MeisterTask Review 2024: Masterful Project Management Made in Germany?

What do Ritter Sport, Allianz, and EXPERTE.com all have in common? We use MeisterTask to digitize workflows and manage projects. In this review, we'll share our comprehensive findings about the German task management software.

Below, we'll let you know what MeisterTask is capable of, how it differs from other software, and which workflows it's more or less suitable for.

MeisterTask* is a cloud-based task management platform launched in 2014 by the Munich-based MeisterLabs GmbH. The developer made a name for itself in 2009 with the release of its mind-mapping tool, MindMeister.

In 2018, the team released MasterNote, a Wiki tool for project documentation.

Below, we'll focus strictly on MeisterTask.

To get started, you'll need to create a Meister account and answer a few questions about your background, business, and team.

You'll automatically start a 13-day trial period, after which your (free) account will be downgraded to the software's free version unless you decide to purchase a premium plan.

Immediately after registration, a brief tutorial launches which walks you through the setup process for your first project. Then, you'll be taken to MeisterTask's dashboard, where you'll manage all of your tasks and projects.

Any MeisterTask feature can be easily reached from the dashboard with just a few clicks. In the menu to the left, you'll see several different icons, which represent your projects, tasks, and reports.

Widgets are located in the upper right: Use these to search through tasks, review the most important assignments, consult your checklist, or read notifications.

The look and feel of the MeisterTask dashboard ticks all of our boxes: It's polished and elegant, intuitive to use, and the ability to adjust the background image, as well as buttons and colors, gives it a personal touch.

Of course, this ease of use does come at a cost: You'll quickly memorize all of the features and settings since there aren't too many of them. At its core, MeisterTask is little more than a collection of Kanban Boards and some extras.

You'll spend most of your time in MeisterTask on the Projects page. Each project is a kind of Kanban board that's divided into multiple, vertical columns, which you can add to and label.

These columns reflect your project's or task's workflow, and you can move cards from left to right (for example "Open", "In Progress", and "Finished") as they near completion.

In MeisterTask, a project is composed of different tasks. Add these by clicking on the plus symbol at the bottom of any of your project columns. After that, you can drag and drop them into the appropriate column.

When you click on a task, a detailed window should open in which you can edit and adjust its attributes. You can add subtasks, checklists, descriptions, and much more (we'll discuss this below).

Because the platform is based around Kanban, MeisterTask's selection of views isn't as impressive as other project management solutions from our sample. With that said, there are three main options:

If you'd like to visualize your tasks and projects in a variety of different ways, MeisterTask is far from the best choice, since there are much more versatile options on the market.

We particularly missed normal list or table views, depicting tasks on top of one another, with filter options. There also aren't detailed calendar, gallery, or card views.

To sum things up, MeisterTask is a Kanban tool with a timeline. Below, you can see which views MeisterTask offers compared to the other providers from our review series:

Take advantage of MeisterTask's smartphone app to keep tabs on your projects and tasks on the go.

Its porting seems to have worked well: With its column-based design, which displays nicely on smartphones, and its limited variety of features, anyone can effectively use MeisterTask on a handheld device.

And the app is useful too: You can easily create new tasks, edit existing ones, or quickly add checklist entries with just a few taps.

MeisterTask is a user-friendly, Kanban-style task management software. If you'd like to work according to the Kanban principle and don't need tables, lists, or other views, it offers everything that you'll need.

However, the minute you want to try something different, you'll notice the platform's limitations. While the focus on Kanban is good, Trello shows that versatility doesn't need to come at the cost of user-friendliness.

Tasks are the smallest organizational unit in MeisterTask. Any activity that needs to be completed, whether independently or as part of a larger project, should be added to the MeisterTask dashboard.

These tasks can then be organized and grouped into Kanban-style lists, as they progress through previously defined phases or stages.

To create a new task, click on the plus symbol in the column that you'd like to add it to. Don't worry if it's just a placeholder - all that's needed is the task's name.

After that, the task will be added to the column. To add more information and edit its attributes, click on it.

You'll have the following options, among others:

In the menu to the right, you'll find a few more features and elements, such as:

If the above options aren't enough, you can add custom fields to any task. To access these, go to Project Settings and click on the Custom Fields tab on the far right, followed by "+ Add Custom Field".

Unfortunately, custom fields can only be text or dropdown menus. This is likely attributable to the platform's Kanban focus since other types of fields that might be useful in different views aren't offered by MeisterTask.

Most of the other project management tools from our review series offer significantly more options for custom fields, as you can see here:

As hinted at above, you can use subtasks to further segment your tasks into more manageable pieces. These have the same options and settings as regular tasks but are subordinated to them.

To view subtasks in your project list, you'll need to click on the filter menu to the right of your project screen and toggle the "Show Subtasks" switch on.

It's also possible to indicate dependencies between tasks. Related tasks can be grouped, preventing one another from being started, or duplicates. This also helps you see how different tasks in your project are related to one another.

There aren't any options for marking project progress with milestones or pre-defined goals (such as a specific number of articles per quarter). Below, you can see which features MeisterTask offers in comparison to other services:

We're going to say it again: MeisterTask is a Kanban platform with Kanban tools. If you accept these conditions, there are plenty of options for flexibly organizing your tasks, including dependencies and subtasks.

However, tasks cannot be customized to your exact preferences, since that would contradict Kanban's principles. All told MeisterTask's options are fit for purpose.

You can use MeisterTask alone, within a team, or with those outside of your organization. To jointly work on projects, you'll need to invite your colleagues to them.

Click on the "Share" button within a project to add users and team members. In addition to the administrator role, there are four other options for new members:

Project members can only access the project you've invited them to. For co-workers or those that you work on multiple projects with, you'll want to create a team, since this greatly simplifies collaboration.

To manage teams, click on "My Team" in the MeisterTask menu bar. You'll see all current user lists and can add new team members as well.

Team members have a key advantage over project members: They can add new members and quickly share the project with others (such as different departments).

In addition, team members have access to more settings, like the ability to limit access to team projects by IP areas.

MeisterTask's collaboration features are limited to the essentials: You can assign tasks to users and communicate (via comments) with them. It's possible to react to comments with emojis.

And that's about it: Out of the box, MeisterTask doesn't support real-time collaboration. This means no private messages, live chats, group discussions, whiteboards, or shared document editing.

All of the above are possible with integrations and other Meister tools (more on this in the next section).

As you can see below, other project management tools offer significantly more native collaboration features than MeisterTask:

MeisterTask does not excel in terms of collaboration: For digital teamwork, the platform limits itself to comments, the ability to assign tasks, and emoji reactions.

If you're interested in real-time teamwork, you'll need other applications or integrations.

Of course, there's much more to MeisterTask than what we've detailed above, including features that make it possible to create complex workflows. We'll start with the reporting features, which can be found on the Reports screen.

MeisterTask Reports provides data-based insights into your projects in the form of two kinds of reports:

Any custom filter you create can be saved, making it possible to generate your reports without needing to adjust your settings each time.

Reports can be exported as .xls (Excel) and .csv files.

It's possible to track and view how long certain tasks have been worked on. This allows you to see the amount of time your teammates spend on their assignments.

Are you unable to visualize a particular process with MeisterTask's standard features? If so, you can use the platform's automations by clicking on the "Automations" tab in the project settings menu.

Then click on "Add Automation" to open a list of automation templates and options:

At the moment, 11 automations are offered:

MeisterTask's automation features are practical and easier to set up than those in other project management tools.

However, because the pre-defined options are relatively limited, MeisterTask's automations are less flexible and cannot be used for complex workflows.

As an example, it isn't possible to link subtasks in automations, meaning that you won't be able to automate their creation or how they're worked on.

Other programs (Airtable, Trello, or monday.com) are much more versatile in this regard and allow users to create complex automations with triggers and reactions.

When it comes to integrations, MeisterTask doesn't have much to offer: Only a few programs, including Slack, Google Calendar, Microsoft Teams, Spark, and GitHub, are supported.

If you want to integrate MeisterTask into other programs, you'll need to use Zapier or its native API.

MeisterTask does have a few things to offer apart from its basic features, however, these aren't anywhere near as flexible or comprehensive as what other project management software provides.

MeisterTask is less versatile in terms of additional features than other platforms. Automations are limited to a few pre-defined workflows, and there aren't too many integrations to choose from.

With that said, MeisterTask's automations are far more user- and beginner-friendly than those of its competitors. In addition, its reports are solid, and time tracking is built into the dashboard.

Anyone who wants to use MeisterTask with other programs can easily integrate it using Zapier.

MeisterTask's colorful help center is relatively well-stocked. On the homepage, you'll find everything you need: A search bar, article categories, selected FAQs, and contact options.

Support articles are nicely arranged in sub- and sub-subcategories (i.e. "First Steps", "Team Management", "Accounts and Payment"). Articles are well-written, easy to understand, and include videos, screenshots, GIFS, and links.

In MeisterTask's Academy, you'll find a series of video lectures that introduce all of the platform's basics and advanced features in little more than an hour.

Direct support options depend entirely on the subscription you've purchased. In essence, there's email and hotline support, the latter of which is only for Business subscribers and above.

Pro subscribers get priority email support, which reacts somewhat quicker to requests.

Unfortunately, we had to wait relatively long for an answer to our query: It took MeisterTask's support team 12 days to reply to our request since there was allegedly a "higher than expected volume of requests".

Static content is good, however, if you're looking for a more human touch, you'll need to be patient. If you'd like to try your luck with other MeisterTask users, you can post in the Meister Community, which has around 5,000 members.

There are four MeisterTask subscriptions, which are charged either monthly or annually (the latter comes with a slight discount): Basic, Pro, Business, and Enterprise.

Below, we've compared all of MeisterTask's subscriptions:

MeisterTask is relatively expensive, especially its lowest-priced subscription, which has many unnecessary limitations. We've compared all providers from our review series to see how much 10 users and unlimited projects would cost:

If you intend to structure your projects in Kanban style, MeisterTask has everything you need: You can create and organize endless Kanban boards in its intuitive dashboard.

On top of that, there are practical extras such as integrated time tracking and ready-made automation templates.

On the other hand, if you're not convinced about the merits of Kanban, MeisterTask probably isn't for you: For project planning, the platform is fairly rigid, and even basic views (tables or lists) aren't included.

Should (good) Kanban features not be enough, you'll likely be less than pleased with MeisterTask's rigidity. Rounding out the negatives, the platform is fairly expensive.

How satisfied are MeisterTask's users with the platform? We checked verified reviews on reputable portals and summarized our findings here:

Are you looking for a Kanban-style platform that offers more options and flexibility? If so, Trello is worth checking out, since it supports other views despite its Kanban focus.

Or maybe you need a solution that has enhanced communication options? In that case, Teamwork or Basecamp might be worth considering.

You can find more of the best alternatives to MeisterTask here: