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Project Management & Collaboration

ActiveCollab

UK / wider Europe Report an error

Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 2 of 4 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by A51 d.o.o. · activecollab.com

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The UX Purist

Weighted verdict

Measures time-to-first-value with a stopwatch. Optimizes for clarity, density and software that teaches itself. Rejects fourteen-step setups and empty screens that offer no way forward.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The UX Purist

Collaboration depth

How this is scored

How much real multi-person project work the tool carries: shared planning, assignments, dependencies, workload, comments, guest access.

0 — A personal task list; a second user has no defined place in it.

3 — Tasks can be shared and assigned, but planning stays per-person — no shared timeline, workload or dependency view.

5 — Solid shared projects with assignments, comments and at least one team-level planning view; gaps appear in cross-project or capacity planning.

8 — Team-level planning is first-class: cross-project views, workload/capacity, dependencies, guest or client access with sane permissions.

10 — Handles the full span from two freelancers to a structured department in one model — planning, capacity, permissions and client involvement all without workarounds.

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The UX Purist

Assignments, task dependencies and subtasks arrive in the mid tier, layered with team chat, discussions and genuine client roles (Client, Client+) with client sharing — planning here is shared, not per-person. Workload, capacity and days-off management are first-class but sit only in the top plan, and I found no public information on cross-project dependency views beyond that tier gate. 2 4 5 10

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Reporting

How this is scored

Whether the tool can answer questions about the work: progress, time, budgets, utilization — and export the answer.

0 — No reporting beyond looking at the board.

3 — Fixed per-project status views only; nothing aggregates across projects and nothing exports cleanly.

5 — Useful standard reports (progress, tracked time) with basic filters and CSV export, but limited customization and no budget/utilization depth.

8 — Configurable cross-project reporting incl. time, budgets and utilization, with dashboards and reliable exports.

10 — Reporting is a product in itself: custom report builder, scheduled delivery, API access to every metric the UI shows.

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The UX Purist

Ten report types with long filter lists, saved presets, three dashboards and CSV export — it answers cross-project questions about time, budgets and cost, and the answer leaves the tool as a file. I found no public information on scheduled delivery or report-builder-plus-API depth, which is what reporting-as-a-product would need. 6 7 10

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Integrations

How this is scored

How well the tool connects to the rest of the stack: native integrations, calendar/comms hooks, API and webhooks, import/export paths.

0 — A closed box — no API, no integrations, CSV out if anything.

3 — A handful of marquee integrations, no public API or an API that covers a fraction of the product.

5 — The common set (calendar, Slack/Teams, file storage) plus a documented public API; automation platforms partially covered.

8 — Broad native catalogue, well-documented API and webhooks, first-class automation-platform support and real import paths from competitors.

10 — Ecosystem-grade: everything in 8 plus the tool is itself extensible (apps/plugins, AI/MCP surfaces) and exit via API export is complete.

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The UX Purist

Webhooks are documented like a product — event picking, project filters, a test button, an optional secret header — with a documented API, Zapier, an MCP server for AI, and real import paths from Trello, Asana, Wrike and spreadsheets. The visible native catalogue centers on Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox and QuickBooks, calendar sync is read-only export, and I found no public information showing a complete exit path via API export. 2 8 9 12

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Onboarding effort

How this is scored

Time and friction from signup to first real value for a small team, without paid services.

0 — No self-serve path — onboarding starts with a sales call and an implementation project.

3 — Self-serve exists but the first project requires configuration a newcomer cannot judge yet (workflows, custom fields, permissions) before anything works.

5 — A team gets a first project running within a day; trial requires payment details or key steps live behind docs.

8 — Signup to working project inside an hour: guided setup, sensible defaults, templates, trial without payment details.

10 — Minutes to value even for non-tool-people, importers pull existing work in, and the tool teaches its own advanced features as the team grows into them.

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The UX Purist

Fourteen-day trial with no credit card, sample projects that don't count against plan limits, templates with relative due dates, and migration from existing tools in minutes — a newcomer lands in a populated workspace that demonstrates itself. I found no public information on guided in-product walkthroughs, which is what separates a fast start from minutes-to-value for non-tool-people. 2 10 11

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the company and the data actually sit: legal entity, ownership control, data residency, and subprocessor exposure to non-EU jurisdictions.

0 — Non-European vendor, data on US infrastructure under US law, no DPA worth the name.

3 — DPA and GDPR language present, but hosting defaults to the US or ownership sits outside Europe — compliance paperwork over substance.

5 — EU data residency is available and contractually fixed, but the vendor or its controlling owner is non-European, or core subprocessors put data within CLOUD Act reach.

8 — European company under European control with EU-resident data and a public DPA; remaining exposure is limited to identifiable subprocessors (e.g. a US hyperscaler's EU region) and is documented.

10 — European company, European control, EU-only data residency on European infrastructure, subprocessor list free of extraterritorial reach — verifiable, not asserted.

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The UX Purist

GDPR language and an Article 28-style arrangement exist, but cloud hosting defaults to the USA and Canada with France only as offsite backup, no EU region to choose, and the company sits in Serbia outside the EEA; Google, Zoom, Intercom and Stripe appear as US-headquartered processors. Self-hosting is the only evidenced route to keeping data on infrastructure the buyer controls. 3 4

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Support & documentation

How this is scored

Whether a stuck user gets unstuck: docs quality, support channels and their availability per plan, and the health of the learning surface.

0 — No docs beyond marketing pages; support is a contact form that may answer.

3 — Docs exist but are thin or stale; support on entry plans is effectively email-only with slow turnaround.

5 — Searchable help center covering the core product; chat or email support on all plans with reasonable response times.

8 — Deep, current docs incl. onboarding guides and templates; fast chat support not gated to top tiers; visible changelog.

10 — Docs, academy, community and support so good they are a reason to buy; SLAs published, support quality independent of plan.

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The UX Purist

Live chat on every plan, a help center deep enough to carry step-by-step books for templates, reports and webhooks, a user community, and honestly published self-hosted support boundaries. I found no public information on response-time commitments or a visible changelog, which keeps it off the top rung. 2 9 12 13

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Can a buyer determine the real, payable cost of the tool for their team before talking to anyone?

0 — No public pricing at all — every number sits behind "contact sales".

3 — Some tiers are public, but a deciding factor (seat minimums, mandatory add-ons, billing-period surcharge, tax treatment) only surfaces at checkout or in fine print.

5 — Self-serve tiers are publicly priced and the billing-period difference is stated, but the headline number still needs qualifying — e.g. annual-only headline, taxes excluded without saying so, or an opaque enterprise tier doing real work.

8 — Every self-serve tier is fully priced with billing periods and tax treatment plain on the page; only genuinely custom enterprise work lacks a number.

10 — Every tier including enterprise has a public price or published price formula, and the headline number is the number on the invoice.

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The UX Purist

All three cloud tiers carry plain monthly prices — "$12.5 Per month 3 seats included", "$10 Per user/month", "$15 Per user/month" — plus a public 100+ seat rate of "$3.5 Per user/month" and a trial with no card. The yearly saving is stated only as "up to 17%", tax treatment is not shown, storage differs by billing period (100GB monthly vs 125GB yearly), and I found no public price for the self-hosted license itself. 1 2 13

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European sovereignty — proven facts

2 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Data residency US by default ⚠ unverified 0/3 pts 3 Report an error
Subprocessors US CLOUD Act reach ⚠ unverified 0/2 pts 3 Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

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Sources (13)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage activecollab.com Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Vendor pricing page activecollab.com Checked 15 Sep 2026 +1 earlier capture: 11 Sep 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Privacy policy activecollab.com Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Collaboration depth — found from sitemap activecollab.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Collaboration depth — found from sitemap activecollab.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Reporting — found from sitemap activecollab.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Reporting — found from sitemap activecollab.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Integrations — found from sitemap activecollab.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Integrations — found from sitemap activecollab.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Onboarding effort — found from sitemap activecollab.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Onboarding effort — found from sitemap activecollab.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Support & documentation — found from sitemap activecollab.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Support & documentation — found from sitemap activecollab.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →