11 Best Scrum Tools You Can Use in 2021 (Features and Pricing)

24.3% of remote teams use Scrum to manage projects. Is yours one of them?

If your team uses this methodology, you’ll appreciate this list of the best Scrum tools.

These software tools help you manage Agile and Scrum projects more efficiently so you get more done in less time. We rounded up tools to help you:

• Plan and organize your sprints
• Manage your backlog
• Communicate with your team more efficiently
• Assign work to the right people at the right times
• Document work thoroughly
• Have more effective retrospectives

Whether you strictly adhere to Scrum practices or you take a hybrid approach, the tools in this list were designed with you in mind.

You shouldn’t have to change the way you work to use a project management tool. Tools should adapt to you, not the other way around.

These Scrum tools are flexible enough to work for all kinds of teams. After all, Scrum isn’t just for developers. Whether you sell sunglasses online or lead a team of architectural engineers, the project management tools in this article can make your job easier.

Before we get to the list, let’s talk about what you should look for in a great Scrum tool.

What to look for in a Scrum tool

There are a lot of options for Scrum software. How do you choose the right one?

Here are the most important things to look for.

• Scrum-specific features – This one’s obvious, but it’s still important to mention it. At a minimum, a good Scrum tool should include features for sprint planning, a task backlog, support for daily Stand-ups, and data for your retrospectives.
• Automation – Any Scrum tool should streamline your workflow. Look for one that automates some of your work. It makes a big difference when you don’t have to do repetitive tasks.
• Customizability – You want to enhance your workflow, not change it. A great Scrum tool is highly customizable and capable of adapting to your needs.
• Great communication features – A Scrum Master or project manager must help your team communicate. It’s one of the most important things they do. Your Scrum tools should make communication clearer, easier, and more organized.

Your team is unique, and you know better than anyone what you need to do your best work. Make a list of features that you can’t live without. For example, your team might need a way to attach files to the right tasks or projects.

To make that list, start with the problems you want your software to solve. Do you have specific problems with communication? Write those down. It’s okay if you don’t know the feature you need — you’ll recognize possible solutions if you know what you want to fix.

Next, think about areas where there’s room for improvement. Do retrospectives take a long time? Do you have a hard time keeping track of things in your backlog?

Work on your list while you read this article. You might see features listed in the descriptions below that would make a big difference for your team. Add those to your must-haves.

When you’re ready, here’s the list of the best Scrum tools for 2021.

The 11 best Scrum tools

1. Hubstaff Tasks

Hubstaff Tasks is an Agile project management software that perfectly works as a Scrum tool. It divides your team’s work into Sprints. Rebalance your team’s workload as needed in a couple of clicks, saving time and energy.

This is a great tool for sprint planning because you can see your backlog, Timelines, and workflows in multiple views. Get a team-wide view with your choice of Kanban boards or Gantt charts. Switch your view as needed to see exactly what you want, how you want.

One of the most outstanding Scrum features in Hubstaff Tasks is Automated Stand-ups.

Stand-ups keep you on top of project progress so you can deal with roadblocks quickly and effectively. Every day, Hubstaff Tasks reminds everyone on your team to recap what they worked on today, list what they’ll do tomorrow, and call out any roadblocks. It’s perfect for all teams, especially remote and asynchronous ones.

The automation for Stand-ups is fully customizable. You might want your reminder first thing in the morning while you’re planning your day, but others can get their reminder in the afternoon.

Stand-ups can be shared with multiple people or just come to you.

Automating Stand-ups is a big time-saver for Scrum teams because you don’t have to interrupt productive time for a team update. It’s a game-changer for teams that work asynchronously.

When you add checklists, due dates, and attachments to tasks, the entire workflow gets smoother. Team members can see the history and next steps. Handing off work to the next person is seamless.

Set up custom workflows to suit the way your team works.

Start with a workflow template for the type of project you need to tackle, whether you’re developing a new feature or publishing a new marketing campaign. Add, move, or remove steps to match your process.

When you assign team members to each step, you’re done automating your workflow. Tasks move through the process and are automatically assigned to the right person with one click.

Workflows give you lots of visibility so you can see what’s coming down the pipeline and spot bottlenecks before they happen. For even more visibility, use the project timeline feature.

Project Timelines give you a visual way to plan each project. Use them to set realistic deadlines, and look back at the Timelines for completed projects for a more thorough retrospective for each sprint.

Integrate Hubstaff Tasks with Hubstaff to track the time your team spends on each task and project. Tracked time gives you better insights for retrospectives. Plus, you can use it to automatically generate timesheets.

Features

• Agile workflows
• Sprints and Epics
• Task checklists
• Automated Stand-ups
• Project Timelines
• Project templates
• Built-in time tracking
• Roadmaps

Pricing

Hubstaff Tasks is free for up to five users and ten projects. The Premium plan costs $5/user/month and includes unlimited users and projects.

2. VivifyScrum

VivifyScrum is an all-in-one solution for managing Scrum projects and teams. It’s suitable for both small teams and large enterprises.

Fully customizable Scrum boards adapt to your team’s workflow. This tool includes templates to get you started, and you can easily build custom processes from there.

VivifyScrum is an outstanding tool to plan sprints, define sprint goals, and set work-in-progress limits. Each of these features was built with Scrum teams in mind. You’ll find it easy to plan a realistic sprint for each team member and refine your processes over time.

For more convenience, you can create tasks by sending an email. Project managers appreciate this feature when they’re working on the go and need to keep things moving.

You can use VivifyScrum to create invoices and track payments. It also has a time tracking feature so your team can track time by project or task.

Other notable features include a project calendar, multiple product backlog views, and bulk item editing.

Features

• Custom workflows
• Scrum and Kanban boards
• Burndown charts
• Invoicing
• Time tracking

Pricing

VivifyScrum offers a free 7-day trial you can use to test out the software. Paid plans include:

• Basic ($96)
• Standard ($239)
• Plus ($449)
• Pro ($809)
• VIP ($1349)
• Enterprise (custom pricing)

3. Microsoft Azure Boards

Azure Boards is Microsoft’s project management tool for Agile teams. It includes standard Scrum features (such as boards and product backlogs) and plenty of other valuable features that are not specific to Scrum.

Organize your work items into features and epics. You can also add details, estimates, and attachments to each item. The organizational features are very friendly to Scrum teams, so you can stay organized and keep track of your backlog.

Azure Boards’ drag-and-drop interface makes it quick to plan and organize your sprints. You can set team capacity for each sprint to help keep workloads manageable. Capacity limits are fantastic when you’re dealing with tight deadlines, but you still need to stay within budget and focus on top quality work.

Sprint burndown charts and velocity charts help you keep an eye on project progress. See how your team is doing in real-time.

Add more features by installing extensions available from the Visual Studio marketplace.

Features

• Scrum and Kanban boards
• Team dashboards
• Customizable workflows
• Burndown and velocity charts

Pricing

The Azure Boards software is part of Azure DevOps Services, which comes with the following plans:

• Basic (free for up to five users, then $6/user/month)
• Basic + Test Plans ($52/user/month)

4. Scrumwise

Scrumwise is a Scrum tool that prides itself on its simplicity. In this case, being simple doesn’t mean it lacks features. This is a feature-rich tool that is easy for everyone to use.

Create backlogs and organize them with tags, filters, and lists. Rather than having all of your backlogged tasks in one list, this tool helps you stay organized while you focus on your top priorities. This is a big time saver for teams with a long to-do list.

Organizing sprints and allocating work is simple. You can even see vacations and holidays as you assign tasks. Scrumwise helps you manage your team’s workload effectively.

Scrumwise comes with sprint and release-planning features, like expected velocity and burnup charts. These Scrum-specific features are lacking in some of the more general apps. If you’re a purely Scrum team, you’ll appreciate the details in Scrumwise.

This tool supports time tracking. You can use that data in your retrospectives to gain more insights.

Features

• Scrum and Kanban boards
• Subtasks
• File sharing
• Expected velocity, burnup, and burndown charts
• Time tracking

Pricing

Scrumwise offers two plans:

• Monthly ($9.00/user/month)
• Yearly ($7.50/user/month, billed annually)

5. Jira

Jira is designed to track bugs for Agile software development teams. Today, it’s widely used for project management by all kinds of companies.

The drag-and-drop interface is an intuitive way to plan sprints and distribute tasks.

Though it’s not a Scrum-specific tool, you’ll find all the features you need to operate your Scrum team. Review team performance with real-time sprint reports, burndown charts, and velocity charts. The backlog filters are excellent for managing a lot of tasks across multiple teams.

Jira is a great choice for Scrum-hybrid teams because it’s packed with other Agile features.

The product roadmap feature shows progress across multiple teams. It’s a quick and accurate way to plan projects and review team capacity.

Create multiple versions of your product roadmap to account for best and worst-case scenarios. If you’re planning multiple releases, use the version management features to keep track.

With Jira, you can set up workflow automations with no coding required. It comes with built-in automation templates, but you can also create custom ones. There are more workflow options in Jira than there are in many other project management tools.

Features

• Scrum and Kanban boards
• Project roadmaps
• Detailed reports
• Workflow automation
• Custom permissions

Pricing

Jira’s free plan is limited and supports up to ten users. Paid plans include:

• Standard ($7/user/month)
• Premium ($14/user/month)
• Enterprise (custom pricing)

6. Targetprocess

Targetprocess is designed for growing companies that want to adopt Agile. If you want to start using Scrum for the first time, this software can help you make the change.

Use this tool to define a standard set of practices to plan and track projects. Your standards help your team learn as you transition to Scrum.

Set up custom access levels so that team members see only what they need. This is an important feature for companies that deal with sensitive data.

Targetprocess comes with built-in portfolio reports for high-level visibility. Stay up to date on project progress by reviewing comments, mentions, and email notifications.

The risk management features help identify and control risks, perform quantitative and qualitative analysis, and plan risk responses.

Service Desk allows you to receive and manage requests from people outside your team. Other notable features include custom dashboards, automation rules, and time tracking.

Features

• Custom workflows
• Automation rules
• Time tracking
• Risk response planning

Pricing

Targetprocess offers custom pricing depending on your company’s specific needs. Contact them to get a quote.

7. Orangescrum

Orangescrum includes the features you expect like boards, backlog management, and daily stand-ups. This tool focuses on Scrum teams but works well for other types of Agile project management, too.

Choose the cloud-based option to access your data from anywhere, or select the self-managed version if you want to store your data locally.

View your team’s availability at a glance with the workload management view. This is a valuable tool to help you prevent burnout and maintain quality.

Orangescrum comes with useful built-in reports. View your resource allocation, project health, sprint progress, and project profitability. Sprint reviews are also built-in to make your retrospectives easier.

This tool comes with project templates for bug tracking, content management, recruitment, and more. Customize your project templates to suit your processes, or use the basic flows.

You can also use Orangescrum to deliver product demos, which is cool for teams that do client work. By keeping your demos and your projects in one place, it’s easy to tackle updates based on feedback.

Features

• Scrum and Kanban boards
• Time tracking
• Project templates
• Gantt charts

Pricing

OrangeScrum offers the following plans:

• Startup ($9/month, up to ten users)
• Professional ($49/month for twenty users)
• Custom plan

There are also on-premise plans that start at $1,199 for ten users.

8. Wrike

Wrike is a work management platform with Scrum-specific features like boards and sprints. While this app isn’t specifically built for Scrum teams, it’s a powerful tool that works well with this project management style.

Use the risk prediction features while planning your projects. Risk prediction helps you prioritize the right tasks and projects for each sprint. Plan ahead when you schedule several high-risk projects at the same time.

There’s a shared team calendar to monitor deadlines and project progress. The calendar view makes it easier to spot potential missed deadlines and bottlenecks.

Wrike’s intuitive resource management features allow you to rebalance workload in a couple of clicks. If you need to make frequent adjustments to keep projects moving, this tool is a strong choice.

The real-time project dashboard shows project progress at an individual and team level. Having multiple views means you can more easily spot and fix issues in your workflows.

Simplify your intake process using Wrike. Its custom request forms gather details on issues, then create and assign tasks automatically.

Other notable features include voice commands and smart replies. The Wrike interface is intuitive for all kinds of users and includes lots of time-saving features.

Features

• Customizable dashboards
• Scrum and Kanban boards
• File sharing
• Proofing and approval automation
• Risk prediction
• Project templates

Pricing

Wrike offers a free plan that’s limited to five users. Paid plans include:

• Professional ($9.80/user/month)
• Business ($24.80/user/month)
• Enterprise (custom pricing)

9. Zoho Sprints

Zoho Sprints is part of the Zoho suite of apps. It comes with a central dashboard so you can keep an eye on the big picture and distribute work more effectively.

Use it to organize meetings and keep your team connected. From sprint planning to retrospectives, these features are already built in. You can also manage your daily stand-ups within the app.

The rich set of release management features is great for Scrum teams.

Build release plans and create custom release workflows to get things done more efficiently. You can also track commit and pull requests. Having this data is valuable for retrospectives. It also shows you that your team is making progress.

Zoho Sprints also offers plenty of useful Scrum-specific reports. The tool automatically creates velocity charts and burndown charts. You’ll also find cumulative flow diagrams and epic progress charts.

Features

• Customizable boards
• Meetings
• Custom fields
• Project templates
• Time tracking

Pricing

Zoho Sprints has a free plan that’s limited to five users and five projects. Paid plans include:

• Professional ($13.35/month for 12 users)
• Custom pricing (starting at $20.30/month for 13 users)

10. ClickUp

ClickUp aims to provide a central place for everything your team does daily. It’s suitable for Scrum teams with features like boards, sprints, and burndown and burnup charts.

The workload chart report gives an overview of your team’s workload and activity. You can use ClickUp to create an internal knowledge base that stores all your project and team information.

Screenshots and screen recording make it easier to share information within your team. Plus, you can send and receive emails directly within the app. If you rely heavily on email, you can create tasks directly from emails.

Task reminders make it easier to stay on top of deadlines. A task reminder is less intrusive than a project manager checking in, though you can still reach out if you need to.

ClickUp supports time tracking so you can see how long you spent on each task and project. Use this information for your retrospectives. Instead of guessing at which tasks ate up your team’s time, the data shows you an unbiased report of where those hours went.

Features

• Boards
• To-do lists
• Internal wiki
• Reminders
• Goal tracking
• Time tracking

Pricing

ClickUp offers a free plan with limited features. The paid plan costs $9/user/month.

11. Hive

Hive is a productivity platform. It supports multiple project views and gives each team member a personal dashboard to review their tasks. If your team uses a hybrid Scrum approach to complete client work, consider Hive as a project management solution.

You can use Hive to streamline proofing and approvals. Assign approvals, share proofs, and even proof on the go using Hive’s mobile app. This is convenient for your customers and your team.

The integrated email inbox and team chat are standout features. When your team communicates within the app, there are fewer distractions. It’s easier to discuss task-related work directly from Hive.

There’s also Hive Analytics — an add-on for Hive that uses machine learning to find inefficiencies in your workflow and suggests changes to improve productivity. Set it up to send you real-time alerts when there’s a drop in productivity.

Features

• Kanban and Scrum boards
• Gantt charts
• Multiple project views
• Customizable dashboards
• Project templates
• Mobile proofing
• Workflow automation

Pricing

Hive offers the following plans:

• Base package ($16/user/month)
• Enterprise (custom pricing)

You can also purchase the following add-ons:

• Proofing and approvals ($4/user/month)
• Resourcing ($4/user/month)
• Timesheets ($4/user/month)
• External Users ($4/user/month)
• Enterprise Security ($4/user/month)
• Analytics ($6/user/month)

Next steps

You’ve reached the end of our list. Now it’s time to take action.

Here’s what to do right now:

• Decide which features you need – Put some thought into which features you need from a Scrum tool. Make sure to list must-haves and features that would be nice to have.
• Make a shortlist – Take a look at our list and narrow down your choice to three tools that fit your criteria the best.
• Sign up for trials – Most tools on our list offer either a free plan or a trial period. Use these to test if that software is a good fit.

If these apps aren’t exactly what you’re looking for, these articles might help.

The Best Project Scheduling Software in 2021

The Top 16 Task Management Tools You Can Use in 2021

15 of the Best Remote Work Software Options You Need in 2021