The "Project Management" category is one that has been quite underwhelming for a while. Project management software was first created for engineering teams or large enterprise companies. If you've worked for an enterprise company, you'd be familiar with the software Smartsheet and/or Jira. Project management tools were reserved for highly complex technical projects and there weren't any tools available for the average small–medium sized teams.
The project manager for large teams looking for an all-in-one task and documentation tool.
ClickUp is best categorized as an "all-in-one tool", even though it started off as more of a project manager, and is quite task management focused at the core. ClickUp now offers tasks, docs, whiteboards, time tracking and even chat. They are truly trying to do it all.
ClickUp appeals to folks who want one tool to manage all work-related projects and processes. These folks don't typically need nor want the best project management tool, or best docs, or best of anything, they just appreciate that one tool (ClickUp) bundles all the apps together under one subscription.
For instance, say you were looking for the best project management tool, then you'd want to consider Asana for larger teams, or Motion for smaller teams (if you're seeking simplicity) because they are both focused only on one thing: project management.
You might like ClickUp if you fall into one or all of the below categories:
The main complaint we've heard about ClickUp is that there is too much configuration and customization. We know this is draw for some, but for most folks, the amount of stuff going on within ClickUp is overwhelming. For instance, many of their features are irrelevant if you're just wanting to use ClickUp for project or task management, making the simple things difficult to find and accomplish.
With that, users of ClickUp report feeling like there is too much clutter that gets in the way, making it difficult to find where things are or you are shown buttons that you have no idea what they're used for. There are SO many options to sift through that you can't find what you're looking for unless you've been using the platform extensively and know it inside and out.
With too much "noise", it's easy for team members to miss being notified in a thread, spending too much time searching for things or wondering about the progress of projects. This steep learning curve for teams makes it difficult to truly adopt and buy-into.
Another complaint we've heard countless of times is that ClickUp is slow to load. While this might not seem like a big deal at first, when you're waiting 3-5 extra seconds for a tool to load, it can certainly get frustrating and slow you down.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
Collaborative task manager and note taking tool for personal and small team use.
We'll be honest, when we first got a chance to check out and use Superlist, we were a bit thrown off—while it was one of the most beautiful productivity apps we've seen, we didn't quite know what it was trying to be, to that's where we reviewed it to compete in the best project management software space.
After reviewing it longer, seeing their feature roadmap a bit, and talking with the team, we realize now that Superlist is not trying to compete with Motion, Asana, Monday, or ClickUp, but rather, they're looking to compete in the more personal and small team task and note taking space.
So for those of you who are using Notion, Obsidian, Google Keep, Apple Notes, or even Bear, as your personal note taking tool, and a personal task management tool like Todoist, TickTick, Google Tasks, Superlist might be able to consolidate all of those tools for you in one place. Now that is something I can connect on the pain-point with.
If you're looking for a full-fledged team project management tool like Motion or Asana, you won't get what you're looking for here with Superlist.
The same goes if you're looking for one of the best daily planner apps or best calendar app like that of Motion, Amie, Sunsama, Akiflow, Vimcal, and others, you're going to left a bit disappointed using Superlist for those things.
I have been extremely excited to check this tool out. I've been on the waitlist for 2–3 years, checking in with them monthly about getting access and it's finally available to the public.
The largest appeal is that it was created by the team behind Wunderlist (which is a task manager that was sold to Microsoft in 2015 for between $100–200m). So if there's a team that understands task management deeply, it's this team.
They've even teased Superlist at Google I/O 2022 on stage, as an example of a tool built in Flutter (an open source framework by Google for building beautiful, natively compiled, multi-platform applications from a single codebase). This is important because this means everyone gets a native app—imagine having native MacOS + iOS + Android + Windows apps all generated from the same codebase.
This was the largest appeal, alongside the sheer beauty of their marketing site and in-app teaser screenshots:
What's cool is that with Superlist, you can assign to-dos to one another and due dates, which let's be honest, there are endless personal tasks any married couple needs to collaborate on.
Superlist is probably one the of most thoughtful/beautiful personal task managers out there. It has amazing UI/UX interactions. Heck, even marking a task as "complete" and "incomplete" plays the most relaxing noise (and it changes each time!). I was using TickTick for years and I'm seeing Superlist as a great alternative.
I think we're seeing what happens when you get tens of millions of dollars in venture backing and some of the best designers in the world to focus in the UI/UX. I mean heck, just go visit their website, it's incredibly beautiful.
Being able to also take notes and assign tasks to different individuals is also super cool as there aren't really a ton of good personal collaboration tools out there.
While Superlist is marketing itself for both personal and professional, we're more open to recommending it for personal use. Perhaps Soloprenuers and super small teams may be able to collaborate in a barebones way with Superlist, but we're still apt to recommend professional project management tools instead like Motion (what we use).
Keeping this in mind, we do want to point out that the Superlist team is has built the tool in a way that encourages you to use it for both work and personal. So much so that you can toggle on/off your "work" or "personal" notes/to-dos so that you can disconnect from work for example on the weekend.
Check out our full Superlist review here.
There is currently no promo code for this app but we are close partners, so if you use the link above to visit the site and then let their team know that Efficient App sent you, you may just get a little something... extra 😉
There is currently no promo code for this app—we'll update it here if that changes in the future!
Use the code above at checkout for 20% off any plans for the first 12 months.
Curious how this app compares to others?