Program & Project Management

5 Best Customizable Project Management Software

Amanda Kennedy profile picture
By Amanda Kennedy

Published
6 min read

What primary quality should you look for in a project management platform? Customizability helps you scale and prepare for the unexpected.

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Picture this: You’re a project manager leading the charge for your small business to switch project management (PM) tools. You’re advocating for something that will help make your team more efficient. The day of the switch comes and… nothing seems to gel with your processes. Your team is frustrated and confused. Does this sound like your worst nightmare?

Something similar happened to a team I worked with. Luckily, the tool was easily customizable and our project managers could quickly make changes to help everyone feel more comfortable with a tool that ultimately better managed tasks and workflows.

It’s normal for teams to experience a bit of friction when adopting a brand-new system, but this example illustrates why you need a customizable project management tool. Customizable PM software provides more options when it comes to adapting to your existing processes. A customizable project management tool also provides room for growth and changed processes as your business scales.

When it comes to choosing the best customizable project management tool for your business, Capterra has you covered. We analyzed tens of thousands of reviews to see how real users feel about project management tools’ customizability, and assigned each tool a sentiment score.

Here, we’ll share the top five so you can add these products to your shortlist. If none of these fit the bill, you can check out more tools in our project management directory.

What is a sentiment score?


This score shows how users feel about individual software products. We rate sentiment on a scale of zero (negative) to 10 (positive). The higher a tool’s sentiment score, the better users feel about it.

Capterra uses sentiment scores to determine how our users feel (negative, neutral, or positive) about certain tools. The scores are especially helpful if you want to see how they feel about specific aspects of a tool, such as customizability.

For more on our methodology, click here.

Product

Customizability Sentiment Score (out of 10)

Wrike

6.61

Meistertask

6.37

Workfront

6.33

Smartsheet

6.28

monday.com

6.23


Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Device compatibility

* Analysis accurate as of date of publication

  • Sentiment Score: 6.61

  • Mentions of customizability in reviews: 29

  • Percentage of mentions that are positive: 81%

Wrike is a cloud-based project management system ideal for small businesses or enterprise teams of more than 20 people.

The platform supports remote work teams and includes frequently searched-for features on Capterra like the ability to create Gantt charts. It also includes calendars, a workload view for resource management, and real-time updates.

If you’re interested in how to manage task dependency, Wrike can handle it with a simple drag-and-drop interface in bold colors. When it comes to Wrike's customizability, you can create custom workflows for your team and custom dashboards for reporting. You can also change the background theme you see on the platform.

Wrike shares multiple ways to customize the platform on its blog, including using it as everything from a ticketing system to a bug tracking tool, for video production planning, and more.

how-people-feel-about-customizability-in-wrike-by

Here's what users say about Wrike.


Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Device compatibility

* Analysis accurate as of date of publication

  • Sentiment Score: 6.37

  • Mentions of customizability in reviews: 29

  • Percentage of mentions that are positive: 77%

Meistertask is a cloud-based project and task management tool for all business sizes. Key project management features include time management, task and time tracking, and reporting. Users can discuss due dates, project details, create checklists, and upload files.

Meistertask touts its customizable product, starting with the user interface itself. You can change your background image by selecting one of the options within Meistertask or uploading your own image. You can also change colors and icons within your project task list.

Users can automate their workflows and create custom tags. Meistertask also offers multiple views for workflows depending on the type of project you’re working on.

how-people-feel-about-customizability-in-meisterta

Here's what users say about MeisterTask.


Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Device compatibility

* Analysis accurate as of date of publication

  • Sentiment Score: 6.33

  • Mentions of customizability in reviews: 52

  • Percentage of mentions that are positive: 77%

Workfront is a cloud-based enterprise work management tool. The platform helps project managers view multiple projects, as well as the work process from start to finish. Workfront also allows users to identify bottlenecks, collaborate with project team members, and automate recurring tasks to successfully complete the work.

In addition to work management, Workfront also helps with more complex projects, such as project portfolio management. Using Workfront, program managers have one view where they can see work across portfolios.

When it comes to customizability with Workfront, you can customize dashboards and even user groups. Workfront also can adapt to meet users’ needs, whether that’s helping customer experience teams or integrating marketing and design operations.

how-people-feel-about-customizability-in-workfront

Here's what users say about Workfront.


Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Device compatibility

* Analysis accurate as of date of publication

  • Sentiment Score: 6.28

  • Mentions of customizability in reviews: 46

  • Percentage of mentions that are positive: 74%

Smartsheet is a work execution and collaboration tool that helps teams with project planning, tracking, and management. This platform features spreadsheet-like functionality and allows teams to manage documents and resources, track timelines, and assign tasks. This tool also enables workflow automation.

Views on Smartsheet include card, Gantt chart, and calendar view, which is just one way users can begin to customize this project management platform. Users can also create a custom, no-code app to help with their team’s specific needs.

Smartsheet users have the ability to create custom filters, dashboards, and reports.

how-people-feel-about-customizability-in-smartshee

Here's what users say about Smartsheet.


Trial/Free Version

  • Free Trial
  • Free Version

Device compatibility

* Analysis accurate as of date of publication

  • Sentiment Score: 6.23

  • Mentions of customizability in reviews: 71

  • Percentage of mentions that are positive: 73%

monday.com is an award-winning collaboration and project management solution. This tool helps teams manage projects to deliver on time and achieve desired results.

As a task management tool, monday.com can handle complex projects thanks to its ease of use and easy onboarding process. Monday.com also allows project managers to manage and view multiple projects, whether across the entire department or focusing on a small team.

monday.com has customizable features like automated workflows, adding task dependencies, and custom automated notifications. Other customizable features include custom templates and layouts, and the ability to color-code and customize your views (maps, Kanban, calendar, timeline, and others) to keep track of project status.

how-people-feel-about-customizability-in-monday-co

Here's what users say about monday.com.

Customize your way to on-time, under-budget projects

If you’re looking for a project management tool that you can adapt to your company’s unique work processes, do yourself a favor and dig deeper into the products we shared on this list.

If none of these products sound quite right for your business, Capterra’s 2021 shortlist of the best PM products can help you find the perfect fit.



Methodology

For the user feedback trends sections, we performed a sentiment analysis of reviews left for each product in the 24 months previous to the creation of this report. Reviews data may have changed since publication and may not reflect current conditions.

For this report, we analyzed 73,080 reviews that mentioned reporting across 598 project management products. To be considered for inclusion in this report, we required 20 or more unique reviews mentioning “customizability” or related terms.

The products listed in this report had the highest percentage of positive mentions of reporting functionality among eligible products.

To calculate the sentiment score, we looked at the specific mentions of reporting in each review and analyzed the terms used to describe reporting. We then scored each term on a scale of zero to 10, with 10 being the most positive. The score for each snippet was the sum of all descriptive terms in the snippet. Snippet scores were then averaged for the product to determine average sentiment score for the product.

When comparing the average sentiment score of a product to the average score for the entire category, the product’s score was removed for accuracy.

*”Customizability” in the context of this report means the ability to change and alter the tool and features of the tool. Integrations were scored separately.


Looking for Project Management software? Check out Capterra's list of the best Project Management software solutions.

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About the Author

Amanda Kennedy profile picture

Senior Content Writer @ Capterra, sharing insights about how small businesses can better use technology. BA, English, the University of Texas at Austin; currently completing my master’s in information systems at the University of North Texas. You can find me on my mat practicing Power Vinyasa or Bowspring yoga, jogging with my dog Rhombus, or reading a novel.

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