Best Task Management Software for Program and PMO Teams

Asana fits teams that want a task list with owners and due dates that can grow into dependencies, timelines and portfolios without a tool change, and who'd rather not pay for the basics.

Recurring tasks: you set the repeat from the due date field: weekly, monthly, yearly, periodically or custom. When you mark the task complete, Asana creates the next one and copies every field except comments, subtasks included. "Periodically" counts from the day you finished the last one, not from the original due date. Asana warns against setting a parent and its subtasks to repeat at once, because the subtask duplicates exponentially. Recurring tasks work on every plan, including the free Personal plan, so you don't pay for the basics.

Subtasks: a subtask works like an independent task with the same fields. It has its own assignee and due date, and the assignee isn't inherited from the parent. Subtasks nest up to five levels, although Asana's own tips article advises one layer. Completing a parent doesn't complete its subtasks, and a custom field on a subtask needs the subtask added to a project first.

Unlocked on: My tasks, which shows everything assigned to you across projects, is on every plan. Dependencies, forms, custom fields and the Timeline come with Starter at $10.99, while critical path, approvals, native time tracking and portfolios need Advanced at $24.99.

Our take: that's why it's our default pick for a team. You don't pay to get recurring tasks and a personal list, and you won't have to switch tools when dependencies become necessary. The catch is the two-user cap on the free plan, so a three-person team starts on Starter.

Users like

ease of use (1,525 mentions) and task management (1,464)

Users dislike

a steep learning curve (605 mentions), missing features such as time tracking (597) and power tools locked behind higher tiers (531)

Source: G2, 14,089 reviews

monday.com's boards fit teams that want visual boards people pick up quickly and are ready to build recurring work and reminders as automations.

Recurring tasks: there's no repeat setting on a task, but you'll build one with the automation recipe "Every time period, then create an item", choose the frequency, and each run creates a new item instead of updating the old one. Time-based automations run in the time zone of the person who set them up. Every created item counts against your monthly automation actions: 250 on Standard and 25,000 on Pro.

Subtasks: monday.com calls them subitems. They sit under an item and have their own column structure, shared by every subitem on the board, so an assignee or date column is added at the subitem level. Parent values are copied to subitems only when they're created by an automation. Multi-level subitems, up to four levels, exist only on newly created multi-level boards, and a parent can hold 750 subitems across its levels. The My work page lists the items assigned to you across up to 50 boards or 1,000 items.

Unlocked on: Kanban is on every plan, including Free. Gantt starts on Standard at $12, and the Dependency column on Pro at $19. Paid plans start at three seats.

Our take: it's a good fit when you'll build automations anyway, but it's a poor one when all you need is a task that repeats every Monday. Count the actions before you commit.

Users like

ease of use and team collaboration; TrustRadius reviewers also praise automation and customization

Users dislike

missing features and seat requirements, learning curve, limited features that raise cost; TrustRadius reviewers cite complex automation setup

Source: G2, 17,903 reviews

ClickUp's free plan fits teams that want recurring tasks, subtasks and dependencies on a free plan, and a tool that can later add Gantt, time tracking and workload.

Recurring tasks: on every plan. You pick daily (with a skip-weekends option), weekly, monthly (same day, or the first or last weekday), yearly, "days after" completion or a custom schedule. You also pick the trigger: when the task is complete, when it's done, or on schedule, which creates the next task at 11 pm in the time zone of whoever set it. "Create new task" decides whether the repeat is a copy or the same task reopened with its history, and you choose which fields carry over. A task with more than 500 subtasks won't recur.

Subtasks: on every plan, up to 1,000 per task including nested ones. A subtask carries assignees, due dates and priorities like a task. Nested subtasks come from the Nested Subtasks ClickApp, which an owner or admin turns on: up to seven levels, three by default.

Unlocked on: dependencies (Blocks and Blocked by) work on every plan, including Free. Custom fields, time tracking and Gantt are trial-only on Free, but they come with Core at $9. The Workload view needs Business at $17.

Our take: you'll get the most features for free here, but you'll pay for it in setup time, because there's a lot to configure before the workspace feels simple.

Users like

ease of use (4,220 mentions), flexibility (3,219)

Users dislike

missing features such as sub-folders (2,039 mentions), then the learning curve (1,751)

Source: G2, 15,312 reviews

Trello's board fits teams that want the simplest possible board, with cards, due dates and checklists, and don't need tasks to depend on each other.

Recurring tasks: Trello doesn't have a repeat setting on a card. The Card Repeater Power-Up copies a card on a schedule, weekly, monthly or yearly, and you set daily by selecting every day of the week. You choose the destination list. The copies are exact, so a due date isn't updated automatically, and Atlassian suggests an automation rule that runs when a card is copied. Archiving the original doesn't stop the repeats: you delete the card, move it to another board or cancel the repeat.

Subtasks: subtasks are checklist items on a card. With advanced checklists you can assign a person and a due date to an item, and you can convert an item to a card, which keeps the name, due date and assignee. The pricing page lists advanced checklists from Standard, while Atlassian's help article names Premium Workspaces, so confirm the plan before you rely on it.

Unlocked on: the free plan covers up to 10 collaborators and 10 boards per Workspace. Calendar, Timeline, Table, Dashboard and Map views need Premium at $10. Trello doesn't have built-in task dependencies.

Our take: it's quick to learn, and that's the point, but it's also where it stops. Once a task has to wait for another, you'll be working around the tool.

Users like

ease of use (776 mentions in G2's pros summary), then task management (456)

Users dislike

limited features, especially on boards (270 mentions), missing built-in documents and useful statistics (259) and limited budgeting functions (198)

Source: G2, 14,068 reviews

Todoist fits a program manager who needs a fast personal task list, or a small team that wants recurring work typed in plain words, and it's cheap enough to try.

Recurring tasks: you type the schedule into the task name or pick it in the scheduler. The help center gives examples such as "every weekday", "every other Friday" and "every 2, 15, 27". "Every" counts from the scheduled date and "every!" from the completion date, so "every! 3 months" completed on January 20 comes back on April 20. You can add start and end dates, or "for 3 weeks". The limits are that you can't use two patterns on one date or give each day its own time. Recurring dates work on every plan.

Subtasks: sub-tasks nest four levels deep on every plan. Each can have its own date and an assignee, and custom reminders on a sub-task need Pro. They count toward the cap of 300 active tasks per project, which applies on every plan.

Unlocked on: the free Beginner plan has 5 personal projects with up to 5 people each, 3 filters, 5 MB uploads and one week of activity history. Pro adds 300 personal projects, 150 filters, the calendar layout, task duration and custom reminders. Business adds a shared workspace, roles and permissions, and up to 1,000 members and guests.

Our take: it's built for one person's list first, so don't expect team planning features. For a program manager it works well as a private layer next to the team's tool, though not as the team's tool.

Notion's flexibility fits teams whose tasks live next to docs and wikis and who are happy to build the task system as a database.

Recurring tasks: the native route is a repeating database template. In the template you choose every day, week, month or year, or a custom interval such as every three days or Tuesday and Thursday, and Notion creates a new item from the template when the time comes. The items show as created by a Notion automation. We didn't find a per-task "repeat after completion" setting in the help center.

Subtasks: sub-items are turned on in the database settings. Parent and sub-item are relation properties, and deleting the parent deletes its sub-items. Dependencies link tasks in a linear chain, with three date options: shift only when dates overlap, shift and keep the gap between items, or don't shift. The help page doesn't state nesting depth or whether a sub-item has its own assignee, so test both.

Unlocked on: the pricing page lists subtasks, dependencies and custom properties inside databases on the Free plan. Free has a 5 MB file upload limit and 7 days of page history. Plus adds custom forms, charts, 5 GB uploads and 30 days of history.

Our take: you'll build the task system yourself, which is the appeal and the cost. It's flexible, but it won't come with the conventions a task tool ships with.

Users like

ease of use (4,751 mentions in G2's pros summary), flexible organization (2,739) and built-in AI (2,436)

Users dislike

a steep learning curve (1,895 mentions), limited features (1,027) and navigation difficulty (941)

Source: G2, 13,885 reviews

Wrike's depth fits teams whose task list is heading toward a managed program, with deep subtask hierarchies today and intake forms and workload charts on higher plans.

Recurring tasks: open the task, choose "Make recurrent" from the three-dot menu, and set the frequency: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or custom. You set a start date and either an end date or a limit of 1 to 999 occurrences. Wrike creates 1 to 60 tasks up front and the rest one at a time. Each occurrence is an independent task, and custom field values aren't copied automatically. The task must sit in a folder or project, and collaborators can't make tasks recurrent.

Subtasks: the help center says there's no limit to the hierarchy levels, and the item view expands up to six nested levels. A subitem can be assigned, scheduled and completed independently, and aligning its dates with the parent is optional. A project can't be a subitem of a task.

Unlocked on: Free covers task management with board and table views. Team at $10 for 2 to 15 users adds the Gantt with dependencies. Business at $25 for 5 to 200 users adds critical path, workload charts and request forms, and is sold annually only.

Our take: it isn't light, but it's the one here that doesn't run out of room for subtasks, and that matters once a program's tasks nest several levels deep.

Users like

project tracking (477 mentions in G2's pros summary)

Users dislike

a steep learning curve (305 mentions), not intuitive (239) and a lack of built-in templates (203)

Source: G2, 4,553 reviews

Smartsheet's row-based model fits teams whose task list already lives in a spreadsheet and who want automation, forms and a workload view around it.

Recurring tasks: we didn't find a native recurring-task setting. Recurrence goes through automation: Smartsheet's help center describes a template named "Request an update every week" and workflows that run on a schedule or when a task is assigned. We couldn't confirm that an automation can create new rows on a schedule.

Subtasks: a task is a row, and a subtask is a child row. You indent a row under another, and the parent then rolls up start date, end date, duration and percent complete from its children, which makes those fields read-only. A predecessor set on a parent applies to all its children. Views include Grid, Card, Gantt, Calendar and Timeline, and reminders are on every plan.

Unlocked on: dependencies, including critical path, work on every paid plan. Forms are unlimited on every plan, with conditional logic on Business. Automations are capped at 250 a month on Pro and unlimited from Business. Workload tracking starts on Business at $19. Pro is for 1 to 10 members and for new customers only.

Our take: if your team lives in Excel, you'll feel at home, though it's less friendly for a plain to-do list than a board is.

Users like

ease of use (2,831 mentions) and collaboration plus automation (2,212)

Users dislike

the learning curve (1,183 mentions, tied to limited formulas), an unintuitive interface (954) and limited features that raise cost (929)

Source: G2, 22,872 reviews

Basecamp fits small teams and client work that want to-dos, messages and files at one flat price and don't need dependencies or workload views.

Recurring tasks: per Basecamp's help center, a dated to-do can repeat daily, weekly, monthly or on a custom interval. The first to-do controls the schedule, and later instances are created automatically. An instance you didn't finish becomes overdue when the next one is created. Editing the original changes all future instances, and editing one instance changes only that one. The features and integrations pages don't mention repeating to-dos, and we couldn't confirm which plan includes them.

Subtasks: you add them when you create a to-do. Each can have its own assignee and due date, and completing one doesn't complete the parent. The help article describes one level. A "My Tasks" list sits in the My Bar, and a Card Table gives you a kanban view.

Unlocked on: pricing is flat per plan, not per seat. Free is 1 project, 1 GB and 3 users. Freelancer is $29 a month for 3 projects and 5 users, Pro $79 for 8 projects and 10 users, and Pro Plus $99 for 12 projects and 15 users. Pro Unlimited is $199 a month billed annually, or $329 monthly.

Our take: it's not trying to be a task-first tool, and that's by design. It works for client projects where you don't need dependencies, but it won't carry a program.

Users like

ease of use (90 mentions in G2's pros summary)

Users dislike

limited features compared with other tools, especially planning and reporting (36 mentions)

Source: G2, 5,486 reviews