Top 5 project milestone tracking software for 2024

Whether you're managing a short project or a complex, multi-team effort, milestones serve as important markers to gauge project progress toward deadlines. When you compare your progress with all the milestones, you will have a clear idea of any red flags, delays or potential issues that can disrupt the project roadmap. 

However, project managers often face challenges in milestone tracking when juggling multiple deliverables, cross-functional teams, and ensuring stakeholder alignment.

This is where project milestone tracking comes in. In this post, we will share the top 5 project milestone tracking software of 2024. 

TL;DR

• Milestone tracking is crucial for managing complex projects with many collaborators and stakeholders. It allows managers to track progress, address issues early, and keep stakeholders aligned. 
• A milestone tracking software is a tool for setting, tracking, and aligning project goals, milestones, and timelines. A good milestone software should allow easy milestone addition, provide a view of dependencies, in a user friendly interface.
• The top 5 project milestone tracking software options for 2024 include Luna, ClickUp, Jira, nTask, and Milestone Planner. Each of these tools offers unique features for managing milestones, with key features like customizable workflows, integration options, and collaborative functionalities.
• Before you settle on a tool, consider factors like your teams’ needs, user profiles, required integrations, desired outcomes, and compatibility with your organizational workflows.
• Luna is a launch management tool that aligns tech and non tech teams around shared milestones and provides them with real time visibility into progress, key changes and blockers. This enables timely course corrections and ensures milestones are completed as planned. Try Luna for free today. 

What is a project milestone software?

A project milestone software helps project managers plan, track, and ensure the timely progression of milestones. It helps with project roadmap creation and management, ensuring all tasks, deliverables, scheduling, and feedback management are fully aligned at all times. This software also facilitates project timeline tracking against set milestones, ensuring all stages of the project are moving at a healthy pace. 

What makes a good project milestone software?

Not all project management software offer a good project milestone tracking feature. So, there are certain traits to check for to ensure you get the best fit for your project’s needs - such as:

• A flexible user friendly interface that adapts to each stakeholder’s needs, offering customizable levels of visibility.
• Joint planning across teams, with due dates and key responsibilities, so everyone knows what’s expected and when.
• Automated notifications on milestone progress and key changes to help participants make timely adjustments and keep the project on track.

Top 5 project milestone tracking tools in 2024

1. Luna

G2 Rating: 4.9/5

Luna is a product launch management tool that unifies roadmap tracking, change management, and launch coordination, keeping stakeholders aligned for successful launches. Its milestone tracking feature ensures cross-functional teams collaborate effectively around shared milestones, providing clear visibility on responsibilities and timelines. Luna automates just-in-time collaboration, engaging the right people at the right time, so stakeholders - including project/product managers, cross-functional peers, and management - can view and manage milestones in a centralized hub instead of tracking siloed tasks.

Key features

• Progress monitoring: Keep track of milestones and overall project health
• Custom roadmap views: Tailor views for different audiences
• Change management: Spot and understand changes versus plans across the UI
• Kanban boards and timelines
• Risk monitoring
• Project milestone planning templates
• Custom workflows: Automate just-in-time collaboration
• Milestone log: Document key moments, decisions, and trade-offs throughout the project.
• Milestone center: Monitoring milestones across projects in a centralized hub
• Personalized dashboard: Gain insights into project and milestone progress at a glance.

Luna integrates seamlessly with Jira (2-way sync), Asana, Google Docs, Sheets, Slack, and more, fitting into users' everyday workflows and communication. Users get a 360-degree view of all milestones, their progress, their pending contributions etc., on one platform, which makes product launch planning and execution more cohesive.

Pros

• Easy setup - minimal change management
• Ease of use
• Uniquely positioned at the milestone level, on top of siloed tasks
• Extensive and flexible integrations
• Best Jira 2 way sync integration
• Catered to various audiences visibility needs
• Customer support 24/5
• Affordable pricing with 14-day free trial: pay per editor only, free for read access.

Try Luna for free today! Try Now!

2. ClickUp

G2 Rating: 4.7/5

ClickUp is a popular project management software with a milestone tracking feature that lets you convert your tasks into milestones and monitor them. You can connect your set milestones to your project goals and attach dependencies to them as you go along. This software provides milestone-tracking templates that you can use to create and manage your milestones easily. 

Key features

• Connect milestones to project goals for easy tracking and monitoring
• Several milestone and goal-setting templates
• Flexibility in milestone viewing like Dashboard, Gantt, and board views
• Fast onboarding of new users.

Limitations

• Complex projects may be challenging to manage due to frequent reminders and alerts from extensive automation
• New users who just need the milestone feature may find the interface challenging. 

3. Jira

G2 Rating: 4.⅗

Jira is a popular agile product and project management tool commonly used by software development companies. It provides tools to track project progress, set and manage milestones, and visualize workflows. Users can create Kanban boards or Scrum boards to monitor and track tasks, milestones, and dependencies. It has a timeline view that enables project managers to showcase important milestones and their associated deadlines for important collaborators to see. 

Key features

• customizable workflows
• milestone tracking through issue tracking and sprints 
• robust reporting with dashboards and charts
• integrations with tools like Adobe, Zendesk, and Slack, etc. 

Limitations

• The interface is quite complex, so onboarding may be tasking for non-technical teams.
• Setup has a steep learning curve
• It can be expensive for large teams
• No mass editing.

4. nTask

G2 Rating: 4.4/5

nTask is one of the more popular project management software on this list. It lets you create milestones at critical points in your project lifecycle. This software is easily customizable and designed for all team sizes in various industries. nTask makes it easy for teams to complete projects quickly by enabling them to deliver tasks, manage campaigns, clients, etc., on one platform instead of shuffling through multiple apps. 

Key features

• Flexible board views that showcase set milestones and how they are connected to the associated tasks 
• The tool allows you to break down milestones into smaller tasks, enabling quicker achievement
• It has all the important tools for effective project management, such as Gantt charts, Kanban boards, issue tracking, task management, time tracking, workspace customization, etc.
• It allows easy integration with Slack, Zoom and other communications tools. 

Limitations

• It has a pretty basic calendar view when compared to the other tools on this list. Users also cannot customize timeframes
• New users have to find their way around the platform, as the guided onboarding instructions are quite limited 
• Reporting capabilities are somewhat limited compared to the other tools on this list.

5. Milestone Planner

G2 Rating: 3.0/5

This list wouldn’t be complete without a dedicated milestone tracking software. Milestone Planner doesn’t have the capabilities and features that are common with the project management tools on this list. Instead, it is dedicated to the milestone planning process. This tool has a unique visual approach where all collaborators see the big picture of the project and can zoom in or out to focus on specific details. 

Key features

• An easy and intuitive interface that works on different devices. Users can track deadlines, connect team members and stakeholders, capture actions, and create reports all on one platform
• Drag and drop feature to adjust milestones and create a timeline
• Gantt chart views
• A clear visual layout of project timelines, making it easy to assess progress at a glance.

Limitations

• It offers less customization in workflow and tracking options than more complex project management tools
• It integrates with only a few other software tools, which means teams that rely heavily on third-party apps may not be able to use it
• It doesn’t include advanced reporting or analytics, which can be a deal breaker for teams that need in-depth performance insights
• It currently lacks a dedicated mobile app, making it less accessible for on-the-go tracking and updates.

How to choose the right project milestone planning software

Here are some of the factors to consider to help you choose the perfect tool for your needs: 

What you need the tool for

Identify all the functionalities and features you need from a milestone tracking tool. For example, if you want a tool that specializes in milestones planning, execution and monitoring (rather than the underlying detailed tasks), Luna can be a great fit for you.

Who will be using the tool

Milestone tracking tools can be expensive, especially for large organizations. Consider how many members of your team will be using the tool (how many editors vs viewers), as this will help you evaluate the cost of licenses. 

What integrations will you need

List all the task management, communication, documentation etc. tools you will need to add to adapt with and enhance your current workflows. Some tools may allow for few integrations, so you may have to make a list of which add-on software is most important to your project and pick the tool that allows seamless integration with them. 

Tip: Luna easily integrates with communications tools like Slack, task management tools like Jira, documentation tools like Google Docs, and trackers like Google Sheets or Excel. Try Luna for free today. 

What results do you need

Determine the goal you want to achieve with the software you choose. It’s important that the software fully complements your process and makes your work easier. For example, suppose your desired outcome is to have a clearer view of your milestones and their associated tasks and dependencies throughout the project lifecycle. To determine whether the tool served its purpose or not, you may have to compare your former process vs the tool and note the changes. 

Will it work with your organization

Take a look at your current project workflow and collaborators and determine whether the tool you choose will work. For example, tech-savvy teams can easily get through Jira’s learning curve and use the tool effectively. This may not be the same result with teams who aren’t so familiar with complex tech solutions. Every team is different, so you shouldn’t just adopt a tool because it's popular without being certain your team can use it easily. 

Plan, track and manage your milestones in Luna

Effective milestone tracking provides a complete view of every stage of your project throughout its lifecycle. This is important to minimize risks and spot red flags early. You need a tool that can provide a clear view of your milestones as they move along while providing automated updates, custom workflows,and visualizations, change management and risk monitoring modules, all in one platform.