Project management is required everywhere in any business, regardless of its nature. After all, project management is usually the collaboration between team members from different departments to successfully complete any project or product delivery. And for effective and efficient project management, you need a project and collaboration tool like Asana.
Asana has a lot of acclaims, but it also has its downsides. These weaknesses aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but they can be excluded from some demographics. For example, it can be very complicated for beginners, but this is simply because of its overwhelming features.
So, if you’re looking for Asana alternatives elsewhere, you’ve come to the right place. Here are five strong contenders of Asana that can be very useful.
- Monday
Founded in 2012 by Roy Mann, Eran Kampf, and Eran Zinman, Monday.com was formerly known as daPulse. Monday.com has 127,000 customers, a pretty decent number. The interface presents a customizable visual table of rows and columns, which gives it a more modern feel and is easier to use.
Table of Contents
A Quick Monday.com overview
A sheet is referred to as a “board” with rows representing tasks that need to be tracked to completion and columns containing related fields. As you work on the sheet, you can drag and drop what you need to sync with other related fields. There are over 200 templates to choose from and over 30 column types that you can customize to fit your project flow.
You can communicate directly within the task, so everything stays in place. You can embed videos and other media within your work and tag anything to the team members involved. Notifications can be customized to suit your business needs, and built-in automation makes life easier.
With more than 40 integrations, you can extend your capabilities to more departments. Charts and graphs are also available. This feature is further enhanced by different colored llamas (eg llamas) that represent different status updates.
Monday.com is adopting corporate security standards with many certifications, including: ISO/IEC 27001:2013 . Plus, it’s compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), so you don’t have to worry about your data safety.
Monday.com as an Asana Alternative
Both Asana and Monday.com have free plans. However, Monday’s free plan is dim compared to Asana. Asana’s free plan allows up to 15 users and offers some important features, whereas Monday’s only allows up to three users and features somewhat limited features.
That said, Monday.com is still considered by many to be a great all-rounder, and is strong compared to Asana in the features of its paid plans. Perhaps the reason this product is named Monday is to brighten up the gloom of Monday, the first day of work by making work so much easier.
- Trello
Trello was developed by Glitch in 2011 and was later acquired by Atlassian in 2017. More than 100,000 teams worldwide are using Trello today. This is not surprising, as the platform is easier to use and offers a more fun way to manage your projects. Utilize web-based and listing interfaces. Kanban-style.
Quick Asana Overview
So we start with the board with that column and cards. You can expand this list as your project grows. Cards are where you enter your work, then track and share it. Each card contains all relevant details such as timeline, conversations, attachments, comments, reminders, and more.
The board is customizable and utilizes an easy way to visualize everything at once. The interface uses a drag-and-drop method. Butler, Trello’s built-in automation assistant, helps you automate time-consuming tasks so you can fully focus on what really matters.
Trello calls add-ons “power-ups” and can integrate with other products (Dropbox, Slack, Google Drive, Confluence, etc.) to get the features you need.
Trello as an Asana Alternative
Trello’s free plan is attractive with unlimited cards, power-ups and storage. However, it limits you to a maximum of 10 boards per workspace, which may be sufficient for most users. Trello has included a timeline view in its product lineup offering (similar to Gantt charts), but lacks support for complex projects.
Overall, it’s still suitable for a wide range of users, from less tech-savvy users to more advanced users. And unlike Asana, Trello makes managing small projects more fun and easier.
- Proof Hub
Launched in 2011, Proofhub is used by more than 85,000 businesses worldwide. Your one-stop center for all your project management needs. The interface deploys a Kanban-style table-like view of project planning by assigning each task and filtering by priority.
Quick Proofhub Overview
Kanban boards give you a clear macro view of every step of your work. There is also a Gantt chart that allows you to oversee the timeline of your project. Here, we adjust the date based on urgent dependencies and unexpected changes. You can customize workflows and roles to fit your project needs.
Proofhub has several built-in ways to enhance collaboration through comments, one-on-one or group chats, engaging other team members to collaborate through @Mentions, presentations, and more. Perhaps one of the most attractive features is the online proofing feature. You can go through each detail, certify documents, annotate, and provide feedback directly on the spot.
If you confirm that this is an all-in-one solution, you will also get time management features. Multiple timers help you check the set timescale with automatic reminders. There are also plenty of reporting tools to help you keep track of everything about your project.
You can also create custom reports to get more insightful data analysis. Integration with other popular products is available to ensure the smooth success of your project. These include QuickBooks, Dropbox, FreshBooks, Google Drive, and more.
Proofhub as an Asana alternative
Unfortunately, Proofhub’s pricing plan does not include a free plan. Because of this, it is a viable Asana alternative, but excludes a significant number of “Explorer” users. However, it does not plan based on the number of users. They charge a flat price for each plan, which can be very attractive.
- Adobe Workfront
Scott Johnson founded Workfront in 2001 and was acquired by Adobe in 2020. Based in Utah, USA, Workfront is a web-based project management tool that typically encompasses all task management related tasks, including project monitoring and tracking, problem management, and time management. tracking and more.
A quick overview of Adobe Workfront
Currently, Workfront supports more than 3,000 entities, including T-Mobile, Under Armor, and Sage. Designed to help you manage the entire project lifecycle, Workfront defines tasks, sets goals and objectives, so you can refer to them whenever you want to track progress.
What makes Workfront interesting is the Scenario Planner, which helps you chart the different paths going forward, and gives you a bird’s eye view of the different possible outcomes so you can decide what’s best for you.
This is how many people can develop a more effective strategy for the job. It also has code-free integrations that can help you embed more features into other systems like Jira, Slack, etc.
Adobe Workfront as an Asana alternative
Workfront is great for large and complex projects, especially those that require an integrated approach to the team. However, it may take some time to get used to using Workfront, so it may not be suitable for small businesses. It’s like breaking an ant with a hammer.
Pricing is not disclosed, so you should contact our sales team for details.
- Base Camp
Jason Fried, Carlos Segura, and Ernest Kim founded Basecamp in 1999. Initially known as 37signals, it is now based in Illinois, USA. They are firm competitors to Asana. As of 2021, there are already 35,000 registered users.
Quick Basecamp Overview
Basecamp is a project management application tool that helps teams function more effectively and efficiently as teams. Tasks are broken down into sub-entities and populated with the required information. These entities make up the project.
You need something for project A. You just need to find it. And everything about the mentioned projects is there and ripe for picking. No more wandering around looking for something you can’t find anymore. You have access to several tools to help you get your job done efficiently.
The list of tools available is impressive and includes live chat, schedule drafts, document filing, time schedules, bulletin boards, reminders, and more.
It’s nice to know that you have the flexibility to turn off notifications so you can focus on your current task. When ready, you can turn it back on. You can also integrate with other time tracking tools to add more features such as time tracking.
Basecamp as an Asana Alternative
Basecamp pricing is simple and is a flat rate of $99 per month. This price gives you everything, plus unlimited projects and users. While this may be somewhat appealing to some people, it can be expensive for small businesses with few users.
Unlike Asana, Basecamp doesn’t have a free plan. However, they offer a 30-day free trial that doesn’t require a credit card.
- Wrike
California-based Wrike was founded in 2006 by Andrew Filev and then acquired by Citrix Systems in 2021. Wrike is a collaboration and project management tool that allows for stronger teamwork with customizable dashboards, workflows, forms and more.
Quick Wrike Overview
It boasts a pragmatic interface design that provides 360° visibility across all teams, so you can quickly find the information you need, so you can act faster. Portfolio management for each project takes care of all planning and execution in one place.
Job intelligence is powered by AI and can automate many tasks to increase work efficiency. It also has the ability to measure project risk.
Tools like Gantt charts and Kanban boards give your team a more accurate overview of everything they currently have. Wrike provides built-in templates that you can use to get things done faster. Their online redaction feature ensures that all feedback and comments are organized where they should be. You can also adjust the approval level to speed up the whole process.
There is also a set of time tracking and comprehensive reporting tools that provide real-time insight into your project. Wrike emphasizes security with the Wrike Lock feature, which provides encryption, single sign-on, and role-based controlled access. More than 400 integration possibilities are available, including GitHub, JIRA, Microsoft, Google and Adobe Creative Cloud.
Wrike as an Alternative to Asanas
Wrike has a free plan and, unlike Asana, allows unlimited users. This is fantastic. The features allowed on the free plan are pretty decent. However, if you need more, you should explore higher tier plans. Although Wrike is customizable, it can be quite challenging for beginners as the navigation process can be a bit complicated.t
- Nutcache
Founded in 2013, Nutcache was founded by Alain Nadeau and is now owned by Dynacom Technologies Group. It originally started as an invoicing solution. However, it has evolved into the project collaboration tool it is today. Supports the entire project lifecycle.
Quick Nutcache Overview
The project and collaboration boards are simple, giving you a macro overview of everything. Features and reports are comprehensive, making them suitable for more complex projects.
Workload Management is a modern feature that helps you better manage your team members’ workloads by tracking their capacity and productivity. You can also customize workflows to prioritize tasks and make assignments easier.
Gantt charts help you break down your tasks into clearer pictures so you’re always up to date. As you know, Nutcache started out as an invoicing solution, and it’s no surprise that it has a powerful smart invoicing feature and billing cost feature.
Nutcache also provides time tracking to help you stay on schedule, and if you need to bill customers on an hourly basis, Nutcache can help. There is also a set of Nutcache APIs that can be used to connect to existing systems.
Nutcache as an Asana Alternative
If Asana excels at management, Nutcache seems to focus on overall business value. You can see this positioning clearly in our powerful project budgeting capabilities that help you stay financially on your own for each project.
Glad to know that there is a free plan. However, the function is limited and can only be used by up to 20 users. That said, it’s a good deal to help you get started.
- Smart Sheat
Smartsheet is commonly used for SaaS (Software as a Service) project management. Launched in 2006, Smartsheet, as its name suggests, offers a spreadsheet-like interface. By creating dynamic workspaces, your company can have an all-in-one enterprise platform where teams from different departments can work together and align with common goals.
Quick Smartsheet Overview
Smartsheet’s core capabilities cover all the essentials your team needs to strategize, plan, automate and report on a variety of tasks. You can even work based on a grid view by card and share your calendar view to keep everyone in sync with each other.
If you need a specific resource, Smartsheet’s resource management will help you find what you need on the spot and overall help you anticipate provisioning of resources you may need. Reports are shareable and easily accessible.
Some built-in templates and add-ons allow you to connect with other tools to enjoy more versatility. Integrate with your existing ecosystem through the Smartsheet connector. Like many other products, Smartsheet also has automations for workflows, reminders, alerts, and built-in messages.
Smartsheet as an Asana alternative
Unlike Asana, Smartsheet, unfortunately, doesn’t have a free plan. In other words, it is similar to Asana. Their plan is user base. If you need the full package with all the icing on your cake, you should contact your sales representative for more information on the Enterprise Plan.
Boasting a spreadsheet-like interface, larger and more complex projects may have limitations. But if you’re an absolute fan of spreadsheets, Smartsheet can be overwhelming.
Conclusion
Project management can be somewhat personal. Its style varies from person to person. Therefore, finding the perfect tool to meet all your needs can be daunting and sometimes overwhelming. You weigh your priorities better than others to get the one that suits you best.
However, consider the size of the project team, the nature and size of the project, and the budget. All of this will help you find the best project management and collaboration tools. Perhaps asanas are best for you. Probably not. That said, if you are looking through the list above and are looking for an Asana alternative, I am sure you will find one that fits your bill.