Every product manager knows the chaos of scattered tools. Maybe you’ve kept your backlog in Excel, tracked customer feedback in Slack, and shared strategy slides on Google Drive — only to miss a critical feature request that cost you a renewal. Or maybe you’ve been in an enterprise setting where three teams shipped conflicting versions of the same feature because there wasn’t a single source of truth.
The numbers back this up: poor product management practices can reduce team productivity by up to 25%, while companies that invest in strong product operations see profits grow 30–35% faster. Yet surveys show that over 60% of PMs still rely on generic tools like spreadsheets or email threads to run their product function.
The right tool won’t magically make you a great PM — but it multiplies your ability to prioritize, communicate, and deliver. Below, we explore seven modern product management tools beyond Jira, Trello, Asana, Notion, or Monday. Each one serves a specific kind of PM: the startup hustler, the customer-obsessed SaaS lead, the enterprise strategist.
Linear
Best for: Technical PMs, early-stage startups, and dev-heavy teams who need speed without bloat.
Linear has become a cult favorite in tech circles because it feels like project management reimagined for developers. Its design is minimalist, but under the hood it’s lightning fast — every update feels instantaneous. That speed matters when your backlog grows to hundreds of issues, or when engineers live in the tool daily. Linear strips away the complexity of Jira while still offering agile workflows like sprints (called “cycles”), Kanban boards, and roadmap views.
- Ultra-fast keyboard-driven interface
- Issue tracking, backlogs, sprints, and roadmaps
- Automations for repetitive workflows
- Deep GitHub and Slack integrations
Pricing: Free for up to 250 issues. Paid plans start at $8/user/month.
Productboard
Best for: B2B SaaS teams and PMs who want roadmaps rooted in real customer data.
Productboard was built for one of the toughest PM jobs: turning scattered customer input into a strategy. Support tickets, sales notes, survey responses — they all flow into a single insights hub. PMs can then link every feature idea to real customer pain points and prioritize with frameworks like RICE. Roadmaps aren’t static slides; they’re dynamic views tailored to execs, engineers, or marketing. This makes Productboard not just a task tracker, but a decision-making engine.
- Centralized customer feedback repository
- Prioritization frameworks (RICE, MoSCoW, etc.)
- Customizable roadmaps for multiple audiences
- Integrations with Jira, Slack, Zendesk
Pricing: Free Starter plan. Paid plans from $19/maker/month.
airfocus
Best for: Experienced PMs, scale-ups, and cross-functional teams needing flexible prioritization.
airfocus puts prioritization at the heart of product management. Instead of endless debates, teams score initiatives against impact, effort, or custom metrics, then visualize results on a matrix. The platform adapts to whatever methodology you use — Agile, Lean, OKRs — making it versatile for maturing organizations. It also supports modular roadmaps, so you can zoom out to themes or zoom into features depending on the audience.
- Drag-and-drop scoring and priority matrix
- Multiple roadmap styles (timeline, Kanban, strategy maps)
- Real-time collaboration with comments and voting
- Custom workflows and templates for different methodologies
Pricing: Free trial. Paid plans from $59/editor/month.
Chisel
Best for: New PMs or teams struggling with stakeholder misalignment.
Chisel’s mission is simple: make sure everyone agrees on what’s important. It combines roadmap planning with feedback collection, so the PM isn’t just pushing a plan — they’re co-creating it with execs, engineers, and even customers. Features like voting, dual-layer prioritization, and interactive roadmaps make it easier to build consensus. For PMs early in their career or companies scaling fast, Chisel provides structure without being overwhelming.
- Collect feedback from stakeholders in one place
- Balance long-term vision with short-term feature requests
- Interactive roadmaps with input and voting
- Scorecards to show why features were prioritized
Pricing: Free plan available. Premium plans around $49/PM/month.
Aha!
Best for: Enterprise PMs and portfolio managers overseeing multiple products.
Aha! is one of the most feature-rich suites in the PM world. It connects vision, goals, and OKRs directly to features and releases, so leaders can prove how every initiative ladders up to strategy. With idea portals, teams can crowdsource feedback internally or externally. Its reporting and presentation tools are powerful, letting you turn roadmaps into exec-ready decks in minutes. The tradeoff: it’s not lightweight, but for enterprises, it’s unmatched.
- Link vision, OKRs, and features end-to-end
- Customizable portals for customer or employee ideas
- Portfolio management across multiple products
- Presentation-ready roadmaps and reports
Pricing: Starts at $59/user/month. No free plan.
Craft.io
Best for: SaaS teams, mid-sized orgs, and PMs who want everything in one hub.
Craft.io feels like a digital workbench for product managers. You can capture ideas, write specs, prioritize features, and plan sprints — all in one place. Its integrations with Jira and Azure DevOps make handoff to engineering seamless. Unlike lighter tools, Craft is built for the day-to-day grind of product planning, not just executive roadmaps. For teams who want fewer tabs open and more clarity, Craft.io can replace several disjointed tools.
- Specs, backlog, and roadmaps in one hub
- Custom fields and multiple views (list, Kanban, capacity)
- Native prioritization frameworks like RICE or WSJF
- Seamless sync with dev tools
Pricing: Paid plans from $19/editor/month. Free trial available.
ProdPad
Best for: Customer-led companies and PMs drowning in ideas and feedback.
ProdPad shines at the “fuzzy front end” of product management — collecting, refining, and validating ideas. Feedback from multiple channels flows into a single backlog, where PMs can enrich items with personas, business impact, and problem statements. Its lean “Now/Next/Later” roadmaps are flexible enough for startups while still credible for execs. For product-led growth companies, ProdPad keeps discovery and delivery tightly connected.
- Capture and enrich ideas with context
- Flexible roadmaps (Now/Next/Later or timeline)
- Automations for tagging and feedback processing
- Multi-channel feedback collection
Pricing: Modular pricing. Essentials from $24/editor/month per module.
High-performing product managers succeed because they prioritize well, align stakeholders, and stay close to customers. But without the right tool, even the best PM can get buried in noise.
Take the startup Product Manager (PM) who finally tamed feedback chaos with Productboard — turning churn risk into a feature launch that boosted retention. Or the enterprise leader who rolled out Aha! across five product lines, cutting roadmap conflicts and saving months of duplicated work.
The lesson? Tools won’t replace your judgment, but they’ll amplify your impact. The right platform reduces friction, brings visibility, and makes every decision traceable. Whether you’re a first-time PM using Chisel to align your team, or a seasoned leader scaling with airfocus or Aha!, the best tool is the one that fits your stage, your goals, and your way of working.
Start small, test a few, and pick the one that makes you feel less like a firefighter — and more like the product leader you aspire to be.