Asana or Trello: a comparison of 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 applications are often compared, because their approach to project management is visual, fun and collaborative. This winning formula has enabled millions of employees around the world to work in "project mode", with all the benefits that this can bring: productivity, achieving objectives, visibility, stress-free organisation, etc.

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

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Presentation of the two project management tools

Asana: collaborative project management and day-to-day productivity

Asana

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Project, task, and work management software

Learn more about Asana

Asana is task management and project management software designed for day-to-day collaboration and one-off project planning. Asana uses the fundamentals of project management tools to provide 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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Visual collaboration tool for tasks and project management

Learn more about Trello

Trello is a universal organisational tool for personal and professional projects. Trello offers a very specific approach to project management, replacing tasks with 'cards' and projects with 'boards'. This approach, based on the Kanban method, 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 organising the creation of a website as it is for organising your move into a new flat.

Neither Trello nor Asana require any training (e.g. a project management MOOC), certification, change management, project planning methodology or supervised deployment (support from 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: comparing features

We've just seen that Trello and Asana are both designed for Agile project management, but there's an initial 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 thirty tasks (which is the case most of the time), whereas Trello's unique table view takes advantage of small 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 that Trello is therefore very limiting. It should also be noted that in 2016, Asana added a table view that is almost identical to Trello's, while retaining the clean style that is so popular with its users. This feature has clearly been designed to appeal to Trello fans.

The free version of Asana offers more features than Trello, reflecting Trello's desire to keep the native features of its tool to a strict minimum. For intensive users of Trello, a catalogue of applications called Power-Ups enhances the basic version, provided you upgrade to the premium version. Beware, however: the 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 the Power-Ups is not always up to scratch.

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

• Timesheet management for tracking time spent,
• Quotes and invoicing,
• Resource management,
• Workload planning,
• Project Portfolio Management (PPM): Asana to launch a PPM function in November
• Project lifecycle,
• Instant messaging and visio,
• Risk management,
• Financial management: cost management, budget monitoring,
• 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 indefinitely;
• A premium version for companies that want all the features of the solution;
• An Enterprise version for the most demanding companies in terms of services.

After several months of using the free version of Asana, 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 as long as you manage small projects. If your projects become complex, you'll feel constantly limited in Trello;
• Asana's premium version, on the other hand, is more qualitative: it gives you the feeling of having a professional, structured tool, whereas Trello retains an amateurish feel.

Advantages and disadvantages of the two planning tools

Trello + Asana

Advantages of the two tools:

• Both have a free version;
• They are easy to use;
• They make it easy to coordinate project stakeholders;
• They provide effective project management and progress tracking;
• They are collaborative, productive and simplify communication;
• They centralise information and synchronise actions.

Disadvantages of both tools:

• They do not 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 without frustration;
• Getting to grips with the tool is quick and highly intuitive;
• It's still as fun to use as ever, even after several months;
• The interface is minimalist, but allows you to add additional features (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 rather than day-to-day productivity (team task management);
• It is not possible to create sub-tasks with the same level of detail as the parent tasks.

Asana

Advantages of Asana

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

Disadvantages of Asana

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

Users and contexts of use of Asana and Trello

Type of company using Asana and Trello

• Freelancers,
• Small companies / 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 project: 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 should you choose between Asana and Trello?

Trello and Asana are highly effective IT tools that offer a good level of flexibility in project management. In the case of Asana, the tool also fulfils the role of collaborative management of each employee's daily tasks (excluding projects). The free version of Trello is a very good organisational tool for small projects. However, its limited functional coverage means that you need to upgrade quickly to the premium version. And yet, for almost the same price, the premium version of Asana offers more features for a broader and more structured use.