is a product management tool that bills itself as the “one app to replace them all,” combining tasks, documents, chat, goals, and dashboards into a single package. Over 800,000 teams utilize them at organizations such as Samsung, Belmond, Booking.com, and IBM.
Because it accomplishes so much, you may be concerned about the learning curve; ClickUp has you covered with help documentation, on-demand demos, webinars, and even the “ClickUp university” to ensure you’re getting the most out of the platform.
Task boards for product roadmaps, collaborative docs for idea sharing, spring management tools for development, and guest accounts for stakeholder access are all important product management capabilities. You’ll also have access to native time tracking and workload capacity reports, which will allow you to monitor what each team member is working on in real time.
The ClickUp software has native connectors with Slack, G Suite, Dropbox, and many other tools, as well as over 1,000 Zapier integrations.
ClickUp is free to use for an unlimited number of users, however some features are restricted. Paid options start at $5/user/month and include a 30-day money-back guarantee if you’re unhappy with the app.
#2. Craft.io – The best product feature prioritization engine
Craft.io is a product management tool that includes features for recording feedback, workflow planning, and roadmapping. You can set product specifications, prioritize and communicate crucial choices, and control workload capacity on the platform.
Craft.io is your entire product system of record by integrating and collecting fragmented product data. It keeps track of all product information, from stakeholder and team member comments to OKRs, personas, and thematic strategy documentation.
Craft.io also includes options for sharing and collaboration, several roadmap views, status monitoring, and customized and shared data views.
Pivotal Tracker, Azure DevOps, Jira, GitLab, Github, Targetprocess, Intercom, Dropbox, Okta, Google Workspace, Active Directory, SAML, Google Drive, and Ping Identity are all supported by Craft.io. More integrations are available with a paid Zapier account.
Craft.io starts at $39 per user each month (paid annually) and includes a 30-day free trial.
#3. Monday.com – Best for scalability
Monday.com is a web-based product management software that helps teams of all sizes plan, track, and manage their daily tasks. The software assists teams in defining clear ownership, analyzing and tracking their work, managing sprints, and collaborating collaboratively, from broad scale product roadmaps to weekly iterations. Monday.com’s simple agile platform enables teams to collaborate from anywhere.
Monday.com’s Work OS is comprised of visually appealing and adaptable elements that may be combined to build whatever agile workflow your team need. Milestones, Gantt and Kanban views, task dependencies, and project analysis are all supported.
Monday.com features a clean and intuitive user interface, and onboarding is quick and easy. Teams in each department can simply find the features they require to tailor their account to their specific requirements. Monday.com also provides 24-hour assistance, taped webinars and tutorials, and comprehensive Knowledge Base articles to guarantee that teams always have solutions to their questions.
Monday.com features templates that may be customized for every team or stage of product management. Use the template as is, or modify it by adding column types (such as numbers for computations, deadlines, ratings, and so on) or changing views (such as Kanban, Gantt, calendar, and more). Monday.com’s adaptable scrum platform adds value to managers and can handle teams of 5 to 5,000 people.
Monday.com features interfaces with over 40 tools, allowing for two-way data sync. Sales teams can import lead data from Salesforce into Monday.com, marketing teams can update campaign information in Hubspot, and R&D teams can manage anything via GitHub.
Monday.com pricing begins at $17/2 users/month. The tool provides a 14-day free trial period.
#4. Walling – This is the best solution for graphically arranging project ideas and activities.
Walling is one of the most visually appealing product management solutions, allowing you to organize and manage ideas and activities through a simple interface.
It assists product managers and teams in organizing and managing their projects by providing a single location for all project tasks, ideas, and vital information. It includes capabilities that allow you to collect ideas and organize them in one visual location alongside project tasks.
What distinguishes Walling is its ability to organize tasks, ideas, notes, and files side by side, allowing you to view the full picture of your job. The tool has a number of views, including a Kanban view, task lists, a calendar, and database tables. Walling’s collaborative capabilities include the ability to post comments, assign tasks, and set due dates and reminders.
Walling interfaces with Google Drive and has plans for further third-party connections in the future.
Walling provides a free plan for up to 100 bricks. Paid plans start at $5 per user per month.
#5. QA Wolf – Ideal for businesses whose main product is web applications.
QA Wolf is a product management tool for SaaS product teams who wish to go to market faster by assuring that new software features are bug-free.
It assists organizations in reaching 80% automated test coverage in around 3 months. Traditional QA teams/tools, on the other hand, either take years or never reach 80% test coverage. Furthermore, QA Wolf necessitates no effort. They develop test matrices for clients and perform critical thinking on their behalf. QA Wolf creates new tests on a regular basis and ensures that they meet the 80% coverage target.
Other tools/services need you to be prescriptive and closely oversee testing, whereas QA Wolf analyzes data and synthesizes findings so product managers immediately know what went wrong instead of having to investigate themselves. QAWolf is also reasonably priced. They only charge for coverage and not for hours performed, therefore using QA Wolf is half the price of hiring a QA Engineer.
QA Wolf has notable characteristics such as limitless tests and test runs, comprehensive web application testing, no vendor lock-in, and 100% parallelization.
QA Wolf is compatible with CI/CD.
Engineers at QA Wolf start at $1000.
#6. ProdPad – Best product lifecycle management software
ProdPad is a lean product roadmap tool that keeps your entire team informed and on the same page. Product managers will appreciate capabilities like product specification templates, annotated designs and versioning, and realistic user personas.
Some users may struggle with ProdPad’s browsing and search capabilities, which aren’t as well-designed as they may be (good luck finding that “one” critical item in your ideas bank). Regular cleaning and internal naming conventions can help to alleviate this agony.
Integration possibilities include Slack, Trello, Jira, Active Directory, Azure DevOps, Confluence, Doorbell.io, Dropbox, GitHub, Google Apps, Pivotal Tracker, Rally, TFS, UserVoice, and over 1000 more.
ProdPad expends significant effort to ensure the strength of their planning, ideas, and roadmaps solutions; they meet and surpass my expectations when I include Idea Capturing as a must-have in the product management software tools assessment criteria described above.
ProdPad starts at $99 a month and offers a 7-30 day free trial.
#7. Productboard – Best product creation based on client feedback
Productboard is a product management solution used by companies such as Microsoft and Zendesk that helps your team understand what your target users need, prioritize what features to build (and when), and unify everyone from planning to QA around your product roadmap.
In my assessment, I looked for the depth and breadth of third-party integration options with popular project management tools. While Productboard provides a number of integration choices, a minor disadvantage is that their available connections are fewer than those of the majority of the other companies on our list.
Slack, Intercom, Zendesk, Gainsight, Trello, Jira, Pivotal Tracker, and GitHub are among the integrations.
Productboard accomplishes a number of things well, but one that stands out is its ability to combine product data and customer requirements/requests across different inboxes, including Slack. It will stand out if you value an ongoing product feedback loop.
Productboard starts at $49 per person per month and offers a 15-day free trial.
#8. ProductPlan – Product development software with a lovely user interface
ProductPlan, used by HubSpot and Coca-Cola, is a simple approach to develop, illustrate, and explain a product strategy utilizing 25+ roadmap templates.
Despite its impressive feature set, ProductPlan lacks an acceptable method for management requirements for the goods it hosts. This won’t be an issue for many customers because needs are generally handled individually; still, it’s something to keep in mind.
Jira, GitHub, Slack, PivotalTracker, Trello, Azure DevOps, Confluence, and Microsoft Teams are among the integrations. The ProductPlan REST API provides additional choices.
An available selection of product spec templates is something I emphasize as crucial in the review criteria for product management software tools. ProductPlan is ideal for this because it provides templates for not only product roadmaps but also launch plans, executive-facing portfolios, OKRs, IT strategy, and more.
ProductPlan starts at $39 per user per month and includes a 14-day free trial.
#9. Roadmunk – A well-known roadmap tool for visualizing product strategy.
Roadmunk is a comprehensive, customer-driven roadmapping tool utilized by companies such as Amazon, Xero, and Slack. Product managers will value the ability to collect consumer feedback, prioritize what to produce, and create strategic roadmaps that are ready for the boardroom.
Some complex formatting and coloring options necessitate design interaction, making Roadmunk reports unsuitable for use in an executive boardroom right from the app. While this may be considered a nuisance by some, the majority of users will not notice.
Integrates with Jira natively and also provides a Roadmunk API powered by GraphQL for additional self-service integration possibilities.
Customer feedback aggregation is a product management tool attribute that I especially mention in the evaluation criteria since it is critical to the development cycle. Roadmunk understands this better than most, and they received high marks for their ability to manage all user requests in one orderly location (their “feedback inbox” feature).
Roadmunk starts at $19 per month and offers a 14-day free trial.
#10. Dragonboat – Best for integrating product development to OKRs.
Dragonboat is a comprehensive, easy-to-use product portfolio management software for result-oriented teams. It delivers integrated product planning, resource forecasting, automated tracking, and dynamic stakeholder reporting by connecting OKRs, customer feedback, and roadmaps.
Product managers can use Dragonboat to centralize feedback and requests, prioritize features, and build Stakeholders can participate by taking on permission-controlled roles such as Reader or Editor.
Dragonboat allows you to allocate resources to objectives and key results (OKRs) as well as other initiatives. This way, you can measure the direct ROI of new product features and upgrades to ensure you’re making the best use of your team’s time.
Jira, Clubhouse, Azure DevOps, Asana, and Github are all integrated into Dragonboat.
Dragonboat starts at $39 per user per month and includes a free sample. They feature a free plan for single users and startups; for further information, contact their team.
What is Product Management Software?
Product management software is an organizational tool used to rapidly develop and improve a company’s goods. These technologies allow product managers and their teams to gather new ideas and develop detailed plans to turn those ideas into a finished product. While these tools are typically utilized by product managers and product teams, they also give enhanced transparency and insight into product development for other departments such as marketing and sales.
Product management software tools provide a variety of functions for organizing and executing product strategies. Roadmap features break out a workflow from conception through product launch, continuously tracking the development of a product team and allowing for timeline adjustments. Prioritization is also an important component of roadmapping, as product managers can direct a team’s attention toward the most crucial projects or backlog them for future consideration. Product management systems can give development teams with tools for resource allocation, product portfolio management, and agile workflows such as sprint planning, user testing, and bug tracking. Collaboration elements like as chat or comment threads may be available in some product management software.
Criteria for Choosing Product Management Software
What criteria do we use to choose the best tools for review? My rating criteria are summarized below:
#1. User Interface (UI):
Is the app’s user interface clean, intuitive, and modern-looking across several operating systems, including mobile and PC variants?
#2. Usability:
How steep is the learning curve of the software? Does it provide adequate customer service across several channels (phone, chat, email, etc.)? Do they have training, certificates, blogs, webinars, or other learning materials?
#3. Functionality and features:
Task Management – Does the tool allow you to manage and arrange product-specific tasks? Is the task navigation product appropriate for product development and testing?
#4. Idea Generation / Roadmaps
Because not every feature is an immediate “must-have,” any decent product management tool should have a section for keeping functionality wishlists and brainstorming outcomes.
#5. Product Spec Templates
Is there a product spec template in the product management system for convenient storage of functional data, files, and discussions?
#6. Customer Feedback Aggregation
Does the tool collect feedback from customers (or even team members) via email, support chat, browser-based help tools, and CRM integrations? Is the aforementioned tool capable of compiling feedback into highly legible and useful results?
#7. Integrations:
Is there an app marketplace or another mechanism to integrate with first- and third-party apps to unlock extra functionality in the product management tool?
#8. Value for money:
How reasonable is the pricing in relation to the features, capabilities, and use case? Is the price straightforward, transparent, and adaptable?
Product Management vs. Project Management Software
There is a lot of overlap between project management and product management software. Many of the best tools on our list, for example, include features to assist with both project management and product management processes.
This means that in many circumstances, you won’t need to use multiple tools; instead, you’ll use a single tool that includes project management capabilities like resourcing, scheduling, and reporting, as well as product management elements like road mapping, product boards, and product diagrams. In this situation, team management apps, project management applications, and product lifecycle management tools are delivered as a package, or as discrete modules that you can activate as needed.
Product Management Software FAQs
What is product management system?
This is an organizational function that directs every stage of a product’s lifetime, from development to positioning and price, by focusing first and foremost on the product and its users.
What are the 3 major areas of product management?
Product discovery, Product Planning, and Product Development.
What are the 3 functions of product management?
- Pitching and positioning the new product and feature development concepts.
- To bring the product to life, I collaborate with engineering and design teams.
- Making certain that each product fits the needs of the intended user or consumer.
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