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Asana

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7.1K
+ 1
655
Basecamp

646
500
+ 1
210
Trello

42.9K
33.4K
+ 1
3.7K

Asana vs Basecamp vs Trello: What are the differences?

Introduction

Asana, Basecamp, and Trello are popular project management tools used by individuals and teams to streamline their workflow and collaboration. Each of these tools offers unique features and functionalities that cater to different user requirements and preferences. In this analysis, we will highlight the key differences between Asana, Basecamp, and Trello.

  1. Pricing Models: Asana, Basecamp, and Trello all have different pricing models. Asana offers a free version with limited features and additional paid plans for more advanced options. Basecamp, on the other hand, has a flat pricing structure with a fixed price for all users. Trello offers a freemium model where users can start with a basic free version and upgrade to premium plans for more features. The pricing flexibility and options vary between these tools, allowing users to choose the most suitable plan for their needs.

  2. User Interface and Design: Asana, Basecamp, and Trello differ in terms of their user interface and design. Asana focuses on a clean and modern design with a structured layout, offering users a comprehensive overview of their projects and tasks. Basecamp emphasizes simplicity and ease of use, with a straightforward interface that promotes straightforward communication and collaboration. Trello, on the other hand, adopts a visual-oriented approach with boards and cards, allowing users to organize their tasks and projects in a more intuitive and flexible manner.

  3. Task Management Features: Each tool offers different task management features. Asana emphasizes task dependencies and allows users to create subtasks, assign due dates, and set priorities. Basecamp focuses on to-do lists, allowing users to create tasks, assign them to team members, and track their progress. Trello, with its board and card system, offers a flexible and visual way to manage tasks, allowing users to assign members, set due dates, and add labels to categorize tasks.

  4. Collaboration and Communication: Asana, Basecamp, and Trello provide different collaboration and communication features. Asana offers real-time updates and comments on tasks and projects, facilitating seamless collaboration among teammates. Basecamp includes features like message boards, commenting, and document sharing, allowing teams to collaborate and communicate within the platform. Trello enables team members to communicate through comments and mentions on cards, improving collaboration and keeping everyone on the same page.

  5. Integration Options: Asana, Basecamp, and Trello vary in terms of integration options with other tools and platforms. Asana offers a wide range of integrations with popular applications such as Google Drive, Slack, and Microsoft Teams, enhancing productivity by connecting with other tools used by teams. Basecamp offers fewer integrations compared to Asana but includes popular ones like Google Calendar and Zapier. Trello provides a vast selection of integrations with tools like Dropbox, GitHub, and Evernote, enabling users to streamline their workflow and connect with their favorite apps.

  6. Customization and Automation: When it comes to customization and automation, Asana, Basecamp, and Trello have distinct features. Asana allows users to create custom fields, templates, and rules that help automate repetitive tasks and streamline workflows. Basecamp, while less customizable, provides specific tools and features that cater to project management needs but offers limited automation options. Trello offers users the ability to create custom fields, labels, and power-ups that enhance the platform's functionality, but it has more limited automation capabilities compared to Asana.

In Summary, Asana, Basecamp, and Trello differ in terms of pricing models, user interface and design, task management features, collaboration and communication capabilities, integration options, and customization and automation functionalities. Users should consider these key differences to choose the project management tool that best suits their specific needs and preferences.

Advice on Asana, Basecamp, and Trello
Needs advice
on
AsanaAsanaAzure DevOpsAzure DevOps
and
JiraJira

I am managing a medium-sized team (15-20 people) who are geographically dispersed. Our team works in privacy, security, data governance, and compliance, but we DO NOT develop software. So, our choices boil down to Jira, Azure DevOps Boards, and Asana.

We are looking for a tool that:

  1. Is user-friendly for non-technicians and easy for us to self-administer.
  2. Permits us to automate common workflows.
  3. Allows us to classify work across multiple dimensions.
  4. Permits cross-functional visibility across work teams to identify potential points of collaboration and historical work projects.
  5. Enables management visibility to see where we may be overtaxed or under-resourced or whether the time is spent on the right priorities.
  6. Enables engagement/task assignments to people who are not necessarily on our team (i.e., I need someone in HR to do "X") - preferably without their needing to be fully licensed.
  7. Makes it easier for everyone to understand how their work connects to the broader team's big-picture goals.
  8. Enables easy integration with other common workplace tools.

Thanks for any guidance you can provide.

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Replies (2)
Carl Ishii
Sr. Designer at The Electric Company · | 4 upvotes · 14.8K views
Recommends

This is what I know:

1 - User Friendly is relative to what background you are coming from. I am not familiar with Azure. It sounds like you may be the Project Manager. I have used both Jira and Asana. I think Jira feels and looks more simple. Jira is more Project and software-dev oriented. Asana is more general, not to say it isn't designed to handle a development project. I think your decision is going to come down to: *Who is currently using what? *How is it going to be to get the individual outliers to adopt a new management style? Some will adapt and some will refuse. 2 - I believe they all have a level of automation 3 - I know Asana will let you tag and prioritize. Jira will allow you to prioritize, tag, make teams, and separate the projects by teams if you like. 4 - Again you can create teams and you can control the team visibility to projects. 5 - I know Jira will allow you to create a human resource with a burndown. 6 - Jira can assign tasks, projects, etc. to individual team members. 7 - With Jira comes Confluence. Here you can keep lots of support documentation. They have lots of templates that can be used as well. 8 - Jira does allow a lot of integration. It is designed for Product and Project management of HR and Software. If software devs didn't see a robust integration feature they would be very disappointed.

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Parikshit Tiwari
Software Engineer at Blend Labs · | 4 upvotes · 13.6K views
Recommends
on
JiraJira

JIRA is the clear choice for you based on your use case. JIRA has been around for more than 15 years and they defintly are pioneer in this field. JIRA will perfectly match up with your use cases (data governance compliance, etc.). JIRA can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. You can choose one of the starter templates or build a custom transition with a dedicated workflow for each. If done correctly, even though the first step takes time, it makes life much easier for everyone in the end. I don't work for JIRA just a big fan!

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Anthony Close
CEO at Lab Me Analytics · | 6 upvotes · 16K views
Needs advice
on
AsanaAsanamonday.commonday.com
and
QuipQuip

Looking to replace Slack and Jira with something simpler, cost-effective, and easy on the eyes (makes management easier visually).

JIRA is great but not fun to use visually and hard to report with. Not easy just to look at quickly and go, "Okay, I know where we are."

Slack is fantastic for chat/comms but useless when it comes to threads and making to-do lists, and knowing where we are in that list.

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Replies (2)
Anca Onuta
Recommends
on
monday.commonday.com

Hey,

I used Monday.com and Asana, but not Quip. I think Monday.com is more visual than Asana. And my recommendation is to check their templates and videos for your industry, they have very good materials that can get you started. And then you can use a bot to keep the track of your daily progress: * Monday.com bot for Slack - you can create tasks directly from Slack, or get notifications. or * Orli.ai for Discord - it is a daily standup bot that integrates with Monday.com, so every morning you can see in Discord the list of your tasks from Monday.com and plan your day, and Orli shares it with the team and keeps everything up to date. So you don't need get distracted by getting on Monday.com and do some other things. And what's cool is that the support team is very helpful and you can ask for the features you need.

Cheers, Anca

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Ruben Lozano
Growth Marketing Specialist at Ruben Lozano Me · | 3 upvotes · 3.7K views

Hello Anthony,

If you want to replace those 2 tools which are completely different from the use case, I think I will suggest Asana if you want something cheap and Monday if you want something more visual but a little bit more expensive. I agree with Slack. Slack is to communicate and you can integrate tasks and reminders there from the Project Management Tool but it is not a place to work on the tasks. And Jira is really powerful and complex. I think you will like Asana if you want something easy and Monday if you want something more visual. I didn't use Quip for a long time but I don't think will be an option in this case if you want something simpler, easy and cheaper.

Another option for me is Noton which is easy and simple too because connects very well with documentation.

I hope you found useful this recommendation.

All the best,

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Karen RInehart
Director of Financial Planning at Ignite Financial · | 4 upvotes · 50.2K views
Needs advice
on
AsanaAsanaClickUpClickUp
and
TrelloTrello

We are a small financial planning firm with remote workers. Trying to fix inefficiencies with technology and not people. We need to know where clients are in the pipeline/process (i.e., have we submitted applications and transfer forms, have we entered the costs basis of investments in the system, have we run their financial plans, where are we in the planning process, etc.) If a client calls and we have to research a question, who is handling it.

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Replies (1)
Recommends
on
ClickUpClickUpTrelloTrello

Karen, you can accomplish that with any of the three tools (I'm currently using all three). It depends on the user experience and the capabilities you're looking for. Here's a high-level rundown:

Trello
  • stands out for being simple, visually oriented drag-and-drop
  • of the three, it's more minimalist but still flexible
  • the more advanced features are free & paid add ons from Trello & other developers
  • best when you need something quick and simple, and more visual
Asana
  • great for more robust project management
  • you can manage tasks in different views including lists, kanban board similar to trello, and gantt chart
  • best when you need more control over the tasks and how your process is set up
ClickUp
  • intends to be a replacement for many different tools, including asana & trello
  • loaded with features, can do pretty much everything that trello & asana do
  • highly customizable but it may take some time go set it up the way you want it
  • the myriad of options could get confusing, but they provide a lot of templates (including a CRM template) and support tools to get you going faster

Ultimately you choice comes down to how much detail & control you want over your process (dates, categories, client information etc.) and how you want your team to work with the tool (simple drag & drop vs. structured lists). One idea is to start with Trello since it's the simplest, and migrate to one of the others if you outgrow it.

Hope that helps! If you have any follow-up questions please let us know!

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Needs advice
on
Aha!Aha!AsanaAsana
and
TrelloTrello

I'm comparing Aha!, Trello and Asana. We are looking for it as a Product Management Team. Jira handles all our development and storyboard etc. This is for Product Management for Roadmaps, Backlogs, future stories, etc. Cost is a factor, as well. Does anyone have a comparison chart of Pros and Cons? Thank you.

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Replies (1)
Max Stuart
Technical Project Manager at ShelterTech · | 6 upvotes · 223.7K views
Recommends
on
ClickUpClickUp

I just switched to ClickUp for my development agency - I am the product team, and I relay everything there betwixt designers, devs, and clients.

Clickup = Jira + Confluence but better - more ways to slice and dice your data & documents, make custom views, mind map relationships, and track people's work, plan goals... I even use it to manage project finances and household to-dos.

They have a very comprehensive free tier that never expires, and on top of that they're extremely generous with trials of their paid features, have more-than-fair pricing, and top-notch customer support.

https://clickup.com?fp_ref=max30

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Needs advice
on
BasecampBasecamp
and
ClickUpClickUp

A rapidly growing start-up in the biotech field. Main requirements not limited to, but include - cloud sharing, interacting through comments and messages, being able to specify deadlines, estimated time interval, time-lapsed/remaining, assign multiple tasks (task dependencies), and label their priority level, and have integration with a nice group of tools/apps (google and so on).

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Replies (4)
Recommends
on
ClickUpClickUp

Basecamp is a great product for remote teams. It is a mindset. If you're looking for a standard project management tool with lots of features, ClickUp is a great choice. It's a bit slow (especially mobile), but in terms of features, it's unbeatable.

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Mahdi Perfect
Recommends
on
ClickUpClickUp

A good collaboration tool was always a big challene in the most team I've met. The main challenge is there are many tools with tons of features. They'r all great in the paper. But in practice, the team usually doesn't enjoy collaborating using them. This is the challenging part. The project management tools should be well designed to keep simplicity in combination with well-chosen features to bring the most productivity and activity among the team. I'm thinking about many of my stacks, ClickUp is one of the few choices which I've never thought about migrating about. I can't describe it in text, I just advise you to try it once and you'll understand. The team behind ClickUp is really active. They really care about delivering new features.

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Recommends
on
YouTrackYouTrack

You are describing something close to issue tracker like redmine, jira+confluence, youtrack and etc. Redmine is absolutely free, for jira you should pay, youtrack has different licenses.

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Aukse Zilenaite
at Courage and Content · | 1 upvotes · 81.1K views
Recommends
on
ClickUpClickUp

I have been using this for a while and recommended to my last 15 clients who were amazed by the flexibility of the platform. It has everything You need!

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Decisions about Asana, Basecamp, and Trello

Clickup is easy to use, with lots of features and a great UI. Clickup has an affordable subscription model suitable for single seat personal use if you choose to upgrade for more features. Sometimes the more complex features are a little confusing but there's a lot of documentation and tutorials online to help you. I doubt there's a more sophisticated task/project management solution.

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Was by far the most flexible and fully featured project management software. Especially for the price. Overall great and intuitive design. Everything is exactly where you'd expect it to be. It was also the fastest to setup and figure out how to use entirely. The only feature missing is public project boards. 10/10 would recommend!

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Lucas Litton
Founder & CEO at Macombey · | 9 upvotes · 59.1K views

We chose TickTick after using a bunch of other project management tools that didn't really fit us. As a team, TickTick has made projects enjoyable. We break down projects into very small pieces and take them on one by one and we never miss any detail because of the tool. We have time tracking for each tasks to keep us on time, we share tasks between the team, take notes, and even establish habits throughout the teams so we can get better and better at what we do. We also tend to invite clients in as guests so they can follow along through the process of their project.

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Matt Safaii

I needed a tool that not only kept everything in one place, but was also easy for clients to use. I first started using Notion and fell in love with it. I eventually had problems when clients didn't want to use it or were confused on how it works. When multiple people are in a workspace, things can also get messy when there is no standard formatting set. Basecamp solved those problems for me by providing all the tools I need in one place. It is very intuitive and my clients love using it as well. I am also a fan of their pricing. Although it can be expensive at first if you are a small team, it is well worth it when you scale.

The team at Basecamp make great products and I will continue to use any tools they release. Also a huge fan of their email app, HEY.

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Manu Morante

Since always, all the documentation of our company has been full of elements that go beyond texts or lists ... And with Notion we use related tables, canvan, code blocks, includes, snipets ... It feels like everything can be done :)

I especially like to have your private notes, to be able to work on them little by little and even to be able to show them to whoever you decide, to finally move them to the official space.

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Kirill Mikhailov

Since now Jira is offering pretty wide free plans, it can compete with asana at small teams. And they have a significant advantage especially if you're working in agile methodology. Confluence is also a big advantage, and also comes with a free plan, so it's a pretty big thing. But we had also talked about asana and used to work with it before a lot, but we chose to go with Jira, and it's pretty good for now.

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Samriddhi Sinha
Machine Learning Engineer at Chefling · | 10 upvotes · 105.5K views

Notion's novelty according to me is the fact that everything can be a potential document. Notion's as a product has two very contrasting features. One as a hybrid document editor that combines the goodness of Markdown of Dropbox Paper with a more extensive set of formatting blocks. The second as a task manager and an organizer like. Trello.

Every table on Notion can have multiple views saved for previews with different filters, sorting and table style applied. Also, elements in a table can also be a page making it easier to have a Kanban-style sub-task manager for a particular subtask on a Kanban board for your project.

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Ivan Begtin
Director - NGO "Informational Culture" / Ambassador - OKFN Russia at Infoculture · | 5 upvotes · 220.6K views

Both Asana and Trello support Kanban style project tracking. Trello is Kanban-only project management, knowledge management, actually card-management tools. Asana is much more complex, supports different project management approaches, well integrated and helpful for any style/type project.

We choose Asana finally, but still some projects kept in Trello

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Abhay Vashishtha

Procezo is an excellent free-for-life task managing tool with several benefits. Its clear, user-friendly interface is perfect for small businesses and startups as well as enterprise-level use. It makes it a seamless transition from any other project management tools. Its simple but effective layout allows new users to quickly adapt to its ever-expanding set of features. Procezo allows users to create boards and provide access to users or teams as required, set priority and precedence of the task and allowing for subtasks and discussions to be created. With unlimited tasks, users, projects and free support, Procezo is quickly making its way into businesses from across the world and the ultimate growth hack tool.

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I loved Slack. We used it for discussion. But somehow, it was always difficult to get things done. HeySpace is what replaced Slack and Trello as it combines the functionality of both tools.

So, now we keep on discussing as we did on slack, but once we to a point where we want to do something, we create tasks on a board and distribute them.

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Pros of Asana
Pros of Basecamp
Pros of Trello
  • 160
    Super fast task creation
  • 150
    Flexible project management
  • 101
    Free up to 15
  • 99
    Followers and commenting on tasks
  • 57
    Integration with external services
  • 25
    Email-based task creation
  • 17
    Plays nice with Google Apps
  • 14
    Clear usage
  • 14
    Plays nice with Harvest Time Tracking
  • 6
    Supports nice keyboard shortcuts
  • 4
    Integration with GitHub
  • 2
    Slack supported
  • 2
    Integration with Instagantt for Gantt Charts
  • 1
    Integration with Alfred
  • 1
    Both Card View & Task View
  • 1
    Easy to use
  • 1
    Friendly API
  • 0
    Slick and fast interface
  • 71
    Team collaboration (non-tech)
  • 39
    It's simple and intuitive
  • 24
    Great UI
  • 20
    Plain, simple
  • 15
    Very fast
  • 12
    Clear pricing
  • 9
    Super fast task creation
  • 7
    Integration with external services
  • 4
    iPhone app
  • 4
    Frequent + awesome updates
  • 1
    Remote management
  • 1
    As close to an all-in-one tool that is client friendly
  • 1
    Team collaboration
  • 1
    Team and client collaboration
  • 1
    Plays nice with Google Apps
  • 715
    Great for collaboration
  • 628
    Easy to use
  • 573
    Free
  • 375
    Fast
  • 347
    Realtime
  • 237
    Intuitive
  • 215
    Visualizing
  • 169
    Flexible
  • 126
    Fun user interface
  • 83
    Snappy and blazing fast
  • 30
    Simple, intuitive UI that gets out of your way
  • 27
    Kanban
  • 21
    Clean Interface
  • 18
    Easy setup
  • 18
    Card Structure
  • 17
    Drag and drop attachments
  • 11
    Simple
  • 10
    Markdown commentary on cards
  • 9
    Lists
  • 9
    Integration with other work collaborative apps
  • 8
    Satisfying User Experience
  • 8
    Cross-Platform Integration
  • 7
    Recognizes GitHub commit links
  • 6
    Easy to learn
  • 5
    Great
  • 4
    Better than email
  • 4
    Versatile Team & Project Management
  • 3
    and lots of integrations
  • 3
    Trello’s Developmental Transparency
  • 3
    Effective
  • 2
    Easy
  • 2
    Powerful
  • 2
    Agile
  • 2
    Easy to have an overview of the project status
  • 2
    flexible and fast
  • 2
    Simple and intuitive
  • 1
    Name rolls of the tongue
  • 1
    Customizable
  • 1
    Email integration
  • 1
    Personal organisation
  • 1
    Nice
  • 1
    Great organizing (of events/tasks)
  • 0
    Easiest way to visually express the scope of projects

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Cons of Asana
Cons of Basecamp
Cons of Trello
  • 0
    Not Cross Platform
  • 3
    Basic
  • 5
    No concept of velocity or points
  • 4
    Very light native integrations
  • 2
    A little too flexible

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is Asana?

Asana is the easiest way for teams to track their work. From tasks and projects to conversations and dashboards, Asana enables teams to move work from start to finish--and get results. Available at asana.com and on iOS & Android.

What is Basecamp?

Basecamp is a project management and group collaboration tool. The tool includes features for schedules, tasks, files, and messages.

What is Trello?

Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

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Sep 29 2020 at 7:36PM

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What are some alternatives to Asana, Basecamp, and Trello?
Slack
Imagine all your team communication in one place, instantly searchable, available wherever you go. That’s Slack. All your messages. All your files. And everything from Twitter, Dropbox, Google Docs, Asana, Trello, GitHub and dozens of other services. All together.
Jira
Jira's secret sauce is the way it simplifies the complexities of software development into manageable units of work. Jira comes out-of-the-box with everything agile teams need to ship value to customers faster.
Airtable
Working with Airtable is as fast and easy as editing a spreadsheet. But only Airtable is backed by the power of a full database, giving you rich features far beyond what a spreadsheet can offer.
daPulse
daPulse connects everyone in the company around topics, or Pulses. These are rich collaboration spaces where everyone can share files and images
monday.com
A tool that simplifies the way teams work together - Manage workload, track projects, move work forward, communicate with people - Adopt a management tool that people actually love to use, one that's fast, and easy to use.
See all alternatives