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Top 13 Asana alternatives for Project management in startups and agencies
Chaitanya
Dec 13, 2023
18 min read
Introduction
Looking to switch up your project management tool from Asana to other tools?
If you've used Asana, you may have identified some inadequacies in the tool and if that’s the case, you don't need to worry because we’re about to share the top effective Asana alternatives currently available in the market.
The tools below can cater for the downsides of Asana and help you improve your project management process and boost your overall productivity and effectiveness.
Now before we delve into Asana alternatives, let's look through Asana’s key features.
Table of content
Smartsheet functions like an Excel sheet. It is a user-friendly and highly customizable platform with several templates that helps to enhance overall project performance while ensuring concentrating effective collaboration.
Key features
Smartsheet have various views like the Gantt view to keep track of time, card view to keep track of tasks on the task card, calendar view to keep track of dates, and grid view for tracking multiple projects.
The platform offers blueprints for automating repetitive tasks.
Smartsheet provides content management tools such as progress dashboards, automated alerts, and resource management features to be inline with project progress.
File sharing with teammates and clients is quite straightforward with Smartsheet.
With Smartsheet, you can integrate with 100+ other tools through Zapier and Automate.io.
Pricing
Smartsheet offers a free plan. However, its paid plans include; pro plan at $7 and business plan at $25 per user per month. Its Enterprise plan is based on custom quotes.
Basecamp delivers user-friendly that's suitable for small teams. It offers project management functionalities like scheduling, collaboration, and monitoring features. The platform helps teams to ensure organization while working on projects.
Key features
With Basecamp, you can view workloads and simplify complex projects by creating to-do lists for each project.
Basecamp helps teams to adhere to important deadlines with the project scheduling function. With this function, you can create due dates, monitor progress, identify roadblocks, and easily integrate with calendars for real-time updates.
The platform has a set of built-in tools such as message board, visual Kanban-style card table, and centralized document management to help track information throughout the project.
Integration is available for many third party tools like • Slack, GitHub and Salesforce.
Pricing
The software has a 30-day free trial. However, its paid plans include Basecamp at $15 per user a month and Basecamp pro at a flat rate of $299 per month.
Jira is an umbrella platform including Jira Software, Jira Core, and Jira Work Management. Together they provide project management support for teams of all sizes. Several teams in DevOps, agile software development, and product management use Jira for planning, tracking, releasing, and supporting software development projects.
Key features
Jira's dashboards such as Scrum and Kanban will help you to quickly plan projects, assess progress, and track deadlines. Further, you can share these dashboards with team members to keep them updated with task progress and deadlines.
Jira uses its Query Language and filters to enhance the speed in searching for tasks and projects.
Jira offers over 3000 integrations. The tool can integrate with Trello, slack and GitHub.
Pricing
Jira offers free and paid plans. Its paid plans include; standard plan at $7.75 per user/month, a premium plan at $15.25 per user/month and an enterprise plan which is custom.
ClickUp is a widely used and successful project planning and management tool and is effective for various team sizes, including teams that operate in remote environments. This is because it includes all the essential project planning and support project management techniques that are necessary to support the planning, organization, and management of tasks.
Key features
Clickup unites all your internal documents, wikis, and FAQs into a centralized knowledge base for a faster and smoother onboarding process of new employees. This way, you can quickly get them familiarized with the organization.
With Clickup, you can view projects and tasks through mind maps and gain a clear visual representation of your strategy and help everyone in your team understand their role in achieving the team's goal.
The software breaks down tasks into manageable activities listed in a checklist format to speedup project initiation and enhance progress monitoring.
Clickup has kanban boards and Gantt charts that provide you with a comprehensive view of your project. It also includes calendars, task templates, sort, filter and 'search for' function to help you view your projects.
The software's proofing and annotation feature will help you in proofing, commenting on and approving files in real time.
It offers Integration via Zapier to countless tools like Outlook, Slack, HubSpot, Google Calendar, etc.
Pricing
Clickup offers a free forever plan. However, its paid plans include an unlimited, business and business plus plan at $7, $12 and $25 respectively. However, its enterprise plan is custom.
Microsoft Project is a component of the known Microsoft brand, trusted by millions globally. It combines various project management functionalities from other brands into a single platform. While it is highly regarded as a strong performer for individual projects, it may not be as widely favored for managing multiple ongoing projects.
Key features
The tool allows you to control expenses and stay within your project budget.
Microsoft Project helps teams to easily keep tabs on upcoming due dates, potential limitations, or project progression using the Gantt view.
It can quickly assess the overall project and individual progress status through its interactive dashboard– it requires an integration with Power BI though.
Zoho Projects is one of Asana alternatives that's linked to the Zoho suite of tools. It includes a recruitment system and sales platform primarily designed for the real estate industry. Also, Zoho offers a full project management solution that facilitates an easy data linkage between the different tools in the suite.
Key features
It easily points out and flag issues in your work that require attention using the issue management feature.
The app’s Gantt Charts feature gives you an overall view of your project and helps to identify and allocate crucial tasks to ensure consistent progress.
Zoho doesn't allow many integrations like other project management tools.
Pricing
Zoho Projects offers a free plan like all other softwares. However, its premium plan is $4 and enterprise plan $9 per month.
Teamwork is an alternative project manager to Asana. This tool can help you improve your project management skills with its user-friendly status update. It includes various features, including task management, Gantt charts, milestone tracking, and resource and project management types.
The platform allows for customizable project planning and project management approaches and offers real-time insights into a project objectives and project team. While it's loved for its user-friendly interface, it may be tough for new users to navigate through all the available features. In addition, Teamwork integrates seamlessly with tools like Asana, Slack, and Trello.
Also, Teamwork is particularly beneficial for project managers and teams handling complex projects, seeking comprehensive project management tools with various functionalities.
Key Features
Task Management You can create task lists, break tasks into subtasks, and track task progress in real time for up-to-date insights.
Gantt Charts: Visualize your project timeline and make adjustments or add dependencies by simply dragging and dropping tasks.
Milestone Tracking: Assign milestones to mark significant progress goals and celebrate achievements.
Resource Management: Identify risks and manage resources using features like Workload.
Stakeholder Alignment: Communicate directly with stakeholders, @mention them when you need their input, and also provide them visibility all through the planning and implementation of the project.
Integration: Teamwork integrates with various popular tools such as Asana, Basecamp, Clockify, Dropbox, Gmail, and more.
Customizable Reports: Generate custom reports to analyze project progress and performance.
Pricing
Teamwork offers different pricing plans to suit diverse needs.
It starts with a free forever plan that is free and has a five-user limit and offers basic project management features. Next is the Starter plan that's Priced at $5.99 per user per month. Afterwards is the Deliver plan priced at $9.99 per user per month. Next is the Grow plan and it costs $19.99 per user per month. Last is the Enterprise plan and it's tailored to meet organization's specific needs and has no public pricing.
Airtable is a top Asana alternative for many project management professionals, providing a versatile and customizable platform accessible through both web and mobile devices. It offers flexible tables for efficient work organization and planning. Users can customize tasks in a table format, organizing them under various titles such as departments, deadlines, and priority.
While Airtable integrates with tools like Asana, it does have a drawback — limited view options. If you prioritize a tool with broader view options, sticking with Asana or exploring other alternatives might be preferable.
Key features
Flexible and Mobile Organizer: Airtable allows users to create tables and manage records on mobile devices as tap-friendly cards while editing records on the web using a simple spreadsheet interface.
Collaborative in Real-time: Airtable enables users to share data and updates with others and see the changes in real time.
Customizable Templates: Airtable offers a number of pre-built templates for various purposes like project management, vacation planning, event management, sales lead tracking, and more.
This is HubSpot's project management and task management tool and is available through various HubSpot subscriptions. It's a centralized platform for teams to plan, organize, and monitor their work. Some features include task assignment, custom fields, reports, and dashboards.
Plus, it offers integration with other HubSpot tools. Users can efficiently create and assign tasks, set due dates and priorities, track progress, and collaborate within a dedicated project manager workspace. The tool offers a centralized hub for managing projects, tasks, and communication, contributing to streamlined workflows and minimizing the risk of miscommunication or overlooked tasks.
key features
Structured task lists: Users can plan and organize their team's work in one place via structured lists of tasks
Personalized command center: The tool includes a personalized command center with all tasks, meetings, and contact details in one place.
Task filtering: Users can filter tasks based on assignee, status, and due date.
Real-time collaboration and task assignment: The tool allows for real-time collaboration and task assignment
Integration with third-party time tracking apps: While the tool does not have a built-in time tracker, users can integrate with third-party time tracking apps.
Pricing
HubSpot's project management software is accessible through three main pricing plans: Starter for $45, Professional for $800, and Enterprise for $3,200. HubSpot's pricing is contact-based rather than per-seat, and phone support is exclusive to the Enterprise and Professional plans.
Now you have the list of the top Asana alternatives for your project. You should have picked your preferred tool by now. If not, you can start from the top of our list to try out the effectiveness of each tool.
Considering Asana for your project management? Like most tools, Asana has downsides that may prompt you to explore alternatives.
Let's examine some inadequacies of Asana that highlight the need for other options:
It lacks some basic functionalities.
Firstly, it lacks a time-tracking feature, which could concern project managers dealing with time-bound business projects. If time and project management knowledge is crucial for a project manager's job and project success, at your company, exploring Asana alternatives with efficient time-tracking and project management features might be worthwhile.
Additionally, Asana's in-app search is limited, allowing users to search only for project titles or information in the comment section, which can be inefficient.
Moreover, Asana has a poor notification system. Notifications come in large batches, and there are instances where users may not receive them at all. Because of that, exploring alternatives with a more reliable notification system could be beneficial.
Complex for newbies
Asana tends to be feature-rich, which can be overwhelming. While these numerous features may appeal to project managers, they can prove daunting for new team members.
Despite its simple UI design, the countless features might make it challenging for beginners to perform basic tasks.
Plus, Asana lacks adequate onboarding support, further complicating the initial user experience.
Limited assignment
A significant drawback of Asana is its incapability to both process groups or project managers to assign multiple people to the same task. In Asana, project managers can only assign one person to a task, potentially limiting the project managers and team members efficiency during the project phase of work.
Furthermore, unlike other project management tools, Asana lacks the functionality to convert comments into task assignments, which could streamline communication and task for strong project management skills.
Limited task management ability
Asana's lack of a unified method for managing projects, overseeing multiple projects and tracking task deadlines can hinder team productivity and lead to confusion.
Moreover, the tool lacks task status options such as "in progress," "completed," or "under review." With only "open" or "closed" status options, it falls short of providing a clear overview of project status. This limitation may make Asana more suitable for small businesses, as larger enterprises often require a centralized platform for project management institute task assignment, project management process groups, supervision of project completion, and comprehensive project review
Costing
Many Asana alternatives provide valuable features for free or at a lower cost to cater for companies with a low project budget
Asana's free plan may fall short, lacking essential features such as reporting, custom workflows, and project templates, which are only available in its paid plans.
Additionally, the paid plan does not offer an unlimited user option, a crucial feature often sought by project managers and business leaders in software solutions for successful projects.
Subscribe to the best Asana alternatives.
I’ve shared the top Asana alternatives available for project management and you have all the information you need to select the best alternative. The above tools can help you to improve your project execution and enhance your productivity.
Finally, I’ll recommend you sign up to Superflow if you need an all in one platform for effective project management for your start up or agency.
You can start by signing up to the tool for free to check out its functionalities, I'm sure you’ll love to adopt Superflow as your primary project management tool afterwards.
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