10 Best Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Software In 2023
This article will help you quickly compare and evaluate the best product lifecycle management software and other PLM solutions.
Product lifecycle management is a process in which companies can track, control, and influence the introduction and growth of their product in order to keep it relevant in the market for as long as possible. PLM solutions are important because they provide a central place for managing the development, product design, launch, and marketing of a product from start to finish.
In this post, I’ll highlight a few of the best PLM package options for enterprise lifecycle control and give a synopsis of some noteworthy product management tools currently on the market.
Check This Out: An Updated Approach To The Product Life Cycle
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Overviews Of The Top PLM Application Options
Here’s a brief description of each of the PLM process tools that are featured on this top 10 PLM software list.
1
Wrike
Best product lifecycle dashboards & data visualizations
Wrike is a collaboration and project management platform that can be used to help manage a product’s life cycle by bringing the entire operation into a single platform, from conception to analysis. Increased communication and documentation between team members ensure that all relevant schedules and data are easily accessible, allowing for easy communication between integrated platforms and even external stakeholders.
Wrike has five different software packages with varying feature sets, with the most limited one being the Free plan and the most extensive one being the Pinnacle plan. The PLM process involves planning, designing, marketing, producing, and managing resources, which are covered by Wrike’s features in any plan. The more feature-heavy plans can make PLM easier since they come with dedicated PPM, real-time reports, AI project risk prediction, and extensive collaboration tools.
Wrike works well as a product lifecycle management software thanks to its suite of product management features that allow you to monitor a product’s health during its introduction, growth, maturity, and decline stages. This can help users understand their products more to prepare for the next launch or to find ways to improve upon existing products.
Different products will naturally have different PLMs and Wrike’s customizable templates can help accommodate these. This is locked behind the Business plan’s paywall, which is extremely useful when paired with other Business-exclusive features. The more limited Wrike plans may not work well as a PLM software solution, but most of the paid plans should be fine for most managers.
Integrations include 400+ pre-built native integrations, including integrations with the most popular file management software from Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox, along with sales and marketing software from Salesforce and Marketo.
Wrike costs from $9.80/user/month and offers a 14-day free trial.
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.2
2544
Free plan available
From $9.80/user/month
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2
Productboard
Best for tech companies
Productboard is an agile product management tool best suited for digital industries that lets users scrap spreadsheets, consolidate user feedback, define product strategy, earn buy-in for plans, and preserve existing workflows. Productboard is an IoT company trusted by customers like Zoom, Zendesk, and Avast.
Productboard has a pleasant visual interface that maps insights out into product ideas and features that make it easy to create timely and relevant products using organized and detailed information from different sources across the production process.
Because Productboard caters to clients in tech, many features can take more time to learn. More training videos and tutorials would be helpful to users who are just getting started with such robust software.
Productboard costs from $20 and offers a 15-day free trial.
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.3
197
15-day free trial
From $20/user/month
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3
Propel
Best for those in the Salesforce ecosystem
Propel is a cloud-native product solution that allows its users to gather and optimize new product introduction, collaborate on a company-wide scale, design quality data databases, and leverage productivity tools. Propel even offers accessibility through your phone using their smart mobile app.
Propel is a user-friendly platform that helps you stay organised with workflow customization features that enable you to provide customers with better service, monitor product details and operations, and even compare revisions details.
Because Propel is built on Salesforce, having no previous experience with Salesforce may result in an additional learning curve.
Propel offers a free demo and customized pricing is available upon request. Note that Propel offers packages with a minimum of 10 users.
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.5
122
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4
Siemens Teamcenter
Best for companies with advanced needs
Teamcenter is Siemens PLM software—an adaptable product lifecycle management system that’s deployable on-premise or by cloud SaaS that has features for BOM management, change management, document management, and NX integration among others. It promises to connect people and processes across domains and departments and throughout your supply chain.
Siemens Teamcenter has a simple interface that makes the software easy to understand and use. CAD history and revisions are accessible and easy to import and export, toolbars are customizable, and viewing 3D models without the need for integrations makes Teamcenter one of the best in the market.
Because Siemens Teamcenter caters to more comprehensive and advanced needs, opening large data files, 3D models, tends to cause delay and lag. Some may find navigation a bit of a challenge due to the sheer number of features within the software.
Siemens Teamcenter offers a 30-day free trial and customized pricing is available upon request.
30 days free trial
Pricing Upon Request
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5
Andromeda PLM by NGC
Best for manufacturing giants
Andromeda PLM by NGC is a cloud-based product lifecycle management system made for the fashion and footwear industries. It comes with features for planning, merchandising, design, costing, sampling, quality, bill of materials creation, and sourcing. It’s also equipped with workflow calendars and customisable dashboards.
With Andromeda PLM by NGC, companies can create a database of all the information necessary for the manufacturing processes all the way through launch and marketing. Transactions are a breeze with no more missing information from suppliers, vendors, and collaborators. Technical specifications are standardised and quickly understood by manufacturers.
Andromeda PLM comes across as slightly outdated when it comes to their graphical user interface. Cutting edge brands may not feel inspired by the lackluster UI or stale. Text-heavy layout. However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this can all be overlooked.
Andromeda PLM by NGC offers a free demo and customized pricing is available upon request.
Pricing Upon Request
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6
Aras PLM
Best for North American teams
Aras Innovator is trusted by companies such as GE, Honda, Motorola, and XEROX and is used in almost 150 countries. It comes with the following features: new product development and introduction, multi-CAD data management and visualization, project management, and configuration and change management.
Aras Innovator makes it easy to connect with other software through its many integrations, allowing users to put things in and pull things out of the software without much trouble.
Unfortunately for more simple users, Aras Innovator can come off as a rather sophisticated or more advanced piece of software. There are a lot of opportunities to customize but it’s not easy doing so, making it seem like Aras Innovator enjoys making users rack up on their number of clicks within the software.
Aras Innovator offers pricing details upon request.
Pricing Upon Request
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7
Bamboo Rose
Best for multi-enterprise supply chains
Bamboo Rose is a multi-enterprise and supply chain platform that strives to reduce cycle time and sampling costs through a variety of productivity and efficiency features. The tool can help by giving users one version of truth, real-time design and product development processing features, standardized design elements, and collaborative 3D designing, as well as a strong private label product portfolio.
Bamboo Rose enables users to work with various suppliers in one platform, streamlining multiple processes and getting rid of siloed information. The platform makes it easy to see all the relevant data across different aspects of the development and production cycle.
Bamboo Rose is packed with features which means that there could be a learning curve in terms of navigation and feature set mastery.
Bamboo Rose provides pricing details upon request.
Pricing Upon Request
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8
Upchain
Best for SMBs
Upchain is a cloud PLM software solution for modern manufacturing that allows users to securely collaborate on a global scale. Upchain enables users to work together in real time to keep projects going without delays, allowing you to stay within budget. Upchain comes with CAD and Microsoft Office plugins, BOM management, API integrations, ECR creation and management and so much more.
Upchain provides users with a single source of truth where documentation is easily accessible and their cloud technology makes it so that no matter where team members and collaborators are, all the information is available to everyone. Their transparent and modest pricing makes them a great PIM starting point for small and medium businesses.
As Upchain continues to improve its services, many features customers are looking for are still in the works. One thing they’ve managed to overlook is the fact that their tutorials have now become outdated. It doesn’t help that some terms may cause confusion in entry-level users.
Upchain costs from $30/user, offers 3 pricing plans, and a free demo.
Free Demo
From $30/user
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9
Centric Retail PLM
Best for multicategory retail companies
Centric Retail PLM comes with features that let users speed up time to market, increase product introduction success, boost product innovation, launch more SKUs, get closer to customers, lower COGS & improve product margins, streamline private/white label and supplier co-created development, and maximize product assortment value.
Centric Retail PLM not only serves as a central process and storage solution, it is also a global platform that allows companies to respond to their customers and communicate with team members no matter where they are.
Centric Retail PLM is designed for companies with thousands of suppliers, vendors, retailers, and products in mind and so the many features in the software, a number of them customizable, may pose a challenge to new users.
Centric Retail PLM offers a free demo and customized pricing is available upon request.
Pricing Upon Request
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10
ClickUp
Best collaborative, free PLM software
ClickUp is PLM software that offers everything from task lists, collaborative docs, in-app chat, and goal tracking. Thanks to a broad range of features, they can help you manage all the moving parts of your product lifecycle. ClickUp is currently used by over 800,000 teams across companies like Samsung, Belmond, Booking.com, and IBM.
Key features include various customizable task status reports, bug and issue tracking, sprint automations, marketing campaign management, drag-and-drop content schedules, collaborative mind maps, and Form automations for customer feedback.
ClickUp offers native integrations with Slack, G Suite, Dropbox, and many more tools, as well as over 1,000+ integrations through Zapier.
ClickUp is free to use for unlimited users with some feature limitations. Paid plans cost from $5/user/month and offer a 30-day refund policy if you’re unsatisfied with the app.
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7
4135
Freemium plan available
From $9/user/month
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The Top PLM Application Options Summary
Other PLM Tools
Here’s a few more that didn’t make the top list. If you need additional suggestions for product lifecycle management, check these out.
Related Read: 10 Best ALM Software For Managing Digital Product Life Cycles [2023]
PLM Systems FAQ
Have some questions about the processes and tools used across a product lifespan? Check out this handy FAQ.
What is PLM software?
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software is a digital tool that helps to manage the resources required to design, launch, test, market, and administrate a product or service. PLM software will most likely offer functionality to oversee data, processes, business systems, and people/time resources. You can also use Agile PLM software, which is the same thing but following an Agile methodology.
What is Database Lifecycle Management?
Database lifecycle management is similar to product lifecycle management in that it is a process by which to navigate the creation, development, marketing, and launch of a commodity or goods. Database lifecycle management, however, is a policy-driven approach to managing data assets, databases, and database-related items in particular.
What is the Difference Between PLM Software vs PDM Software ?
PDM vs PLM…what’s the difference? Product lifecycle management (PLM) and product data management (PDM) share some similarities, namely that they are both centered around processes designed to unify and control a business asset—be it a product/service item or a collection of data. Sometimes these two processes meet in “product data management” operations, which do all of the above.
PLM tools are centered around the planning, design, execution, testing, launch, and marketing of a single product or series of products. PLM is a strategic business approach that touches many areas of the product development process and can be useful for everyone from engineers to stakeholders.
PLM tends to encompass:
- Workflows
- Milestones or stage gates
- CAD/BOM syncing
- Change management processes.
PDM tools, on the other hand, are all about the collection, navigation, storage, and security of a different type of asset: data. PDM focuses on being fast and easy to maintain; it is a tool only for engineers and tends to be cheaper than the “all-encompassing” nature of PLM.
PDM tends to encompass:
- Controlling and maintaining a “master file”
- Tracking each changes with each new version update
- Assigning part numbers for each part/file across the overarching assembly
- Digital asset management software
What Do You Think About the Above Product Lifecycle Management Software?
Have you tried out any of the software product life cycle tools listed above? What product lifecycle management marketing tools would you add to this list? Let us know in the comment section.
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