Asana Vs Trello: Which Task Management App Reigns Supreme?

Trello – Unleash Your Kanban Potential

Trello is an eye-catching, fun, intuitive app that helps you organize, coordinate, and track work.

“I absolutely love it and have been using it for at least five years, both for professional purposes and for my own personal projects. It’s a life-saver” – Kyle, Information Technology and Services.

Over 4.75 million users choose Trello due to its exceptional Kanban view. This distinctive feature enables users to effortlessly create, assign, and track tasks using boards, lists, and cards.

Although the absence of features such as swimlanes and work-in-progress limits may discourage some potential users, Trello’s remarkable potential for limitless customization makes it an enticing choice that is difficult to disregard.

Asana vs Trello: What’s the Better Bang For Your Buck

Pricing can make or break the decision to choose one software over the other. Asana and Trello offer various pricing plans to help users with various needs.

In this section, we will look at the different plans by both software and the features included in them to see what’s better, Asana or Trello.

Asana

Asana provides a free plan that includes basic features such as unlimited tasks, unlimited projects, conversations, project overviews, and collaboration with up to 15 team members. Additionally, there are two paid plans available: Premium ($13.49) and Business ($30.49) per user per month. If you choose to pay annually, you can enjoy a small discount on each plan.

While the free plan offers a comprehensive overview of the software’s capabilities, the paid plans provide enhanced features that improve functionality and increase productivity. These features include a timeline, workflow builder, milestones, advanced reporting, time tracking, custom rules builder, and an admin console. Moreover, the Business plan allows integration with Salesforce, Adobe Creative Cloud, Power BI, and more.

Rest assured, we will delve into the details of these features shortly. However, let’s first take a look at what Trello has to offer.

Trello

The Trello free plan provides essential features such as unlimited cards, up to 10 boards per workspace, unlimited power-ups per board, and the option to customize backgrounds and stickers. Similar to Asana, Trello’s free plan serves as a great introduction to understanding the fundamental capabilities of the application.

The paid plans, on the other hand, come with additional features that allow users to enhance productivity and collaboration. These plans consist of three options: Standard ($6), Premium ($12.50), and Enterprise ($17.50), with monthly billing per user. They offer various features including an unlimited board, custom fields, advanced checklists, additional views, admin and security capabilities, unlimited workspaces, and the ability to manage public boards.

Users Often Start With A Free Project Management Software….

…to see how well the software serves their unique needs before committing to the paid plans. Both software deserve praise for offering a taste of their incredible potential with their free plans. Head-to-head, Trello’s pricing plans seem a bit more cost-effective. However, to find out a software’s real value and usefulness, we have to dive into their features.

Asana Vs Trello: What Sets These Two Task Management Applications Apart?

…to see how well the software serves their unique needs before committing to the paid plans. Both software deserve praise for offering a taste of their incredible potential with their free plans. Head-to-head, Trello’s pricing plans seem a bit more cost-effective. However, to find out a software’s real value and usefulness, we have to dive into their features.

Let’s start with Asana.

Asana’s Main Features

Asana employs a hierarchical or list-based method to simplify complex projects into smaller subtasks. The following list shows the various features that help you tackle even the most complex of projects:

• Task Tracking
• Context and Perspective
• Advanced Search and Reports

Let’s go over these features one by one.

Task Tracking

Tasks are essential elements in any project, and Asana offers a comprehensive platform to efficiently manage them, thereby maximizing project progress. Each task can be customized with subtasks, assignees, due dates, recurring due dates, attachments, comments, tags, and followers for updates. When fully customized, a task can serve as a workflow, encompassing various steps assigned to specific team members with corresponding due dates. Although Asana lacks the feature to convert a task and its subtasks into a template, users have the option to create a customized template at the project level or designate a task as a template and duplicate it whenever necessary.

Context and Perspective

Asana’s task management platform enables users to attach comments and additional data to tasks, creating a centralized hub for discussions and contextual information related to work actions. Completed tasks and subtasks preserve their history and context for future reference.

Additionally, Asana provides a comprehensive overview of each team member’s responsibilities, allowing for a quick assessment of assigned tasks. However, it does not offer quantified information based on the number of hours an employee is assigned to work per week.

Advanced Search and Reports

Asana provides users with advanced search capabilities. Users can specify if they are searching for a task or a conversation. The default fields available for searching include Assigned to, In Projects, Followed by, attachment, completed status, and due date. To further refine the search, additional filters such as custom fields, people, tags, dependencies, and subtasks can be applied.

Complex searches can be saved as interactive Reports, which will automatically update with new matching items. Users also have the ability to edit the search terms at any time. This feature is particularly beneficial for managers who want to track productivity and for individuals who wish to monitor their progress.

Additional Features

Asana is an exceptionally feature-rich platform offering various tools for optimizing task management and collaboration. The following are some of the reasons that make your life easier when working with Asana:

• Tags: Organize tasks into meaningful groups using tags, making it easy for you to search for related items
• Interactive checkboxes: Asana includes interactive checkboxes that allow users to mark tasks as done with a single click
• Custom fields: To enhance clarity for you and your team, add essential details such as task priority or progress state. This can be done without making up new facts
• Task dependencies: Task dependencies allow you to establish one task as a prerequisite for another, making the entire workflow smoother
• Timeline view and Gantt charts: You can view the dependencies between tasks and their due dates in the timeline view or Gantt chart, helping you adjust resource availability

As you can see, Asana has multiple features that contribute to its flexibility and functionality in task and project management. However, it may not be the most suitable choice for graphics-intensive projects. Teams extensively working with graphics and images might find other project management apps more advantageous, as they offer dedicated proofing, markup, and discussion features.

Let’s now compare it with Trello.

Trello’s Main Features

Unlike Asana, Trello uses a Kanban board-based system for organizing tasks. It is an intuitive and fun way of organizing tasks, making it an ideal choice for users who prefer a more visual approach to task management.

The following are some of the features that make Trello stand out from other task management applications:

• Kanban Boards
• Power-Ups 
• Automated Workflows

Let’s discuss these features one by one.

Kanban Boards

The primary attraction of Trello is its Kanban board-based system, which is highly favored for task organization. This system enables users to arrange tasks into columns like To-Do, In Progress, and Done. By doing so, teams can easily visualize project progress in real-time and make necessary adjustments to priorities.

Trello’s Kanban boards have gained immense popularity among developers and engineering teams. These boards serve as a central hub for storing requirements, tasks, progress updates, and release notes, all in one place. Additionally, they offer unparalleled flexibility and customization options, allowing users to personalize them according to their specific requirements.

Power-Ups

Trello’s Power-Up feature enables users to enhance their boards by integrating with various software like G Suite, Slack, GitHub, Bitbucket, Zapier, and more. This simplifies the integration of tasks into other processes and facilitates progress tracking within a single interface.

You might be wondering, what sets Trello apart from other software that offers integrations? Well, with Trello, adding additional functionality is as simple as clicking a button.

Additionally, the Power-Up feature empowers users to personalize their boards with different views, such as calendar view and list view, which can be customized to suit various workflows. Moreover, it provides customization options like background themes, stickers, and more to enhance the user experience.

Automated Workflows

Trello’s Butler tool, also referred to as command runs, enables automations within the platform. In Trello, these automations are known as commands. With commands, users can establish automatic workflows and define conditions for triggering those workflows. For example, Butler command runs can be utilized to automatically transfer tasks from one list to another based on specific conditions, or to add labels to cards as they enter the checklist phase of a project.

Additional Features

Even though Trello is “lighter” than its counterpart, Asana, it boasts some additional features that help make it a strong contender.

Trello’s additional features include:

• Color-coded labels: Quickly identify tasks based on different categories, such as priority or task type. There is an option for enabling patterns, which helps color-blind users
• Drag and drop: Trello’s drag and drop functionality makes it easier for users to move cards around the board without going through multiple menus
• Multiple views: From the dashboard, timeline, table, calendar, and map to the workspace calendar, Trello allows you to get an overview of your projects from multiple perspectives

Trello lacks quite a lot of features when compared to traditional project management tools. That said, it makes up for these shortcomings with its Kanban view and Power-Up feature. Furthermore, its simple interface is a pleasure for users who like to visualize their projects.

And The Best Project Management Tool Is…

To conclude the discussion surrounding Asana vs Trello, we can say that when it comes to managing tasks and projects, Asana and Trello offer two distinct approaches that can cater to various needs.

With its robust collaboration features and structured workflows, Asana enables teams to maintain organization and collaborate seamlessly. Users can delve into tasks, monitor progress, and leverage advanced search and reporting functionalities to stay on track with their projects. Conversely, Trello offers a visually engaging experience through its Kanban boards, enabling users to visualize tasks, prioritize their work, and effortlessly monitor progress.

Consider your team’s specific needs, explore the features, and choose the tool that resonates with you, because, at the end of the day, your favorite project management tool is the one that can transform the way you work and boost your team’s productivity.

We hope this blog helped you understand the differences between Asana and Trello and decide which software best suits your team’s needs. If you need more help, please feel free to contact our expert team at 661-384-7070 for a free consultation.

Thank you for reading!