Any hunt for the best project management software is likely to consider the pros and cons of both Trello and Asana, which have been industry leaders for some time. Both have been used by Fortune 100 companies and both have matured into quality project management tools. The right one for you is going to depend on the types of projects you’re managing and your preferred workflow.
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Asana vs. Trello: At a Glance
Many businesses and individuals have their favorite project management tool but it always depends on their personal preferences and needs. For example, businesses that need a basic tool and love the visual Kanban approach to project management are likely to love Trello’s simplistic approach.
However, those who need a slightly more robust tool for customization or need to assign individual tasks within a feature, story or project will find Asana as a better option. Both offer great solutions to the right crowd but the right one for you might not be the right one for your competition or even the person sitting next to you.
Let’s take a look at each option to help you make your choice.
Asana
Free Version Available
Yes
Starting Price
$10.99
per month
Amount of Storage Space
Unlimited
Yes
$10.99
per month
Unlimited
Asana is a popular project management tool that is used by large and small businesses alike to manage projects or individual tasks. It is best used by teams to keep track of tasks and subtasks and clearly define who is in charge of accomplishing what.
The beauty of Asana is the productivity it brings for working in teams. You can assign due dates to each individual task and track the progress of everyone’s work in a single location. You can also get an overview of where each project or column within a project is at any given time.
Asana is best for small teams on a budget that want to hold each other accountable for projects that are beyond their typical day-to-day activities.
- Can customize columns for each step or task in a project
- Unlimited storage capabilities
- A lot of integration options
- Great for managing projects in teams
- A lot of customer service-related complaints from current users
- Can’t see a nestled view of all subtasks with your main tasks
Trello
Free Version Available
Yes
Starting Price
$5
per month
Amount of Storage Space
Unlimited
Yes
$5
per month
Unlimited
Trello is a popular project management tool for individuals or small teams looking to collaborate on creative projects, such as editing content or delivering tasks in a photography studio. Teams that need to divide individual tasks up into subtasks and assign them to different people will find Trello to be more difficult to use than Asana, but Trello is easier to use and pick up quickly.
Trello uses individual cards that you can customize in a number of ways, but each card is best used as its own task and not as a holding place for larger project items. It is very easy to see comments from the whole team on the cards or to move them from one stage to the next. The integrations are large in number and functionality with Trello and can help take your productivity to the next level.
Trello is best used by individuals or small businesses with tasks that all go through the same process, such as a publishing schedule for a website.
- Easy to use Kanban visuals
- Unlimited storage capabilities
- A lot of integration options
- Great for individuals managing projects
- Updated less frequently with new enhancements than other options
- Very basic functionality
- Difficult to break up individual tasks within a card
How Asana and Trello Stack Up
| Asana | Wrike | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free to start. Also has plans of $10.99 and $24.99 per user per month (if billed annually). Enterprise pricing is not disclosed. | Free for basic functionality. Also has plans of $9.80 and $24.80 per user per month. Enterprise pricing is not disclosed. |
| Popular Integrations | Jira, Zoom, Salesforce, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams | Salesforce, Jira, GitHub, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, Tableau |
| Storage Capability | Unlimited | 2 GB per account with the free plan, up to 10GB per user with the enterprise plan |
| Sharing | Entire team and individual projects can be shared externally | Entire team and external users can view all items, as invited |
| Free Plan Storage | You can assign due dates to each individual task and subtask | Each individual task can have its own due date |
| Work Schedules | Only provides account-wide scheduling | Comes with both account-wide and individual scheduling features |
As you can see, both tools offer similar functionality and the pricing isn’t that far off. Trello is a slightly more affordable because you aren’t paying for the more team-specific features that Asana has.
Process Management
A big part of finding the right project management tool is to identify something that will work within your established process. Both Trello and Asana have features that allow you to tailor each to your process, but neither can do everything.
Asana allows you to break down projects into categories and create groups of tasks. You can utilize this to move tasks from group to group as status changes or you can group together tasks for specific teams or those who have a similar purpose.
Trello is much more friendly to a set process of moving a task through a set pipeline of tasks that are the same for everything. For example, moving a written article for a publishing site from idea to writing to editing to publishing is a set process that every article, or task, can go through.
Ease of Use
Both Asana and Trello are easy to use in their own right, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. Trello becomes more difficult to use the more you add to a specific card because you’ll have to do a bit of searching and scrolling to find the right information you might be looking for.
Asana becomes less easy to use if you don’t set up the tasks or subtasks correctly or if part of your team doesn’t abide by your system for keeping track of each project. For example, subtasks can get lost and forgotten if they aren’t commonly used and it could be difficult to find one you might need details on.
Asana and Trello can both be picked up fairly easily and neither is difficult to set up, as long as you choose the one that fits into your process.
Bottom Line
Both Asana and Trello can be good project management software, depending on your needs. You should use Asana if you’re looking to manage projects for more than two people, especially if you’re managing a small team. You should use Trello if you need a visual project management tool and don’t need to divide subtasks out to a team very often. Both offer a free version so you can try each for yourself to see what you like.
Further reading:
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Does Asana have a mobile app?
Asana has a mobile app for both Android and iOS. With the app, all your work syncs between web, mobile and desktop apps. You can manage projects, your inbox, tasks, conversations, portfolios and goals.
Why do you need project management software?
Project management software helps you to plan, organize, budget and track the progress of a company project. It also unites a team around shared goals so all are working toward successful project completion. In dispersed teams, growing businesses or across multiple departments, this can be difficult to do without software people can join and access from their own devices wherever and whenever they work.
What’s the difference between Asana and Trello?
Asana is ideal for small teams on a budget, and those who’d like more customization. Trello is better for individuals or small businesses with tasks that all go through a similar process. Small businesses that just need a basic tool and prefer a visual Kanban approach to project management are likely to appreciate the simplicity of Trello.
What is the best project management software for small businesses?
The best project management software is going to depend on the types of projects you’re managing and your preferred workflow. Several factors go into selecting the best solution, which is why we created this guide to the top software for project management. When creating the guide, we considered many aspects, including cost and fees, features and functionality, ease of use, reviews and customer support.
