Project management software for web development: 7 tools

Web development projects are complex, unpredictable, and often follow a different structure from other projects in a company’s portfolio. If your project management software isn’t tailored to your developers’ needs, it can have a negative impact on your project outcomes. 

For example, generic tools that serve other departments are often designed around a linear project cycle rather than an iterative one. They can also lack the features needed to run Agile projects effectively — think sprint planning, backlog management, and multi-stage technical review workflows. 

The best developer-focused tools fix that by:

• Handling complex technical intake to help manage the work and the project scope.
• Supporting Agile methodologies, with task management and communication features to help teams work responsively. 
• Integrating with tools that developers rely on and bridging the gaps between them. 
• Translating technical progress to non-technical stakeholders, especially in at-a-glance dashboards and reports.

In this guide, we’ll cover what to look for in project management software for web development — and compare the top tools available today — so you can find the right platform for your team.

What web developers need from their project management software (key features)

First, let’s take a closer look at what distinguishes project management software for web developers and software engineers from generalist management tools. When you understand the differences in functionality between the two types of tools, it’s easier to ensure the software you’re comparing will meet your team’s complex needs. 

Generally speaking, any project management tool for developers will have: 

• Features to handle complex projects. This includes intake systems to capture the detailed requirements of technical projects, project tracking that visualizes a network of dependencies between systems, and approval workflows that can handle a long list of testing and acceptance criteria before a task is signed off. Without these features, it’s difficult to keep track of all the requirements for a task, and scope creep can quickly become an issue. 
• Support for iterative, Agile development. Web development doesn’t move in a straight line; it shifts based on new information from testing or user feedback. This means Kanban boards, sprint planning features, backlog management tools, and burndown tracking are essential, not just “nice to have.” In fact, the best project management tools for web development include all of these, so teams can run their entire sprint from one platform instead of stitching together a solution from a range of different apps. 
• Integration with your existing developer tools. If developers are working in GitHub or GitLab, your project management platform needs to connect to that activity rather than sit alongside it. If your tools don’t let you set up a user-friendly integration, your team can encounter errors caused by manual updates, outdated information, and version control issues. 
• Visibility for non-technical stakeholders. Developers know what they’re working on, but designers, content teams, managers, and external clients often find their overviews difficult to grasp. To avoid friction, your tool needs to translate technical progress into real-time dashboards that highlight the project’s performance metrics and show how individual tasks connect to milestones and due dates.

Because these features are so indispensable, all the options we’ll cover in this guide will include some combination of them. They also offer options for development teams to customize their project management workspace to better meet their workflow needs. 

7 project management software tools and platforms for web development

We’ve chosen these tools based on our years of experience working hand in hand with web developers and managers of development teams, including in the web departments of companies like De’Longhi, Frontline Education, and Blue Magnet Interactive. 

The tools we’ll discuss are: 

1. Jira, an industry-standard project management platform for Agile developers  
2. GitHub Projects, GitHub’s built-in project management system.
3. Wrike, our all-in-one, collaborative project management software for development teams working on complex and cross-functional projects 
4. Monday.com, a highly visual project management system that can be customized for developers
5. ClickUp, a flexible, customizable tool for Agile projects
6. Basecamp, an affordable, centralized project management platform for growing teams
7. Linear, a system focused on accelerating responses and workflows

1. Jira: Well-known software for Agile development teams 

Jira is one of the most established tools for Agile web development teams, and centers around the Scrum and Kanban boards that form the backbone of that methodology. Jira boards give teams transparency by organizing tasks into stages and generating burndown and velocity reports. There’s also a powerful range of backlog tools, helping teams prioritize and pull user stories for their sprints and maintain visibility of the remaining work. 

Jira’s reporting capabilities are also strong, and they give teams a detailed view of how their Agile work is progressing. Reports and dashboards can cover sprint goals, time tracking, scope creep, completed work, release forecasting, and velocity trends to inform the decisions taken for the next iteration in the project lifecycle. 

For larger organizations, Jira’s value grows when it’s used alongside more tools from the Atlassian ecosystem. For example, you could use Trello for basic Kanban oversight, Confluence for documentation and knowledge management, and tools like Bitbucket for version control.

2. GitHub Projects: An integrated option for teams already using GitHub

GitHub Projects is GitHub’s built-in project management system that lives directly within a team’s repositories, offering Kanban boards, table views, and roadmap visualizations to give a clear visual overview of the upcoming work. 

The built-in workflows automatically update the status of issues and pull requests based on code events — for example, setting an item to “Done” when an issue is closed or a pull request is merged. This means the board stays accurate without relying on manual updates. Whether you need a sprint backlog, a release plan, or a high-level roadmap, each view can be tailored to the audience without duplicating data.

Every GitHub repository comes with a built-in wiki for hosting long-form project documentation — covering how to use it, how it was designed, and its core principles — sitting directly alongside the codebase. This keeps documentation and code in the same place, reducing the process gaps that arise when teams manage them in separate tools.

3. Wrike: All-in-one project management for web development teams

Wrike is a powerful, flexible work management platform built to handle the complexity, changeability, and pace of web development projects. 

Wrike is designed to be configured around how your team actually works. This makes it a strong fit for web and software development teams and the people they collaborate with.

Robust task and workflow management

Wrike is built around a clear system of spaces, folders, projects, and tasks, so you can set up a project management workspace that perfectly reflects your dev team’s process.

Custom request forms to streamline intake

Our forms include custom fields to capture exactly what’s relevant for each type of request your team deals with. You can streamline intake by providing one location to submit bug reports, new feature requests, and content updates.

Integrations with key development tools

Wrike’s GitHub integration creates an automatic two-way sync between GitHub repository issues and Wrike tasks. When you update a linked task in either tool, the corresponding item is updated in the other platform as well. A similar two-way sync is available for GitLab and Bitbucket.

Approval and proofing

Wrike also includes built-in approval features, which can be customized to track even the most complex, multi-stage approval workflows. Our proofing tools support images, PDFs, and documents, and you can use Wrike’s document workflow features to keep a complete record of the version history.

4. Monday.com: Visual project management for developers 

Monday.com is built around visual project planning, giving web development teams a clear picture of their work at every stage. The platform supports Gantt, Kanban, timeline, workload, and other project views that draw from the same underlying data, so teams (and their clients) can view their projects from multiple angles. For teams managing work at different levels, the ability to move between high-level overviews and granular task detail within this tool makes project management significantly more straightforward.

Monday.com also supports sprint planning and roadmap management, and includes a GitHub integration that lets teams create and track issues, discuss pull requests, and connect to their repositories directly from within the platform.

5. ClickUp: Adaptable project management system for development teams

ClickUp is well suited for web development teams running Agile workflows. This tool is known for its flexibility, and core tools like intake forms all include custom fields. These forms will convert responses into trackable tasks, and automations can be set up to route the work to the right team, assign tasks, and flag urgency. All these features can help Agile teams work more responsively during their projects. 

ClickUp also includes burndown and burnup charts and velocity tracking to gauge a team’s completion rate per sprint and help inform their decisions for future projects. For teams that need to extend ClickUp beyond its built-in features, the platform offers strong automation and API capabilities. 

6. Basecamp: Centralized project management for small or growing teams 

Basecamp is a popular choice for small teams and agencies looking to centralize communication and cut down on unnecessary meetings. Project spaces can include message boards, checklists, schedules, file storage, and real-time group chat, which gives teams everything they need to collaborate without spreading work across multiple apps. The Automatic Check-ins feature asks team members regular questions and rolls replies into a single thread, which keeps the team in the loop and replaces weekly standups. 

Teams already using tools like Google Docs can continue using them in Basecamp. The Doors feature lets teams link external tools and documents directly into a Basecamp project by dropping in a URL, which keeps everything accessible from one centralized location. Basecamp is also known as one of the more cost-effective options on the market, thanks to its free plan and flat-rate Pro-unlimited pricing. 

7. Linear: Project management tools to accelerate web development

Linear is built with a focus on speed and performance. The platform keeps information synchronized in real time across all users — without delay — so every developer sees the same thing with no waiting. 

To compound these benefits, the platform has a GitHub integration that lets teams link pull requests to issues and set up automations so PR updates directly change the status of linked issues. This keeps the project board accurate without requiring developers to make any manual updates, and that responsiveness translates directly into less friction and faster daily workflows.

Linear manages sprints through a feature called Cycles. Cycles group work by time to maintain team momentum, and teams can track how many issues have been started and completed, as well as how much scope was added or removed since the start of the cycle. Unfinished work is automatically carried over, keeping planning overhead low and ensuring nothing gets lost between cycles. 

Start managing development projects effectively with Wrike. 

When it becomes clear that your development team needs a more specialized project management system, Wrike is one of the best, most customizable options on the market. 

Whether you work on-site or in our mobile app, Wrike’s project management system brings together everything web development teams need in a single platform — from dynamic intake forms that capture requirements before a sprint begins, to real-time dashboards that keep stakeholders informed without pulling developers away from their work, to collaboration tools to drive work forward within your development team. Its two-way GitHub sync, built-in proofing tools, and flexible view options mean it works equally well for engineers in the codebase, designers reviewing assets, and project managers tracking progress across multiple client projects simultaneously.

Try Wrike free today and see how it can bring more structure, visibility, and control to your development projects.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs) about project management software for web development 

What’s the difference between general project management tools and tools built for web development? 

Generic tools are typically built around linear or “waterfall” project cycles, whereas developer tools are built for iterative projects and sprint-based workflows. Developer-focused platforms also include some features that are often absent from typical project management tools, like backlog management, project burndown visualization, and GitHub integrations. When developers use a tool that’s built to meet all their needs, they avoid the challenges of fitting their processes into frameworks that don’t match their way of working or cobbling together a project management solution from a range of different tools. 

How does project management software help web developers communicate with stakeholders or clients? 

The best project management software for developers is powerful enough to translate tracked data on project progress into accessible dashboards where the project status can be viewed in terms of, for example, percentage completion, team capacity, and individual task assignments. This visualizes the work effectively and reduces the amount of time developers or project managers spend compiling manual reports or updates for stakeholders. 

What should web development teams look for when choosing project management software? 

The starting point is whether the tool can handle the complexity of technical work, especially in terms of detailed requirements and acceptance criteria, ongoing dependencies, and a multi-stage review process. From there, teams should look at whether the tool supports their way of working — for example, whether it includes custom workflows, project templates, and tools for cross-team collaboration. Integrations with tools like GitHub and GitLab are also essential, so the tool can sit alongside a team’s codebase rather than falling out of sync with the latest version.