Trello vs. Asana - How the Two Best Project Management Tools Stack Up

Illustration by Maria Shukshina from Ouch!

A great project management tool helps project teams plan, execute, and track projects easily and with greater efficiency. This is why almost two-third of companies who use project management tools can complete projects within their original budget.

PRO TIP: Trello and Asana are great project management tools, but both are missing one essential feature. Click here to scroll to that part of the article right now.

This figure is 47% for the companies that operate without these tools. The number of project management tools in the market can be overwhelming. Trello and Asana are two such tools that stand out from the rest by offering the right balance between price and features.

Project management tools like Trello and Asana help project managers track their projects throughout the entire project process. Project leaders can monitor who on their team is doing what and when.

But how do you decide which of these tools is better for your team? In this article, we’ll take you through the key features and pricing of Trello and Asana and how one compares to the other.

Trello

Trello is a project management and collaboration platform that offers a visual interface to help you manage your projects. It is mainly a web-based platform that will look quite familiar to you if you’ve worked with kanban boards before. Trello offers smooth internal and external collaboration but lacks the functionality required to handle complex projects.

Asana

Like Trello, Asana is a task management and collaboration tool that helps your team always stay on top of your projects. You’ll find Asana to be quite useful if you manage projects that don’t require strict management of schedule and resources. Nonetheless, it is still a great tool for assigning work, maintaining swift communication, and monitoring project deadlines.

The Missing Trello & Asana Feature - In App Image and File Annotation

So you might say, Asana or Trello, I can't go wrong with either choice. That's true to a big extent, but there is one thing they don't offer, integrated file annotation. In fact, no project management software solutions offer this feature.

Here's how it goes. You are creating tickets in Asana or Trello like the whizbang project manager you are. You attach files and images to your tickets, naturally, but wait, you want to point out some important things. Why can't you just click to annotate the attached image or PDF? Yeh, you should be able to do this.

Now, if Asana and Trello just integrated the Markup Hero annotation API you could just click "annotate image" directly from a ticket and instantly add your markup. It's like magic and it seems so obvious. You don't even have to leave Asana or Trello.

Pretty cool? Well watch these 30 second video below to see exactly how it would work.

Here's a Quick Video Showing Trello w/ Integrated File Annotation

Here's a Quick Video Showing Asana w/ Integrated File Annotation

Videos not good enough. Well, we made fully interactive demos for both Asana and Trello you can try in 10 seconds flat.  Just click the annotate button, add whatever annotations you want, click done and watch the magic.

Trello Vs. Asana: Feature Comparison

Let's look at some of the key features and differences between the two amazing project management tools.

Ease of Use

Clean User Interface and ease of use are key features for both Trello and Asana.

It takes a few minutes to get started on Trello. Its visual interface allows teams to get familiar with the platform easily and start working right away. This helps project managers cut down the time needed for onboarding team members to a new tool.

While Asana also has an easy-to-use interface, teams may need some time to get used to it. Asana offers easy navigation to jump between views and sections. Sections help you organize your tasks by categorizing them under specific criteria.

Which one is better? Pick Trello if you want to cut onboarding time. Go for Asana if you can afford some extra time onboarding.

Views

Trello is popular for using Kanban boards that allow you to drag and drop tasks. It also offers a calendar view, which you have to add later as a “power-up.” You can switch between a weekly and monthly calendar in the calendar view, allowing you to drag and drop cards to adjust deadlines.

Asana also offers Kanban boards, along with a calendar, list, and timeline view. Unlike Trello, Asana’s calendar view is built-in and comes with its free plan. The list view organizes tasks using sections, and the timeline view allows you to use a Gantt chart to manage your deadlines.

Which one is better? Asana, for offering more options to view your tasks and schedule.

Collaboration

Trello offers a generous free plan with unlimited users. But you are quite limited when it comes to features, which shouldn’t be an issue for small teams. Trello also offers smooth file sharing with a size limit of 250MB per file if you upgrade to a paid plan.

Trello and Asana are pretty straightforward. Both tools have the usual collaboration-focused features like descriptions, assignees, due dates, tags, comments, and file attachments.

Asana’s free plan limits you to 15 users. Mid to large-sized teams need to upgrade to paid plans to work smoothly. You are also limited in terms of file size, with a maximum of 100MB per file for the paid plans.

Apart from these, you can find the usual collaboration features such as assigning tasks, adding tags, comments, and file attachments in both Trello and Asana.

Which one is better? Trello, and by a big margin. Trello’s unlimited number of users on its free plan is hard to beat by any standard.

Dependencies

Dependency is a crucial feature to look for in a project management tool if you want to manage your workflows efficiently.

Trello does not offer any built-in features to create dependencies between your cards. But you can create a similar relationship using checklists and link attachments.

Asana has built-in features to create dependencies between multiple tasks. You can also view them on a timeline to get a clear idea of all the task dependencies in your project.

Which one is better? Asana. Although there is a workaround in Trello, Asana makes it very easy to create and manage dependencies.

Approval

An automated approval process reduces the time and effort required to communicate with internal and external stakeholders for project approval and feedback.

Trello doesn’t have a built-in review or feedback process. You have to use a power-up if you need to automate the approval process.

Asana’s paid plans allow you to have an approval system in place. This provides task approvers with a clear set of actions to take while allowing approval requesters to get clear feedback on their work.

Which one is better? Asana, for its smooth built-in review and feedback process.

Reporting

Trello doesn’t have a separate reporting feature. But you can use its automation system, Butler, to collect a group of cards from a board and create a report with its content. This can be pretty complex to use and even more complex to customize. You can also use one of the several power-ups to create reports.

Asana comes with a built-in reporting feature that allows you to create reports easily. You can find the data organized and quickly generate charts in real-time.

Which one is better? Asana. Although Trello offers a range of options with its power-ups, Asana’s built-in reporting system is quite efficient and easy to use.

Integrations

Both Trello and Asana offer a massive range of tools to integrate with. This includes Slack, Dropbox, Google Drive, Salesforce, Hubspot, and more. You can also use Zapier to expand your options even more.

Which one is better? It is safe to say that both are equally good at offering and handling integrations.

Trello Vs Asana: Price Comparison

Now let's look at pricing and plans for the two tools.

Free Plan

Trello offers unlimited cards, members, activity logs, and file storage ( as long as each file is within 10MB). It limits your team boards to 10, and you only get 1 power-up for each board. You also get limited task automation features with automation capped at 50 runs per month.

Asana allows you to create and manage unlimited tasks and projects, store an unlimited number of files (as long as each file is within 100MB). However, users per team are limited to 15. You also don’t get key features such as Timeline, Dashboard, Milestones, and others.

Which free version is better? Trello edges Asana with its unlimited users. Besides, a few of Asana’s differentiating features like the Timeline view are missing in the free plan.

Paid Plans

Trello’s business plan costs $12.50/month for each user, with a discounted price of $10 for paying annually. You get unlimited team boards, Power-ups, and storage (limit extended to 250MB for each file). Automation features are also expanded along with 6,000 automated command runs per month. You also have more views to choose from, such as Dashboard view, Team Table view, and Calendar view.

Asana’s premium plan costs $13.49/month ($10.99/month for a yearly subscription), and its business plan costs $30.49/month ($24.99/month for a yearly subscription). You get features such as Timeline, Dashboards, Advanced Search and reporting, Private Teams and Projects, Custom Fields, and Unlimited Free Guests. You also have the option to get real-time updates about your tasks and automate specific steps in your work process.

Which paid version is better? Asana, considering the wide range of features you get despite having to pay slightly more for the premium plan and more than double for the business plan.

Trello Vs. Asana: Which One Should You Use?

Choosing between Trello and Asana is very tough. On the one hand, Trello lets your team get started quickly, comes with a generous free plan, has a simple drag and drop functionality, and offers a cheaper premium plan. On the other hand, Asana offers more functionality, a wider range of tools, better reporting, and review features but has a limited free plan and costs more to upgrade to paid plans.

Trello is a better choice if you are looking for a free project management tool. Even when you consider the paid versions, pick Trello if you are looking for simplicity and affordability. But if you find Trello too basic for your needs, go for Asana - it is worth paying for.