In this article, we look at the best Asana alternatives for small teams.
Don’t get us wrong — Asana is great. And it’s a popular work management tool with tons of features. But it’s not for everyone.
For small teams, feature-rich tools are not always right. That’s because:
- It takes time to onboard your team
- You need weeks of trial and error to figure out the best way to use the tool
- You end up paying for features you’ll never use
Why would you invest in a tool that takes tons of upkeep just to help you stay on top of work.
While Asana may not be right for you, there are a lot of options.
Want to jump into the top picks right away?
Let’s dive in.
What are the top Asana alternatives?
Here are our top picks:
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1. Toggl Plan
Toggl Plan is a beautifully simple work management tool.
It comes with simple drag-and-drop Project timelines that make it easy to schedule, track and deliver projects on time. Plus, its Team timelines help you manage your team’s availability, capacity, and workloads.
For team members who don’t want to be bothered with timelines, you also get task boards. These flexible Kanban boards make it easy to customize and visually manage your team’s project workflow. You can create unlimited timelines and boards with unlimited tasks.
You can work together with your team on tasks using file attachments, checklists, and comments.
Key features
- Plan, track and manage project schedules using simple, drag-and-drop timelines
- Visualize team capacity to take on new projects with month, quarter, and annual timeline views
- Rebalance team members’ workloads to ensure that no one is over or underworked
- Visually management project tasks with Kanban task boards
- Collaborate on tasks with your teammates with file attachments, comments, and checklists
- Manage work on the go with Android and iOS apps
Price plans
$9 to $15 per user per month with a 14-day free trial.
Compared to Asana, Toggl Plan:
- Has visual resource management, and multi-assign tasks
- Doesn’t have organizational goals, project portfolios, forms, task list view, and task automation
- Costs 50 percent less
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2. Trello
Trello is a popular task management tool based on Kanban boards.
It’s popular because of its simplicity and extendability. Trello’s features can be extended with its ever-growing library of add-ons called powerups. You can install powerups for everything including team calendars, sprint burndown, etc.
In addition, Trello comes with integrations for almost all popular collaboration tools including Slack, Google Drive, and Microsoft Teams.
Finally, Trello’s powerful task automation improves your team’s productivity.
Key features
- Simple, drag-and-drop Kanban boards
- Flexible task properties including custom fields, file attachments, cover images, and comments
- Powerful no-code automation to manage task workflows productively
- Ready-to-use task and board templates to get started with projects quickly
- Calendar, Dashboard, Timeline views of your task board
- Desktop, iOS, and Android apps
Price plans
$6 to $12.50 per user per month with a 14-day free trial for the Premium plan.
Compared to Asana, Trello:
- Has more powerful add-ons, integrations, and no-code automation
- Doesn’t have a way to manage project plans, portfolios, task dependencies, and workload management features
- Costs around 50 percent less
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3. Basecamp
Basecamp makes remote team communication and collaboration easy.
It comes with a bunch of collaboration features including team chats, message boards, and shared files and documents.
For managing tasks, Basecamp supports to-do lists. Team members can collaborate on to-do items using comments and shared files.
Basecamp also makes your team more productive. With automatic task check-ins, you don’t have to ask teammates for status updates.
Key features
- Discuss work-related stuff using message boards with teammates and clients
- Manage tasks using simple to-do lists
- Share files including Google Sheets, Google Docs, and other Google Drive with your project team
- Get answers to your questions quickly with group chat
- Invite unlimited users to your workspace for a fixed monthly fee
Price plans
$99 per month for unlimited users
Compared to Asana, Basecamp:
- Has better collaboration features including message boards and group chat
- Doesn’t come with project planning, project portfolios, and team workload management
- Costs 60 percent less for a 10 people team
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4. Monday.com
Monday.com is an all-in-one workflow management tool.
With its list, timeline, and board views you can plan, organize and track all your team’s work. Similar to Trello, you can also extend Monday.com’s functionality by adding apps from its app store.
Similar to Asana, you also get workflow automation.
Monday.com also comes with 200+ customizable templates that help you get started with projects right away.
Key features
- Manage all your workflows in one place
- Customizable column types to create custom workflow properties
- Board, Gantt Timeline, and Calendar views to manage tasks
- Add-on apps and integrations to extend functionality even further
- Track time and manage team workloads
- Built-in templates for getting started with workflows quickly
Price plans
$10 to $20 per seat, per month with a free 14-day trial
Compared to Asana, Monday.com:
- Helps you create and manage your own workflows
- Doesn’t come with inbuilt milestones and approval workflows
- Costs 33 percent less for a 10 people team
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5. Notion
Notion is primarily a team collaboration tool.
However, it can be customized to build internal tools for managing your team’s work. This is easily achieved by creating custom databases and presenting the database using multiple views including timelines, boards, and lists.
Notion also comes with templates for managing product, marketing, and sales projects.
Key features
- Collaborate with your team using wikis and docs
- Real-time updates to documents
- Create custom workflows with databases and list, board, and timeline views
- Large community of makers builds templates and integrations
- Desktop and mobile apps
Price plans
$10+ per user per month with a free
Compared to Asana, Notion:
- Helps you collaborate using documents and wikis as well as create custom workflows
- Needs some onboarding before you can create your own workflows
- Costs 60 percent less
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6. MeisterTask
MeisterTask is a secure task management tool for teams.
It comes with timeline and board views to manage team tasks. Tasks can be one-time tasks or recurring. You can also set limits on the number of tasks that are assigned to a team member so they can focus better.
MeisterTask also comes with task automation so your team can spend their time more effectively.
Key features
- Create customizable workflows with Kanban-like boards
- Visualize your project schedule on a timeline
- Focus your team’s work by limiting the number of tasks assigned to a member at a time
- Automate repeating steps in your workflow to increase efficiency and consistency
Price plans
$8.25 to $20.75 per user per month
Compared to Asana, MeisterTask
- Has WIP task limits as well as apps for mobile and desktop devices
- Doesn’t come with planning, workload management, or project portfolios
- Costs 30 percent less
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7. TeamGantt
TeamGantt is an online Gantt chart maker.
It comes with a drag and drop timeline that also supports task dependencies. You can even see all your projects on a single timeline.
TeamGantt also shows you team availability and workloads. However, you cannot adjust workloads from this screen.
Team members can collaborate with internal and external stakeholders via comments and file attachments.
Key features
- Drag and drop Gantt timelines to schedule projects
- See all projects on a single timeline with a planned vs. actual view
- Visualize team availability and workloads
- Work together using comments and file attachments
- See the status of all projects in the portfolio view
Price plans
$25 to $30 per user per month with a 30-day free trial
Compared to Asana, TeamGantt
- Has more technical Gantt timelines with a planned vs. actual view
- Doesn’t come with Kanban boards
- Costs about the same
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8. Todoist
If you’re looking for a simple to-do list manager for your team with a user-friendly interface, Todoist is perfect for you.
With Todoist, you can organize your to-do items into projects as well as tag tasks with labels. In addition, it also supports sub-tasks. Finally, you can also visualize your tasks on a Kanban board.
You can prioritize tasks as well as schedule them to repeat periodically.
Key features
- Capture, organize, and track to-do tasks into projects as well as by labels
- Add projects and labels as favorites for quick access
- Schedule recurring tasks
- See the big picture by visualizing tasks on a Kanban board
- Get notified when people post comments, complete tasks, and more
- Add tasks via email integration and collaborate using comments and file attachments
Price plans
$4 to $6 per user per month with a 30-day free trial for the Business plan
Compared to Asana, Todoist:
- Has recurring tasks and favorite projects
- Doesn’t have planning, workload management, and project portfolios
- Costs up to 80 percent less
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9. Nifty
Nifty helps you organize all your team’s work in one place.
It comes with timelines and simple tasks to manage work. You can visualize tasks using Kanban, List, and Calendar views.
Team members can collaborate internally or with external stakeholders using chats, docs, and wikis. Finally, you get automatic status reporting and project dashboards for a quick overview of your projects.
Key features
- Plan work using simple, drag and drop timelines
- Capture, organize, and track team tasks using task lists, Kanban boards, and calendars
- Collaborate using team chat, docs, and team wikis
- See project progress using customizable dashboards and portfolios
- Track time and budget spent on a project
Price plans
$5+ per user per month with a 14-day free trial
Compared to Asana, Nifty:
- Has group chats, documents, and team wikis
- Isn’t as good as Asana when it comes to resource management and organizational goals
- Costs up to 50 percent less
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10. Backlog
For software development project management, you may want to look no further than Backlog.
It comes with both project and code management.
You can schedule projects using Gantt charts and track task progress using Kanban-style boards and bug tracking. It also supports sub tasks and checklists.
For code management, Backlog supports both SVN and Git repositories. You can see code commits, diffs, pull requests, branches and comments all within the app.
Key features
- Plan software development projects using Gantt charts
- Track project progress using Kanban-style boards
- Collaborate on tasks and bugs using comments and file attachments
- Supports SVN and Git repositories
- Import from Jira and Redmine
Price plans
$175 per month for unlimited users and projects
Compared to Asana, Backlog:
- Has better inbuilt features for software development teams
- Doesn’t come with project portfolios and workload management
- Costs up to 50 percent less for a 10 people team
How to choose from these top Asana alternatives?
We’ve looked at the top tools that can replace Asana for your work management needs. Next let’s look at how to choose from these Asana alternatives.
What features should you look for when choosing an alternative to Asana?
As a small team you don’t need most of the features that come in Asana’s top-level plan. For example, project portfolios, forms, goals, automation, etc.
However, some features are non-negotiable.
1. Unlimited tasks and projects
You may not be working on unlimited projects at any given time. However, you may still want to keep data from old projects and tasks handy for estimating and learnings.
That’s why, always consider a tool or a price plan that offers unlimited projects and tasks.
2. Work planning
Unless you work on small, 2-4 week projects, you want to a tool that offers work planning features. And the best way to visualize project schedules is with timelines and milestones.
Look at tools that offer drag and drop, Gantt timelines for easy work scheduling.
3. Simple task management
Team members should spend as little time as possible keeping project information up to date. That way they can focus on getting meaningful work done.
Choose tools that support drag and drop task boards as well as quick task updates from the timeline.
4. Capacity & workload planning
Your team is your important asset. Small team managers need to maintain a balance between their team’s workloads and its capacity to take on new work.
A timeline tool that helps you visualize your team’s availability, capacity, and workloads ensures that your team is engaged productively without overwhelm.
5. Minimal onboarding
The tool that you choose should be intuitive and easy to get started with familiar tools like timelines, boards, and lists.
Avoid tools that introduce new jargon or concepts. That way, you team can get started and make most of the tool quickly.
Final words
Choosing a tool from thousands of Asana alternatives that your team likes is a challenge for many.
But not you!
You already have a list of the best tools above. Plus, you also know what features you should look for when looking to replace Asana.
Shortlist 2-3 tools from the above list based on your priorities. Then, try them out with your team.
We’re sure you’ll find a tool that suits your needs.
![Are You Ready for Your Project Management Tool? [Infographic]](https://toggl.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/how-to-choose-project-management-software-toggl-blog-cover-646x404.jpg)
