•   7 min read

Best Microsoft Project Replacements in 2025

Microsoft Project is still a cor­po­rate clas­sic, yet its licence price, steep learn­ing curve and long roll-out time are push­ing com­pa­nies to look for Microsoft Project alter­na­tives. Small and mid­size busi­ness­es, agen­cies and prod­uct teams need flex­i­bil­i­ty, quick con­fig­u­ra­tion and trans­par­ent pric­ing. Below you will find the ten best Microsoft Project sub­sti­tutes for 2025 plus a fea­ture-and-price com­par­i­son table. Spe­cial atten­tion is paid to Work­sec­tion — a mod­ern solu­tion where all advanced tools are avail­able in every plan with no hid­den charges.

Why do users look for Microsoft Project alternatives?

Although pow­er­ful, Microsoft Project often miss­es the mark for 2025 work­flows. First, licens­ing remains expen­sive: the cloud Project Plan 3 costs about $30 per user per month, while the per­pet­u­al Pro­fes­sion­al edi­tion sells for $1 129 per seat. Sec­ond, mas­ter­ing the inter­face takes time and spe­cialised cours­es, delay­ing project kick-off. Third, many teams run on agile meth­ods that rely on Kan­ban boards and instant task re-order­ing — capa­bil­i­ties that Microsoft Project does not pro­vide native­ly. Final­ly, mod­ern cloud tools inte­grate more eas­i­ly with email, mes­sen­gers and finance sys­tems, which is crit­i­cal for dis­trib­uted teams.

Cri­te­ria for choos­ing a Microsoft Project alternative

Before div­ing into the tools, define what to measure:
  • View flex­i­bil­i­ty. Kan­ban boards, Gantt charts and cal­en­dars should be ful­ly syn­chro­nised so every­one sees the same data, what­ev­er view they prefer.
  • Time-to-val­ue. The plat­form should go live in days rather than weeks and require no exter­nal consultants.
  • Col­lab­o­ra­tion. Com­ments, file shar­ing, ver­sion con­trol and gran­u­lar per­mis­sions let you involve clients and con­trac­tors safely.
  • Automa­tion & inte­gra­tions. Trig­gers, API and web­hooks reduce man­u­al work and con­nect Gmail, Slack, Jira (a Jira ana­logue) and finance apps.
  • Cost. Trans­par­ent pric­ing with no extra charge for essen­tials (Gantt or time-track­ing) keeps TCO low.

Best Microsoft Project alter­na­tives in 2025

Work­sec­tion

Work­sec­tion stands out because every core mod­ule — Kan­ban board, Gantt chart, cal­en­dar and built-in time track­er — is includ­ed in every plan. Teams there­fore save up to 30 – 50% of the bud­get they would nor­mal­ly spend on advanced” add-ons else­where. Cre­at­ing a task takes sec­onds: add a descrip­tion, due date and assignee, and the item instant­ly appears on the Kan­ban and in the Gantt. Each task con­tains com­ments, check­lists, file uploads and time logs. Gran­u­lar per­mis­sions let you invite clients and show them only what mat­ters. For teams of up to 20 users, the Team” plan costs $49 per month and cov­ers every­thing. Russ­ian and Ukrain­ian sup­port speeds onboard­ing, and the migra­tion wiz­ard imports projects from Microsoft Project in min­utes. As a result, Work­sec­tion is the opti­mal Microsoft Project alter­na­tive for SMBs, dig­i­tal agen­cies and prod­uct teams that need rapid roll­out and pre­dictable pricing.


Click­Up

Click­Up offers a flex­i­ble Spaces → Fold­ers → Lists hier­ar­chy and lets you com­bine tasks in almost any con­fig­u­ra­tion. Views include Kan­ban, Gantt, cal­en­dar, mind-map and work­load. Extras such as Docs, if – then” automa­tions and unlim­it­ed cus­tom fields add pow­er. The down­side is inter­face over­load: new users need time to grasp the ter­mi­nol­o­gy, and full Gantt or dash­board for­mu­las require the Busi­ness plan (from $19 per user per month). If you want max­i­mum cus­tomi­sa­tion and can pay for extra fea­tures, Click­Up is a capa­ble Microsoft Project replacement.


Wrike

Wrike posi­tions itself as an enter­prise plat­form with deep ana­lyt­ics and adap­tive work­spaces. Its strong point is real-time report­ing and resource-load dash­boards, close to Microsoft Project in scope. Weak spots are the price of high­er tiers — Busi­ness Plus with Gantt, AI assis­tant and OKR man­age­ment starts at $34.90 per user — and lim­it­ed Russ­ian-lan­guage live sup­port. Wrike suits large depart­ments that need end-to-end ana­lyt­ics but can be overkill for small firms.


Mon​day​.com

Monday.com’s colour­ful boards engage cre­ative and mar­ket­ing teams with eye-catch­ing sta­tus columns and activ­i­ty feeds. To han­dle com­plex depen­den­cies, you must enable crit­i­cal path” and pre­de­ces­sors”, fea­tures unlocked on the Pro tier (from $19 per user). Still, Mon­day inte­grates smooth­ly with Slack, Google Work­space and Zapi­er, mak­ing it a valid Microsoft Project sub­sti­tute where bright visu­al­i­sa­tion out­weighs strict task hierarchies.


Asana

Asana is known for sim­plic­i­ty: tasks live in projects, and users switch between list, Kan­ban or time­line. Its Gantt-style Time­line” arrived recent­ly and is lighter than Microsoft Project for mul­ti-lev­el depen­den­cies. Yet for prod­uct and IT teams, where pri­or­i­ties shift fast, Asana remains a pow­er­ful task man­ag­er. The free plan for 15 users gives a quick start, while the Busi­ness tier (from $24.99) adds port­fo­lios and work­load management.


Smartsheet

If your col­leagues love Excel, Smartsheet is a nat­ur­al step. It resem­bles an online spread­sheet where each row can appear on a Kan­ban board or Gantt. For­mu­las, cross-sheet ref­er­ences and alerts sim­pli­fy data migra­tion. The Pro plan costs $9 per user, but resources and crit­i­cal path require Busi­ness ($32). Inter­face clut­ter on large datasets and the lack of a some lan­guages UI are the main drawbacks.


Notion + Timeline

Notion turns every page into a mini-data­base, and its time­line view yields a basic Gantt. The upside is total cus­tomi­sa­tion — you can build CRM, wiki and task track­er in one work­space. Weak­ness­es include no native time track­er and lim­it­ed task depen­den­cies. For small IT or con­tent teams seek­ing a flex­i­ble knowl­edge base, Notion is a fine Microsoft Project ana­logue; larg­er projects will need exter­nal time-track­ing integrations.


Trel­lo (with Power-Ups)

Trel­lo is the de-fac­to Kan­ban stan­dard: card drag-and-drop is per­fect for get­ting start­ed. Pow­er-Ups add Gantt, cus­tom fields and But­ler automa­tion. The free plan lim­its Pow­er-Ups, while the Stan­dard tier ($5 per user) removes the cap. How­ev­er, the board-and-card struc­ture com­pli­cates mul­ti-lay­er depen­den­cies, so Trel­lo is usu­al­ly a light­weight Microsoft Project alter­na­tive for small teams.


GanttPRO

GanttPRO focus­es on Gantt charts: task cre­ation, depen­den­cies, crit­i­cal path and bud­get track­ing take min­utes. The inter­face is in Russ­ian, and export to PDF/PNG is handy for reports. Prices start at $7.99 per user annu­al­ly, mak­ing GanttPRO an afford­able Microsoft Project sub­sti­tute for those who main­ly need Gantt. Miss­ing Kan­ban and agile mod­ules mean you can’t run sprints with­out third-par­ty tools.


Team­Gantt

Team­Gantt com­bines a sim­ple Gantt with a Kan­ban view but tar­gets small groups: the free plan is lim­it­ed to three users. The paid Stan­dard tier (from $24 per project man­ag­er per month) unlocks unlim­it­ed guest users, work­load reports and time log­ging. For agen­cies that must build a sched­ule and show it to a client quick­ly, Team­Gantt is a cost-effec­tive Microsoft Project ana­logue; heavy automa­tion, as in Work­sec­tion or Click­Up, is absent.

Com­par­i­son table of the best Microsoft Project alternatives

Plat­formKan­ban BoardGantt ChartTime Track­erClient AccessRuss­ian UIEntry-lev­el Price (month­ly)Best for
Work­sec­tionYesYesYesGran­u­larYes$49 for up to 20 usersSMB & agencies
Click­UpYesYesLim­it­edYesPar­tial­ly$7 per userPow­er users
WrikeYesYesYesYesEmail only$9.80 per user (Team)Enter­prise
Mon​day​.comYesPro onlyNoYesNo$8 per userMar­ket­ing & design
AsanaYesTime­lineNoYesNoFree / $10.99 (Pre­mi­um)IT & products
SmartsheetGrid viewYesNoYesNo$9 per userSpread­sheet fans
NotionData­baseTime­lineNoYesYes$8 per userCon­tent & R&D
Trel­loYesPlug-inPlug-inYesYes
Free / $5 (Stan­dard)
$7.99 per user
Start-ups
GanttPRONoYesYesPar­tialYes$7.99 per userPM pros
Team­GanttKanban+GanttYesYesGuest usersNo$24 per managerAgen­cies

Which plat­form should you choose in 2025?

The final choice depends on team size, bud­get and desired flex­i­bil­i­ty. If you want an all-in-one tool with no hid­den upgrades, Work­sec­tion cov­ers plan­ning, visu­al­i­sa­tion, time con­trol and client access from day one. Click­Up and Wrike suit com­pa­nies ready to invest time in deep cus­tomi­sa­tion. GanttPRO or Team­Gantt are log­i­cal when a clas­sic Gantt chart is the main require­ment. And if you need a pure Kan­ban with the low­est entry bar­ri­er, Trel­lo or Asana will do the job.

Fre­quent­ly Asked Ques­tions (FAQ)

Which Microsoft Project alter­na­tive is best for small business?

Small busi­ness­es need quick adop­tion and trans­par­ent cost. Work­sec­tion wins thanks to a flat $49 month­ly price for the whole team and a full fea­ture set with no hid­den lim­its. If you only need a Kan­ban board, Trello’s free tier can work short-term, but you will soon out­grow its plug-in limits.

Are there free Microsoft Project alternatives?

Yes. Trel­lo, Asana and Click­Up all offer free plans with basic fea­tures. Yet those tiers lim­it stor­age, inte­gra­tions or view types, so seri­ous port­fo­lios typ­i­cal­ly hit the ceil­ing with­in a month or two. Work­sec­tion pro­vides a 14-day tri­al with all fea­tures; after that it’s paid, but with­out any sur­prise add-ons.

How is Work­sec­tion dif­fer­ent from Microsoft Project?

Microsoft Project has advanced depen­den­cy grids and a pow­er­ful resource matrix, yet it can be over-engi­neered for day-to-day work in small or mid-size teams. Work­sec­tion starts in an hour with no train­ing, deliv­ers Kan­ban, Gantt and time track­ing on every plan and costs dra­mat­i­cal­ly less — $49 a month ver­sus E = mc^2… just kid­ding :), but the sav­ings are real, espe­cial­ly for 20 – 30 users. Plus, clients can access projects for free, reduc­ing exter­nal licence spend.

Con­clu­sion

Microsoft Project remains an indus­try bench­mark, yet in 2025 the mar­ket offers flex­i­ble and afford­able alter­na­tives. Click­Up, Wrike and Asana sat­is­fy the needs of large and tech-savvy teams. How­ev­er, if you want a mod­ern plat­form with full func­tion­al­i­ty, quick onboard­ing and Russ­ian-lan­guage sup­port, Work­sec­tion is the smart choice. Try it free and see how much eas­i­er project man­age­ment can be. 

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