There are numerous website project management tools that can help you collaborate effectively in your business. As your business, workload and number of hired employees expand, it becomes difficult to effectively manage each and every process, especially, if your business is more task-oriented. In order to keep a bird’s view, so you don’t miss important communications, it is a wise idea to use a website project management tool.

A project management tool is basically designed to help you in your business’s day-to-day work by summarizing, analyzing and reporting the whole business activity.

Moreover, you can assign tasks, set milestones and track invoices, depending upon the specific features and options of the project management tool. There are a lot of such applications; however, following is a comparison of the top 3 most common, effective and widely used website project management tools.

1. Basecamp:

Basecamp is arguably the leading project management application right now. Basecamp is created by ‘37signals’, and since its inception, it has catered a lot of businesses to satisfy their project management demands. In 2012, Basecamp is redesigned to become even faster, reliable and easier to use, while maintaining its core interface and environment.

Some of the core features of Basecamp are listed below:

• To-Do Lists
• File Sharing
• Messages
• Creating Milestones
• Time Tracking

Basecamp offers a free 45-day trial. Then the pricing packages start from only $20/month. Basecamp claims to cater 150,000 companies with 8 million projects managed.

One of the best features of Basecamp is that it allows you to seamlessly integrate with many popular 3rd party applications. For example, Evernote, Google Docs, Dropbox, etc. are a few to name. Moreover, it has many extensions or add-ons for internet browsers, and apps for mobile.

2. Active Collaboration:

Active Collaboration is not as popular as Basecamp, though, it is considered as the closest match to Basecamp. One major different between Active Collaboration and Basecamp is the pricing plan. Basecamp charges its users on monthly basis, while Active Collaboration is purchased for a one-time fee.

Active Collaboration has two pricing plans: one of small business, while the others for big corporates. The license details are as follows:

• Small Biz License = $249
• Corporate License = $499

The corporate license offers you with complete set of features.
Some of the basic features of Active Collaboration are:

• Time Tracking
• Invoicing
• Collaboration Features
• Web 2.0 Technology
• SVN Integration

Unlike Basecamp, which is a web-based application, Active Collaboration is a software that is installed on your own website – on your personal virtual space. The space becomes accessible to members with a username and password.

Active Collaboration has 10,000+ users including some famous companies like Nokia, Adobe and Disney.

3. Zoho Projects:

Zoho is a relatively newer entry into the project management arena, but has seen rapid growth and progress. Zoho is a highly customizable project management tool, with lots of features and modification options. Some of the most notable features are:

• Sales Tracker
• Productivity Features
• Spreadsheet views
• Customer Relation Management
• Mobile Apps
• Seamless Integration with Google Apps like, Google Docs, Calendar, Tasks, etc.
• Invoicing features

Zoho is a customizable tool, as mentioned earlier, which also allows you to add LinkedIn and Facebook features to their profiles. With lots of add-ons, extensions and integrations, Zoho turns out to be an excellent tool overall.

The pricing plan is as follows:

• Free Edition for 3 users
• Professional Edition @ $12/user per month.
• Enterprise Edition @ $25/user per month.

Each plan has different set of unlocked features.

Conclusion:

All of three project management tools are great in their own ways. If you are looking for a one-time pay off, with a complex and sophisticated tool at your own personal space, consider going with Active Collaboration. On the other hand, if you prefer to go with the monthly option, you can choose either one between Basecamp and Zoho.

Basecamp does not have a blog and forum, while Zoho has. In other features, like, scheduling, events, baseline and automatic notifications, Basecamp wins. Moreover, Basecamp, unlike Zoho, is multi-lingual.

About the author: Matt Fuller is a web specialist and provides services such as web design Sunshine Coast for local and national companies. The web design industry on The Sunshine Coast continues to grow inline with the thriving local economy.