Pros and Cons of Asana - With 5 Asana Alternatives

Finding the right project management tool for your team can feel like an impossible task. Don’t worry, I’m here to help. By the end of this read, you’ll hopefully find the perfect Asana alternative for you and your team.

Asana

So, you’ve found your way to this article. This likely means one of two things…

You are a current Asana user and are disappointed or underwhelmed with their product
You have not yet committed to a project management solution and are trying to find the right one for your team

Whether you fall into the first group or the second, this read will point you and your team in the right direction. In this article, we’ll cover the pros and cons of Asana, as well as the 5 best Asana alternatives. Let’s begin!

Asana logo

Pros of Asana

From the jump, I’m going to be clear. There is a lot to like about Asana. Many consider it to be one of the more complete project management tools out there. Their large user base attests to just how useful the software is. Let’s take a look at what people like about Asana.

They have a free plan

One clear pull factor for Asana is the fact that they offer a free plan. I’m not talking about a free trial either (everybody offers those). While their free plan doesn’t provide access to all of Asana’s great features, it provides enough for smaller teams on a budget to get quite a bit of utility out of Asana.

Tons of integrations

Integrations with other apps is the name of the game for Asana. Slack, Salesforce, and Microsoft Outlook are some of the big names, but Asana provides a full list here.

Great features

Asana has a number of plugins that let you modify your projects to cater to your needs. From Kanban to Gantt charts to dependency management, time tracking, and reporting, Asana either has these features in-app or provide plug-ins that integrate the features into your experience.

Why some people seek alternatives

There are a few reasons why some teams seek Asana alternatives. While the product receives rave reviews from most, there are some reasons why it may not be the optimal fit for your team.

Projects can get complex

Because Asana offers many great features, their projects can get complex or confusing. If you aren’t a more seasoned project management veteran, or you simply don’t need all of the features Asana offers, you may be better off with a simpler Asana alternative (like Trello).

Tasks are limiting

One of the big complaints I read about from Asana users is that Asana only allows you to assign project tasks to one person. This may not be an issue for your team, but if you know you’re going to want multiple people to potentially knock out a task, you may want to steer clear.

Let’s have a look at some great Asana alternatives.

1. Trello

This may seem like an obvious pick, but Trello really is one of the best Asana alternatives. Trello is simple, clean, and offers great paid and free plans. Let’s take a look.

Pros

Scalable free plan — Trello has one of the best free plans among all project management tools. Their free plan allows for unlimited boards and unlimited users. This means, provided you don’t need some of Trello’s more advanced paid features, you can scale your project to any size for no charge.

Easy to learn — One of the reasons Trello has become so popular is that anybody in any team can learn how to use it. It has a clean and simple user interface and makes use of visually-oriented Kanban boards. This means you can tell how far along a project is just by glancing at it…no deep analysis required!

Paid plans are great too — Trello’s free plan is great for smaller teams, but the paid plans offer great value as well. At $9.99/user per month, Trello’s paid plan is cheap when compared to competitors. The features included can help medium to large size teams, depending on what they’re trying to do.

Cons

Not great for super big businesses — Trello’s plans are great for smaller and medium sized businesses, especially ones with tight budgets. Larger, enterprise-sized companies may require some project management features that Trello simply doesn’t have. This is the price Trello pays for keeping things simple.

Some missing features — Building on this, Trello lacks some features that more complex tools like Asana offer. This is a sacrifice Trello has to make in order to keep their tool simple, but teams that require more advanced features may need to look elsewhere.

Trello is great for smaller to medium sized teams on a budget.

2. Wrike

Wrike is another one of the most popular project management tools available. Wrike’s focus is really on Gantt charts, though it lets you do a lot of things. If Gantt is an important project management feature for you, Wrike may be a good alternative.

Pros

Great features — Wrike is one of the more complete project management tools available. Not only does it use Gantt charts (a feature not all project management tools have), but it also provides super useful time tracking, reporting, and budgeting features.

Good user interface — One of the main things customers report that they like about Wrike is their great user interface. The UI looks professional and is easy to navigate. This great UI is also seen in their Android and iOS applications.

Cons

Only paid plans — Wrike is one of the project management tools that doesn’t offer a free plan (beyond their 14-day free trial). This can be a deal breaker for smaller teams or teams on a budget. However, this may not prove as an issue for well-funded teams as Wrike pricing isn’t too much higher than a typical paid project management plan.

Has a bit of a learning curve — Since Wrike offers so many great features, this means that it can take a while to learn how to fully utilize the tool. This won’t prove to be an issue for seasoned teams, but teams that aren’t well versed in project management tools may find Wrike difficult to fully learn.

Wrike is good for teams that want lots of functionality…especially Gantt charts!

3. JIRA

JIRA is sort of like Trello’s older cousin. They were both made by Atlassian and are both Kanban-style tools. There are a few key differences, however.

Pros

Affordable paid plans — JIRA has one of the cheapest paid plans available. Depending on your team size, JIRA costs between $1/user per month and $7/user per month. Compare this to $9.99 and $19.99 for Asana’s premium and business plans respectively and you’ll realize how affordable JIRA is.

Specialized project templates — JIRA provides a number of templates for different types of project teams. Most notably, JIRA’s template for agile software dev teams, JIRA Software, is one of the best available.

Flexible back end — JIRA allows users to choose where to store their data. You can store your data on either your local servers or on JIRA’s cloud servers. This won’t be important for most, but it is some added flexibility that may help you feel more secure.

Cons

No free plan — Although JIRA’s paid plans are pretty cheap, they don’t offer a free plan for users. This may be limiting for some startups or smaller teams. However, if you have the money to pay for project management, pricing certainly shouldn’t be an issue for you.

Can take longer to learn — JIRA’s specialization can create tremendous value to your team, but you need to know how to make use of it. JIRA is Atlassians more heavy-duty project management solution…if you’re new to project management tools, Trello may be your better Asana alternative.

Jira is particularly good for agile software dev teams.

4. Teamwork

Teamwork is one of the project management tools that is considered more simple. They also provide services beyond project management. Let’s take a look at whether it could be the right Asana alternative for your team.

Pros

Quality plans — Not only is Teamwork one of the rare project management tools that offers a free plan, but their paid plans are a pretty good value. Teamwork offers two paid plans at $9/user per month and $15/user per month. These plans allow for up to unlimited users, as well as 250GB of file storage and 600 projects.

Ease of use — Teamwork brands itself similarly to Trello. They target the more casual project management tool user through and clean and fun UI, compared to a more bland and professional one. Part of this approach is making sure things are easy to understand. Users praise the tool for being very easy to pick up and learn.

Cons

iOS app is lacking — For many of you, this won’t be an issue. There are more Android users than iOS users out there, and many project teams don’t use mobile apps at all. But if you know your team will want to utilize an iOS application, you may want to check out the app first.

Their iOS app has an underwhelming 2.9/5 stars on the App Store. When I tried it out myself, I couldn’t register a Teamwork account from the first page, only log in.

Pretty generic — Much like Trello, Teamwork is a pretty generic, one-size-fits-all tool made for any kind of project. This may be a good thing for some teams, but others will want more specialized tools that fit what sorts of projects their team is doing.

Teamwork is good for teams on a budget that love a clean UI.

5. Tallyfy

This is a bit of a left-field pick as Tallyfy is not even a project management tool. Tallyfy is actually a process management tool. Note the distinction. Project and process management tools are similar, but have important differences. Let’s break it down.

Projects vs. processes

To know why Tallyfy made my list of good Asana alternatives, we first have to understand the difference between projects and processes. You should already be pretty familiar with projects. Projects are one-time undertakings that are unique every time. Some examples would be a construction company building a building; each structure built will be unique from the last.

Processes, on the other hand, aren’t unique and aren’t only done once. Processes are the things within your business that you find yourself doing over and over again.

An example of a process is employee on boarding. Each time your company hires an employee, there are a set of steps that are done the same way every time. You might get their bank routing information, make them sign a non-disclosure agreement, discuss stock option plans with them. Either way,you do the same process every time you hire an employee.

Why Tallyfy might be the Asana alternative for you

If you find that you are using Asana for the same set of tasks repeatedly, a process management tool will be better suited than a project management tool for you. Tallyfy lets you define a set of tasks and deploy them repeatedly, an unlimited number of times. Let’s look at some of the pros of Tallyfy.

Pros

templates — templates are Tallyfy’s powerful tool for creating processes. They are the “master template” for repeatable things you do in your business.

Templates allow you to structure a process by listing the tasks done in that process. Once you create a template, it can be uniquely deployed each time you perform that process. This ensures that you do things the same way every time and creates uniformity in your organization.

Easy to set up and learn — Tallyfy is the only process management software that anyone can start using in 60 seconds. You can create a template in seconds via Tallyfy AI.