ActiveCollab Reviews

Pros

Before I decided to go with ActiveCollab a few years ago, I researched and tried all the project management softwares I could find. I ended up going with ActiveCollab for a number of reasons.

One, their interface is simple, practical, and easy on the eye. I found other project management softwares trying to hard and it essentially complicated simple things. Also, I loved how my projects can be displayed and searched. I know this sounds trivial, but when you manage hundreds of projects (websites), I need an interface that works for me. Their interface works perfectly for someone with my needs. I constantly have to go back and forth on so many notes for projects and ActiveCollab has made it user-friendly for me to do this.

Second, ActiveCollab had awesome customer service when I had any issues or questions. This was a big plus because I then knew I was in good hands.

Third, they had some add-ons other softwares didn't have so it was nice to have features I wanted to use all in one place, like time tracking and invoicing.

Fourth, it was reasonably priced.

Cons

While I went with ActiveCollab, I am still frustrated with some of their features:

One, I use notes A LOT. Their notes interface design looks like something from the 90's.

Two, while they have the invoicing option available, it's sub-par. There are a lot of things they can improve with their invoicing. I wish I could use it, but it's just very limited. An example of a limitation is that you can't even enter or send an invoice without "inviting" the client to join ActiveCollab. I tried testing an invoice by putting an email manually because they claimed you could, but nothing gets sent, unless I "invite" someone into my account. This is silly. Another issue I have with the invoicing is that it shows "Active Collab" as the sender and you do NOT have the option to change this. Kinda stupid.

Three, you only have a measly 3 ways to categorize or filter projects: Client, Category, and Label. This can be very limiting depending on what you're doing.

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

Trello and Slack

Reasons for Choosing ActiveCollab

Better features competitive pricing All around, Active Collab is a more flexible tool that is easier to use

Switched From

Basecamp

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

Pricing and features

Pros

Onboarding is easy, interface is easy to use and understanding. It's also one of the cheapest option in the market. For features that are not available, the ActiveCollab team is keen to consider adding that feature though during our usage, we didn't really see the feature being rolled out.

Cons

I used to use Basecamp and when compared, there are a lot of features that are lacking in ActiveCollab such as being able to create a Gantt timeline, quite messy grouping of projects on the main home page, not able to add vendors (only can add clients, yet we do not use ActiveCollab to collaborate with clients). As a project management tool, we also would like to see how we can gauge the workload of each team mate and if each team mate might be overload within the day or week, this function at the moment is not available. Completed tasked are being archived and under archived, the completed tasks are not organised according to task list. Some features such as invoicing and budget management cannot be adopted by finance team as they uses a more advanced thou legacy system which includes a whole lot of other functions on top of merely invoicing.

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

Trello, Basecamp and Asana

Switched From

Asana

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

Primarily the ability to self host, and have a large team accessing without paying by user per month.

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

Redmine, Jira and Basecamp

Reasons for Choosing ActiveCollab

Jira was so complicated and hard do mantain. I'm talking about 2009

Switched From

Redmine, Jira and Basecamp

Reasons for Switching to ActiveCollab

Price and simples maintenance

Pros

Being able to:
- upload images and files into task discussion threads to facilitate easy review of work
- easily add and archive users
- run reports at the task, project, client, and user levels

Cons

- No integration with Microsoft Teams.
- Limited ability to manage user groups or fine-tune user permissions.
Most needed feature:
- The ability to mark notifications "unread" or "priority".

Pros

Solid options for organization and streamlining processes that even clients can be taught to use. As a creative agency selling our time it's important to communicate quickly and efficiently with our clients. A big part of that happens at the beginning of every project when they fill out a creative brief. We've used ActiveCollab to set up standard brief templates so AC asks all the questions and they go down the list and fill it out. The time tracker works great and is a painless way to keep track of time. Email notifications are great, especially being able to respond to comments VIA email really speeds things up. Support staff is great. Always available and helpful.

Cons

The invoicing functionality is great but is missing major sorting and display capabilities. For example, if I wanted to show each time entry with its note about what that entry was for organized by project, I cannot do that. My wife has also complained about the App not having a lot of functionality, but I have not used it much personally. I also think the 'Notes' 'Files' and 'Discussions' tabs are kind of random. Haven't found a good place for those in our workflows and they're confusing for clients. I realize it's a big thing to ask, but I'd also like to see some way of incorporating something like Slack into Active Collab, so we can move away from Skype completely.

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

It's amazing how flexible AC can be depending on a project's needs. It can serve as a simple reminder list with great speed and simplicity but also get fully blown up for projects involving production teams and clients at once. Compared to its competition it never feels like its dictating you to use it in a certain way, it just hands you a great bunch of options and lets you use them without interference. I use other products like dropbox and dropbox paper too and it all goes together really nicely.
One thing to note is a personal and genuinely helpful customer service, there have been issues and bugs here and there (not many) and in 90% of the cases they were solved within short time.

I think AC is great for freelancers and small project groups working remotely I switched from Basecamp and it was one of a relief.

Cons

I personally don't like the free limitations of users. I know there's a business model behind it but I hate to delete other clients/team members just to make room for someone else.

Pros

In such a complex world, where the time and control factor in operations makes a difference, it is vital to have a platform that allows access to many tasks that, otherwise, would involve and coordinate many people, this type of tools allows us to save costs and reduce involuntary human errors, in everything that refers to the necessary coordination between all the members of the project. The calendar allows to have all the tasks, meetings, and filter the tasks by projects, and if that were not enough, all this can be complemented with the participation of the members remotely, so that it is possible to follow the general state of the proyects. In case of any problem, the support team is attentive to clarify your doubts, there are still elements that we have not had the opportunity to explore, but that, surely, according to our needs we will be using them to solve the growing demands of our organizations.

Cons

As with many platforms, the versions that are used in tables or smart devices show some limitations, in relation to those that are handled by PC, it would be very important to preserve and maximize the benefits when you have other devices and not limit the functions that, After all, knowledge or traditional devices for solving problems are not always available.

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

This software includes all of the features of the leading brands and more in most cases. I compared ActiveCollab to every system out there and tried demos and trials of each as well. It combines robust options with ease of use, and is more affordable than most other options. We can use kan-ban, calendar or list views, and can organize almost everything to our own preference. They also are continuously upgrading the system and adding features. I also like that they have a roadmap on their website so you know what they will be working on next. Top quality product and service.

Cons

We used to be able to change the colors and design options but now we are limited to one set of colors and 4 or 5 different background images. I know it is probably only the designers who care, but as a design company, it drives me crazy. It's not ugly, per se, and it is definitely not hard to read or use, but it is not how I would like it to look, so, it's my least favorite thing about it.

Pros

Active Collab is efficient, friendly, and structured just right for our team's work. The reporting, activity stream, project, task, and subtask organization are all well-calibrated for daily use to organize work and to report on projects.

Cons

I wish AC integrated with Jira. Our development unit uses Jira, but the complexity means it's a no-go for our unit's daily use. The lack of integration means that sometimes members of our team have to ping-pong between both products, or fail to understand what's happening there. A preview of a Jira ticket in AC would be totally sufficient.

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 love how easy it was to implement across our IT team. We started using this for our project management and it has drastically increased our efficiency and communication.

Cons

The only thing I have found that I dislike about ActiveCollab is there is no due date for overall projects. You can create due dates for individual tasks, but it would be nice to set it for the project itself. In no way has this impacted our performance, it would just be a nice feature to add.

Alternatives Considered

Redbooth and Basecamp

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

It has the sophistication we need and remains very easy to use. I have tried nearly every other project management software out there, and this one makes the most sense to me. It allows us to effectively collaborate with clients, and it gives us complete control over what can be seen and accessed. We use it for time tracking as well. It connects with a number of other services including Quickbooks. They really seem to listen to their users. I have asked for things and have seen them implemented. Overall, it is a great solution for us, and I do recommend it to anyone looking to better manage their projects.

Cons

I did like a little more flexibility in the license levels. It would be nice to pay by the user when we need extra users rather than have to bump up to a level that many more users than we currently need.

Pros

Working at an agency with 50+ people, where there are many moving parts and everyone wears a lot of hats, Active Collab allows us to stay organized and hold conversations in tasks, with or without clients. Tasks are easy to schedule, reschedule and conversate in.

Cons

Overall, these are the issues we experienced with ActiveCollab on a regular basis:

- The ActiveCollab timer erased logged time regularly
- Documents were unable to be uploaded to tasks from time to time, which halted communication on certain topics
- The customer service is very slow. If you're having an issue with the software, it takes weeks to resolve the issue
- Sometimes the software is so slow or won't open for an unreasonable amount of time, ultimately wasting time

Pros

1. Nice and easy-to-use interface. No issues with using it for several hours a day.
2. Several nice feeds: global (across all projects), project-wide and personal.
3. Ability to estimate and then track time for a given task.
4. We are an agency and our clients are REALLY NOT eager to use various task-trackers that different agencies push onto them. Thankfully, you can respond to any ActiveCollab comment via email so our clients do not even need to open ActiveCollab to collaborate with us. Meanwhile, we have all messages and comment in a nice and clean order, all inside our comfy ActiveCollab interface.

Cons

At some point we decided to move to a self-hosted version of ActiveCollab. By that point we've been using ActiveCollab for a while and our database (including all the files) was about 150GB. Unfortunately, it took about 6 weeks (from 16/10/2017 to 30/11/2017) for the guys over at ActiveCollab to provide us with a link to download our data.

Pros

Our entire team is happy to finally use only one piece of software for teamwork. Starting with the project manager, up to the developer and the support all use the same software. Due to the interface (API) the software can be integrated wonderfully into our existing system infrastructure.

Cons

We use the self-hosted version of the program. One requirement for the search is the use of ElasticSearch. Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment, so that we cannot use the search.

Pros

MOST: The desktop version. Structurally and organizationally sound. Streamlines workflow and allows multiple leads to see the workload and run reports on their various departments. Really helps with tracking estimated time for the individual and their part in the project. Communication is up and the stress of the communication is way way down. Creatives have more freedom and administrators and managers feel like they have the control they need. Love the Command+K shortcut we found today. We're still learning how to customize it to our team. It has made dealing with 60 national brands much easier and has put an end to the grade school feeling of walking up to the gigantic whiteboard to move color blocks around.

Cons

Notifications - We believe if a Project is set up and has multiple tasks that run linearly, we should be able to connect them and have a notification sent to the next person when the person before them has completed their task - An automated "passing of the baton" type of thing.

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

Active Collab is a very easy tool to use that allows for the safe and secure sharing of materials between remote stakeholders. The tool provides a great forum for online discussions and file sharing, enabling our company to work seamlessly with clients all around the world.

Cons

Recently I have come across some bugs with the uploading of files which has been frustrating when trying to share deadline senstive files with remote clients.

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

Easy of use, all in one place, we like invoices a lot!

Cons

Missing sprint planing option, a lot!! :) we now use scrumdo.com for sprintplaning :( would be coll to have such functionality inside activecollab. this will make activecollab bes projectmanagement tool out there!