12 Best Project Management Tools (2026): Tested on Windows & Ranked
This is a republished copy of our ranking. The original, with a team-cost calculator, a slider to re-weight the scores and every screenshot, lives at benchtested.app/best/project-management . Project management tools all promise boards, lists and a free plan. We installed twelve of them on a clean Windows 11 virtual machine and ran each through the same eight-step script . The order below comes…
1. ClickUp, with a score of 7.4/10, proved to be a strong contender in the project-management test on the free plan. It offered an array of views, functional automations, dependencies, recurring tasks, and an AI that provided accurate results without altering the user's input. However, the Windows app required approximately 14 seconds to load and up to 2 GB of memory, as well as a more hands-on approach during setup and import processes.
2. Notion, scoring 6.9/10, emerged as the fastest app during the project-management test. Its initial loading time was around 5 seconds, with 200 rows imported in just 10 seconds and a 500-task board generated instantly. The tool offered four views, including a timeline, free of charge. Nevertheless, Notion primarily functions as a database tool rather than a task manager.
On the free plan, there are no automations, recurring tasks are limited to scheduled templates, and the AI generated untitled pages from subtasks. The free plan is tailored for individual use.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
