Since its humble beginnings in 2011, Trello has become one of the biggest project management platforms for small and scaling business owners. Now serving over 4.6 million users, the company offers software that’s easy for non-technical entrepreneurs to use.Lorem ipsumBut if you’re choosing your first project management system or need to switch to a new task management tool, it’s important to explore your options and see if any Trello alternatives are a better fit for your needs.
Trello’s offerings
Trello offers a blend of cards, lists and boards to manage and track projects. The Kanban-style interface allows teams to seamlessly drag tasks through various stages of completion as part of a visual and intuitive workflow. Members can join tasks, attach media, leave comments, receive notifications and add helpful integrations for better functionality.
However, Trello isn’t without its limitations. Table, calendar and map views are only available for premium users and Gantt charts aren’t offered on any of Trello’s plans (though you can add via third-party integration). Online user reviews mention that Trello’s dashboard is a bit too simplistic and the first two tiers of membership don’t offer native reporting and analytics tools.
Trello’s free plan includes up to 10 users. The Standard plan ($6/user per month for monthly billing) has expanded storage capacity and unlimited boards. The Premium plan ($12.50/user/ per month for monthly billing) includes advanced views and AI features. Plan prices are slightly cheaper if you opt for annual billing (it brings Standard down to $5/user and Premium to $10/user).
Enterprise plans, designed for larger teams, offer organization-wide management and public board management, among other features, and start at $17.50 per user per month for 50 users (billed annually).
As the self-proclaimed “everything app”, Clickup is a multifaceted software that aims to help teams manage all parts of their projects in one streamlined location. Like Trello, Clickup’s free plan offers unlimited tasks, but we like that it also includes a calendar view, real-time team chat and in-app video recording capacities. This helps teams interact in the app without any additional cost.Lorem ipsumIf you have heavy storage needs, you only have 100MB available with the free plan, versus Trello’s generous free unlimited storage option. But for teams with external cloud-based storage plans, this may not be a dealbreaker.Lorem ipsumClickup’s Unlimited plan ($10/user per month; drops to $7/user if you choose annual billing), adds unlimited Gantt views, native time tracking and email directly within the program. With a Business plan ($19/user per month with monthly billing; drops to $12/user for annual subscriptions), users gain unlimited access to timeline and mind map views, advanced automation features and custom exporting.Lorem ipsumThese plans are about 40% more expensive than Trello’s, but offer a larger variety of in-app features overall. However, keep in mind that smaller and growing businesses may not need all of ClickUp’s bells and whistles, and the learning curve may be a bit steep compared to Trello’s simple interface. Gauge your needs to determine if the additional functionality justifies the onboarding investment.
Teamwork.com is uniquely tailored for client-centric businesses, with niche features like billable time tracking, client-level access and project budget tools. You can also create and save reusable client templates that simplify and streamline your onboarding.Lorem ipsumThe free plan outshines Trello in the available views department, offering list, table, board and Gantt selections. Tasks can be modified with additional subtasks, organizational tags and dependencies to create detailed workflows. Teamwork.com’s free plan does have some limitations: a max of five users, five projects and 100MB of storage.Lorem ipsumTeamwork.com and Trello both offer a free plan, two paid plans and an enterprise-level plan. Teamwork’s Deliver plan ($13.99/user per month with monthly billing) adds budgeting features and unlocks access to select project reports. The Grow plan ($25.99/user per month with monthly billing) adds a time and utilization report and allows you to create two customized reports for business-specific analytics. You can also create up to 50 project templates, view workload capacity and track change history, among other powerful features.Lorem ipsumIn comparison to Trello, Teamwork.com is a no-brainer for service-based businesses that want specific tools to track the intricacies of client projects.
Asana allows users to create a detailed workflow built on goals, projects, portfolios, tasks and subtasks. Goals offer a wide-lens view while subtasks help teams manage the nitty-gritty details. These sections function similarly to Trello’s organizational flow, but free users can also access table, board (similar to Trello’s Kanban) and calendar views. These additional views can make it much easier to track complex projects, as Trello’s Kanban view can get quite cluttered when there are dozens of cards on a board.Lorem ipsumThree Asana memberships are geared towards small-business owners with per-user pricing. The free plan offers unlimited storage, projects, messages, tasks and over 100 integrations.Lorem ipsumThe starter plan ($13.49/user per month with monthly billing) adds additional timeline and Gantt views, customized reporting and 250 monthly workflow automations. For complex workflows, the Advanced plan ($30.49/user per month with monthly billing) offers 25,000 automations and time-tracking functionality, among other features.Lorem ipsumWhen evaluated as a Trello alternative, Asana and Trello particularly differ when it comes to reporting and analytics. Trello has a very simple dashboard that displays due dates, assigned cards and the number of cards. Users find the dashboard to be a bit bare, and in order to access reporting, you’ll need to install third-party integrations.Lorem ipsumAsana displays similar task tracking information but its dashboard is much sleeker with widgets that give you an at-glance view of task progress, project progress and a display of all collaborators (available on all plans). Paid plans offer deeper reporting tools like dashboards and charts for specific projects and cross-project reporting.Lorem ipsumTrello’s paid plans are less than half the price of Asana’s, so we only recommend investing in Asana if your team will make enough use of its premium features to justify the cost. But we think Asana’s free plan is an excellent value, so don’t discredit its capabilities for smaller teams.
Zoho Projects offers a blend of feed, project and task management features to organize your business’s workflows. Its free plan isn’t as expansive as Trello’s, offering just two projects, three users and a 5GB cap on storage. But if you’re already using Zoho CRM, it may streamline your operations, since the two programs connect seamlessly. For example, when you add a new client to your Zoho CRM, their information transfers into Zoho Projects, cutting down on data entry and reducing your margin for error.Lorem ipsumZoho’s Premium plan ($5/user per month with monthly billing) offers unlimited projects, tasks, in-project Gantt views and workflows. The Enterprise plan ($10/user per month with monthly billing) allows users to edit multiproject Gantt charts.Lorem ipsumBoth paid plans also offer access to issue management tools including issue forms, tracking, and automated issue and update reports, valuable features for IT or software development teams that need detailed error tracking within client projects.Lorem ipsumConsidering its reasonable monthly costs — especially for an enterprise-level plan — Zoho Projects is a good choice for lean budgets if its premium features are useful to you. But there are probably better free options out there given the tier’s limitations unless you already use or plan on integrating it with the rest of Zoho’s software suite.