Trello vs Asana: Best for Teams Working Together

Trello and Asana are two well-known project management heavyweights in the software industry. Both let you create stunning boards and cards that show your tasks and workflows at a glance.

And both are super versatile and awesome at managing tasks and tracking projects. But, how do they compare with each other? How do you choose which one’s best for your team? Which one is better for your needs?

Trello and Asana are both web-based project management tools that allow you to create, assign, track tasks, and collaborate with your team members and stakeholders. They both use the concept of boards, which are collections of cards that represent your tasks.

You can drag and drop cards across different columns or lists to indicate their status, priority, or category in both tools.

Here’s a quick overview of Trello and Asana before we start comparing the two:

Trello: Quick Overview

• Supports the Kanban methodology for managing projects.
• Ideal for simple and flexible projects that don't require a lot of structure or hierarchy.

Asana: Quick Overview

• Supports multiple project management methodologies, such as Kanban, Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, and Hybrid.
• Suitable for more complex and structured projects that involve dependencies, milestones, subtasks, and timelines.

Let’s quickly compare Trello and Asana:

Trello and Asana both offer a range of features to help you manage your projects like a pro. Here are some notable ones:

Trello: Features Overview

With Trello, you can:

• Create boards and cards to organize your projects and tasks visually.
• Customize your boards and cards with labels, colors, checklists, attachments, due dates, and more.
• Collaborate with your team members by inviting them to your boards, assigning them to cards, commenting, and mentioning them.
• Automate your project workflows and save time with Trello’s built-in features, such as Butler, Power-Ups, and Templates.

Asana: Features Overview

Asana lets you:

• Create lists, boards, calendars, and Gantt charts, and switch between them as you need.
• Create subtasks, dependencies, milestones, and custom fields to organize your tasks and track your progress.
• Collaborate with your team by inviting them to your projects.
• Automate your tasks and workflows using rules, templates, and forms.
• Monitor and measure your project performance and outcomes using dashboards, charts, and graphs.
• Create custom reports and share those with your team and clients.
• Set project goals and track OKRs (goal-setting frameworks).

Trello supports around 199 integrations, whereas Asana supports 200+ integrations as of January 2024. So, both of them are around the same ballpark. Note that Trello refers to integrations with the term “power ups”.

For simplicity, let’s cover some top integrations for Trello and Asana based on common industry workflows using frequently used tools in the software industry:

Trello: Top Integrations

• File Management: Google Drive, Dropbox, Sharepoint Tasks, Egnyte
• Communication:  Slack, Gmail Zap (through Zapier), Confluence, Google Calendar
• Project Management: Jira, Asana
• Bug Reporting: FeedbackRig
• Repository Management: GitHub, GitLab

Also Read: GitHub vs. GitLab: Winner!

Asana: Top Integrations

• File Management: Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box
• Communication:  Slack, Zoom, MS Teams, Zapier
• Project Management: Jira, Trello
• Bug Reporting: BetterBugs
• Repository Management: GitHub, GitLab

Related: Best ClickUp Integrations for QAs and Devs in 2024

BetterBugs is a free visual bug-reporting Chrome extension. It lets you capture screenshots and screen recordings of issues to create no-nonsense, context-rich, data-filled, and highly effective bug reports that can be shared with just a link. These comprehensive bug reports with visual contexts can also be instantly shared to your Asana Project space as an “Asana task” with all the hierarchical details as per your Asana project.

You can integrate Asana with BetterBugs within minutes to report bugs directly to your Asana project as an “Asana task”. Here’s how:

1. Download the BetterBugs extension.
2. Create an account for BetterBugs using your email, Gmail, or GitHub account to manage your bug reports through a dashboard.
3. Capture the bug using the BetterBugs screen capture or screen record feature.
4. Fill in the relevant details of the issue on the bug report screen.
5. Hit the “Send to your tools” button and select “Connect Asana”.
6. Choose your BetterBugs workspace and project.
7. Create an Asana task by filling the auto-fetched report template with fields such as Project, Section, Parent Task, and so on.
8. Upload it to the selected project.

That’s it! you have successfully integrated Asana with BetterBugs and instantly shared a detailed bug report as an Asana task on your project. And that’s not all!

You can integrate BetterBugs with other tools such as Jira, ClickUp, GitHub, Linear, and MS Teams to share nuanced bug reports on these platforms, in an instant.

Trello and Asana both offer a free plan and several paid plans. You can choose what fits your needs at the moment. Here’s a summary of the pricing plans for Trello vs Asana:

Trello: Pricing

• Free: Trello's free plan includes unlimited cards, up to 10 boards per Workspace, unlimited power-ups per board, 250 workspace command runs per month, and so on. It’s great for personal use or small teams that need a simple and flexible project management tool.
• Standard: For the standard plan, Trello charges $5 per user/month. With this plan, you get all the features from the free plan plus unlimited boards, advanced checklists, 1,000 workspace command runs/ month, and so on. It’s great for small to medium-sized teams.
• Premium: The premium plan for Trello is $10 per user/month. Apart from everything from the standard plan, you get Views for Calendars, Timeline, Dashboard, and Map, unlimited workspace command runs, admin and security features, and so on. It’s recommended for medium-sized teams.
• Enterprise: At $17.50 per user/month, the enterprise plan for Trello is great for large organizations and teams. You get all the features from the previous tiers along with many other advanced features, better security, and admin rights for power-ups.

You can check the complete pricing and list of features as per the plan from the Trello pricing page.

Asana: Pricing

• Personal: It’s the free tier for Asana. You can have 10 teammates, unlimited tasks, projects, messages, storage, basic views, filters, and integrations. It’s great for personal use and even for small teams.
• Starter: Asana’s starter plan is $10.99 per user per month. You get everything from the personal plan, plus a timeline and Gantt views, Asana Intelligence, workflow builder, dashboards, advanced search and fields, forms, 250 automations, and so on. Small to medium-sized teams can benefit from it.
• Advanced:  $24.99 per user per month is the cost for Asana’s advanced tier. You get everything from the starter plan, plus goals, 20 portfolios, Asana Intelligence, workload, 25,000 automations, forms branching and customization, approvals, and more. It’s suitable for medium to large-sized teams and organizations.
• Enterprise:  Asana’s Enterprise pricing online varies according to your organization’s size and goals. To get a personalized quote, you have to reach out to Asana’s sales team and share some details about your business and needs. Asana’s Enterprise plan gives you access to premium features for security, customization, and support, such as SCIM, regional backups, and 24/7 assistance.

You can check the complete pricing and list of features as per the plan from Asana’s pricing page.

Trello and Asana are both excellent choices for managing projects. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to get better clarity and make the right decision:

What kind of projects are you managing?

• Trello is better for simple, flexible, or agile projects that don’t need much structure or hierarchy.
• Asana is better for complex, structured, or long-term projects that involve dependencies, milestones, subtasks, or timelines.

How big is your team and budget?

• Trello is better for small teams on tight budgets. It has a free plan with unlimited members, boards, cards, and lists, and cheaper paid plans.
• Asana is better for large teams. It has more features and benefits, such as resource management, budgeting tools, and powerful automation.

How do you prefer to work?

• Trello is better for projects that don’t need too many features and functionalities at a granular level while working on projects.
• Asana is better for visual, professional, versatile, and functional work at granular levels with features like reporting and analytics, goal-setting, and tracking.