7 essential product management tools

A good product management tool is basically the command center for all things product development. Its the first place to turn for roadmapping, ideation, launch, or feedback. But the hunt for product management tools can be overwhelming. The right software can help teams prioritize features, track progress, and make informed decisions based on data and feedback. 

But the wrong tool can cause confusion, and lead to wasted time and missed opportunities. To complicate the process further, product management is a broad category, so if you want to avoid tool sprawl, it’s worth investing in finding a comprehensive solution that works for you, your org, and maybe even the entire company. 

To help you choose, we’ve researched and tested 7 different tools. 

The 7 best product management tools

1. Airtable

2. Jira

3. Productboard

4. Aha!

5. ProductPlan

6. Asana

7. Monday.com

How to choose the best product management tool

Regardless of how you plan to use the tool, there are some criteria that are considered standard across use cases. Here are the critical aspects you should look for in your software:

• Ease of use: There are a lot of factors that go into product development, and many things can slip through the cracks if your team can’t easily view and manage important details.

• Flexibility: You want a platform that improves workflows, not one that limits them. If you need to change the way your team works in order to use a tool, it’s probably not the right option.

• Scalability: The time it takes to learn and migrate to new software is an investment, and you shouldn’t need to restart the process when your company grows.

• Custom views: Different stakeholders need to visualize and organize information in different ways. The ability to toggle between custom views allows team members to access information in a way that makes the most sense to them.

• Connection across teams: Misalignment with marketing or UX teams can delay projects. If you can connect neighboring teams, you can tackle shared initiatives much more efficiently.

• Centralized information: Teams function better when everybody knows where important documents are. The right product management tool gives everyone at least some visibility and ensures everyone is working toward the same goals.

1. Airtable

Primary use cases: Roadmapping, goal tracking, sprint management, centralized feedback

Airtable is a connected platform that lets users create apps for all of their unique use cases. Airtable is frequently used for roadmapping, goal tracking, and sprint management.

With Airtable, you can reflect the connections between upstream UX research and downstream marketing content with a shared roadmap. You can also tie your OKRs or strategic goals to your product roadmap. When all teams use the same tool, everyone is connected on high-level projects, too. 

Airtable is also easy to customize, meaning you can add granular data like user feedback and product codes. You can also break high-level goals into manageable pieces within Airtable, which helps manage the end-to-end product development lifecycle.

Other key features include: 

• Interactive relational database: When Airtable data is updated in one table, it’s updated everywhere. You can even click into connected data to find related information. For example, if you’re looking at a feature in a product roadmap tool, you could click on the assigned product manager to see what else they’re working on. 

• Flexible data model for diverse use cases: Airtable can be used for virtually all product use cases with one tool, which means one platform can keep progress on track. Plus, you can create custom metadata fields for information like user feedback, product codes, and more.

• Dynamic views: You can create and sort as many sorted views as you need like list, gallery, calendar, kanban, Gantt, timeline, and more. With multiple options, you can customize your interface in the way that suits the data best. 

• Drag-and-drop interface designer: You can create the exact interface you need so collaborators only see the information that’s relevant to them. Unlike a traditional dashboard, which is meant for consuming information, Airtable’s interfaces are designed to focus team members on action to move work forward.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.6 stars; 2,120 reviews

• Capterra: 4.7 stars; 1,762 reviews

2. Jira

Primary use cases: Engineering task management, sprint management

Jira is an engineering task-management tool with roadmapping and sprint management features. You can create a backlog of user stories to be prioritized and added to sprints as needed. This feature, in addition to roadmapping and customizable workflows, allows you to plan and organize work so teams deliver the most important features first. 

This tool is popular among agile developers and product managers experienced with using product management tools, as the software has a lot of customization options like fields, filters, hierarchy levels, and views.

Some other notable features include:

• Bug tracking: Jira’s issue and bug tracking feature helps teams identify and fix issues as they arise so projects can stay on track.

• Automation: You can set up automation rules for repetitive tasks, assign tasks, send notifications, or update issue statuses with Jira’s workflow automation. 

• Analytics: Features like custom dashboards, real-time reporting, and data visualization help track your team’s progress. 

Reviews:

• G2: 4.3 stars; 5,204 reviews

• Capterra: 4.4 stars; 13,150 reviews

3. Productboard

Primary use cases: Roadmapping, centralized feedback

Productboard is a product management tool that’s well-equipped for roadmapping and providing centralized feedback. The platform lets teams create custom roadmaps to visualize progress and track product development goals from ideation to release. Productboard provides product managers with a simple solution to streamline and optimize their development processes.

Here’s a look at these standout Productboard features for product management: 

• Multiple views: Productboard offers customizable views including roadmap, list, and timeline view. And with drag-and-drop capabilities, you can easily create a high-level look at product strategy with any view you choose.

• Feedback tracking: Keep track of customer insights and build them into roadmaps with Productboard’s feedback features. You can centralize feedback from various sources, categorize it, and then prioritize it based on impact and user sentiment. 

• Feature scoring: You can assign scores to proposed features based on factors like customer impact, strategic alignment, and lift required. This helps product managers more accurately prioritize features in the roadmap.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.3 stars; 216 reviews

• Capterra: 4.7 stars; 140 reviews

4. Aha!

Primary use case: Roadmapping

Teams can use Aha! as a product management tool to create visual roadmaps that align stakeholders and move products forward. You can input data to create a roadmap and then choose how you’d like to visualize it with options like a Gantt chart, calendar, or a completely customized roadmap view. 

Aha! also has features like idea management and analytics, but it’s really best for managing and creating product roadmaps. 

Check out these other Aha! features: 

• Idea portals: This feature collects feedback and ideas from various stakeholders so product managers can evaluate them with customizable criteria and teams can prioritize the most valuable ideas to include in the roadmap.

• Combine similar items: Aha! makes organization simpler with the ability to combine similar suggestions or requests, so you can streamline the process of deciding what to include in the next sprint. 

• Connect tasks to relevant information: You can link tasks to strategic goals, initiatives, ideas, notes, product releases, and more so team members know the context and importance of what they’re working on.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.3 stars; 223 reviews

• Capterra: 4.7 stars; 492 reviews

5. ProductPlan

Primary use case: Roadmapping

ProductPlan is a roadmapping point solution. It’s easy to quickly create roadmaps and prioritize initiatives and tasks by just dragging and dropping items. ProductPlan also offers collaboration tools like real-time editing, comments, and notifications so team members can stay on the same page when working together. It’s popular among smaller product teams that don’t need advanced product management features and may benefit from a pre-set structure so they can hit the ground running.

ProductPlan also has features like:

• Custom views: You can build roadmaps based on key dates, use a kanban style view, compare alternate timelines, and share views for only certain team members to see, so nobody gets overwhelmed with data that isn’t relevant to them. 

• Unlimited viewers: No need to add stakeholders to your membership with ProductPlan’s unlimited free viewer accounts. Anyone can view and provide feedback on shared roadmaps. 

• Planning board: ProductPlan offers a central repository to store and prioritize product backlog items. You can differentiate between planned and unplanned work and add high-priority items from the board to your roadmap.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.4 stars; 149 reviews

• Capterra: 4.4 stars; 54 reviews

6. Asana

Primary use case: Roadmapping, goal tracking

Asana is designed as project management software, but can also be used for roadmapping and tracking goals. Users can create tasks linked to goals, assign them to team members, set deadlines, and track progress in real time. This is a good choice for teams looking to replace their project management tool as well, as you’ll need to connect tasks to your goals to get full use out of the platform, and you may not want to duplicate tasks on two separate platforms.

Other features worth mentioning include:

• Multiple views: You can look at your goals with multiple views, including list, timeline, calendar, progress, forms, and more. 

• Nesting: Asana makes it easy to break down high-level objectives into smaller, achievable milestones. With this nesting feature, teams have a clear and organized view at how each task contributes to the bigger picture.

• Connect goals: Similarly, you can connect goals across team members and projects into an overall organizational view so you can see at a glance if goals are aligned.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.3 stars; 9,395 reviews

• Capterra: 4.5 stars; 11,961 reviews

7. Monday.com

Primary use case: Goal tracking

Monday.com is a cloud-based project management tool designed to help teams manage tasks, track progress, and collaboration in real time. The platform offers several features that make it useful for goal tracking, like custom high-level dashboards, deadlines, and dependencies. Monday.com may be ideal for teams that only require slight customization.

Other relevant features include:

• Multiple views: From Gantt charts to timeline views, Monday.com offers various ways to visualize your goals. 

• Customizable templates: Monday.com offers an array of goal-tracking templates for needs such as quarterly objectives, OKRs, monthly budget, and more. You can then customize these templates to fit your needs.

• Real-time tracking: Track KPIs and baseline assessments across multiple projects with dashboards that display metrics in real time.

Reviews:

• G2: 4.7 stars; 7,909 reviews

• Capterra: 4.6 stars; 3,803 reviews

What is product management software?

Product management software helps product and development teams manage their work more efficiently. It serves as a centralized place for teams to manage tasks, prioritize features, and communicate with one another—as well as share progress and updates to align cross-functional teams. 

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to product management tools. What’s best for you will depend on your specific needs. Look for a solution that can meet all of your product management needs while keeping your workflows connected and your teams aligned.