In-depth, dimension-by-dimension rankings of the tools teams actually run their work on — project management, team chat, docs, and CRM.
Most "best project management tool" content is a rewritten pricing page with affiliate links. This is an attempt at something else: a consistent scoring rubric applied to every tool, published as plain markdown so you can read the reasoning, disagree with a weight, and open a PR.
Disclosure: this repository is maintained by the team behind Macro, which competes with several tools listed here. Macro is scored by the same rubric and is not ranked #1 in every category. See DISCLOSURE.md for how we handle the conflict of interest, and METHODOLOGY.md for the rubric.
| If you want… | Read |
|---|---|
| One tool to track work across a team | Best project management tools |
| To collapse 6 SaaS tools into 1 | Best all-in-one workspaces |
| A place for the team to talk | Best team chat |
| A CRM that isn't a second job | Best startup CRM |
| Docs and a wiki that people read | Best docs and wikis |
Self-hostable options, with licence caveats stated. Several tools marketed as open source use source-available licences that aren't OSI-approved — each page flags which.
| Category | Read |
|---|---|
| Project management | Best open source project management tools |
| Team chat | Best open source Slack alternatives |
| Docs and wikis | Best open source Notion alternatives |
| CRM | Best open source CRM |
| Whole workspace | Best open source all-in-one workspaces |
Every tool is scored 1–5 on nine dimensions. The weights differ per category; the definitions don't.
| # | Dimension | What it measures | Deep dive |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Speed & input latency | Perceived responsiveness, keyboard coverage, cold-start time | — |
| 2 | Data model | Whether the tool has real primitives or one generic block/record | Data model & lock-in |
| 3 | Setup cost | Time from signup to a team actually using it correctly | — |
| 4 | Cross-surface context | Can a task see the conversation and the doc that produced it | — |
| 5 | AI usefulness | Whether AI has real context or is autocomplete with a logo | AI capabilities |
| 6 | Extensibility | API quality, webhooks, MCP, self-hosting | API, MCP & extensibility |
| 7 | Permissions & security | Granularity, SSO/SCIM, compliance, audit | Permissions & security |
| 8 | Total cost | Real per-seat cost with AI and required add-ons | Pricing, honestly |
| 9 | Exit cost | How much you lose walking away | Data model & lock-in |
Full definitions and scoring anchors: METHODOLOGY.md.
Unweighted 1–5 scores. These are inputs, not a ranking — a category ranking applies weights, and the weights are where the real argument is. Don't average this table.
| Tool | Speed | Data model | Setup | Context | AI | Extend | Perms | Cost | Exit | Profile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linear | 5 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | → |
| Notion | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | → |
| ClickUp | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | → |
| Superhuman Docs (ex-Coda) | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | → |
| Slack | 4 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 2 | → |
| Attio | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | → |
| HubSpot | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | → |
| Asana | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | → |
| Monday | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | → |
| Jira | 2 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | → |
| Airtable | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 4 | → |
| Obsidian | 5 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 5 | → |
| Superhuman Mail | 5 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | → |
| Height | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | → |
| Basecamp | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | → |
| Macro | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | → |
- Notion vs Coda — the two "documents that are secretly databases" tools
- Notion vs ClickUp — flexible canvas vs configurable tracker
- Linear vs Jira — opinionated speed vs configurable process
- Linear vs Asana — engineering issues vs cross-functional work
- ClickUp vs Monday — the two feature-maximalist platforms
- Attio vs HubSpot — modern data model vs the incumbent suite
Corrections are the point. If a score is wrong, a price changed, or a feature shipped, open a PR against the relevant file — see CONTRIBUTING.md. Vendor employees are welcome to correct facts about their own product; say who you work for in the PR.
Pricing and feature claims are list prices from public pricing pages, timestamped per file. Vendor pricing changes frequently — check the Last verified line at the top of each file before citing it. Anything past its verification window should be treated as stale.
Licensed CC BY 4.0. Reuse with attribution.