Effective project management relies greatly on robust planning and scheduling. A Gantt chart is one of the most popular and valuable tools for visualizing project tasks, milestones, resource allocation, and dependencies. With the plethora of Gantt chart softwares available in the market, it can take time to choose the right one. This article focuses on the five best Gantt chart softwares for project scheduling in 2023.
#1 Chisel – The Most Advanced Gantt Chart Tool
Chisel is a product management tool with highly intuitive and feature-rich Gantt charting capabilities, making it the best option for project scheduling. Some key reasons why Chisel stands out:
- Intuitive and Clean Interface: Unlike other tools with cluttered interfaces, Chisel has a clean and straightforward interface that is intuitive to use. The drag-and-drop functionalities for adding/moving tasks make Project scheduling a breeze.
- Robust Features: Chisel offers advanced features like resource management, baseline scheduling, analytics, and reporting essential for effective project management. You can easily assign resources to tasks, track progress, monitor budgets, and resolve bottlenecks.
- Real-time Collaboration: With Chisel’s collaborative features, multiple stakeholders can work on a project simultaneously, and real-time comments/changes are synced. This ensures everyone stays on the same page.
- Flexible Customization: Chisel allows high levels of customization, like adding custom fields, templates, workflows, and views. Project managers can customize the tool based on their specific project requirements.
- Scalability: Chisel can scale from simple projects to large enterprise-level initiatives involving hundreds of tasks and resources. It has handled projects with over 10,000+ tasks.
- Integrations: Chisel integrates seamlessly with over 150+ project management and work tools like Jira, Microsoft Project, and GitHub through its open API. This allows easy data transfer without duplicating work.
- Value for Money: Considering the features’ richness, Chisel’s pricing is very reasonable, starting from $7/user per month. This makes it affordable for teams of all sizes.
- Superior Support: Chisel provides multiple 24/7 LIVE chat and email support channels. Their support team is highly responsive and helps resolve issues quickly.
Chisel offers the best balance of intuitive usability, powerful features, and value, making it the #1 choice for seamless project management and scheduling with Gantt charts. Its real-time collaboration, customizability, integrations, and scalability help teams achieve greater productivity and transparency.
#2 Monday.com
Monday.com is another popular project management software known for its clean and flexible workflow-based interface. Some key highlights of its Gantt chart capabilities:
- Drag and Drop Gantt View: Users can drag and drop to quickly move tasks, add dependencies, and update schedules in the Gantt view.
- Resource Management: Like Chisel, Monday allows assigning resources like people and equipment to each task and tracking their utilization over time.
- Templates: Various card, board, and Gantt templates are available, or users can customize their own based on specific project requirements.
- Visualization Tools: Besides the Gantt chart, users can visualize tasks and dependencies in a Kanban board or calendar view for different perspectives.
- Integrations: It integrates with over 300+ apps like Slack, Asana, and Dropbox for transferring relevant data between systems.
- Scalability: Supports complex project structures involving thousands of tasks across multiple projects.
- Sharing & Security: Provides options for sharing boards/tasks selectively with external clients or marking items as private.
However, Monday needs some advanced features in Chisel, like baseline scheduling, budget tracking, and collaboration, which could be more robust. Pricing also gets expensive compared to Chisel for teams with more than five members. But overall, it is a strong contender backed by powerful workflow capabilities.
#3 Smartsheet
Smartsheet is famous for its powerful project portfolio management features beyond basic Gantt charting. Some key aspects:
- Hierarchical and Nested Gantt Views: Ability to break down projects into multiple indented levels to visualize sub-projects and tasks.
- Collaborative Editing: Multiple team members can view and edit tasks simultaneously in the Gantt chart for real-time updates.
- Resource Management: Track employee/equipment assignments and costs across multiple projects from a centralized interface.
- Reporting Features: Variety of report templates for effort-driven, milestone-driven schedules and custom reporting.
- Integrations: Integrates with 100+ apps like Jira, Google Drive, Dropbox, MS Project, etc.
- Scalability: The platform can manage hundreds of projects with complex nested task relationships.
However, the Smartsheet interface may need to be more intuitive for Gantt charting alone compared to Chisel or Monday. Pricing is also on the higher side. But for advanced portfolio management, it offers excellent value.
#4 TeamGantt
As the name suggests, TeamGantt specializes in Gantt chart project scheduling rather than all-around project management. Some key features:
- Intuitive Gantt Editor: Users can directly edit Gantt charts online through a graphical point-and-click interface.
- Task Types: Supports customizable task types like fixed duration, effort-driven, etc., to model work accordingly.
- Resource Management: Assign resources manually or automatically based on assignments and track costs.
- Reporting: Export Gantt charts and reports in formats like PDF images for sharing or integration needs.
- Integrations: Integrates with tools like Jira, GitHub, Trello, etc., for project management workflows.
- Pricing: Very affordable, starting from $10 monthly for up to 10 concurrent projects.
So, for simple to medium Gantt charting requirements without extra project tools, TeamGantt is a cost-effective solution. However, the features are less comprehensive than the top options.
#5 Microsoft Project
As a legacy project management software, MS Project has powerful Gantt charting, critical path, and resource allocation modeling capabilities. Some pros include:
- Rich Toolset: Covers the entire project lifecycle from planning to execution with Gantt charts, reports, dashboards, etc.
- Critical Path: Identifies the shortest path to complete the Project through critical path analysis.
- Resource Leveling: Automated over/under allocations leveling when resources are constrained.
- Integrations: Seamlessly connects with MS Office and other MS tools standard in most enterprises.
However, it has a steep learning curve for beginners and requires MS Office/Windows. Pricing is high and not suitable for small teams or ad-hoc projects. The interface can feel outdated vs. top web/mobile-based solutions. Still, for enterprises with deep MS integration needs, Project remains a strong contender.
While all these Gantt chart softwares offer great options, Chisel stands out as the most comprehensive and easy-to-use solution for its intuitive and powerful features at very reasonable pricing. Its robust real-time collaboration, flexibility, and scale make Chisel the top choice for professional project management teams of all sizes.