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The best product roadmap apps help you ti visualize the journey of developing a new product and bringing it to market.
Unlike broader product management tools, which are designed to not only handle new products, but keep existing ones up to date, a product roadmap tool should place more of an emphasis on the individual steps relating to creating a product.
In reality, the two offer very similar propositions so if you can’t find what you’re looking for in this list of the best product roadmap apps, then consider looking for alternatives in the best product management software.
Similarly, roadmapping is a method of organization used by other areas of business, so you may be able to find what you’re looking for in the best project management tools which enable you to take a broader look at other aspects of a project beyond the individual product, such as the resources required and advertising material.
The best product roadmap apps of 2023 in full:
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Jira Product Discovery is just one part of Atlassian’s offerings as a company, and while it’s in beta form at the moment, it joins similar Jira apps like Jira Software for software development, Jira Align for strategizing, Jira Work Management for project management, and other tools like Trello. It’s a firm favorite among IT decision makers, and is a company whose reach is broadening rapidly.
Its roadmapping tools are great and borrow from existing software that Atlassian has already developed, so they’re tried and tested. Jira Product Discovery also enables custom roadmaps and views to make sure that they align with each team’s preferences and needs.
As part of the software, you also get access to a board that illustrates effort versus impact to help denote a priority to something on your roadmap, as well as a home for subjective data like feedback.
Atlassian also has its own marketplace where you can browse from an extensive list of integrations. The app is currently in beta and available to try for free, and the future of Jira Product Discovery’s pricing is uncertain. That said, the rest of the company’s software is reasonably affordable, especially given the amount of features you can expect.
Although it’s an excellent all-round product management app, Productboard is highly valued for its roadmapping tools. The company challenges “stale” roadmaps by allowing customers to build engaging, dynamic boards that can handle filters to make sure they’re relevant to the right people.
Beyond the app’s dedicated roadmap functionalities, you can integrate your entire workflows and tie in all aspects of the product development. It, too, has a prioritization process which is built to be standardized across the ecosystem to make comparing with dashboards clearer.
Because there are more than just roadmapping features available, there are other integrations to accmoodate to things like feedback and ideas, including third parties like Salesforce, Intercom, and Zapier.
Above the free Starter plan which is very limited in its features, there’s a reasonably affordable Essentials plan. A pricier Pro tier sits below a pair of customizable, quote-only models, so there should really be an option for most companies and products.
The joyfully named Aha! is an easy-to-use piece of software that should make picking it up quite quick for workers who aren’t all that familiar with product roadmapping and development tools, whose customers include Dell, Experian, and Hootsuite.
Most importantly here is the roadmap view, which is easy to adjust with different views and customizable in terms of fields. Collaboration isn’t so much of an in-app experience as it focuses on sharing, so you can show others your roadmap as an image, PDF, or secure web portal.
More broadly, Aha! Roadmaps joins Aha! Ideas designed to get the ball rolling, Aha! Create for turning concepts into roadmaps, and Aha! Develop for the technical side of operations. Aha! Roadmaps, available at three fairly costly price points, comes as standard with access to the cheaper version of Aha! Ideas and Aha! Create. They are both available separately, too, where you can pick between more tiers including a free version of Aha! Create. Aha! Develop requires its own subscription, but is a lot more affordable.
Pendo offers a powerful app designed around roadmapping, and while it can be a perfect fit for developing new products it also lends itself well to other developmental work, like software.
It links to other business data, helping teams to understand the reason behind procuts and validate the impact with feedback. In certain cases, you can tie in retroactive analytics so that anything you’ve collected in previous rounds of feedback and analysis can feed right into your current roadmap.
User experience is clearly an important part of the process and the software is neatly designed and easy to use. There’s also a mobile version to help companies extend their reach, but regardless of your chosen device Pendo promises to be easy to set up with very little technical know-how needed.
There’s a free, customer-facing plan under the Engage category, along with a handful of others, and employee-facing Adopt plans. The catch is that pricing, which is available on request, is based on a group of users rather than a per-seat basis, so it can be especially costly for SMBs.
Following some acquisitions and transfers, Roadmunk now forms part of a family of apps that includes project management platform Structure for Jira, and resource management app Tempo, though they are only available separately and not as part of a package.
Roadmunk’s aim is to help its customers, including Microsoft, Dell, and Salesforce, to make boardroom-ready roadmaps that are clear and easy to follow, but packed full of insightful details.
It also serves as a platform to capture customer feedback and there’s a handy tool for monitoring how valuable something may be in relation to how much work is required. An integration with Jira Roadmap – either one-way or two-way depending on your plan – is designed to link higher-level operations with your Roadmunk to support more effective collaboration. There’s also integration for Azure DevOps.
The entry-level Starter plan is affordable, but the Business plan adds even more features. Even so, both are limited to one-way syncs unless you pay a supplementary charge on the Business plan. Professiona, which is substantially more expensive, comes with two-way sync as standard, and there’s an Enterprise tier which adds a private cloud and more. Because there’s a limit on the number of reviewers, expect to have to pay more for any additional users.
Arguably more of a broader project management tool, Trello does market itself towards those working on specific products and promises to link marketing together with management and development as an effective platform.
The roadmap itself is nothing unique, but given Trello’s extensive scale and reach, it benefits from more advanced features like no-code automation to help speed up repetitive administrative tasks. You can also pick from a variety of views to see different information simultaneously.
On top of the roadmapping features that are of greatest importance in this list, Trello also supports feature requests which is a great way of interacting with customers and delivering products that ultimately serve their audiences better.
There’s a handful of templates to choose from that were designed specifically with product management in mind, but there are even more if your work revolves around other categories like sales, marketing, HR, education, and more.
While it’s not a dedicated product management platform, it serves its purposes very well to most cases and is significantly more affordable than some other options, so it’s well worth considering if it works for you. On top of a free plan are three paid tiers based on a per-user model, with annual discounts.
How we tested the best product roadmap apps
To test for the best product roadmap software we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, some of which through dedicated desktop clients and others through their respective online portals. We then tested the service to see how the software could be used for different purposes and in different situations, with varying requirements as per different businesses’ needs. Time was taken to consider how the product roadmapping tools stack up to product management and project management services, too. Also forming part of the testing was detailed comparison between what each service offers, and its value for money.
Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar.
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