Project Management

Solution Spotlight: Google’s Most Popular Product Management Software Explained

Apr 24, 2018

We shine the spotlight on the most popular product management software solutions on Google's search engine results. Learn about pricing, features, and what makes these products unique. We also provide additional resources for comparing.

Deeksha MalikContent Analyst

In GetApp's Solution Spotlight series, we explain which software is at the top of Google's search engine results and how it can meet your specific needs. To identify the systems featured here, we entered the term "product management software" in Google in March 2018 in an incognito window with the location set to the U.S. The first five solutions on the first page of Google's results are described here in alphabetical order.

New product management software should speed up workflows and boost efficiency. However-if you adopt a tool that doesn't fit well with your existing processes, it could have the opposite effect.

You risk causing confusion among stakeholders and low adoption rates among users, which will ultimately lead to missed deadlines and the potential for scope creep.

The right tool should offer some combination of the three core elements of product management software: customer feedback capture, product backlog management, and product roadmap capabilities. In addition, it's critical that you can easily customize the tool to enhance your existing workflows.

However, once you start researching product management tools, you may discover that detailed comparisons between the available options are hard to come by.

To help you overcome this challenge, we've shortlisted the five product management solutions that rank highest on Google's search engine results pages, or SERPs.

In this article, we'll briefly describe each product's features, along with detailed pricing and additional resources for comparison, so you can choose the right product for your business.

Aha!

Capturing ideas from customers and team members in a centrally located custom branded portal (Source: aha.io)

Aha! is cloud-based product management and roadmapping software designed to help product managers define product development strategies and monitor development progress.

Some of the tool's key features include:

  • Product roadmapping: Choose from built-in templates or create a customized roadmap. Add the vision and goals, and define tasks needed to reach those goals. Publish roadmaps as images, PDFs, or secure web presentations.

  • Task management: Create custom fields for task details, add action plans for the team, and prioritize tasks. Use the tool's parking lot function to store upcoming tasks. Build out calendar reports and task lists for the whole month.

  • Reporting and analytics: Use built-in templates to generate reports in various formats such as list, pivot, charts, diagrams, and other custom options.

  • Collaboration: Publish strategies, roadmaps, or analytics in the form of slides with the tool's notebook feature, and share them with other users or stakeholders as a PDF file or a secure webpage. Capture team feedback in a comment stream and use @ mentions to tag colleagues and # to mention features. Create mock-ups and wireframes to collaborate and iterate.

  • Idea management: Use the tool's custom branded portal to collect ideas from customers, colleagues, and other cross-functional teams and store them in a centralized location. Score ideas to assess their business value and prioritize those with high rankings.

What makes Aha! unique?

Aha! provides a unique capability that lets users create personas with detailed descriptions and then link them to product features. These detailed personas help product managers developers understand and empathize with customers, as well as address questions such as "why are we prioritizing this idea?" and "why is this feature important to our customers?"

Aha! pricing

Aha! offers four pricing plans:

  • Startup: Pricing not listed online. Includes the same functionality as the Premium plan but is limited to five users. Specifically meant for early stage companies.

  • Premium: $59 per user per month when billed annually.

  • Enterprise: $99 per product owner or contributor per month when billed annually. Includes unlimited viewers and reviewers.

  • Enterprise+: $149 per product owner or contributor per month; annual billing only. Includes everything in Enterprise plan, plus concierge service and more.

Aha! offers a free 30-day trial.

Aha! comparisons

Compare Aha! to other product management software solutions by checking out GetApp's Aha! alternatives page.

Craft

Workflow management in Craft (Source: craft.io)

Craft is a product management tool that lets project managers define product stories, lay out product plans, manage workflows, and analyze customer feedback. It also enables teams to collaborate on product prototypes.

Some of the tool's key features include:

  • Product story frameworks: Using the tool's editor, product managers can define product features, as well as add visual designs to product stories.

  • Product roadmapping: Lay out product plans specifying major releases, milestone goals, and initiatives. Prioritize stories, requirements, improvements, bug fixes, or tasks based on factors such as effort, importance, and story points. Drag and drop items to organize the list.

  • User experience mapping: Group similar user feedback together into categories and gain insights about the user experience. Visually map out the user experience journey and prioritize important milestones and trends.

What makes Craft unique?

Craft allows product managers to gather user feedback and then group that feedback into meaningful categories. Using this feature, product designers and developers can gain insights into the user experience and focus on creating more user-centric designs.

Craft pricing

Craft offers two pricing plans:

  • Team: $49 per user per month when billed annually; $16 per user per month for each additional user. Includes up to five products, unlimited viewers, and unlimited integrations.

  • Premium: Pricing on request. Includes unlimited users, products, viewers, and integrations; 24/7 support; and more.

Craft comparisons

Compare Craft to other product management software solutions by checking out GetApp's Craft alternative page.

Jira Software

View of multiple reports that can be generated through Jira Software (Source: atlassian.com)

Jira Software is an issue and project tracking tool designed for software development teams of all sizes. It offers a separate roadmapping tool called Portfolio, which allows users to connect the work of product teams to the bigger picture within Jira. The tool is available both as a cloud-based or on-premise solution and is compatible with all major operating systems.

Some of the tool's key features include:

  • Product roadmapping: Use Portfolio for Jira to create a visual timeline to gain visibility across teams and projects in a single place, forecast product release dates, and track task status. Manage team capacity to see who is overextended, or who has the bandwidth to take on additional tasks. Share progress with management through live reports.

  • Scrum and Kanban boards: Use Scrum boards-suitable for teams focused on regularly scheduled tasks-manage stories, tasks, and bugs in sprints or iterations (ideally two or four weeks). Meanwhile, use Kanban boards-suitable for teams clearing backlogs-to manage stories, tasks, and bugs in a continuous flow.

  • Reporting: Generate a variety of reports such burndown charts, sprint reports, cumulative flow diagrams, and version reports, to gain real-time insights into the team's performance, scope of work, work completed, and the backlog.

Jira Software offers iOS and Android compatible mobile apps that let users check the status of projects, get instant notifications about important events, view Agile boards and burndown charts, and more, using their smartphones and tablets.

What makes Jira Software unique?

A unique function offered by Jira Software is its ability to let users flag and comment on issues at the same time. Users can flag an issue to indicate that it's important or needs to be revisited, and they can add a comment so that everyone has context around why an issue was flagged.

Jira Software pricing

Jira Software offers two pricing plans:

  • For up to 10 users: $10 per month

  • For 11 to 100 users: $7 per user per month

Portfolio for Jira also offers two pricing plans:

  • For up to 10 users: $10 per month

  • For 11 to 100 users: $3.50 per user per month

For over 100 users, Jira Software provides a calculator where users can calculate their pricing. In addition, Jira offers a free 7-day trial.

Jira Software comparisons

Compare Jira Software to other product management software solutions by checking out GetApp's Jira Software alternatives page.

ProdPad

Customer feedback management in ProdPad (Source: prodpad.com)

ProdPad is product management software that product managers and teams can use to share ideas, create product roadmaps, prioritize product development actions, and collect feedback from users or customers.

Some of the tool's key features include:

  • Product roadmapping: Design a product strategy based on goals. Use the tool's drag-and-drop interface to act quickly on feedback during testing. Communicate goals using color-coded roadmap cards. Set version control (i.e., control the details each audience sees on a roadmap) by publishing multiple versions of the same roadmap.

  • Idea management: Organize ideas generated by the product team in a centralized location. Pull data from multiple platforms to build support for ideas in the product backlog. The team can then collaborate on those ideas to develop them into a product prototype.

  • Customer feedback: Collect and use customer feedback while building the case for product ideas. Create a list of customers who can be contacted in the future for user testing and interviews, and follow up when a new feature they requested has launched.

  • Collaboration: Reviewers can submit ideas and provide feedback and input on products currently in development through internal discussion feeds.

What makes ProdPad unique?

ProdPad offers users is the ability to work offline. Web users can continue working as long as their tab remains open. The tool notifies users that they are working in offline mode and that they will be restricted to functions that don't include uploading anything to the server (such as designs or files.) All changes are synced once users regain internet connection. Mobile and tablet users can work offline by bookmarking ProdPad to their home screens.

In addition, ProdPad integrates with 1,000 apps, giving it added flexibility and scalability for small businesses.

ProdPad pricing

ProdPad offers three pricing plans:

  • Standard: $99 per month when billed annually. Includes three admins/editors, unlimited products, unlimited roadmaps, and unlimited reviewers. Suitable for businesses with one small product team.

  • Premium: $299 per month when billed annually. Includes 10 admins/editors, everything in the Standard plan, portfolio roadmapping, and more. Suitable for companies managing multiple product lines.

  • Unlimited: $2,499 per month when billed annually. Includes unlimited admins/editors, everything in the Premium plan, advanced customizations, and more. Suitable for large companies with growing product portfolios.

ProdPad comparisons

Compare ProdPad to other product management software solutions by checking out GetApp's ProdPad alternatives page.

Wrike

Task view in Wrike (Source: getapp.com)

Wrike is cloud-based project management software that is intended to give users visibility into and control over a project throughout its entire life cycle. Its product management solution offers tools for collaboration, resource and task management, and more.

Some of its key features include:

  • Product requirements management: Create, prioritize, and assign product requirements or user stories and share requirements with the team in advance to avoid rework. Track product development in real time.

  • Collaboration and communication: Through the personal dashboard, manage individual work, consolidate to-dos from all the projects and tasks, manage daily tasks by dragging them to "today," "this week," "next week," or "later." Users can @mention individuals or team members to send an instant notification.

  • Resource management: Product managers can use the tool's workload reporting functionality to see availability in the team and reassign work and tasks accordingly.

  • Time tracking: Add time entries to tasks. Open a specific task, select the date, and enter the number of hours spent on the task. Create time reports for projects and export reports as CSV files or print them to share with clients.

What makes Wrike unique?

Wirke's Gantt chart feature lets users focus on strings of dependent tasks they must accomplish to meet their deadline. They can prioritize those tasks over others and reassign people to complete tasks on time.

Wrike pricing

Wrike offers five pricing plans:

  • Free: For up to five users. Includes shared task management, 2 GB storage, basic integrations, and more.

  • Professional: $9.80 per user per month when billed annually; for five, 10, or 15 users. Includes everything in Free plan, plus subtask management, 5 GB storage, Gantt charts, unlimited collaborators, and more.

  • Business: $24.80 per user per month when billed annually; for up to 200 users. Includes everything in Professional plan, plus resource management, 50 GB of storage, graphical analytics, Salesforce integration, and more.

  • Marketers: $34.60 per user per month when billed annually; for unlimited users. Includes everything in Business plan, plus video proofing and Adobe Creative Cloud extension.

  • Enterprise: Pricing on request; for unlimited users. Includes everything in Business plan, Active Directory integration, 100 GB of storage, advanced security and controls, and more.

Wrike comparisons

Compare Wrike to other product management software solutions by checking out GetApp's Wrike alternatives page.

Let us help you make a decision

Check out some additional GetApp resources that will help you make a decision as to which tool is right for you:

  • Compare even more product management software, read reviews, filter by feature and price point, and more on GetApp's directory page .

About the author

Deeksha Malik

Content Analyst