ActiveCollab Reviews

Pros

Before I decided to go with ActiveCollab a few years ago, I researched and tried all the project management softwares I could find. I ended up going with ActiveCollab for a number of reasons.

One, their interface is simple, practical, and easy on the eye. I found other project management softwares trying to hard and it essentially complicated simple things. Also, I loved how my projects can be displayed and searched. I know this sounds trivial, but when you manage hundreds of projects (websites), I need an interface that works for me. Their interface works perfectly for someone with my needs. I constantly have to go back and forth on so many notes for projects and ActiveCollab has made it user-friendly for me to do this.

Second, ActiveCollab had awesome customer service when I had any issues or questions. This was a big plus because I then knew I was in good hands.

Third, they had some add-ons other softwares didn't have so it was nice to have features I wanted to use all in one place, like time tracking and invoicing.

Fourth, it was reasonably priced.

Cons

While I went with ActiveCollab, I am still frustrated with some of their features:

One, I use notes A LOT. Their notes interface design looks like something from the 90's.

Two, while they have the invoicing option available, it's sub-par. There are a lot of things they can improve with their invoicing. I wish I could use it, but it's just very limited. An example of a limitation is that you can't even enter or send an invoice without "inviting" the client to join ActiveCollab. I tried testing an invoice by putting an email manually because they claimed you could, but nothing gets sent, unless I "invite" someone into my account. This is silly. Another issue I have with the invoicing is that it shows "Active Collab" as the sender and you do NOT have the option to change this. Kinda stupid.

Three, you only have a measly 3 ways to categorize or filter projects: Client, Category, and Label. This can be very limiting depending on what you're doing.

Pros

We tried many alternatives, but the simplicity and the ability to self host won us over.
Task lists, Kanban Style boards, Time tracking, Notifying and Assigning all work well.

Cons

I feel the file sharing (or at least referencing a file you have already uploaded) could be simpler. Apart from that we're really happy.

Alternatives Considered

Trello, Basecamp and Asana

Switched From

Asana

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

Primarily the ability to self host, and have a large team accessing without paying by user per month.

Pros

It is beautifully designed so initially it seemed easier to use and navigate.
It had a client portal and I could track my jobs and invoice/do estimates all from one place.

Cons

It has hidden fees. Everywhere it advertises itself as only 7.50 a month. - But using the MAIN FEATURES OF WHY I WANTED THIS APP is extra, like invoicing, time tracking and using the client portal. This was not made clear initially. The client service is terrible. I would ask questions but there response was really terrible english language - not what I would expect from an international app that everyone should be able to understand. Especially a client service person called Darla. Terrible and rude manners and unhelpful.!

Alternatives Considered

Pluto LMS, monday.com and ClickUp

Reasons for Choosing ActiveCollab

I wanted a app that I could use to track my projects, my daily tasks, and has a timer. Plus I can send out cost estimates and invoices from and my clients can log into to track and make note of project progress and timeline.

Switched From

Todoist and Asana

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

Activecollab seems to be the cheapest option where I could managment my projects, finances and clients from one place.

Pros

Web used Active Collab during several years in our servers. The database structure is very simple and allow us to create dashboards with user data.

Cons

Lack of features like kanban and of user interface improvements during updates

Alternatives Considered

Redmine, Jira and Basecamp

Reasons for Choosing ActiveCollab

Jira was so complicated and hard do mantain. I'm talking about 2009

Switched From

Redmine, Jira and Basecamp

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

Price and simples maintenance

Pros

Time tracking. It's wonderful. We are able to track our time down to the specific task within projects. We can also label each project by client and bill clients based on the time we've specifically tracked for each task and project. All of this tracking also allows for reporting to our clients - down to being able to let them know how much time was spent on each task. Customer service is also amazing. One of our team members has made suggestions for new/alternate features/revised functionality, and things were updated fairly quickly! So good. Thank you!

Cons

I'd love to see the organization of the projects in a different way. Organized instead by client on the main page. The main page is otherwise less organized than I need it to be.

Pros

Ease of use and implementation. Simple staff on-boarding and intuitive interface.

Cons

Poor search function and lack of ability to enter a date on estimates... crazy that such a well rounded and useful software lacks a full feature search function and doesn't allow (nor even auto generate) a date field on the estimate form.

Alternatives Considered

FunctionFox, Basecamp and Asana

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

Cost was major consideration, but it also provides all features we needed.

Pros

I have tried multiple task management software for our company, But anyhow I was not satisfied with other product because of no option to manage workload or time and invoice calculation or somehow workflow is difficult for non technical user to use.
Activ Collab has the most simple UI and Design. Only 1 or 2 days training will be sufficient for any users to understand it.
Workload segment is really simple and most important functionality it have.
And the support team is really great.

Most importantly - it have self hosted options which is utmost priority for us for data security and privacy and also we can reduce cost for our users.

Cons

Android app needs improvement. It doesn't comes anywhere near to desktop web version.

Alternatives Considered

ProofHub

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

Selfhosted options not available in Proofhub, Data security and privacy is a big concern for us. Design of Activ Collab is much more simple.

Pros

Solid options for organization and streamlining processes that even clients can be taught to use. As a creative agency selling our time it's important to communicate quickly and efficiently with our clients. A big part of that happens at the beginning of every project when they fill out a creative brief. We've used ActiveCollab to set up standard brief templates so AC asks all the questions and they go down the list and fill it out. The time tracker works great and is a painless way to keep track of time. Email notifications are great, especially being able to respond to comments VIA email really speeds things up. Support staff is great. Always available and helpful.

Cons

The invoicing functionality is great but is missing major sorting and display capabilities. For example, if I wanted to show each time entry with its note about what that entry was for organized by project, I cannot do that. My wife has also complained about the App not having a lot of functionality, but I have not used it much personally. I also think the 'Notes' 'Files' and 'Discussions' tabs are kind of random. Haven't found a good place for those in our workflows and they're confusing for clients. I realize it's a big thing to ask, but I'd also like to see some way of incorporating something like Slack into Active Collab, so we can move away from Skype completely.

Pros

One of the things I liked most about ActiveCollab was its user-friendly interface and intuitive project management features. The software provided a centralized platform for organizing tasks, collaborating with team members, and tracking project progress. The ability to create and assign tasks, set deadlines, and monitor the overall project timeline made it easy to keep everyone on the same page. Additionally, the interactive Gantt chart and visual overview of tasks and milestones allowed for effective project planning and resource allocation.

Cons

While ActiveCollab had many positive aspects, one thing I liked least was the limited customization options in terms of design and layout. The software offered a clean and straightforward interface, but there were minimal options for personalizing the look and feel to match specific preferences or branding. Additionally, some users might find the reporting and analytics capabilities of ActiveCollab to be less advanced compared to other project management tools. However, these limitations did not significantly impact the overall functionality and usability of the software.

Pros

It's amazing how flexible AC can be depending on a project's needs. It can serve as a simple reminder list with great speed and simplicity but also get fully blown up for projects involving production teams and clients at once. Compared to its competition it never feels like its dictating you to use it in a certain way, it just hands you a great bunch of options and lets you use them without interference. I use other products like dropbox and dropbox paper too and it all goes together really nicely.
One thing to note is a personal and genuinely helpful customer service, there have been issues and bugs here and there (not many) and in 90% of the cases they were solved within short time.

I think AC is great for freelancers and small project groups working remotely I switched from Basecamp and it was one of a relief.

Cons

I personally don't like the free limitations of users. I know there's a business model behind it but I hate to delete other clients/team members just to make room for someone else.

Pros

I own and operate a company that specializes in creative strategy and marketing/PR services and this is a good fit for us. I spent many months and went through quite a few trials researching a software that had as many features combined that we were looking for. We settled on ActiveCollab and we're very happy with them. It's a great option without the price tag and disorganization the later versions that Basecamp brings. I like the customization features as well as the billable categories for tracking and reports. We work with contractors in our business and we like the ability to assign tasks and hide back office items from the client. Their customer service has been very responsive and helpful throughout our set up and we're overall very happy with the product and functionality for our needs. Overall good UX / UI.

Cons

We're finding the reports options are a little bit limited, however it hasn't been a huge issue. We're getting most of the data we need. We really wish we could assign tasks to multiple people, but that seems to be a common theme among these software options. I don't understand why as we have many tasks that are worked on by multiple people. This carries over into the time tracking app. If you aren't assigned a task, it won't show up in the time tracking app for you to track against. However the work around is you can add a time report in the desktop version after the fact to any task regardless of who it assigned to. The budget feature per project is nice, however, we wish we could break it down further by task list. Their great customer service has passed this along to the management and dev team for consideration so fingers crossed it will be coming in an update at some point.

Pros

For all intents and purposes, ActiveCollab is awesome at doing what it advertises it's doing - project and task management, with easy-to-use, uncomplicated and effective tools. And really, especially on the task level, it is great and will save you a lot of time and brain power.

Cons

On the other hand, if you're the one to experiment with your software, look for ways to improve it in new and unexpected way, I hope you're not expecting a lot of success with ActiveCollab. It is a good piece of software, as long as you stay within its area of expertise. Otherwise, you're just stopped in tracks for the most of time, with little or no ways to go forward.

Alternatives Considered

Jira and ProjectManager.com

Pros

Lots of detailed helpful features which don't complicate the interface but are great when you start using them. Customer support has pointed some out when I put in what we thought was a feature request... but it already existed and I'd missed it.

Actively developed and continually updated without annoyingly changing things unnecessarily or 'fixing' anything that isn't broken.

Cons

Using Elastic Search as the only available search feature is limiting, as it's difficult to host and especially so in a shared hosting environment. Without Elastic Search, there's not even a simple text search available for project/task/comment description.

There's a couple glitches that pop up from time to time but customer support has been responsive about them and some of our suggestions have been included as feature requests.

Pros

Active Collaboration is super intuitive and affordable. Before switching to Active Collaboration a few years ago we used WorkFront and it was an absolute nightmare. After 10 months of getting templates set up and trying to learn how to use them our team was so frustrated that I knew that I wouldn't be renewing that tool for another year. Active Collaboration is so easy to use, it literally takes 10 minutes for me to walk a new team member through the tool when coming onboard. I've learned over the years of project managing that if someone doesn't understand how to use something or its too complicated to input a simple request or comment in, they aren't going use so it, they will default to email or drive-byes. I just don't have that problem with Active Collaboration. I highly recommend it.

Cons

I wish there was a feature that if you change a task date there's an option to move out all the dates at one time.

Pros

Very smooth operation in a team. It really helps to share information and make quick and concerted decisions.

Cons

The invoicing module is far too limited. Integration into QBO or other is not really a factor to be taken into account.

Alternatives Considered

Basecamp

Pros

Timelines.

Cons

Not reactive interface. Terrible iOS app.

Pros

I like that I can go one place and see all my tasks for the projects I am a part of. It is easy to tag people and the software is pretty intuitive. It allows many people to be part of the big picture and stay up to date on the progress of projects. It also cuts down on the number of emails I need to send because I can follow up on items within the program and tag people.

Cons

The customer support often leaves something to be desired. When issues arise it is not usually a quick fix and when Active Collab is down, our project management comes to a halt because this is the key to our success. The everyday support for quick answers is fine, but when major issues arise the solutions are not always quick.

Pros

It's been more than 10 years using ActiveCollab since the day they had this 90s looking masterpiece of project scheduling platform. Today ActiveCollab grew sooo much and we love the minimalist style, the fact that they keep integrating and updating new features and functionalities making it every next day better and better.

Cons

I've tried so many other Project planning and Teamwork platforms but this one is the best I've ever seen for what we need - combining teamwork, with project planing, milestones progress, resource scheduling and time tracking.

Pros

- Simple, clean UI
- Easy to learn
- Clear structure (teams, projects, categorized task lists) that works well for us
- Ability to sort things in the My Work list, so I can arrange my priorities for the week and then easily reorder things as tasks are completed.
- Integrates well with Dropbox
- Powerful customizable reports (ex. can easily see what got done in the past week on project A, or can get a clear portrait of what employee B did for the last month)

Also, when you're in the middle of writing something (ex. a comment or a note) and get interrupted, it *retains* what you wrote (even if you didn't submit it and no one else can see it). This has saved me so much effort, since it's hard to juggle doing things with documenting them.

Cons

- The Asana importer didn't work for me. This resulted in a huge amount of effort migrating projects and tasks by hand.
- AC emails you every time you're added to a project, and you need to be part of a project to see what's going on in it - we use this for workplace transparency, so there are a lot of projects and the notifications are irritating
- Can't easily transform a task into a project
- The My Work interface doesn't automatically refresh when there's an update on one of my projects, so I can be in AC all day and still miss some notifications (unless I enable email notifications, which I dislike).

Pros

I love the fact that it's linked to my email account, so if there is a new post I know about it quickly! It's also great that I can reply to threads directly from my email, that feature is so helpful.

I like that the threads within ActiveCollab are easy to keep track of, so no more wading through emails trying to find a reference to something!

The interface is quick and easy to use, and it's great being able to tag co-workers in threads to grab their attention.

Cons

There isn't much to be honest, but I suppose I would like it if the software took me directly to recent activity, as when there are a lot of projects sometimes I find it hard to navigate my way to the thread I'm looking for. But that's a minor quibble!

Other than that, I really enjoy using the software.

Pros

The robust features that are at our disposal should we scale up or change the way we work. Discussions, notes, tasks, lists. Third-party app integration if needed. I like that we have room to grow. I also very much like the reports. As the business owner, it's key to see how efficiently my team is performing, and how to keep our workflow profitable.

Cons

Day-to-day, the timer app is buggy. It's frustrating when I can't scroll through our long list of active jobs, or when the status doesn't appear in my toolbar for easy reference. We've also had issues with days going by with time records not being logged, having to take screencaps and re-enter by hand (if we're lucky enough to no re-start the app). A better timer app would be very welcomed.

Pros

ActiveCollab has a ton of great features - tasks, messages, time tracking, etc. I like that you can have both internal and external teams and choose what the clients can and cannot see.

Cons

Different features break all the time. Time that you've tracked will be deleted with no warning, tasks will show up with the wrong due date, you won't be able to upload files to the message, etc. Customer Service is quick to *respond* to a support ticket but actually getting the problems fixed usually takes days or weeks.

Pros

The project management tool has many advantages and features. We've been using it for many years. A big advantage is the link with Slack and Google Drive. This gives us an optimal overview of every customer. In addition, our customers can create tasks independently and communicate with our entire team. Since the new version it is clearer and more intuitive. We can only recommend it and will continue to use it intensively.

Cons

The app itself is expandable and also the software for time recording is relatively unreliable.
The recurring tasks should include more options.

Pros

+ faaast
+ intuitive, easy to use
+ almost everything that small company need in one place (projects, tasks, time tracking, expenses)
+ invoicing
+ 3rd party integrations (stripe, xero) <3
+ did I mention that is fast ;)

Highly recommended, not only for software development.

It's highly configurable and as most of the things that you have to work on is "like a project" - you can use it everywhere.

Cons

After over two years, I see that lack of simple crm is probably only missing feature. You can use internal notes, but I don't feel it now.

Pros

The software is easy to use and easy for others to figure out. We have a campus like environment and are able to work on projects for various departments without having to have so many meetings. All skill levels have been able to easily figure out how to utilize the product. It's been a real life-saver for our department.

Cons

I would love to see the completed projects being able to sort and view better. It gets hard to go back to a job and see what we've done before or re-open. Also, copying the entire job itself would be great.