Top 5 Shortcut Alternatives & Competitors (2024 Reviews)

Looking for the best Shortcut alternatives?

When it comes to project management, there are a lot of moving parts to organize!

From organizing your work distribution to dealing with approaching deadlines, you have to handle tons of tasks simultaneously.

Luckily, you have project management tools like Shortcut to help you with that.

But while Shortcut is a good tool, it’s not the perfect project management software.

And naturally, if you searched for this article, you probably agree with us and are looking for some Shortcut alternatives.

But with hundreds of such management tools available, which one should you go for?

Don’t worry!

In this article, we’ll cover why you need a Shortcut alternative and review five project management tools to help you find the best one. We’ll highlight their key features, pros, cons, pricing, and customer ratings to help you compare each tool.

And to make this more fun, we’ll be using the examples from the Pitch Perfect movies.

After all, when it comes to adopting new ways, who better to help you out than Beca, whose contemporary techniques helped the Barden Bellas (the acapella group) win the national championship.

Let’s get started!

This Article Contains:

What Is Shortcut?

Before reading about the alternatives, let’s first go over the Shortcut software and 3 reasons why you need an alternative. I mean, don’t just take our word for it when we say that the Shortcut program isn’t a perfect project management tool!

Shortcut is a Kanban based project management tool for teams working on software development projects where each task is presented as a Story.

What’s a Story?

A Story is a standard unit of work representing individual tasks.

In Shortcut, a Story can be of three types:

Feature: a task related to functionalities of a software
Bug: a task related to the faults in a software
Chore: any task that doesn’t qualify as a Feature or a Bug

A Story can be categorized into Projects, Epics, Workflows, and Milestones.

What are they?

Project: each Story belongs to a Project
Workflow: a process through which a Story moves forward
Epic: a collection of Stories which belong to various Projects or Workflows
Milestones: the highest level of organizational hierarchy, composed of Epics

3 Key Reasons To Look For A Shortcut Alternative

Sure, Shortcut is a decent tool, and it helps you with task management, but is it the tool for you?

For starters, in its free plan, you can access Shortcut staff support only via the Shortcut community. Sorta like going to an online forum, posting a question, and waiting for someone to reply.

Talk about being time-consuming!

And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this tool’s drawbacks!

Let’s take a look at 3 key problems that you can face with Shortcut:

1. Suitable only for software development projects

Harmony is the fundamental aspect of any acapella group, right?

Similarly, a task is the fundamental unit of any project, and a project management tool should be able to handle any project related tasks.

In Shortcut, you can assign a type (Feature, Bug, or Chore) to each task you create.

But with only three options, it’s highly limited.

I mean, this categorization is great for tasks that a software developer might handle.

But for everyone else, you’re stuck with labeling your tasks as Chores. This leaves you with a bunch of unrelated ‘Chore’ tasks, which can be difficult to identify and track.

Talk about it being a “chore!”

2. Limited to Kanban board

A Shortcut user is only limited to a Kanban or board view.

While this limits the user to one view, it also makes the app unsuitable for specific projects and methodologies.

For example, it’s unsuitable for instances when you’re working on a complex project where you’re dealing with several project related attributes. This can lead to a cluttered Kanban board, which can make tracking tasks a hurdle.

Additionally, as a Shortcut user is limited to only a single project view, it can be difficult for them to get complete overviews of multiple projects.

3. No Gantt charts available

A Gantt chart is an important element in project management.

Why?

It provides a visual overview of a project’s timeline, resources, and dependencies.

You can use a Gantt chart to assess how long a project will take and determine the tasks you should tackle (critical path) to complete the project on time.

However, as the Shortcut program lacks this feature, you’ll be devoid of this handy project planning, scheduling, and management element.

Looking for more information? Check out our in-depth Shortcut review.

Now that you know the key drawbacks of Shortcut, what should you look for instead?

Top 5 Shortcut Alternatives in 2022

While Shortcut can help you with your project tasks, it’s certainly not the best tool out there.

After all, a project management tool should cater to all kinds of project needs and not just the software development ones.

But with tons of management tools out there, how do you pick the perfect one for you?

While that’s not a feasible option here, we can take you through a virtual tour of the best project management tools.

Let’s get rolling!

1. ClickUp

ClickUp project management on all devices

ClickUp is the world’s #1 project management tool.

Whether it’s task management, tracking progress, or resource management, ClickUp can handle anything you throw at it!

Key features

Here’s a breakdown of some key features that ClickUp offers to help you aca-believe it:

1. Multiple Views to suit various project needs

Unlike Shortcut, ClickUp is as versatile as The Treblemakers when it comes to views.

(The Treblemakers were six-time winners of the International Championship of Collegiate Acapella, btw.)

This flexible project management tool is all about adapting to change, whether it’s Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or any project methodology.

And that’s exactly what you get with ClickUp’s Multiple Views feature: flexibility.

It allows you to work in any way you want to reflect your project needs accurately.

Here’s a breakdown of what ClickUp offers you:

A. Required Task Views

With ClickUp’s two Required Task Views, you can adapt to two common project management styles:

1. List view

The List view lists down your tasks as a GTD-style to-do list with one task below the other.

With this view, you can attempt tasks in a sequence and check them off as you progress.

You can also sort your tasks by adding the columns of your choice, like:

Status
Task ID
Created By
Date created

2. Board view

If you want to continue with a Kanban board, then ClickUp’s Board view is perfect for you.

With the drag and drop feature, you can quickly move your tasks according to your needs.

The Board view helps you visualize your project progress quickly, and all you need is a glance to determine what stages your tasks are in!

B. Box view

ClickUp’s Box view provides a high-level visual overview of your team’s tasks and projects.

With it, project managers can avoid the hassle of conducting endless staff meetings just to get an update on who’s working on what!

Project managers can use this view to quickly know:

What tasks their team members are currently working on
What has been completed so far
Which remote team member has too many tasks

Additionally, you can evenly distribute workloads among your staff by identifying who has too many tasks to handle.

Efficient resource management: achieved!

C. Calendar view

Beca had a hard time keeping track of everything because of her internship and performance practices, right?

Don’t worry, ClickUp’s Calendar view solves this issue for you.

It’s the quickest way to plan and manage your project schedules, without missing a task!

You can even toggle your view between:

Days: view all your tasks for any selected day
4-Days: look at your task schedule over a rolling four day period
Week: view your weekly project schedule
Monthly: birds-eye view of all the tasks for the entire month

D. Me Mode

Do you want your Workspace to show only the tasks that are assigned to you?

Then Me Mode is the answer!

ClickUp’s Me Mode lets you view all the work that’s assigned only to you. It helps a member focus better on individual project workload by eliminating other team member’s assignments.

What’s more?

You can even customize this personalized space by simply checking the items (comments, subtasks, checklists) you want to see in your Me Mode.

2. Gantt Charts to monitor your project’s progress

To become the acapella champions, the Bellas planned out their entire timeline, all the way to the finale.

You can do that too.

How?

With ClickUp’s Gantt charts!

Gantt charts lay out the entire project timeline from start to finish. It helps you plan projects, manage resources, and visualize inter-task dependencies — making tracking your project’s progress a piece of cake!

Just take a quick look at your Gantt chart, and you’ll know how your project is progressing.

connecting tasks with Gantt charts in ClickUp

This amazing feature can even automate tons of processes — just for you!

Here’s what it can do:

Automatically re-adjust task dependencies when your project schedule changes
Compare your current project progress vs. expected progress
Calculate your project’s progress percentage based on completed tasks vs. total tasks
Calculate your critical path to identify the tasks you must complete to meet your project deadlines

3. Native Time Tracking to track the time your projects take

Aubrey had to personally make sure her team members were following the practice schedule.

But it must be exhausting to track how much time an individual spent on each exercise, right?

To help you avoid this in project management, ClickUp lets you track your project time through its Google Chrome extension that’s 100% FREE.

This Native Time Tracking feature helps you to:

Get a complete breakdown of who worked on which task and for how long
Monitor your team members productivity with the time distribution
Keep track of all the details you need to bill a client

Additionally, ClickUp lets you integrate with popular time tracking software like Everhour and Time Doctor. This way, you can quickly adapt to what your staff is already using!

4. Workflow Automation to boost your team’s efficiency

ClickUp’s Automation feature brings tons of workflow automations to your workspace. You can use this cool feature to automate repetitive tasks to speed things up, which not only saves you a lot of time but also lets you focus on essential tasks.

ClickUp’s process automation structure looks like this:

When a trigger is initiated, and a condition is satisfied, a certain action is executed automatically.

For Sammy, Beca’s boss, an automation workflow could be:

To ensure that Beca submits her audio demo on time, he could set up a reminder to notify her.

Here:

Trigger: Approaching due date
Condition: Beca’s the assignee
Action: Post a comment “How’s the demo coming along?”

While ClickUp offers 50+ premade automations, you can also create your own Automations.

Some of these preset Automations are:

Automatically assign new tasks to specific team members
Add a tag or move a task to a list when priority changes
Post a comment when all subtasks within a task are marked closed
Add, remove, or reassign a task when the status of a task changes
Apply templates and tags when a task is created

To see more options, learn about ClickUp Automations.

5. Pulse to keep track of your team’s “pulse”

ClickUp’s Pulse feature uses machine learning to analyze the task your team is most focused on.

Pulse also lets you:

Check their activity status (online/offline)
See what tasks your members are viewing or commenting on in real-time
Automate your Scrum meetings
View your team’s activity over a given period

6. Dedicated Comment Section for efficient teamwork

Miscommunication can leave your team members confused like Amy here:

And as collaboration is the key to successful projects, this project management software helps you effectively communicate with each team member through its Comments feature.

Each ClickUp task comes with a dedicated comment section that you can use to boost your teamwork over any task.

You can use it to:

Discuss how to perform the task with your remote team
Easily share relevant files and links
Address any problems with the right context
Tag team members to ensure proper further actions

What’s more?

ClickUp lets you convert comments into tasks and assign them to team members with its Assign Comments feature. This way, you don’t have to worry about your comments going unnoticed ever again!

Once you assign the task to a team member, they’ll be notified instantly. It even shows up in their task tray to ensure that the comment always stays on their radar.

And once the task is completed, they can mark the comment as resolved. This will prevent unnecessary follow-ups!

7. Reporting to analyze your team’s performance

Whether it’s The Treblemakers or the Barden Bellas, tracking your team’s performance is important to ensure productivity.

Well, Aubrey can get a little carried away at times!

Don’t worry, with ClickUp’s Reports, project managers like her can get a detailed breakdown of the team’s performance, without stressing their lungs.

This project management software provides six accurate reports, such as:

Task Completed Report: highlights the completed tasks of each team member
Time Tracked Report: see how long each team member spends on their tasks
Worked On Report: shows the task distribution of each member – what they worked on a specific day, during a week or month
Time Estimated Report: compare estimated time vs. actual time for your team to complete tasks quickly
Workspace Points Report: gamify your work environment to challenge your in-house or remote team to perform well
Who’s Behind Report: displays the members who have in-progress or unfinished tasks

Pros

User-friendly interface
Offers a feature-rich free version
Can easily assign a task to any team member
Drag and drop feature for quick and easy task management
Custom Task Statuses to track varying project stages
Can assign more than one team member to a specific task for better resource management
Custom Access Rights to share your project space with stakeholders or a client without compromising on your privacy
Can quickly find all your project resources with the Smart Search feature
Priority feature to represent the urgency of tasks
Create Task Dependencies to attempt tasks in the right order
Easily access all the stored project files with the Docs feature
Form view feature for creating detailed web forms
Can customize how you receive project notifications
Can put in feature requests through the ClickUp community
Offers app integrations with various third-party apps for seamless task management
Available as web, desktop, and mobile apps

Cons

No white-labeling available
No tags for Docs
No provision for exporting Dashboards

You can check out ClickUp’s product roadmap here.

Pricing

ClickUp offers a powerful free version with tons of helpful features. However, for added functionality, paid plans start at just $5/user per month.

Customer ratings

G2: 4.7/5 (1000+ reviews)
Capterra: 4.7/5 (1800+ reviews)