ActiveCollab

Pros

wow what software!!!. it allows me to increase my output and it motivates me and my team.

Cons

Unfortunately the number of tasks is very limited and there is no communication tool

Pros

Great dashboard, different types of reports, milestone preview, calendars, time tracking tool are just a few of the features that make this software irreplaceable tool when it comes to project management.

Cons

Lack of integration with Git or another version of control system.

Pros

The native features are very adapted to our uses, and we were able to add the missing features.Especially, time and budget tracking are good to have and

Cons

Not us directly, but our customers are sometimes disturbed by the UX, despite huge leap forward recently.We sometimes find it a bit slow in terms of performance - we host it so we may be to blame - and access to data (because we have a lot of projects and customers).

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

Pros

Visually easy to see what projects and tasks are priority. I also love the budget tracker which allows me to make sure projects stay on budget. This program is extremely easy to learn to use as both an administrator and a day-to-day user. I have worked with so many project management systems in my career (some at a much higher price point) and ActiveCollab is a true competitor for a fraction of the cost.

Cons

When pulling invoices, I wish we had more options as to how to import the time entry notes. Because we require our team to place notes as to what they were doing for the hours logged - we do spend more time than desired editing invoices once the data is pulled in.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

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

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

Pros

Great tool for managing complex projects with multiple stakeholders
Pretty robust feature set
Simple to access and easy to invite collaborators in & out of my company

Cons

Upgrades have been a bit buggy and while the team are responsive, they don't always believe that they've broken something

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing ActiveCollab

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

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

Reasons for Choosing ActiveCollab

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

Pros

I've had a good overall experience with ActiveCollab. Keeping track of tasks and projects is made easier by the software's ease of use and navigation. The ability to assign tasks to team members and establish deadlines is a terrific tool, and the design is clear and easy to use.

Cons

Despite all of ActiveCollab's good features, the one that I disliked the most was how little possibilities there were for layout and design customisation. Although the software had an easy-to-use interface, there weren't many choices for customising the appearance and feel to fit certain tastes or brand identities.

Alternatives Considered

Pros

It is simple to organize and manage work and projects with activeCollab.I can easily track time used on projects and tasks with this tool.It is simple to plan work and projects with ActiveCollab.

Cons

I lack anything that is detestable with ActiveCollab as it meets all my requirements and needs.

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

ActiveCollab's user-friendly interface and seamless integration of project management, collaboration, and invoicing impressed me. Customizable dashboards and time tracking add flexibility, making it a comprehensive solution.

Cons

While comprehensive, the limited third-party integrations may hinder seamless workflow connections. Exploring advanced features can be time-consuming, impacting initial ease of use.

Pros

Diversity of features. It covers calendar integration, task management, expense and time tracking, client estimates and invoicing is integrated, discussions with clients are threaded and neatly organized at all times, file uploads that act as a mini-Dropbox for yourself and your clients, notes, facebook-style timeline of the activity within each project... And I haven't even touched on the level of customization, multitude of extensions (Zapier included), scalability (with self-hosted options!), and the iOS app that works with either cloud or self-hosted versions (our clients LOVE the app).

We love ActiveCollab because of it's diversity. That's the one reason that in our opinion, it's simply irreplaceable. Having to replace it would be like adding tripling the administrative work on our plates. It replaces the need for multiple separate services that do each of those things separately. Who wants that when you can have one single login to one single system that can rule them all? ;)

SIMPLY. IRREPLACEABLE.

Cons

The iOS and Android apps needs some work. They don't do as much as the desktop version, so they feel limited. They don't really take advantage of features like gestures or multi-touch, which every smartphone has.

We'd really like to be able to upload more than just pictures from the camera roll; some kind of file picking, or option to upload to ActiveCollab from another app (share sheets) would go a LONG way. Optimization for tablet-size screens would be sweet too, along with the simple ability to make text in the app bigger or smaller, so it's easier to read.

The calendar allows for syndication via subscription links, but stopping there feels premature. It would help a lot to be able to integrate to Calendar apps (via CalDAV), since the calendar isn't available on the mobile app either. It would be really nice so that we can add or edit events from our native calendar apps of choice.

Support is fantastic, and extremely knowledgeable. We run a self-hosted installation, which is more economical for us, but we don't have pros running our server environment. That task falls on us, teaching ourselves as we go, and it feels like support will drop clues about what an issue is, instead of going the distance and going in themselves to help fix the problem. Granted, that's more of a problem with /us/, since we're business administrators and not experts in server management. But support will not abandon you. They've always got your back, no matter how tough the problem!

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

The very first thing I would like to highlight is ActiveCollab's great, minimalist design. It is one of the most beautiful UI I have ever used. Everything is clearly and logically laid out and it doesn't take many clicks to get to the desired item.
The project management is also simply beautiful, so you don't lose track of everything. Tags and statuses can be customized and the integrated calendar provides an overview of upcoming tasks including deadlines. Task lists and to-dos can be added to each project and sorted by priority. The time tracking is also a nice feature, so you don't have to rely on another program.

Cons

Currently, I still find creating customers a bit too cumbersome. I first have to navigate to the "Contacts" item and create the respective company before I can assign a project. I would like to be able to add a project directly from the list of the corresponding company/contact without having to switch back and forth in the menu. An integration with HubSpot would also make work easier if contacts are constantly synchronized, because with HubSpot I always have all contacts automatically.

Pros

I truly do not really like anything about ActiveCollab, but the feature that allows you to hide things from clients is nice.

Cons

The title says all of it - ActiveCollab is the single worst project management system I have ever used. Their customer service is the worst part, because it makes solving all of the other issues that go on almost impossible. The timer never works and deletes people's work, the server is often down for days at a time, clients will lose access for no reason at all and not be able to login, we'll stop receiving ActiveCollab email notifications and tasks will show either for the wrong day or not at all. When we reach out to ActiveCollab, they more often than not have absolutely no solution and just say "they are working on it".

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

Creating tasks is easy. I can create subtasks, assign executors and deadlines.

Cons

I would like it if the subtasks also had a deadline.

Pros

I love that you can create projects and upload content & give explanation of the project as well as tag different contacts for responsibilities. This helps us keep so organized!

Cons

I have no issues with anything using Active Collab.

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

Easy to use, affordable, logical, logical, really helps. The latest version has greate GUI and I have been using this tool for last 4 years. I first used it at Xivic, then took it with me to Get My Auto, Everything Online, Digital Advertier, and now my own consulting firm.

Cons

I wish it would connect to other project management tools such as basecamp, asana, etc. I work with many contractors and vendors and if I could do everything in active collab, then it would create a ticket in their platforms, it would be awsome.

Pros

I like the fact that everything is contextually linked, you can dive into a task from a calendar, report, email - anything really.
As a manager it's great for checking workload and distributing tasks efficiently. I've been using ActiveCollab for a while now in different organisations, so much so I recommended we get the self-hosted version.

Cons

The inability to email direct to other modules like conversations and files unlike Basecamp which does allow it. That and not being able to add tasks from the calendar. That would be awesome.

Pros

New version is clean and nice, posting old data from hosted versions is simple. Almost hit's it out of the park fopr use in any ad agency.

Cons

It's no longer supported. We looked to invest a bit of $ to move from a self-hosted to their cloud for AC3 and the support response was crickets. They have a scheduler but, it is not for hourly limits, jsut due dates. If you are trying to schedule against hour constraints you'll need to look elsewhere.

Pros

Active has been amazing for our company, the ability to create tasks and sub tasks for each of our client projects has organized our way of operation. We can then assign each task to its appropriate department and assign who needs to work on it. Furthermore, we keep track of notes and discussion added to each tasks. Recurring tasks is also something very useful.
Active Collab is the best thing that happened to us!! We've been advising many clients to start using this software.

Cons

One thing is that the 'Search' option is not very detailed..

Pros

Very intuitive and easy to use. Has most of the features of the larger competitors. Being able to self-host was a key consideration for our industry, most others are only cloud based. It makes managing projects and teams very easy, and everyone can see what is happening in real-time.

Cons

Don't have many dislikes. Would like to see more flexibility with the time and expense tracking, as well as more admin control over notifications and preferences.

Pros

ActiveCollab is really easy to use and on top of all it works really fast and smooth. We used to use JIRA for our project and task management but compared to it, AC is way faster and really better overall for managing a lot of smaller projects. Also, the option choose to see task lists in Lists or Columns is an amazing feature that gives you a lot of flexibility.

Cons

When the internet connection is not good, some pages seem to never load. Also, sometimes the Timer application is a bit too generous when logging work hours.