Abstract This paper explores the openly available DMP tools and forms a comparative analysis aimed at assisting researchers and data managers to formulate effective data management plans. Based on a literature review 14 DMP tools were selected and were evaluated using 45 selected parameters. The study enlists and enunciates the features of DMP tools, spots several gaps in DMP practices, and provides a few recommendations that can improve the existing tools and DMP practices. Compared to other related works, present work sheds extra light on percentage coverage of parameters by each tool and percentage coverage of tools by each parameter. It is identified that selected tools cover 50%–84% parameters, whereas 78% parameters are covered by half the selected DMP tools. Moreover, 28% of the tools cover 60% of the DMP assisting parameters. Additionally, co-occurrence of parameters and correlation among the tools are illustrated using matrices. It was found that co-occurrence of data description/summary/collection, documentation and metadata, findability, and accessibility parameters are relatively higher and all the selected tools are positively correlated to each other. The study is impactful for the researchers, librarians, data managers, and funding agencies for selecting an appropriate DMP tool as per their requirement.