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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    ActiveCollab

    Score7.6 out of 10
    N/AActive Collab is a project management solution built around features such as task management, collaboration, time tracking, and invoicing.

    $8

    per member/per month

    Whimsical

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AWhimsical is a visual workspace application from the company of the same name in Denver, allowing users to create collaborative wireframes, mindmaps, flowcharts, and sticky notes.

    $12

    per month per editor

    Pricing
    ActiveCollabWhimsical
    Editions & Modules
    ActiveCollab Project Management
    $8
    per member/per month
    Self-Hosted Plan
    $999.00
    license
    Pro
    $12
    per month per editor
    Business
    $18
    per month per editor
    Enterprise
    $240
    per year per editor
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ActiveCollabWhimsical
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup Fee$6.25 per member, per month, annual billingNo setup fee
    Additional Details—17% discount for annual billing on Pro and Business plans.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    ActiveCollabWhimsical
    Considered Both Products
    ActiveCollab
    No answer on this topic
    Whimsical
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    60%
    Would buy again
    3 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    10 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    10 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    60%
    Happy with the feature set
    3 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    10 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    9 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    9 Answers
    Features
    ActiveCollabWhimsical
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of ActiveCollab and Whimsical
    Feature
    ActiveCollab
    3.6
    13 Ratings
    72% below category average
    Whimsical
    -
    Ratings
    Task Management5.112 Ratings00 Ratings
    Resource Management1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Gantt Charts3.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Scheduling1.011 Ratings00 Ratings
    Workflow Automation7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Team Collaboration6.113 Ratings00 Ratings
    Support for Agile Methodology7.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Support for Waterfall Methodology7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Document Management3.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Email integration4.09 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Access1.110 Ratings00 Ratings
    Timesheet Tracking2.09 Ratings00 Ratings
    Change request and Case Management1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Budget and Expense Management2.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Professional Services Automation
    Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of ActiveCollab and Whimsical
    Feature
    ActiveCollab
    5.7
    8 Ratings
    28% below category average
    Whimsical
    -
    Ratings
    Quotes/estimates6.97 Ratings00 Ratings
    Invoicing6.96 Ratings00 Ratings
    Project & financial reporting1.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with accounting software7.94 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    ActiveCollabWhimsical
    Small Businesses
    Any.do
    Score8 out of 10
    Any.do
    Score8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    KanbanFlow
    Score7.3 out of 10
    KanbanFlow
    Score7.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Microsoft To Do
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Microsoft To Do
    Score9.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    ActiveCollabWhimsical
    Likelihood to Recommend
    1.6
    (13 ratings)
    9.0
    (9 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.1
    (3 ratings)
    5.7
    (3 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    ActiveCollabWhimsical
    Likelihood to Recommend
    ActiveCollab
    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.












    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Whimsical
    It's extremely well-suited for rapid wire-framing of concepts, as product teams can quickly collaborate on any idea and create a visual blueprint of it. Whimsical could provide more intuitive feature prioritization templates. The current templates lack the necessary detail and could be further enhanced from a UI/UX standpoint.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    ActiveCollab
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Whimsical
    • Simple to use
    • Tons of uses
    • Can be customized with themeing
    • Can organize all your boards pretty much however you want
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    ActiveCollab
    • It isn't possible to set members of staff as part time, so if someone is unavailable on certain days you must manually enter them as OOO every single day that they are not in, that other teammates work. Hours also can't be edited individually - everyone is treated as working the same hours in a day, rendering capacity planner useless for flexi working teams
    • Subtasks cannot be assigned their own hours and deadlines, meaning the To Do list view can't be seen in actual date order and capacity planner does not reflect all time allocated to an individual's schedule unless every task is set up as a separate task rather than subtask
    • There is no way to see all tasks of a certain type across multiple campaigns (e.g all copywriting tasks vs all technical tasks) - support team suggested exporting data and making spreadsheets
    • Kanban view isn't available for people's own task lists ('board' view here shows a list)
    • Not possible to have one task be assigned to more than one person
    • Notifications are not sent when tasks are updated, so you have to leave comments and tag people each time
    Read full review
    Whimsical
    • It can be a little frustrating trying to line things up exactly right but that's probably more user error than anything
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    ActiveCollab
    No answers on this topic
    Whimsical
    It's fairly intuitive, I rarely have any problems using the app. The layout is pretty user-friendly and easy to adapt to. There's a lot of tooltips to help with the various features and functions, so it's very easy to get self-help for the most part. Overally, I'm pretty happy and satisfied with the usage of Whimsical for mind-mapping.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    ActiveCollab
    We have not required support for ActiveCollab as it works pretty seamlessly. We didn't have any issues with using the platform or with any billing issues. The self-service aspect of the platform is robust and easy to navigate so we have not encountered any errors that required assistance from the support team.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Whimsical
    I reached out to support, as I was interested in possibly investing in the organization, and they quickly and happily informed me they are a bootstrap organization and do not take on investors at this time. The swift response and information readily available for my consumption was extremely helpful and shows how solid the team behind it is.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    ActiveCollab
    ActiveCollab is easier to use and simpler in its setup. It has the right mix of features and simplicity. It's also project-oriented which is important for our workflow. Other tools are often too task-oriented, making it hard to track projects. Overall, ActiveCollab has a great mix of simplicity with good features.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Whimsical
    Whimsical is so much easier and has a better interface, so I think it's more suited to our workflow if compared to other tools like Google Charts. I really love this tool and I'm looking to learn and use it even more, as it helps us optimize our time, planning, and delivering more efficiently.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    ActiveCollab
    • Allows our team to stay organized and keep conversations on tasks.
    • The To-Do List email every morning helps me mentally prepare and know exactly what I should be doing as soon as I start work.
    • Powerful and useful integrations save lots of time (Google Drive, Slack, Dropbox, Zapier and more!).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Whimsical
    • No hard numbers I can quote. Other than the free plan has been adequate for my needs.
    • It's my go to mind mapping tool.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    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.