Tool Shortlist
Here’s the list of the best Kanban board tools that I’ll cover in this article.
Our one-on-one guidance will help you find the perfect fit.
Kanban is a proven agile project management methodology that many modern teams opt to use to plan and execute their work. And one of the best ways to make the most of this methodology is by finding the best Kanban tool to support your team and streamline your project management.
There are a ton of Kanban platforms on the market, so I researched a bunch of options and put together this list to help you find the right one for your team.
What Are Kanban Tools?
Kanban tools are digital software solutions that help you manage your projects using the Kanban methodology. Product owners and project managers use these for project planning and task management, and they’re often used by software development teams to build digital products. The tools provide a virtual Kanban board with kanban cards to outline and track projects and tasks in real-time. They also have workflow automation features, can send notifications to team members, and allow you to track productivity metrics.
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Overviews Of The 10 Best Kanban Tools For Product Management
Here’s a brief description of each Kanban software solution I’ve selected for my list. My overviews showcase the tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
monday.com
Flexible work management with Kanban functionality
Monday.com is a work management platform that allows you to build dashboards that streamline work processes. Kanban functionality is central to the tool and it’s easy to set up boards to manage projects. You can create boards for all stages of product management using the tool’s drag-and-drop builder.
You can then create and move tasks across the board as work gets done. It’s easy to add notes, tags, and assign people to each task.The boards have all the advanced features you need to keep projects on track. You can set up automation to take care of manual tasks like notifying relevant people in other tools when a task moves to a different board.
This plus commenting and messaging functionality make Monday.com a great collaboration tool. I also like the dashboard features. These take data from the Kanban board and display it in new ways to help you generate insight. For example, you can see each team member’s workload and the overall progress of each task.
Kanban is just a small part of Monday’s offering. You can also organize work in sheets, Gantt charts, and calendar views. And the tool integrates with many popular business tools such as Teams, Dropbox, Slack, Github, and Zoom.
Pricing starts at $8 per seat. To access automation you’ll need the $10 per seat plan. You can sign up for a free trial on the website.
Wrike
Kanban and work management software with plenty of extras
Wrike is project management software that lets you create dashboards for many use cases. It has powerful Kanban features that work seamlessly with its other features. All the basic functionality is easy to set up and use. You can create boards, manage task progress, add deadlines, and assign work items to team members.
Anyone in your team can attach further information to tasks to keep people informed. The Kanban boards can interact with the other features on Wrike. For example, when you add or change a task deadline, it will sync to your team calendar so everyone stays up to date.Or you can use the tool’s time-tracking software to gain visibility into how long people spend on a task.
You can also view data in the tool across various dashboards to manage workload and track task or project progress. Wrike integrates with a ton of tools in areas including CRM, messaging, BI, development, and file storage.
The tool has a pretty generous free plan for up to five users. Paid plans start at $9.80 per user per month and add more integrations and storage.
FigJam
Visualization tool for collaborative project planning and brainstorming
FigJam is a digital whiteboard tool developed by Figma that is designed to facilitate online collaboration and brainstorming. While FigJam may not be a dedicated Kanban board software, you can still use FigJam as a flexible and visual tool to create Kanban-style boards, for which a template is available. FigJam's Kanban board does not update in real-time of offer automations but it's visually appealing and may be the better option for low-tech teams.
Since FigJam is not limited to a strict KanBan structure, it is perfect for collaborative and unstructured brainstorming. As your team posts ideas, you can add comments and reaction emojis, and even vote on ideas in order to turn brainstorming into a concrete plan. These annotation features are particularly useful for asynchronous remote teams, since it allows team members to quickly and easily comment on each other's work without needing to schedule a full meeting.
If you do have a synchronous meeting, FigJam also has a timer feature, which is great for keeping meetings and brainstorming sessions on track. Other real-time features include the 'cursor chat', which allows you to communicate with your team directly on the board. You can see who's doing what and discuss ideas in real-time.
Integrations include Jira, Confluence, Quatalog, Lingo, Trello, Coda, Slack, Notion, Microsoft Teams, and Asana.
FigJam Professional starts at $3 per editor per month, which offers unlimited FigJam files. There is also a Free plan available that offers 3 Figma and 3 FigJam files.
Height
Best Kanban tool for its advanced search filters
Height is a robust Kanban option for product management because it offers a visually appealing and intuitive interface that allows teams to quickly track their progress and stay organized. The platform offers a range of customization options, enabling teams to tailor the board to their specific needs and workflows. With features such as swimlanes, labels, and due dates, users can easily identify and prioritize tasks, assign them to team members, and track progress in real-time.
The platform also offers useful analytics and reporting features, enabling teams to track key metrics such as cycle time, lead time, and throughput. With its intuitive interface, powerful customization options, and robust integration and reporting features, Height is a top choice for product management teams looking to streamline their workflows and improve productivity.
Features include batch editing, drag-and-drop tasks, advanced card filters, subtask support, and customizable icons and colors.
Integrations include GitHub, Figma, Notion, Sentry, Zendesk, Slack Discord, Slab, and Fivetran.
Zoho Sprints
Best for its agile reporting features
Zoho Sprints is a cloud-based agile project management software where you can manage multiple products by using Scrum with Kanban. This solution has a bevy of features including drag-and-drop planning tools, timers, timesheets, meeting scheduling, reports, and Kanban boards. Users will be able to customize their workflows beyond traditional “To-do’s,” “In Progress,” and “Done” statuses.
Zoho Sprints allows you to get a bird’s-eye view of your project’s progress and track release schedules. Then, you can compare your original timeline with the actual one and project timelines based on your team's average velocity. Your team will be able to also focus on the work that needs to be done, thanks to the swimlane display of items in the backlog and current sprint.
If your projects require Epic creation and management, Zoho Sprints has support for it. You can assign an Epic owner, map the related user stories and tasks to it, label stuff so it's easier to find and organize and measure efforts using burndown and burnup charts.
Additionally, you will be able to effectively see your workflows through Kanban cards, limit work through “In Progress” statuses, focus on certain workflows, and continuously improve processes. The Kanban tools that Zoho Sprints provide are versatile and can increase productivity, empower teams, and improve responsiveness.
Integrations for this platform include collaboration apps, developer tools, and the Zoho ecosystem apps. These include Zoho Cliq, Zoho Desk, Zoho Analytics, MS Teams, Google Drive, Zendesk, Jenkins, GitHub, and Azure DevOps. You can also connect the software to thousands of additional apps through Zapier.
Miro
Best for visually tracking the new product feature development process
Miro is a visual collaboration and online whiteboard platform that's designed to bring teams together, no matter where they are in the world. It provides a virtual workspace where users can engage in activities such as visual project management, diagramming, process mapping, and content and data visualization. It also includes numerous Kanban templates to help teams visually track their progress.
Miro's Kanban templates cover core aspects of product management, including feature planning, product backlogs, production workflows, to-do lists, and many other uses. They also offer an infinite canvas, meaning you can literally keep adding stuff to it without running out of space.
Compared to other Kanban tools, Miro feels more flexible and interactive. It's not just about moving cards from one column to another. It's about visualizing your workflow, collaborating with your team, and getting a clear picture of your project. Whether you're a product manager, a designer, a developer, or just someone who likes to stay organized, I think you'll find Miro pretty useful.
Integrations include Microsoft Teams, Webex, Zoom, Atlassian (Jira, Confluence, and Trello), Google Workspace, Jira, Azure DevOps, Airtable, Figma, InVision, Adobe XD, Slack, Zoom, and others.
Miro offers a free plan with up to 3 editable boards within one workspace. If you need more than that, you can scale up to their Starter plan which costs $10/user/month.
Trello
Kanban tool with easy-to-use workflow automation features
Trello is an easy-to-use task management tool with plenty of features to help you get work done. Setting up your board is easy, and the UI looks great. It’s easy to customize task cards with the information you need such as subtask checklists, notes, fields, deadlines, and assignees.
You can also use some of the tool’s existing templates to get started faster.I really like how easy it is to set up automation on Trello using if/then instructions. Just write the trigger and the action into the automation tool, and the workflow will occur whenever a relevant action happens.
A simple example is that you can tell Trello to automatically move a card to the finished board when every item in a checklist is ticked off. Trello integrates with plenty of other tools, such as Dropbox for storage and Slack for notifications. You can set up automation with these tools too, such as automatically alerting relevant people in Slack when they are assigned a task. And you can access mobile apps on iOS and Android.
There’s a free plan that lets you create up to ten boards without limiting users.
Paid plans start at $6 and allow you to create unlimited boards, use advanced features, and set up more automation.
ProjectManager.com
Project management tool with Kanban and Gantt functionality
Project Manager is a work management tool designed for hybrid teams. It has features for project planning, team collaboration, managing tasks, and time tracking. The Kanban system helps with the task management section. It’s easy to create task boards and cards. You can customize them by adding files, deadlines, notes, or assigning users. Each card has a progress bar that highlights how near to completion the work is.
And you can add tags to set whether each task is high or low priority. There are plenty of advanced features too. You can track hours within each task in real-time which is perfect for agencies that need to track billable hours or companies that want to better manage workload. You can also filter tasks which is useful if you have a lot of work going on and need to see a particular section. The tool has advanced reporting features.
You can see metrics like how many tasks you have at each stage of development, task backlog, the percentage of tasks in each project that are complete, and whether any tasks are ahead or behind schedule.
You can integrate Project Manager with Slack, Trello, Jira, and plenty of other products.
Premium plans start at $14 per user per month, and you can try it for free before purchasing.
Kanban Zone
Kanban tool that lets you connect multiple boards
Kanban Zone is a dedicated Kanban tool with all the features you need to manage projects. It aims to get the balance between simple Kanban to-do lists and a complex work management solution.The Portfolio Kanban methodology is central to achieving this. This is a system that allows you to create multiple boards and then connect them to help you visualize work across your organization.
You can then trace how the workflows through your business.Here’s an example of this in action. Imagine that one task in your product release board is to build a new feature. This is then connected to another board that contains all the work you need to do to create this specific functionality.
You can also use Swimlanes to further separate and streamline your workflows. With this in place, you can better see how different tasks relate to each other and build flows without any disruptions. While this can be complicated to set up, Kanban Zone provides users with a coach to help set up the boards in a way that works for your organization.
Kanban Zone offers some integration via Zapier, the Kanban Zone API, or webhooks.
Pricing for the pro plan starts at $10 per user per month. There’s also an individual plan for $6.25 per month and a free 30-day trial.
Kanbanize
Flexible Kanban tool that lets you create board networks
Kanbanize is agile project management software based around Kanban boards. It allows you to create anything from a single board to complex structures that display all the work going on in your organization.The main feature is that you can create a network of connected boards.
These can expand horizontally across teams or vertically across management levels, helping your organization get a clear view of how work is progressing. You can also create workflows across each level, making it easy to manage tasks dependencies and stop bottlenecks.
Another cool feature is sub-columns. This lets you split each part of your Kanban board into different stages. For example, you can view your “in progress” column based on the tasks being performed by each team or department so you know what these groups are working on.
The tool integrates with plenty of other tools. These include cloud storage tools like Google Drive and BI tools like Tableau and Data Studio.
It also has an import option to bring in data from other project management tools like Trello, Leankit, and Asana.
Kanbanize pricing starts at $179 per month for up to 15 users. You can also sign up for a free trial on the website.
Need expert help selecting the right Kanban Software?
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The 10 Best Kanban Tools For Product Management Summary
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | monday.com Flexible work management with Kanban functionality | 14-day free trial + free plan available | From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) | Visit Website |
2 | Wrike Kanban and work management software with plenty of extras | Free plan available | From $9.80/user/month | Visit Website |
3 | FigJam Visualization tool for collaborative project planning and brainstorming | Free plan available | From $3/user/month | Visit Website |
4 | Height Best Kanban tool for its advanced search filters | 30-day free trial | From $8.50/user/month | Visit Website |
5 | Zoho Sprints Best for its agile reporting features | 15-day free trial | From $3 /user/month for up to 100 users | Visit Website |
6 | Miro Best for visually tracking the new product feature development process | Free plan available | From $10/user/month | Visit Website |
7 | Trello Kanban tool with easy-to-use workflow automation features | Free trial + free plan available | From $6/user/month | Visit Website |
8 | ProjectManager.com Project management tool with Kanban and Gantt functionality | 30-day free trial | From $16/user/month | Visit Website |
9 | Kanban Zone Kanban tool that lets you connect multiple boards | 30 days free trial | From $10/user/month | Visit Website |
10 | Kanbanize Flexible Kanban tool that lets you create board networks | 14-day free trial | From $179/month for up to 15 users | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here’s a few more that didn’t make the top list.
- Meistertask - Secure task management software
- Paymo - Task management with billing features
- Hive - Kanban board with collaborative note-taking
- Sciforma - Enterprise portfolio and Kanban project management software
- Kanboard - Free and open-source Kanban board
- Zoho Project - Easy to use Kanban with drag-and-drop functionality
- Toggl Plan - Project management for small teams
- Easy Projects - Project management with multiple views, including Kanban
Selection Criteria For My Best Kanban Tools List
What did I look for when researching the best Kanban software? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
Core Functionality
There are a few baseline capabilities I’d look for in any project management tool, and some specific to Kanban tools. Here are a few of the core functionalities I looked for:
- Board view: More specifically, a Kanban board view with task columns.
- Kanban cards: Cards to break down work items, including project and task cards.
- Work in progress limits: Being able to set a WIP limit is essential to the Kanban method.
Key Features
Here are some additional features I kept an eye out for as I tested these various Kanban project management tools:
- Drag-and-drop: A drag-and-drop task board makes tracking project progress easy and smooth.
- Multiple views: It’s nice to have a calendar view or the ability to create Gantt charts in addition the the Kanban view.
- Project and task details: The ability to add due dates, assignees, checklists, subtasks, and task dependencies to task cards.
- Roadmaps: Some software allows you to zoom out from the kanban features to plan a roadmap with milestones and a project backlog.
- Swimlanes: These can be really helpful for grouping tasks by product, project, objective, or other factors.
- Prioritization: Features like poker planning are a big help in work management and prioritizing the most impactful tasks.
- Customizable templates: Being able to reuse existing templates for project and task planning really speeds up your process.
- Analytics: A dashboard that measures productivity metrics like cycle time, burndown, and cumulative flow help improve your team’s productivity.
- Team collaboration tools: Some software have communication tools to facilitate teamwork and help avoid bottlenecks.
- Extras: Depending on the software, it might offer various extras like time tracking, a mobile app, or other unique features.
Usability
Navigating a Kanban board software should be intuitive and straightforward. I looked for Kanban systems that are user-friendly and provide a quick time to value. The whole point is to speed up your production, so you don’t want a software that’s going to slow you down.
Integrations
I looked for Kanban project management software that integrates with other important SaaS tools and apps that your team relies on. I looked for platforms that integrate with your CRM and communication tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and email. The better your workflow management system fits into the rest of your tech stack, the better!
Pricing
Price points are definitely something I took into consideration when I was compiling my list. Paid plans tend to start anywhere between $3/user/month but can go up to $20/user/month. Some providers also have custom pricing for premium plans. But most Kanban software offers a free trial or even a free plan for small teams.
Other Product Management Software Reviews
Looking for additional software solutions to support your product management? Here are a few more types of software we’ve reviewed:
- Poduct Management Tools
- New Product Development Software
- Status Dashboard Software
- Software Release Management Tools
What do you think about this list?
This list includes Kanban tools to suit all needs. From those that offer basic Kanban functionality to those that let you manage your projects in multiple ways.
When choosing a tool, first decide whether you need all the extra functionality. You can then try out some of the platforms, depending on your answer.
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