We recently wrote an article comparing Asana and Hive, now it’s time to go head-to-head with Asana and Trello, two giant tools for project and team management.
How to choose the best project management tool?
If someone tells you that the best tool is X or Z, be suspicious. There are hundreds of solutions on the market, of which we highlight the following:
- Monday
- Hive
- Wricke
- Airtable
- Clickup
- Asana
- Trello
These solutions, although similar, have specific characteristics that respond to different problems of organizations and teams. To define which one is best for your particular case, it is important to know your business model, your future objectives (whether you want to scale or not), the team’s skills (technical, creative, technological), the type of reports you want to see, among other aspects.
As you can see, there is not one tool that is better than the other on its own. Our team is certified Asana Partner and specialized in Asana implementations and, even so, supports clients who use other tools (or none!).
So, starting from a general goal that will be to increase team productivity, the question here is: what are the advantages and differences between Asana and Trello?
Advantages of Trello
We start with the benefits of using Trello:
Trello is essentially an open source system, so you can design a system and methodology that works for every user allowing you to move tasks from one vertical list to another is one of the most enjoyable aspects of working with Trello.
- You simply drag and drop a task to the next (or previous) step;
- you can add team members for free;
- the aesthetics is intuitive and similar to the traditional post it;
- the interface is minimalistic, but it is possible to add additional features (Power-Ups) for more technical users.
Everything couldn’t be perfect! These are some of the cons of Trello:
- the tool is too simplistic for medium to high complexity projects;
- the Kanban-only view is demotivating (and frustrating) for someone who has, for example, more than 40 cards;
- the use is limited to one-off projects and there is no daily productivity (team task management);
- it is not possible to create subtasks with the same level of detail as the main tasks.
- there is no way to import features from other applications;
- it does not (yet) have data export options in the free plan.
How is Trello better than Asana?
With a more minimalistic interface, at first glance Trello seems to be more practical and intuitive, which is not entirely untrue.
Trello is designed (and rightly so!) for software development companies, so its logic is boards, lists and cards. The latter are associated with post-its on the wall.
Trello is designed (and rightly so!) for software development companies, so its logic is that of boards, lists and cards. The latter are associated with post-its on the wall.
Trello is a great option for small teams, with low budgets, since the monthly fee and the basic resources have lower costs.
However, if your company operates in a less technical area, in which there are more layers, more complexity and less linearity in tasks and decisions, this may not be the best option.
Advantages of Asana over Trello
Asana has the particularity of fitting into small, medium and large teams, meaning that it allows projects to evolve in size and complexity. By allowing teams and projects to scale, Asana is better prepared, in terms of resources, to meet multiple needs.
Thus, Asana offers more project templates, the ability to integrate with tools beyond the 200+ that are listed on the website, and specialized reporting capabilities (automatic and manual).
After all, which one should be chosen?
Imagine a micro business that is in the business of creating websites – it seems that the most obvious choice would be Trello. However, if the company’s goal is to scale the business and open branches (or subsidiaries) in other cities, then it would be Asana.
If the quality of the features of some project management tools can raise doubts, here those questions do not arise. Asana and Trello are two excellent project management tools. So, to know which one to choose, it is crucial to understand:
- what is your context?
- what are your current problems?
- and what are your goals?
Eventually you might consider starting with one to save a significant amount of money, but would it pay off? Wouldn’t it make the change even more expensive? What about employee motivation and the learning curve?
One of the most assertive ways to choose the best tool to manage your team, deadlines, and goals is to talk to those who have already tried them and have implementation expertise. In other words, ask us directly! Schedule a no-obligation meeting to discuss the pros and cons of Asana and Trello for your team.