Asana vs. Trello: Which is right for your team?
When your endless email threads, pile of sticky notes, and random?spreadsheets ?are no longer cutting it, you need project management software. And there are plenty of options. But Asana and Trello quickly stand out as the cool kids on the block—they're two of the most popular and best project management tools out there.
Each one offers a seamless user experience, different pricing tiers to fit a variety of budgets, quality customer support, and robust features that support both individual task management and team collaboration.
Curious about the key differences between Asana and Trello? We're digging into the heated debate here—so you can choose the right project management tool for yourself.
Summary
Asana and Trello are both project management tools that help individuals and teams stay organized and on track. However, there are key differences between them:
Asana is a more robust project management tool with advanced features, while Trello is a simpler visual tool that's easy to use for smaller teams or individuals. Read on for a more in-depth exploration of each tool.
Asana overview: The go-to for complex projects
When you think about typical project management platforms, you probably picture something similar to what Asana offers. It starts with your big, meaty project and then splits it into tasks and even subtasks in a list style—all with team members and due dates clearly assigned, and even an option for color-coded tasks.
While Asana built a name on a more standard table, list, or spreadsheet-style view, the platform has since launched?several other views ?(outside of lists) to understand your team's work, like:
Asana is commonly cited as the go-to complex project management solution and is looked to as the default for big teams and larger projects. That's likely because it does such a solid job of showing the whole picture, as well as helping assign individual tasks and assignments.
When you open Asana, you're greeted with an individualized homepage that, by default, displays your own priorities and projects. It's completely unique to you and you can even customize with various widgets so you see the information that's most important to you.
In the left sidebar, you can navigate to your individual tasks to see what was recently assigned, what's on your plate for that day, and what's coming up. You can also click into your inbox to quickly see your messages and comments.
Asana arguably has more inbuilt functionalities and advanced features than Trello does, but it also comes with a slightly higher price tag.
One notable feature that sets Asana apart (and supports the assertion that it's the better choice for more involved, larger projects) is the ability to set task dependencies. These help you understand how various tasks fit together and pinpoint work that can't get started until the dependency task is done.
Beyond that, you'll find a lot of overlap in functionality between Asana and Trello including:
In short, there are tonnes of commonalities between Trello and Asana. But it's Asana's advanced features and ability to drill down into projects that positions it as one of the best project management tools—particularly for simplifying team collaboration and managing complicated projects.
When your endless email threads, pile of sticky notes, and random?spreadsheets ?are no longer cutting it, you need project management software. And there are plenty of options. But Asana and Trello quickly stand out as the cool kids on the block—they're two of the most popular and best project management tools out there.
Each one offers a seamless user experience, different pricing tiers to fit a variety of budgets, quality customer support, and robust features that support both individual task management and team collaboration.
Curious about the key differences between Asana and Trello? We're digging into the heated debate here—so you can choose the right project management tool for yourself.
Summary
Asana and Trello are both project management tools that help individuals and teams stay organized and on track. However, there are key differences between them:
Asana is a more robust project management tool with advanced features, while Trello is a simpler visual tool that's easy to use for smaller teams or individuals. Read on for a more in-depth exploration of each tool.
Asana overview: The go-to for complex projects
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When you think about typical project management platforms, you probably picture something similar to what Asana offers. It starts with your big, meaty project and then splits it into tasks and even subtasks in a list style—all with team members and due dates clearly assigned, and even an option for color-coded tasks.
While Asana built a name on a more standard table, list, or spreadsheet-style view, the platform has since launched?several other views ?(outside of lists) to understand your team's work, like:
Asana is commonly cited as the go-to complex project management solution and is looked to as the default for big teams and larger projects. That's likely because it does such a solid job of showing the whole picture, as well as helping assign individual tasks and assignments.
When you open Asana, you're greeted with an individualized homepage that, by default, displays your own priorities and projects. It's completely unique to you and you can even customize with various widgets so you see the information that's most important to you.
In the left sidebar, you can navigate to your individual tasks to see what was recently assigned, what's on your plate for that day, and what's coming up. You can also click into your inbox to quickly see your messages and comments.
Asana arguably has more inbuilt functionalities and advanced features than Trello does, but it also comes with a slightly higher price tag.
One notable feature that sets Asana apart (and supports the assertion that it's the better choice for more involved, larger projects) is the ability to set task dependencies. These help you understand how various tasks fit together and pinpoint work that can't get started until the dependency task is done.
Beyond that, you'll find a lot of overlap in functionality between Asana and Trello including:
In short, there are tonnes of commonalities between Trello and Asana. But it's Asana's advanced features and ability to drill down into projects that positions it as one of the best project management tools—particularly for simplifying team collaboration and managing complicated projects.
Trello overview: the favorite for Kanban boards
Trello built a name for itself as the go-to project management tool if you want to use a kanban board, a concept that originated in lean manufacturing and was popularized on agile teams.
With kanban, you move cards between different columns or lists. You move work from left to right to indicate its progress through your?workflow . For example, a card for a blog post might move from keyword research to outline to drafting to editing to publishing.
While Trello is undoubtedly the shining star for kanban, you aren't limited to only columns. For users with a Trello Premium or Enterprise plan, there are tons of other?customizable views in Trello ?including:
For every huge team that swears by Asana, you'll find a person who touts Trello as the single best option for individual task management. But that doesn't mean it can't be used by small teams too. In fact, you'll find tons of similar features to what you see in Asana, such as:
But Trello cranks up the power of typical third-party integrations with?Power-Ups . They're sort of similar to integrations, but are super quick and easy to use. Click a button and the functionality is added directly to your Trello board.
Trello can be as simple or robust as you need it to be. When comparing Trello vs Asana, think of Trello as a way to go beyond lists and tables and benefit from a far more visual approach to multiple projects and tasks, while Asana is more of the traditional project management style.
Use Asana if:
Use Trello if:
Tame your project chaos
If your daily tasks and team projects have become too much to manage with jumbled spreadsheets and tangled email threads, it's time to peruse some popular tools that can transform your project management from stressful to streamlined.
There's a wide range of solutions out there to manage projects, but Asana and Trello are undoubtedly two of the most popular—and this guide should help you pinpoint the one that's the right fit for you.
And if you still feel stuck? Hey, that's what the free trial is for.
Elevate your productivity even more by integrating Paperform with whatever your favorite project management tool is.?Try it for free today .