Asana or Trello: comparing the two project management tools

Asana and Trello are two very popular project management tools for companies working in a collaborative and Agile way on a daily basis or for one-off projects. These two online programs are often compared, because their approach to project management is visual, fun and collaborative. This winning recipe has enabled millions of employees worldwide to work in "project mode", with all the benefits this can bring: productivity, goal attainment, visibility, stress-free organization, etc.

In this comparison, we've tested Asana and Trello in their latest versions, to highlight their fundamental differences and enable you to make the most appropriate choice for your project team.

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Introducing the two project management tools

Asana: collaborative project management and daily productivity

Asana

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Project, task, and work management software

Learn more about Asana

Asana is a task and project management software designed for day-to-day collaboration and ad hoc project planning. Asana takes the fundamentals of project management tools and provides a structured framework for teams, while offering a flexible, collaborative experience. This software is designed to enable team members to collaborate and communicate more effectively, with the aim of significantly increasing productivity, whatever the size of the team or the complexity of the project.

Trello: visual project management for small projects

Trello

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Innovative and Collaborative Project Management Tool

Learn more about Trello

Trello is a universal organization tool for personal and professional projects. Trello offers a very specific approach to project management, replacing tasks with "cards" and projects with "boards". This Kanban-based approach provides a highly visual environment for projects, like Post-it notes on a whiteboard. This project management tool is just as relevant for planning and organizing the creation of a website as it is for organizing your move into a new apartment.

Both Trello and Asana require no training (MOOC project management, for example), no certification, no change management, no project planning methodology, and no supervised deployment (support by an integrator). These are simple collaborative tools, managed entirely via the web interface. They are suitable for all teams wishing to work together in a more agile (less rigid) way.

Dueling Asana and Trello: feature comparison

We've just seen that Trello and Asana are both designed for Agile project management, but there's a clear difference in their approach. This is immediately apparent in the User Experience. The table below shows the differences in terms of functionality alone:

Functionally, the main difference between Trello and Asana is the way tasks are viewed and scheduled. Asana offers a better environment when a project contains around 30 tasks (which is the case most of the time), whereas Trello's unique table view takes advantage of smaller projects to offer greater visibility and user-friendliness. On this point, our view is that a list of tasks, sub-tasks and the ability to group them together is almost indispensable in project planning, and therefore Trello is very limiting. It's also worth noting that in 2016, Asana added a table view that's almost identical to Trello's, while retaining its sleek style that's much appreciated by its users. This feature has clearly been designed to appeal to Trello fans.

In its free version, Asana offers more functionalities than Trello: this is the latter's desire to limit its tool's native features to the strict minimum. For intensive use of Trello, a catalog of applications called Power-Ups enhances the basic version, provided you upgrade to the premium version. Beware, however: Power-Ups are full of good ideas, but are developed by independent developers who are not part of Atlassian (Trello's owner): the consistency and quality of Power-Ups is not always up to scratch.

Important: Asana and Trello are considered collaborative project management tools (teamwork) and therefore do not perform the functions of project management software solutions such as :

• Timesheet management for tracking time spent,
• Quotation and invoicing,
• Resource management,
• Workload planning,
• Project Portfolio Management (PPM): Asana to launch PPM function in November
• Project lifecycle,
• Instant messaging and visio,
• Risk management,
• Financial management: cost management, budget tracking,
• Document management (EDM).

Pricing: which tool offers the best value for money?

Asana and Trello have very similar pricing models:

• A free version with no time limit (as opposed to a free trial), which small teams can use ad vitam æternam ;
• A premium version for companies who want the full functionality of the solution;
• An Enterprise version for the most demanding companies in terms of services.

After several months of using Asana in the free version, the limit on the number of collaborators and the functionality for creating custom fields prompted us to upgrade to the premium version. With Trello, it's the limit of 1 Power-Up per board and 10MB (i.e. 2 or 3 files) that pushes you to upgrade.

Value for money depends mainly on how you manage your projects:

• The free version is very good in both camps, provided you manage small projects. If your projects become complex, you'll feel constantly limited in Trello;
• The premium version, on the other hand, is more qualitative with Asana: it gives you the feeling of having a professional, structuring tool, while Trello retains an amateurish feel.

Advantages and disadvantages of the two planning tools

Trello + Asana

Advantages of both tools:

• Both have a free version;
• Easy to use;
• They make it easy to coordinate project stakeholders;
• They enable efficient project management and progress tracking;
• They are collaborative, productive and simplify communication;
• They centralize information and synchronize actions.

Disadvantages of both tools :

• They don't allow you to manage complex projects with all their dimensions (budgets, PPM, staffing, etc.).

Trello

Advantages of Trello :

• Extremely fast onboarding: a free account can be opened in 10 seconds, with no frustration;
• The tool is quick and intuitive to learn;
• It's still as fun to use as ever, even after several months;
• The interface is minimalist, but offers the possibility of adding additional functionalities (Power-Ups) for the most demanding users.

Disadvantages of Trello :

• The tool is too simplistic for projects of medium to high complexity;
• The Kanban-only view is frustrating beyond thirty or so cards;
• Use is limited to one-off projects and not to daily productivity (team task management);
• It is not possible to create sub-tasks with the same level of detail as parent tasks.

Asana

Advantages of Asana

• Its use on a day-to-day basis as well as for one-off projects makes it a collaborative platform as widely used as e-mail;
• Excellent value for money;
• Views can be varied to suit personal preferences;
• Good balance between structure and flexibility;
• Very complete in terms of functionality, with good integrations.

Disadvantages of Asana

• More advanced management of workflows and ticket numbers could replace software such as Redmine.

Asana and Trello users and usage contexts

Type of company

• Freelancers,
• Small businesses / start-ups,
• SMES, SMIS,
• Specific departments of large companies.

Stakeholders

• All employees,
• Project managers.

Asana and Trello are not suitable for IT departments, project owners, project managers, etc.

Type of project

• IT projects: mainly software development,
• Brainstorming,
• Creative projects: web project, communication plan,
• Innovation projects: creation of a new product line,
• Day-to-day team coordination (Asana only),
• Collaborative work (Asana only).

Recommended methodologies

• None or Agile

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Conclusion: what to choose between Asana and Trello?

Trello and Asana are both highly effective IT tools, offering a high degree of flexibility in project management. In the case of Asana, the tool also fulfills the mission of collaborative management of each employee's daily tasks (excluding projects). Trello, for its part, proves to be a very good organizational tool for small projects in its free version. However, its limited functional coverage means that you quickly have to upgrade to the premium version. And yet, for almost the same price, Asana's premium version offers more features for a broader, more structured use.