15 product roadmap tools to consider (free and paid) – LogRocket Blog

My greatest career achievement was when I was recognized as “GIF Master” for my GIFs in the company Slack channel. A close second is that I’ve written over 600,000 words in the past two years.

Editor’s note: This blog was updated on 18 April, 2023 to add five tools (four paid and one free) that were not previously included in the article. 

One of the most powerful tools in a product manager’s bag is the product roadmap. It’s an important part of communicating product strategy to stakeholders and your team.

In this guide, we’ll introduce you to 15 product roadmap tools — 11 paid solutions and four free alternatives — that can help your team be more productive and efficient.

Table of contents

What is a product roadmap?

A product roadmap outlines the future product development and marketing plan. It’s a visual representation of the product vision and how to get there. It often contains detailed notes and tasks assigned to particular product team members.

The product roadmap is essentially a way for a product team to stay organized and focused on what’s important to optimize the development and delivery of the product. It shows progress on a project, estimated timelines, and what should be done next.

Why use product roadmapping software?

Product roadmapping software makes it simpler to keep track of large to-do lists, backlogs, and ideas. A roadmap helps to keep the various teams and stakeholders involved in building a product on track to meet development goals. It can also be a place for online collaboration and communication between employees.

Roadmapping enables product managers to more effectively:

• Communicate priorities — a roadmap visibly demonstrates why it’s important for a particular task to be completed in the grand scheme of a project
• Engage stakeholders — stakeholders require updates on progress and what is happening, and roadmaps are an excellent visual aid to ensure efficient communication and build consensus for your product vision
• Provide visibility into work — transparency is crucial to building trust with stakeholders. A roadmap can help provide visibility into what your team is working on and why
• Drive efficiency — a roadmap contains all critical information in one place, which makes it easier for cross-functional teams to understand priorities and what they should be working on
• Foster collaboration — product roadmapping software provides real-time communication tools, enabling teams to quickly huddle (virtually) to answer questions and discuss new ideas

Choosing the right product roadmap software will completely depend on your team, its work style, and your budget and business goals.

Below are a few things to evaluate when adopting a new product roadmap software.

Functionality

Consider what tools you need for your team to successfully use a roadmap.

Is your team used to GANTT charts, PERT charts, kanban boards, something else? Do you need export/import capabilities? Do you need different viewing permissions for stakeholders versus your team?

Answering these types of questions can aid in your search for a roadmapping software solution.

Visualization

A visually appealing roadmap can help support your decisions when prioritizing the backlog. Whether you’re communicating with your team, your customers, business leaders, or other stakeholders in the product development process, data visualization makes it easier to communicate your product strategy.

Budget

For some companies, budget is not an issue. Others are more cautious with their expenses.

Consider your company’s budget while also considering your needs as a product manager when choosing a roadmapping tool.

Collaboration

A good product roadmap tool allows for real-time modifications and communication. The ability to take feedback and quickly incorporate it into your roadmap in one place is a major benefit of roadmapping software.

Let’s review some popular roadmapping tools and explore why they might be a good fit for your team.

Trello: Simple product roadmapping tool for small teams

Trello is a visual and easy-to-use project management tool. It’s a kanban-style list-making application that provides a simple way to organize your team’s tasks.

Trello’s boards, lists, and cards can help a team move from ideas to functioning features with real-time updates.

Trello makes it simple to get started because it provides numerous templates to create workflows. These templates can help you track product development, manage agile sprints, and collect data on feedback.

If you need multiple integrations, Trello has “Power-Ups” that can connect with tools such as Dropbox and Google Drive. It can make your product roadmap easier to understand and swiftly move the workflow along.

Most of Trello’s features are free to use. Paid plans range from $6.00 to $17.50 per user per month. Features in paid plans can include unlimited boards, timeline view, and simple data export.

The free plan enables users to have up to 10 boards. If you’re a small team with a limited budget, Trello might be an easy option to get started on product roadmapping.

Pros
Cons

Easy to share with stakeholders
Not designed specifically for product roadmapping

Easily integrates with other apps in your workflow
Limited functionality

Visually appealing
Can’t create different levels of access for different stakeholders

airfocus: Easily customizable roadmapping software

airfocus is specifically designed for product roadmapping. It has an easy-to-use roadmap builder and can be customized to meet the needs of the product team.

No matter how unorthodox your process, airfocus is flexible enough to match your team’s collaboration style. It offers several views including kanban boards, tables, timelines, and more.

It also has unique features, such as custom scoring frameworks to automate prioritization. airfocus also has Priority Poker, an interactive negotiation meeting with stakeholders to discuss product priorities.

airfocus has a 14-day free trial. Once it’s over, plans range from $19–109 per user per month. If you pay annually, you’ll get two months free. There is no free version of airfocus available.

Pros
Cons

Customization makes it easy to fit your team’s work style
Some integrations are only available in higher-tiered plans

Can change access views for different stakeholders
The lowest-tier plan only has one workspace

Syncs with several popular online tools
No free tier

ProductPlan: Beautiful, ready-to-go roadmap templates

ProductPlan prides itself on its ability to help product managers easily build and share roadmaps. PMs looking to impress stakeholders with a visual roadmap will enjoy ProductPlan. It has many templates, which can be customized using a drag-and-drop builder.

One of the key benefits of ProductPlan is the ability to create different levels of viewing access for stakeholders. For example, the development team might receive a more granular version of the roadmap while investors might see a roadmap dictating the vision and direction. This saves product managers time because they don’t have to create multiple roadmaps for each stakeholder.

The basic plan starts at $49 per user per month. Premium plans are only available on an annual basis starting at $828 per user for one year. It’s a more expensive option, so you’ll want to take advantage of the 14-day free trial to determine whether this is the best option for your team.

Pros
Cons

Unlimited viewers (meaning they don’t have editing privileges but can view the roadmap)
More expensive compared to other tools

Great visualization for every person on your team
Functionality can be overwhelming for newcomers

Many customization options

Productboard: Best for prioritization

Productboard helps teams organize feedback, prioritize tasks, and create a visual roadmap. By putting a focus on customer feedback, product teams are more likely to focus on meaningful backlog items, which will improve sprint planning, the customer experience, and, subsequently, revenue.

One of the unique features of Productboard is the ability to collect and organize customer feedback. Listening to your customer’s needs and desires is a crucial part of successfully prioritizing your product tasks.

Productboard has a 15-day free trial with no free plan available. Paid plans start at $25–90 per user per month. Scale and Enterprise plans require custom quotes.

Subscribe to our product management newsletter
Get articles like this to your inbox

Notice: JavaScript is required for this content.

Pros
Cons

Makes it easier to analyze customer feedback for prioritization
One of the more expensive product roadmap tools

Different views are available for different stakeholders
Only has kanban and timeline views

Has a backlog import feature
Advanced features such as Slack integration are not available in the basic plan

Wrike: A real-time collaboration and productivity tool

Wrike is a product management tool with a focus on improving internal collaboration and communication. This can help boost employee productivity by ensuring everyone is aligned with the product roadmap.

This tool can help centralize product discussion by uniting messages across cross-functional teams. Wrike claims this can help break down silos and organize key decisions. The workflows make it easier to see what progress is being made and eliminates the need for check-in emails.

Wrike offers a free plan, which includes features such as task management, live activity stream, interactive boards, and spreadsheet views. Paid plans have more advanced features, including interactive GANTT charts, shareable dashboards, and custom workflows.

Plans range from $9.80–24.80 per user per month. Large teams may ask for a custom quote. Wrike also offers a 14–day free trial of its paid plans.

Pros
Cons

Helps facilitate collaboration across internal teams
Advanced features such as custom workflows only available in premium plans

Improves time efficiency
Learning curve

Contains prebuilt product templates

Aha!: A comprehensive tool for incorporating product strategy

Aha! is one of the most popular product management tools, boasting more than 500,000 users. This product management tool can easily create a timeline with details tailored to specific stakeholders. The drag-and-drop builder makes it easy to collaborate with other team members and convey important information on the timeline.

Product managers like using Aha! because it does more than create a compelling visual roadmap; it also includes other features not found in other roadmap tools, such as setting a product strategy, crowdsourcing ideas, and reporting on progress. Having one software tool that can accomplish all of these tasks makes product development easier in myriad ways.

Aha! plans start at $59 per user per month if paid annually. There is a 30-day free trial that enables you to test all features in the Enterprise plan.

Aha! is one of the most expensive tools on this list, but it does include everything you need for successful product development.

Pros
Cons

Generous 30-day free trial
Most expensive, especially if you add additional features

All-in-one place for product development needs
Time-intensive to set up all features

Nearly everything is customizable
Contains more features than some product teams need

Roadmunk: End-to-end product roadmapping

Roadmunk has several product roadmapping features, such as milestones, various roadmap styles, and tracking ownership of tasks. It’s easy to import your data and use the drag-and-drop feature to quickly create a product roadmap.

Roadmunk also includes features for collecting feedback from consumers to make informed, customer-driven product decisions. This can help teams confidently decide what to prioritize next when combined with the built-in prioritization scoring method.

All plans start with a 14-day free trial; there is no free plan. Paid plans range from $19–99 per user per month when paid annually. You may have to pay additional fees for advanced features such as additional viewers and two-way Jira+Azure DevOps.

Pros
Cons

Import and export options
Two-way Jira integration is only available in higher-tiered plan

Easy to set up visual product roadmaps
Extra fees to add additional viewers

Includes other features, such as capturing feedback and prioritizing ideas

Monday.com: Intuitive product roadmap with high-level summaries

Monday.com‘s product roadmap tool is more complex than most other options, so it’s best for larger teams that can really make the most out of all of its features and tools. One of it’s main highlights is its “high-level visual summary that explains the vision and direction of your product over time.”

Pricing varies based on the number of seats and access to functionality. Individuals can use Monday.com for free (up to two seats), and the paid plans range from “Basic,” “Standard,” and “Pro” at $8, $10, and $16 per seat per month, respectively. There’s also an enterprise option that can be coordinated and priced with their sales team.

Monday.com is designed to be customized, so it may not be the best option if you want something more boilerplate. It will likely take time to set up and get running, and with its vast features, will have a steeper learning curve.

Pros
Cons

Highly customizable roadmap templates

No free plan available

Wide range of integrations and automations
Can be overwhelming for new users

Multiple roadmap views (list, board, timeline, etc.)
Some features only available in higher-tier plans

Asana: Comprehensive work management with easy roadmapping

Asana is a popular, comprehensive tool for work and project management. They have a lot of product offerings across the work management space, and their products are all-around very solid. It’s quite user-friendly and doesn’t require a lot of time to build it out.

Another very helpful perk of Asana is that it has very comprehensive documentation. They publish a lot of content on various project management topics that can help users as they navigate the software.

Asana offers a basic, “free forever” plan for individuals who need the basics. Their “Premium” plan — designed for teams — is $10.99 per user per month, and their “Business” plan is $24.99 per user per month.

Pros
Cons

User-friendly and easy to scale
Limited free plan, teams will almost certainly need to pay

Integrations with popular tools
Limited roadmap customization options

Lots of resources available across their site

ClickUp

A lot of people talk about ClickUp — and for good reason! Though we’re writing about it here as a paid tool, it’s free plan is very generous. In terms of product roadmaps, it doesn’t have as many bells and whistles as some of its competitors, but it’s listed as an “advanced” feature.

Even just by looking at the demos, it’s less user-friendly than, say, Asana. Nonetheless, it comes with a small batch of free templates so you don’t have to build from scratch:

ClickUp is free for personal use with 100MB of storage — a pretty sweet deal for individuals who want to keep track of work on their own. For small teams, it’s $9 per member per month, $19 for mid-sized teams (their “Business” plan), and $29 for a “Business Plus” plan. Enterprise plans are negotiated through ClickUp directly.

Pros
Cons

Multiple roadmap views (list, board, Gantt, etc.)
Complicated UI, steeper learning curve for new users

Generous free plan for individuals
Some advanced features only available in paid plans

Goal tracking and automation capabilities

Craft.io

Craft.io is different from many of the other sites listed here because it’s purpose is specific to building product roadmaps. It offers other aspects of project management as well, including strategy and capacity planning. It’s highly customizable and has been pushing continuous updates to improve its tools and features.

Craft.io has a strong focus on integrating with other tools and promoting collaboration amongst teams, so it’s rather complex and has a steep learning curve. With that, it is a bit on the pricier side — it’s most basic plan is $39 per user per month, and a “Pro” subscription costs $89 per editor per month.

Pros
Cons

Designed specifically for product roadmaps
Expensive plans not ideal for small teams

Comprehensive integrations with other tools
Steep learning curve

Supports agile methodologies

Some tools we’ve mentioned, such as Trello, have free plans, but they often restrict certain features to paid users. However, there are other free alternatives that do not impose strict limitations.

Bitrix24

Bitrix24 offers simple product management tools and a variety of views, including a GANTT chart, kanban board, calendar, or planner. It also provides tools to help you efficiently manage scrum teams and projects.

The free plan is fairly comprehensive and may include enough features to serve your product team’s needs. You can also upgrade to get more advanced features, such as allowing observers and participants to your roadmap.

TeamGantt

TeamGantt has a simple drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to customize prebuilt templates. Since it’s all online, TeamGantt allows for easy collaboration between team members.

The free plan is a great option for students and small projects. It includes one manager, two collaborators, one project, and 60 tasks. For more advanced features, you can try the 30-day trial for a premium plan.

OpenProject

If you’re looking for an on-premise solution, OpenProject may be a viable product management tool. It’s also available on the cloud.

The basic free plan includes features such as custom fields and workflows, user permissions, and time tracking.

FreedCamp

Lastly, we have Freedcamp. It’s not specifically built for product roadmapping but can certainly be modified and adapted for that purpose. It has unlimited projects, tasks, and users under its free plan and comes with customizable tasks, subtasks, and milestones.

With its calendar, Gantt chart, and Kanban board views, Freedcamp enables teams to visualize their product roadmaps in various formats.

Which product roadmap solution is right for you?

You may need to sign up for a handful of free trials to find the product roadmapping software that fits your product team’s needs. Above all else, look for a tool that enables you to effectively communicate your product strategy, track and report on your progress, and facilitate collaboration with employees and stakeholders.

Featured image source: IconScout