Every tool here has a genuinely free tier, not a trial. What separates them is not features but limits: how many people, how many projects, and how much storage before the free plan stops being enough.
Most roundups tell you a free plan exists and leave the cap buried in a paragraph. This one puts all 12 caps in one table, because for anyone searching for free project management software that is the actual question. Checked on each vendor’s own pricing page in August 2026.
What every free plan actually caps
Free project management software is limited in one of three ways: by people, by projects, or by storage. Which limit a tool picks tells you who it is really for.
| Tool | What the free plan caps | The limit that bites first |
|---|---|---|
| actiTIME | 3 users, full feature set | People. Fine for a small team, not a growing one |
| ClickUp | Unlimited members and tasks, 100 MB storage | Storage. Generous on people, tight the moment you attach files |
| Trello | 10 collaborators, 10 boards per workspace | Boards. Ten goes quickly if each client gets one |
| Asana | 2 users on the current free Personal plan | People, and hard. See the note below |
| Notion | Unlimited pages for individuals, 5 MB per file upload | File size, and collaboration beyond a small group |
| Freedcamp | Unlimited projects, tasks and storage under fair use | Features rather than volume; the generous outlier here |
| Zoho Projects | 5 users, 3 projects, 5 GB storage | Projects. Three is the constraint, not the headcount |
| Teamwork | Up to 5 projects | Projects, again before people |
| Plaky | Unlimited users, board and file size limits apply | Boards per dashboard, and attachment size |
| Wrike | $0 per user for essential task management | Features. Subtasks and reporting sit on paid tiers |
| OpenProject | Community edition, free and self-hosted | You host it. No licence cost, real setup cost |
| GanttProject | Open source desktop app, no account needed | No collaboration. It is a single-user planner |
Read the middle column as a question about your own situation. If you are five people on one project, the project caps do not matter and Zoho or Teamwork are fine. If you are two people running fifteen client projects, they are the first thing that will stop you, and Freedcamp or ClickUp fit better.
How these 12 were chosen
Three rules, applied before anything was written:
-
A free tier, not a free trial.
Every tool here has a plan you can stay on indefinitely without paying. Anything offering 14 or 30 days and then a bill was excluded, however good it is.
-
The cap has to be published.
If a vendor does not state what the free plan limits, it is not in the table, because an unstated cap is still a cap.
-
It has to manage projects.
Note-taking apps and databases get used for project work, and Notion earns its place on that basis, but a tool with no concept of a task or a due date was not considered.
The best free tool for each situation
There is no single best free project management software, because the free plans are limited in different directions. There is a best one for each shape of team.
- You bill clients for your time. actiTIME. It is the only tool here that keeps cost rates and billing rates on the same time entries, so the free plan answers what work cost as well as what was done.
- You have more than ten people and no budget. ClickUp or Plaky. Both put unlimited members on the free plan and take their limit in storage or boards instead.
- You run many small projects. Freedcamp. Unlimited projects under fair use is the most generous position here, and project caps are what stop most other free plans.
- You want a board and nothing else. Trello. Ten boards and ten collaborators is enough for a small team that thinks in cards.
- You need it on your own servers. OpenProject Community edition. Free licence, and you carry the hosting.
- You need a Gantt chart and work alone. GanttProject. A desktop planner with no account and no collaboration.
12 free project management tools in detail
actiTIME
actiTIME is a time tracking product with project management around it rather than the reverse, which is the point. Hours are recorded against tasks, a cost rate sits on each person and a billing rate on each type of work, so the same entry supports both an invoice and a margin figure.
The free plan covers three users with the feature set intact, which suits a small consultancy or a two-person studio billing clients. Above three people it becomes a paid product.
Free plan: up to 3 users. Paid from $5 per user per month.
We reduced payroll processing to 45 minutes per week
actiTIME is very robust, integrated well into your business process, and most important, helps you focus on your business instead of monkeying around with technology.
ClickUp
ClickUp has the most generous free plan on people: unlimited members and unlimited tasks, with time tracking, whiteboards and Gantt view included rather than held back. The catch is 100 MB of storage, which sounds like a lot until a team starts attaching design files.
It is also the most configurable tool here, and that cuts both ways. Decide your structure before rolling it out, because ClickUp will happily let three people invent three different ways of doing the same thing.
Free plan: unlimited members and tasks, 100 MB storage. Paid from $7 per user per month.
Trello
Trello is the simplest thing on this list that still counts as project management. Cards move across columns, and that is most of it. For a small team that wants visible status and nothing else, the learning curve is close to zero.
The free workspace allows 10 collaborators and 10 boards. Guests who only view and comment do not count against the collaborator limit, which is useful for client visibility.
Free plan: 10 collaborators, 10 boards per workspace.
Asana
Asana is a strong product with a free plan that recently became much smaller. The Personal plan now covers 2 users, reduced from 10 in November 2025, so it has moved from a small-team option to essentially a solo or pair one.
If you find an article recommending Asana’s free plan for a team of eight, check the date. The product is unchanged; the entitlement is not.
Free plan: 2 users on the current Personal plan.
Notion
Notion is a documents and databases tool that a lot of teams bend into a project tracker, and it works if somebody is willing to build and maintain the structure. Unlimited pages on the free plan for individual use, with a 5 MB cap per file upload.
The honest caveat is that Notion gives you a blank canvas. Teams that want a project tool to already know what a project is will find that liberating or exhausting depending on temperament.
Free plan: unlimited pages for individuals, 5 MB per file upload.
Freedcamp
Freedcamp is the outlier on generosity: unlimited projects, tasks and storage on the free plan, subject to a fair usage policy. Where nearly every competitor caps projects or people, Freedcamp caps features instead, holding things like Gantt charts and invoicing for paid tiers.
That makes it the obvious first stop for anyone running a lot of small projects on no budget.
Free plan: unlimited projects, tasks and storage under fair use.
Zoho Projects
Zoho Projects gives 5 users, 3 projects and 5 GB of storage free, with mobile apps included. If you already use other Zoho products the integration is the reason to pick it.
Three projects is the real constraint. It suits a team running a couple of long engagements rather than many short ones.
Free plan: 5 users, 3 projects, 5 GB storage.
Teamwork
Teamwork is built for client services, with the free plan covering up to 5 projects. The paid product leans into billing and client access, so the free tier reads as a way in rather than a destination.
Free plan: up to 5 projects.
Plaky
Plaky puts unlimited users on the free plan, which almost nothing else here does, and takes its limits in boards per dashboard and attachment size instead. For a larger group that needs shared visibility without a budget, that trade is usually the right way round.
Free plan: unlimited users, with board and file size limits.
Wrike
Wrike offers essential task management at $0 per user. The free tier is a genuine entry point rather than a trial, but it is feature-limited by design: the reporting and subtask depth that make Wrike worth choosing sit on paid plans.
Free plan: $0 per user, essential task management.
OpenProject
OpenProject Community edition is free and open source, and it is the most capable scheduling tool on this list, with Gantt charts, baselines and work package hierarchies.
The cost is not money. You host it, patch it and back it up, so the real question is whether you have someone to own that. If you do, it is the closest free equivalent to a traditional project management system.
Free plan: Community edition, self-hosted, no licence fee.
GanttProject
GanttProject is a free open source desktop application that does one thing: build a Gantt chart with dependencies and a critical path. No account, no cloud, no collaboration.
That narrowness is why it survives. If you need to produce a schedule and hand over a PDF, it is faster than any web tool here.
Free plan: free and open source, desktop only.
Free alternatives to Microsoft Project
Microsoft Project has no free tier. It is sold as a paid plan or through a Microsoft 365 subscription, which is why a large share of free project management software searches are really people trying to leave it.
| What you used it for | Free replacement | What you lose |
|---|---|---|
| Gantt charts and dependencies | GanttProject or OpenProject | Little. This is the part free tools replicate best |
| Critical path and resource levelling | OpenProject | Depth of scheduling logic and automatic levelling |
| Opening .mpp files from clients | No reliable free equivalent | File compatibility is the usual reason people stay |
| Tracking cost against the plan | actiTIME | Scheduling. It records what work cost rather than sequencing it |
The split is that Microsoft Project is a scheduling tool with costing attached, while most free alternatives are collaboration tools with scheduling attached. If the Gantt chart was your reason for using it, a free MS Project alternative will do. If it was resource levelling or opening client files, expect a gap.
When a free plan stops being free enough
Free plans usually end for one of four reasons, and it is worth knowing which one applies before you invest time setting one up.
- A person joins. The most abrupt one. On a 2 or 3 user cap, one hire moves you to paid immediately.
- A project starts. Slower and easier to miss. Three or five projects sounds ample until each client counts as one.
- Someone attaches a file. 100 MB and 5 MB per file are common caps, and design or video work passes them in a week.
- You need to bill from it. Invoicing and cost reporting sit on paid tiers almost everywhere, which is the point at which free project management software stops being a saving and starts being a spreadsheet.
The cheapest mistake is picking the tool with the highest user cap when your constraint is projects, or the other way round. Look at the middle column of the table above before the feature list.
Frequently asked questions
Which is the best free project management tool?
It depends which limit you hit first. For unlimited people on no budget, ClickUp or Plaky. For many small projects, Freedcamp, which caps features rather than project count. For billing time to clients, actiTIME, because it keeps cost and billing rates on the same entries. For a simple board, Trello. There is no single winner because the free plans are constrained in different directions.
Is Microsoft Project free?
No. Microsoft Project is sold as a paid plan or as part of certain Microsoft 365 subscriptions, and there is no permanent free tier. Microsoft Planner covers lightweight task management inside Microsoft 365, but it is not a replacement for Project’s scheduling.
What is a free alternative to Microsoft Project?
OpenProject is the closest for scheduling, with Gantt charts, dependencies and baselines, though you host it yourself. GanttProject is the fastest option if you only need to build a chart on a desktop. Neither reliably opens .mpp files, which is the compatibility gap worth checking before you switch.
Are free project management tools actually free?
The twelve here are, in the sense that you can stay on the plan indefinitely without paying. What varies is how quickly you outgrow it. Read the cap rather than the word free: a plan with unlimited users and 100 MB of storage and a plan with 3 users and no storage limit are both free, and they suit opposite teams.
Start with the limit, not the feature list
Every tool here will manage a project. What differs is which wall you hit first, and that is decided by the shape of your team rather than by the product.
If your constraint is knowing what the work actually cost, actiTIME records hours against tasks with cost and billing rates on the same entries, free for up to 3 users. Start a free 30 day trial of the full version, no credit card required.
