First, let me say I had no idea there were so many agile board solutions out there.
It is ridiculous.
The market is completely saturated with contenders. This probably happened because software devs have a particular way they like to work and when they can’t find something they like, they build it themselves.
However, out of the myriad of contenders there are some that clearly rise to the top. FYI: I am not being paid by any of the software companies mentioned here and this post is entirely my own opinion. Another FYI: I definitely lean towards the Kanban side of the fence as opposed to Scrum. I much prefer simplicity and ease-of-use over an enterprise-level kitchen sink featureset and and this preference has flavored my rankings here.
So without further ado I give you my personal list of agile development boards (in annoyingly descending order):
Cost: Free
Ease-of-Use: Extremely Easy
Details:
Cost: Expensive – $276 – $300/user/year without hosting
Ease-of-Use: Moderate to Difficult
Details:
Cost: Free, $7/user/month
Ease-of-Use: Extremely easy
Details:
Cost: Free, $9/user/month, $25/user/month
Ease-of-Use: Moderate to Difficult
Details:
Cost: Free, $7/user/month, $100/10 users/year
Ease-of-Use: Moderate
Details:
Cost: Free 30 day trial, $5/user/month, $8/user/month
Ease-of-Use: Extremely Easy
Details:
Cost: Free for TFS users. Current TFS prices are here.
Ease-of-Use: Moderate.
Details:
Cost: Free, $5/user/month
Ease-of-Use: Extremely Easy
Details:
Cost: Free
Ease-of-Use: Extremely Easy
Details:
Cost: Free, Paid versions scale from $9 – $99/user/month
Ease-of-Use: Extremely Easy
Details:
Cost: Free, Paid versions scale from $8 to $90/month
Ease-of-Use: Extremely Easy
Details:
Cost: Free
Ease-of-Use: Extremely Easy
Details:
Cost: Free
Ease-of-Use: Extremely Easy & Fun!
I really didn’t want to like DropTask. It just seemed too easy and too simplistic to be of any serious value for anything other than a simple task list. But I kept coming back to it and I actually found the process of entering tasks and moving them around to be ENJOYABLE. I simply can’t explain it.
The product doesn’t offer some of the advanced options available in other solutions in this list, but what it does, it does really, REALLY well. DropTask has huge potential and might well become the next evolution of agile development. I could easily see it outperforming other methodologies for specific use cases (although admittedly, no use cases spring to mind).
That’s why I’m ranking this one as #3 on my list.
Details:
Cost: Free, $5/user/month, $15/user/month
Ease-of-Use: Extremely Easy
In many ways, Leankit is the de facto standard of Kanban boards. It’s quick to setup, easy to understand and yet has huge complexity within reach if you need it. No other board on this list was able to cover both angles: the simple & complex, combined in one easy-to-use product.
Details:
Cost: Cheap – ongoing cost = post-its + markers
Ease-of-Use: Extremely Easy
As I wrote this blog post, I didn’t have a clear winner in mind. In fact, when brainstorming specifically about physical boards, I was surprised how many disadvantages there are.
Even so, I can’t escape a few simple facts that make a physical whiteboard my favorite. You have complete control over the design of your board. You see immediate visual cues without logging in or bringing up a webpage. You experience the inexplicable satisfaction of moving “done” post-it notes across the board and “archived” ones into a physical trash can.
But physical boards are chock-full of deal breakers for some people. No remote access. No audit trail. No automated analysis reports. Yet even after acknowledging these deal-breakers, physical boards are my firm favorite.
Details:
As I mentioned before, there are a LOT of agile board solutions out there. Here’s a handful of honorable mentions that didn’t make it onto the list:
Blossom.io
Flow.io
Greenhopper for Jira
Hansoft
Kanbanize
KanbanPM
ScrumBoard
Simple-Kanban
Swift-Kanban
TeamScrumboard
ToolsForAgile
Trichord
YouKan
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