- ClickUp: Best for multiple views
- Teamwork.com: Best for agencies
- Notion: Best for collaboration
- Asana: Best for ease of use
- monday dev: Best for custom workflows
- Airtable: Best for flexibility
- Jira: Best for dev teams
- Smartsheet: Best for templates
- Trello: Best for free plan
- Wrike: Best for reporting
Updated: Feb 27, 2024, 2:00pm
Agile project management is all about enabling teams to make the best decisions for which work gets done when, which is why you should find the best scrum software. We pared down a big list of apps that could work for scrum teams and ensured each offer board views, labels for task prioritization and robust reporting tools.
What may work best for one team may not be the ideal solution for yours, which is why we looked at each software to determine the best use cases. Consider the feature set, ease of use and cost before choosing the best scrum software for your small business.
The 10 Best Scrum Software of 2024
Forbes Advisor Ratings
Company | Forbes Advisor Rating | Starting price | Board view | Burndown chart | LEARN MORE | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ClickUp | 4.6 | Free; $7 per user per month (billed annually) | Yes | Yes | Learn More | On ClickUp's Website | |||
Teamwork.com | 4.1 | $5.99 per user per month (billed annually) | Yes | Yes | Learn More | Read Forbes' Review | |||
Notion | 4.0 | Free; $16 per user per month (billed annually) | Yes | No | Learn More | Read Forbes' Review | |||
Asana | 3.8 | Free; $10.99 per user per month (billed annually) | Yes | No | Learn More | Read Forbes' Review | |||
monday dev | 3.8 | Free; $9 per user per month (billed annually) | Yes | Yes (on monday dev) | Learn More | On monday.com's Website | |||
Airtable | 3.3 | Free; $20 per user per month (billed annually) | Yes | No | Learn More | Read Forbes' Review | |||
Jira | 3.3 | Free; $7.08 per user per month (billed annually) | Yes | Yes | Learn More | On Jira's Website | |||
Smartsheet | 3.1 | Free; $7 per user per month (billed annually) | Yes | Yes (via template) | Learn More | On Smartsheet's Website | |||
Trello | 3.1 | Free; $5 per user per month (billed annually) | Yes | No | Learn More | Read Forbes' Review | |||
Wrike | 3.1 | Free; $9.80 per user per month (billed annually) | Yes | Yes | Learn More | On Wrike's Website |
How To Choose the Best Scrum Software
Choosing the best scrum software for your team comes down to the features you need, the price you can afford to pay and how quickly your team will adopt a new platform.
Essential Features
- Backlog management: When planning sprints, it’s a good idea to have a handle on your product backlog. While there are many ways to do this, it’s best to have features that allow you to color code, prioritize and move tasks easily from one column to another. Look for Kanban and scrum boards, itemization features and drag-and-drop functionality.
- Board view: To keep your sprints running smoothly and quickly, a visual project management solution is a must. Kanban or scrum boards help you see all the tasks planned for a sprint and see as work moves from to-do to doing to done.
- Task prioritization: As mentioned above, visualizing task prioritization is important to ensure you put the right work at the top of each sprint. Color coding can help with showing urgency and item IDs help with organization.
- Burndown charts: Not all scrum software includes burndown charts but usually there are integrations or workarounds to get you this important view. It’s one of the best ways to see whether tasks are being completed based on your timeline (and potential roadblocks).
- Reporting: All businesses rely on reporting to understand the data from all angles. Scrum teams in particular need to see velocity reports for workload management per sprint, defect reports to keep an eye on reported bugs per sprint and burnup charts to justify more time for a project (or more devs).
Ease of Use
If you have a seasoned scrum team, the ease of use may not matter much. However, if you have new team members or your teams are new to scrum, look for an easy-to-use scrum app. You’re more likely to have success transitioning to scrum if you choose scrum software that’s easy to learn and use.
Flexibility
Not every team uses scrum, so it might be a good idea to look for scrum software that’s flexible enough to work for all of the teams of your company. Some teams prefer to use a simpler Kanban project management solution or a list view for the waterfall method.
Pricing
Cost usually comes in the form of per user, per month, if paid on an annual basis. Most scrum software costs less than $10 per user, per month, but some are half or double that cost. Consider the size of your team and what you need to manage your team and report to upper management. Some smaller software options that seem cheap or less advanced may have the integrations you need for a viable and affordable solution.
Featured Partners
1
monday dev
Yes
From $8 monthly per user
Zoom, LinkedIn, Adobe, Salesforce and more
2
ClickUp
Yes, for unlimited members
$7 per month
Slack, Microsoft Outlook, HubSpot, Salesforce, Timely, Google Drive and more
3
Wrike
Yes
$9.80 per user per month
Salesforce, Adobe, Miro, Netsuite, Quickbooks, SAP
4
Smartsheet
Yes, for one user and two editors
$9 per user per month
Google Drive, Slack, Tableau, Miro, Zapier and more
Methodology
At Forbes Advisor, we create unique methodologies for categories of software that include a variety of factors and subfactors. We research and test the software on our list and apply a score for each feature based on what small businesses need. Finally, we calculate a total score with specific weight before assigning a rating from one to five stars:
- Pricing and fees (8%): Although affordability is important, we only gave pricing 8% of the total score because it comes down to value more than cost. Still, the best scrum software offers plans that are feasible for small businesses.
- Project management features (28%): Without the core project management features, a macOS or iOS app would be worthless. So, we took task management, user permissions, basic project views and more into account. We also ensured all the software on our list offers a way to run sprints, manage backlogs and include integrations that are key to your business’ success.This makes up 28% of each provider’s rank.
- Organizing Features (15%): Some features may not be vital to a scrum team, but they are needed for agencies, other agile project management styles and for teams that are starting out and need prebuilt templates for help. Organization features make up 15% of the score and include extras, such as subtasks, milestones, multiple assignees and task IDs.
- Technical Features (19%): We evaluated providers based on their technical features, such as the availability of a mobile app, task automation, advanced search function and more.
- Collaboration Features (7%): We reviewed each provider for its ability to generate proofs and invoices, integrate with a variety of third-party applications and work collaboratively on documents, to name just a few factors from this category.
- Ratings and reviews (5%): We want to make sure we consider what users of the software we review think of it, as well. So, we read through user reviews, consider pros and cons and look at third-party ratings.
- Service and support (8%): Support is also important, especially if you’re new to the software, so we look at how each software offers support such as by live chat or phone.
- Expert score (10%): Finally, our experts take a look at some of the aspects of software that’s harder to judge or more subjective. We consider how easy it is to use the software, how long it’s been on the market, how often it updates with new or improved features and unique features each software offers.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How much does scrum software cost?
Pricing for scrum software ranges from free to $20 per user per month, if paid on an annual basis. The average cost is usually less than $10 per user per month.
Is scrum only for software or information technology (IT) projects?
Scrum can be used for almost any kind of project, but it’s known for being used by software developers. Scrum is a framework of the Agile methodology, and it’s meant to be a more efficient way of getting work done. It allows teams to break down bigger projects into smaller, more manageable tasks during the sprint planning phase.
Is Kanban better than scrum?
Kanban and scrum are both frameworks of the Agile project management methodology and they’re both excellent in their own rights. In the battle between Kanban vs scrum, Kanban is considered simpler and less rigid. It’s good for ongoing work and you can change priorities at any time. Scrum typically follows a set sprint length and relies on prioritization of tasks during sprint planning.