Most PM tools fall into one of two camps: too simple for real PMBOK work, or so enterprise-bloated that nobody uses them properly. VanillaPM is the third option.
VanillaPM brings the full PMBOK framework — Work Breakdown Structure, Risk Register, Budget Tracking, Stakeholder Engagement — to teams of any size, without the enterprise pricing or the implementation consultants.
It is opinionated where it should be (the WBS is the spine of every project) and flexible where it needs to be (sprint-based, waterfall, or somewhere in between — your call). The point isn't to enforce a methodology. The point is to make the right thing the easy thing.
Built by a PM. For PMs. For the work, not for the procurement cycle.
PMBOK is the global standard for project management — refined over four decades by the Project Management Institute and tested across construction, IT, healthcare, marketing, manufacturing, government, every discipline you can name. It works because it isn't a methodology. It's a vocabulary.
The five process groups — Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, Closing — describe how every project actually moves, regardless of whether you call your sprints "sprints" or "phases." VanillaPM uses that vocabulary as its organising principle. Rigour without rigidity. The process groups guide the tool — they don't constrain you.
Founder · Project Manager · Infrastructure Engineer
I've spent years running projects in tools that either fought me or got out of the way too much. The first kind made every WBS edit a battle; the second left me reinventing risk registers in spreadsheets. So I built the tool I wanted — PMBOK-shaped, fast, honest about what it does and doesn't do. VanillaPM is still small. That's the point. It's built by a PM who runs the build itself as a project — same WBS, same risks, same budget you see inside the app. If you're using it and something feels wrong, drop me a note. I'll see it.
Every element communicates its purpose without explanation. No decorative complexity. No interactions that exist for show.
PM tools surface a lot of data. We make it feel calm, not overwhelming — through whitespace, typographic hierarchy, and ruthless de-cluttering.
Clean and trustworthy — closer to Linear or Basecamp than to legacy enterprise PM software. Built for the work, not the procurement cycle.