What Are The Best Wrike Alternatives For Project Management?

If you’re a new (or occasional) project manager, you might be wondering: how is one person supposed to keep track of all these things?

The answer is: they’re not.

That’s what project management tools are here for.

And if you’ve been googling them, you’ve probably come across Wrike.

Wrike is one of the most talked about project management tools.

However, it comes with a steep learning curve. It’s definitely not an easy-to-use, turn-key solution that you might be looking for.

So today, we’re going to show you 9 best Wrike alternatives:

• Project Central
• Trello
• Microsoft Planner
• Asana
• Airtable
• Basecamp
• Projectmanager.com
• Monday.com
• ClickUp

Let’s find your perfect project management fit!

What Is Wrike Project Management?

Wrike is one of the most popular tools for agile project management. It handles pretty much every aspect that’s been on your mind:

1. Wrike Team Management

With Wrike, you can easily keep your team in the loop and ensure 360° visibility.

This means you’ll have a much easier time keeping everyone accountable.

Not to mention the fact that your team members will always know what they have to be working on, and who their tasks are dependent on.

Wrike also has a few team collaboration features that make it easier to get feedback and get that project done in time.

2. Task Management

Your tasks are the stepping stones of your project management pathway.

So not only do you have to manage the project as a whole – you have to make sure that every task is completed.

For that, Wrike offers task boards inspired by Kanban boards, shared calendars, and other features.

3. Project Dashboards

See the forest for the trees and don’t get bogged down by the specifics of tasks.

Wrike helps you see the most important information (e.g. due dates, updates) in one central dashboard.

This is pretty handy, especially if you’re managing a few projects at the same time, but it can take a while to get everything set up.

4. Cloud Collaboration

This is perfect for our current work-from-home climate.

With Wrike, your team members can access their files and information from their phones, as well as their desktop computers.

5. Gantt Charts, Calendars, and Other Views

Gantt charts are pretty much a staple of any project management software, but Wrike also lets you see tasks and deadlines in calendar and other views, so there’s something for every project management style.

All in all, Wrike is a useful tool. However, it comes with a few drawbacks:

• Wrike gets (too) technical. You want an easy way to manage projects. Not a tool that puts even more training tasks on your plate.
• Wrike isn’t intuitive for an occasional project manager. Sometimes, Wrike favors digital paperwork and reports over getting stuff done.
• Wrike is expensive. Yes, it does have a free plan. But once you factor in the costs of training and user adoption, you’ll see its true price.

So let’s find the best possible alternative for you and your project team!

1. The Best Wrike Alternatives: Project Central

Project Central is the best Wrike alternative, especially for occasional project managers or trained project managers that want to get stuff done, and not worry about configuring the settings of a tool that should be helping them.

What makes it so simple and powerful?

Seamless Office 365 Integration Using Microsoft Login

Your company is likely using Microsoft Office 365 for day-to-day work; from emails, to shared calendars and meetings.

Normally, if you get a project management tool, you have to onboard your team members to a different software.

This means a bunch of security concerns, as well as the tedious work of getting new passwords.

With Project Central, this is not an issue.

Project Central seamlessly integrates with Office 365, so you can easily log in with your standard Microsoft login info.

One account to rule them all!

Beautiful User Experience – Simple to Use, Visual & Intuitive

Ever wished you had a project management tool that would read your mind and do exactly what you want it to do?

Project Central is as close as you can come to that!

• Easily organize your team tasks with visual task boards, and drag & drop your way to success.
• Manage all your projects and tasks from a central dashboard.
• Check up on your team on the Activity Feed and see who’s doing what in real time.
• Add as many details as you want to your tasks and projects.
• Create a new project and get to work right away with project templates (perfect for first-time project managers).

Project Central simply proves that project management doesn’t have to be hard at all!

Access Your Office 365 Files Inside Project Central

Connect your Office 365 library to Project Central with a few clicks, and you’ll be able to see all the files you need without ever leaving Project Central.

At the same time, you’re kept safe by Microsoft-level security.

From there, you can easily attach the necessary files to relevant tasks.

Team collaboration: easy-peasy!

Gantt Charts

Easily add, organize, prioritize, and adjust your tasks with Project Central’s simple and intuitive Gantt charts.

They’re perfect for making sure you stay on track (and keep an eye on those task dependencies).

And if you want to review the tasks in depth, you don’t have to switch tabs.

You can easily see all the task details within your Gantt chart.

In Project Central, everything is perfectly integrated.

Team Collaboration

Since Project Central is integrated with Office 365, you can easily add and manage team members.

You just add them, and they can log in right away.

Not to mention that they’ll love being able to do their work without having to remember new passwords.

All in all, Project Central is powerful and easy to use. It’s perfect for different project teams!

2. Best Wrike Alternatives for Project Management

Wrike vs Trello

Trello is one of the simplest project management tools out there and is one of the best Wrike alternatives for you to consider.

In fact, it’s primarily a task management tool.

You can organize all your work with Kanban, to-do boards.

Trello works best for managing repetitive tasks, rather than new project tasks.

Wrike vs Microsoft Planner

Microsoft Planner is a Kanban task management tool, so it’s not the best fit for managing projects and tasks at the same time.

However, it’s a lightweight tool that might work okay for simpler projects.

Wrike vs Asana

Asana is one of the first project management tools, and it’s still great.

However, we recommend using it for linear projects and/or teams that have received project management training.

Otherwise, the learning curve might be too steep if you want to use all the features.

Wrike vs Airtable

Airtable is primarily a supercharged Excel sheet, so it’s great for internal document-sharing and task management.

It recently introduced Kanban boards and calendar views.

However, it can be really hard to manage full-fledged projects with it.

Wrike vs Basecamp

If you’re not using any team communication and project management solutions, Basecamp is a good all-in-one option.

In addition to helping you manage tasks and projects, you’ll also get team chat and a few handy collaborative features.

Otherwise, the features can be a little overwhelming.

Wrike vs ProjectManager.com

ProjectManager.com is one of the most traditional project management tools.

It even comes with reporting and time-tracking features!

However, that often makes it clunky and unsuitable for modern project managers.

It definitely has a learning curve, so it can take a while to get everyone on board.

Wrike vs Monday.com

Monday.com is simple and relatively easy to use.

However, you won’t get a lot more than basic task and project management in the original version.

For everything else, you’ll have to integrate or create your own Monday.com apps.

Wrike vs Clickup

Clickup is a little too ambitious, so not only does it offer project management.

It also wants to replace everything from Google Drive to Slack.

This may seem like it offers a lot but ultimately, it makes this Jack of all trades the master of none.

What Is the Best Wrike Alternatives?

Ultimately, the choice is up to you.

But if your company is already using Office 365, we recommend Project Central.

It offers a lot more than Microsoft Planner, and gives you the tools you need for your project to succeed.