Skip to main content
TrustRadius
ActiveCollab

ActiveCollab

Overview

What is ActiveCollab?

Active Collab is a project management solution built around features such as task management, collaboration, time tracking, and invoicing.

Read more

Learn from top reviewers

A lot to be improved but better than nothing

Rating: 1 out of 10
June 29, 2023
Vetted ReviewVerified User
Our team attempts to use ActiveCollab to keep track of tasks allocated/in progress/delivered across a number of project types and clients - as the workload/scheduling function...
Continue reading
Verified user
Manager
ActiveCollab1 year of experience

Works great for our sprint/scrum tasks, just be aware of limitations and avoid the mobile app

Rating: 8 out of 10
November 29, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
ActiveCollab allows us to manage each of our sprints (which last two weeks) and our tasks within those sprints. Tasks are assigned accordingly, and we can track our time as we...
Continue reading
Verified user
Employee
ActiveCollab4 years of experience

Great option for small businesses

Rating: 6 out of 10
November 20, 2019
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
ActiveCollab is used by the client services department for communication with clients regarding their projects. Having a centralized platform for reviews allows all parties to...
Continue reading
Nancy Ross
Director - Marketing
Director
ROMI Lab
ActiveCollab4 years of experience

Strong project management tool that provides a great set of features

Rating: 10 out of 10
November 7, 2019
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
ActiveCollab is being used in our company as a project management tool. We utilize it for our traditional and digital services. For our digital services, we use it to manage a...
Continue reading
Mike Muller
Administrator - Corporate
Executive Vice President
Stevens Advertising
ActiveCollab3 years of experience

ActiveCollab or Actively looking for another solution?

Rating: 6 out of 10
September 25, 2019
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
Our support team utilizes ActiveCollab to manage projects that are specific to their department. Overall, it's a fine enough system, but there are some quirks and challenges t...
Continue reading
Joshua VanMeter
Director - Marketing
Digital Marketing Director
Max Effect Marketing
ActiveCollab1 year of experience
Log in with LinkedIn to see content from your network
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing

ActiveCollab Project Management

$8

Cloud
per member/per month

Self-Hosted Plan

$999.00

On Premise
license

Entry-level set up fee?

  • $6.25 per member, per month, annual billing
    Optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://activecollab.com/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Return to navigation

Features

Project Management

Project management software provides capabilities to streamline management of complex projects through task management, team collaboration and workflow automation

3.6
Avg 7.6

Professional Services Automation

Features that support professional services organizations

5.7
Avg 7.5
Return to navigation

Product Details

What is ActiveCollab?

ActiveCollab is a project management software designed to give users complete control over work. The tool is equipped with features to help users organize work and keep free from distractions, even when working remote: workload management, time tracking, project profitability, task dependencies, invoicing, collaborative options, third-party integrations, etc.

The vendor states that ActiveCollab will give companies a boost and an enjoyable transition towards remote work, with their 90-day trial offer.

They further state that ActiveCollab is used by teams of all backgrounds - from large teams in international corporations to small startups, and everything in between.

ActiveCollab Features

Project Management Features

  • Supported: Task Management
  • Supported: Resource Management
  • Supported: Gantt Charts
  • Supported: Scheduling
  • Supported: Team Collaboration
  • Supported: Support for Agile Methodology
  • Supported: Document Management
  • Supported: Email integration
  • Supported: Mobile Access
  • Supported: Timesheet Tracking
  • Supported: Change request and Case Management
  • Supported: Budget and Expense Management

Professional Services Automation Features

  • Supported: Quotes/estimates
  • Supported: Invoicing
  • Supported: Project & financial reporting
  • Supported: Integration with accounting software

Additional Features

  • Supported: Time Tracking
  • Supported: Task Dependencies
  • Supported: Discussion Boards
  • Supported: Group Calendars
  • Supported: Project Management
  • Supported: IT Project Management
  • Supported: Percent-Complete Tracking
  • Supported: Project Planning
  • Supported: Time & Expense Tracking

ActiveCollab Screenshots

Screenshot of the dashboard with an overview of projects.Screenshot of multiple task views currently showing a Kanban view of the tasklists and tasks.Screenshot of Overview of all recent activity.Screenshot of Calendar view with task dependencies.Screenshot of Permission settings (owner, member, client, client+).Screenshot of List of available Add-ons.Screenshot of Online payment options.Screenshot of ActiveCollab Workload is a visual resource management tool built for agencies and creative professionalsScreenshot of Everyone’s availability at a glance. You'll know immediately who's available and who's not. Say no to updating spreadsheets! Everyone will be on the same page.Screenshot of Multiple task views currently showing a Kanban view of the task lists and tasksScreenshot of List of tasks with high priority options, assignees, due dates, and task dependenciesScreenshot of Break down your entire work into tasks your team can tackle right away. Deadlines will never surprise you again. Actual priorities are given priority, and everyone is accountable for their work.

ActiveCollab Videos

ActiveCollab Walkthrough - A 7-minute video that covers the basics of using ActiveCollab.
The calendar in ActiveCollab shows everything that has a due date.
ActiveCollab centralizes people management. Instead of inviting users one by one, creating a team invites them all at once.
ActiveCollab is about people working together. This video describes how to get started with a team invite.
An overview of ActiveCollab's new and enhanced features.
ActiveCollab Workload is a visual resource management tool built for agencies and creative professionals
ActiveCollab's Project Management Features

ActiveCollab Integrations

ActiveCollab Competitors

ActiveCollab Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux, Mac
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android
Supported CountriesAll Countries
Supported LanguagesBrazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, or Turkish.

Frequently Asked Questions

Active Collab is a project management solution built around features such as task management, collaboration, time tracking, and invoicing.

Basecamp, monday.com, and Teamwork.com are common alternatives for ActiveCollab.

Reviewers rate Integration with accounting software highest, with a score of 7.9.

The most common users of ActiveCollab are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews From Top Reviewers

View all reviews
(1-5 of 8)

Strong project management tool that provides a great set of features

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
November 07, 2019
MM
Mike Muller
Executive Vice President
Stevens Advertising (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
ActiveCollab
3 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
ActiveCollab is being used in our company as a project management tool. We utilize it for our traditional and digital services. For our digital services, we use it to manage agile workflows along with timeline and task management. It's used by our entire organization and feeds our billing department as well.
Pros
  • Simple interface.
  • Flexible setup of tags and categories.
  • Handles agile and waterfall type workflows well.
Cons
  • Could use more flexibility in setting up categories.
  • It would be nice to have multiple Kanban boards inside a project.
  • The search functionality could be improved.
Likelihood to Recommend
ActiveCollab is well suited for small to medium-sized organizations that want strong project management tools at an affordable cost. It's nice that we can use the self-hosted version to help control costs and utilize the current hosting infrastructure. It's not as appropriate for very large organizations or organizations requiring many different task categories.

ActiveCollab or Actively looking for another solution?

Rating: 6 out of 10
Incentivized
September 25, 2019
JV
Joshua VanMeter
Digital Marketing Director
Max Effect Marketing (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
ActiveCollab
1 year of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Our support team utilizes ActiveCollab to manage projects that are specific to their department. Overall, it's a fine enough system, but there are some quirks and challenges that need to be addressed before the system can be utilized fluently. We're still working through these challenges, but the system seems to be working as expected.
Pros
  • Simple project management
  • Organized task lists
  • Solid user management tools
Cons
  • Uninspired design
  • Very basic text editing features, minimal support for screenshots (you get 1 per task/message update)
Likelihood to Recommend
This is a system built by engineers for engineer-minded people. Nothing fancy, but it does do exactly what you expect it to.

Easy, Straightforward Web-Based Project Management Tool for Small to Mid-size Agencies

Rating: 7 out of 10
Incentivized
September 02, 2016
JB
Jorden Beatty
Digital Marketing Director
LGD Communications (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
ActiveCollab
3 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Active Collab as our primary project management system and workflow tool. The agency as a whole uses the platform as a way to manage our projects both onsite and off, and even on mobile, as needed. It serves its purpose as a project management platform with a plethora of add-ons, plugins and key features that help us get the most from our project management needs.
Pros
  • Great for project and task assignments, project workflow and communications.
  • Solid web-based platform that doesn't require software downloads, also includes great mobile platform.
  • Great reporting tools for managing billing, estimating, project workflow and other essential project details.
  • Allows for both the agency and its clients to interact on a single platform using role-specific permissions.
Cons
  • As a web-based platform, sometimes things go down on their end and we lose access to our project management tool to the ire of all.
  • Project searching can be hit or miss, and filtered search often leaves out projects that should have shown.
  • Email alerts are often not as helpful as they seem.
Likelihood to Recommend
Active Collab is great for small teams who want a web-based project management platform to help them on their day-to-day workflow tasks, billing, estimations, vendor assignments and even client communications. It is also great for agencies with users who are sometimes remotely working. Active Collab starts to show shortcomings when you have an immense amount of projects in the system (1000+), and, being a web-based platform, can sometimes experience downtime.

ActiveCollab a boon for T&M projects

Rating: 7 out of 10
Incentivized
May 28, 2018
Use Cases and Deployment Scope

For two teams Active Collab is being used in my organization as project management tool after our customer decided to move to agile scrum framework from waterfall. Earlier these teams were using HP ALM.

Since project moved from fixed capacity to T&M, Active Collab was very helpful since its billing & invoice features allows you generate the invoices easily.

Here cost can be easily assigned to each team member, Team members can start the timer after they start their work, then allows you to export the time records of team members making it easy to complete the billing.

It tells us precisely how much budget you've spent, who is working on what with how much capacity available and how deadlines and responsibilities overlap across multiple projects.

Thus AC served as excellent tool providing a great snapshot of team work at any given point to customer.

Pros
  • Its billing & invoice feature worked pretty well for T&M teams. ActiveCollab version 5, the current version, allows you to directly track time to tasks using the Timer app and later create invoices based on those time entries. Their statuses will change through phases, as you are pending payment, or after they are set as paid.
  • Here cost can be easily assigned to each team member, Team members can start the timer after they start their work, then allows you to export the time records of team members making it easy to complete the billing.
  • File sharing feature is very useful for distributed teams as we can we can easily share files, screenshots.
  • Also ActiveCollab ability to connect to Google docs, attach images and link to web pages make it unique from other project management tools.
  • AC easily allows you to track your daily tasks & serves reminder if miss on the targets defined by giving daily / weekly reminders regarding tasks and any that have gone over due dates.
  • ActiveCollab is quite easy to use. With just a few clicks, you can create a new project.
  • The dashboard and options are easy to see and it is well laid out.
  • Here user have an opportunity to select the number of emails they receive from ActiveCollab and for some email providers, such as Gmail grouping is enabled. So rather than getting multiple mails, it send you a summary of all the daily notifications in one mail.
  • It allows users to upload several files at once on task comments, and if you are set with the owner role, or have the member role but are a project leader, you have a Batch Edit option available on project level. This allows you to edit multiple tasks at once and change all the details on them, such as assignee, due dates, labels, importance, and more.
Cons
  • It does not provide support to scaled agile frameworks like SAfe which is there for Rally & AgileCraft.
Likelihood to Recommend
Scenarios where ActiveCollab works well
1) ActiveCollab works well for small teams specifically T&M teams.Its invoicing feature is unique & can make your life easy.
2) It is very easy to use & posses good range of filters like on the task list, we can drag/drop tasks, Filter by assignee's, tasks lists, due dates, or completed tasks.
3) It has some simple but awesome features like when you're in the middle of writing something i.e a comment on story and get interrupted, it retains what you wrote.
4) It allows you to tag team members in threads of comments to grab their attention, its really needed when teams are distributed. Thus helping team members to collaborate easily & stay on same page.
5) It integrates pretty well with other web apps like quickbooks , Slack, Trello, HubSpot, Zapier etc

Scenarios where ActiveCollab did not work well
1) Tasks can not have multiple assignee's here so if two members are working on same task it did not allow you to reflect that.
2) Sorting capability is not their under invoicing
3) It did not work well for larger teams
4) Search option is not very detailed & you may end up wasting lot of time searching one particular bug or issue.

The best project management tool that you didn't know about

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
September 02, 2016
KH
Kevin Horler
Project Director
Vividfish Ltd. (Internet, 1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
ActiveCollab
1 year of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Active Collab to manage all projects within our web design/digital marketing business. Having tried many other project management options, we found Active Collab to be the only one that offered all the features that we need at a sensible price point. Using it has enabled all of our team, including freelancers to keep up to date with all projects they are involved in whilst giving myself and my fellow directors an instant view of which stage each job is at.
Pros
  • The time tracking desktop app is great, giving both a list of assigned tasks and allowing time spent on them to be recorded quickly and easily.
  • Xero integration means that all time tracked can be used to create invoices within our chosen accounting package with the minimum of fuss.
  • Project templates ensure that each new project is quick and easy to set up and that all internal processes are included within each project.
Cons
  • Notification emails would benefit from being able to set up schedules for reminders when tasks are due for completion.
  • A time tracking app for Linus would be a welcome addition.
Likelihood to Recommend
For me, Active Collab is the ideal project management tool for a busy digital agency.
Return to navigation