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22 Alternatives to Trello for Simple Project Management

by MomchilNovember 29th, 2020

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From the desk of a brilliant weirdo:

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From the desk of a brilliant weirdo:

Dear visitor,

This article about Trello alternatives will try to make it as easy as possible for you to pick a suitable project management tool for personal or business use.

I’ll go deep into details and help you narrow down your selection, so you don’t have to waste valuable time reviewing each app individually.

With that said, let’s first take a look at Trello and see why some users wanna avoid it:

Trello

Trello is known to be one of the simplest project management tools out there. It is a good collaboration tool that allows employees to communicate, update tasks, and discuss real-time projects. If you’re looking for clarity over your projects, Trello is perfect. It works great for both personal and business purposes.

Features

Boards, lists, and cards for better project management and collaboration.
You can upload files straight from Dropbox, Box, or Google Drive.
The Trello Gantt charts are known as “TeamGantts.” They are part of Trello Power-Ups, where you can find more apps, plugins, and integrations to make your kanban workflow smoother.
Drag and drop.
Search filters.
Trello email notifications are available as well.
High-level security standards — the administrator can set access permissions and define board privacy.
Trello tutorials and demos are available. You can just google them up, and a dozen will show.
Trello markdown format.
Trello software is available on any platform: you have a web app, desktop app, and mobile app (for Mac and Android). Trello’s desktop app seems to be the best as it comes with native notifications, powerful enhancements, and other cool features.
Trello offers a seamless GitHub integration so you can integrate your commits easily.
Trello pricing has three tiers: Free, Trello Business Class, and Trello Enterprise. The Business Class offers 14-day free trials. For the Trello Enterprise plan, you need to contact sales.

And, now, here are the most common complaints people have about Trello:

First, the mobile application of Trello can be very buggy and slow. If you have stacked tons of tasks on your Trello board, then you’ll probably experience lags.

Second, the UI can get very clunky if you have hundreds of tasks on your board. This kinda builds upon the previous one.

Another disadvantage is that you can’t add multiple assignees to your tasks in Trello. This drawback mostly stands out when you’re dealing with more sophisticated tasks, and you need the help of multiple team members.

Although Trello offers many extra apps through “Power-Ups,” you still gotta do the manual labor of installing and setting up those additional Trello plugins and features to make your workflow easier. This makes it harder for bigger teams and projects to stay in the loop.

User Review

“There is something that troubles me. Sometimes when I am organizing the boards I put one in another category by mistake, because it is a too much sensitive process.”

Okay, let’s get into Trello’s alternatives

Asana

Asana is one of the best project management platforms for larger teams. It’s definitely a good Trello alternative (it’s actually one of its biggest competitors). It is a versatile tool that helps teams streamline their PM workflows to improve team efficiency.

Features

Boards and lists.
Assignees.
Deadlines.
Seamless communication.
Comments.
Project templates.
Reports.
Portfolios.
Integrations with other apps like Slack, Salesforce, and Microsoft Outlook.

Pros

Asana’s mobile app works fantastic. You can use it on the fly to capture random thoughts and ideas, get updates from coworkers, or adjust your to-do list.
Real-time updates are available. Keep your team in the loop 24/7.
When comparing Trello vs Asana, Trello is easier to grasp, but Asana offers a broader set of features.
You can invite others to your workspace.

Cons

Compared to Trello, Asana doesn’t have a desktop app for both Windows and Mac.

Tasks can only be assigned to one person. Other software solutions allow projects to have multiple assignees on a single task.
It does not have a time tracking feature. You need to install additional browser extensions.

User Review

“Fantastic for cross-team collaboration.”

Jira

Although Jira and Trello are owned by the same company (Atlassian), Jira is still an excellent project management alternative to Trello, especially for developers. Jira helps your team plan, manage, and report their work easily.

Features

Good workflow visualization through Kanban and Scrum boards.
Roadmaps are great; they provide better clarity over your projects.
Comprehensive reports on performance and progress.
To-do lists.
Custom fields.
Swimlanes.
Search.
Android and iOS apps.

Pros

With Jira, you can create customized workflows that can fit any of your projects.
The support team is very good — responsive, and puts your problems first.
Jira integrates with tons of third-party tools to make software development simpler and easier.

Cons

The mobile app of Jira feels a bit clunky compared to the web app, according to users.
No specific idea management features are available to keep track of ideas and plans.
Requires some training to get used to Jira, especially if you are a non-technical person.
When comparing Jira vs Trello, Trello is more straightforward and a better option for small teams or projects.

User Review

“Really good for automating workflow so you can assign tasks, track progress and allow follow-up. Useful reporting features can be “sliced and diced” based on views you can customize.”

ClickUp

ClickUp is a cloud-based collaboration and project management tool suitable for all types of businesses. It brings the whole team together to plan, track, and collaborate on any project — all in one place.

Features

Task assignments and statuses.
Alerts.
Task toolbar.
Users can assign comments and tasks to an individual or multiple team members.
Projects can be viewed using an Agile dashboard.
The “priorities” feature helps users focus on the most essential tasks.

Pros

ClickUp desktop app is fantastic; it runs flawlessly.
The free version is quite satisfactory as it offers a lot of features.
ClickUp pricing plans are affordable as well.
It delivers improvements, which suggests that ClickUp is constantly evolving into a better project management app.

Cons

It’s slightly complicated. You can use the ClickUp tutorials to get started.
The UI may look a bit clunky because ClickUp boasts so many features.

User Review

“Finally — We found a Task Management App that thinks like WE do.”

Wrike

Wrike is a versatile online project management and work collaboration platform. It offers many features that allow users to simplify project planning, centralize communication, and streamline workflow even remotely.

Features

Personalized and free kanban boards.
It has a built-in approval tool that allows for faster review and approval of images, videos, PDFs, and more.
Customizable dashboards and reports that allow users to monitor progress close for deeper insights.
Wrike includes custom workflows, custom fields, and custom project folder structures to make teams more efficient.
Wrike desktop app is available to both Windows and Mac users. You can find Wrike on Android and iOS as well.
Free customizable project templates are available. You’ll be able to hit the ground with new projects immediately.
Integrations with other productivity applications, such as Salesforce, Tableau, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Gmail, Google Drive, Github, Jira, Slack, and more.

Pros

Gantt charts are great for visualizing deadlines and critical paths.
If we compare Wrike vs Trello, Wrike is more suitable for enterprises, whereas Trello works better for smaller businesses.

Cons

It’s expensive for small teams, and the free plan includes very basic features.
There’s no live chat function yet.
There’s a steep learning curve.

User Review

“Good project management tool once you move past the learning curve.”

Airtable

Airtable is a simple online platform for creating spreadsheets in relational databases. The user interface is simple, colorful, and friendly. Inside Airtable, you’ll have zero issues with creating beautiful spreadsheets. If Excel and Google sheets had a child, it’d be Airtable.

Features

Store, collaborate and organize information.
Hundreds of templates.
Create custom views like Excel, Google Sheets, Calendar, Kanban, etc.
Airtable apps.
Airtable automations.
Integrates with all your favorite tools.
Desktop app.Mobile app — Android and iOS.

Pros

You can customize your workflows based on your business easily.
You can share data by providing shareable links with various viewing permissions.
Airtable brings excellent collaboration features to the table, making your team communication more efficient.

Cons

Requires training to understand all functionalities.
It’s relatively limited from an accounting perspective.

User Review

“Great Amalgamation of a Spreadsheet & Database.”

Basecamp

Basecamp is a real-time communication tool suited for small projects where collaboration is highly important. You can set up to-dos, schedules, create and upload documents and files, chat with your colleagues, and monitor the team’s progress — all in one place. It’s definitely a great Trello alternative.

Features

To-do lists.
Assignees.
Notes.
File attachments.
Comments.
Customizable message boards.
Schedules.
Share documents, files, and images.
Real-time group chat.

Pros

The learning curve is flat; you can hit the ground running in a matter of minutes.
You can send direct messages to coworkers in the form of private conversations.
Robust reports are available to provide deep insight into the team’s progress and performance.

Cons

There’s no time tracking features.
It lacks advanced features in project management like milestones and schedule charts.

User Review

“Centralized location for our to-do lists and follow ups.”

MeisterTask

MeisterTask is a work-management app that takes the shape of a kanban board to allow teams to create streamlined and automated workflows. It scales from personal project tracking to a full-blown project management tool for larger teams.

Features

Create and assign tasks to individual users with details and due dates.

Set deadlines and milestones for tasks. You can do it manually or automatically.
Task prioritization.
Projects can be mapped out with milestones, deliverables, due dates, and interdependencies.
Track issues at different “view” levels and manage resolutions.
Extensive integrations with popular tools such as Slack, Zapier, and GitHub.
You can add privacy to your tasks and projects.

Pros

Friendly user interface and flat learning curve. You’ll have a smooth user experience navigating through the UI.
Automate various functions, so you don’t have to do tedious and repetitive tasks over and over again.

Cons

No Gantt charts nor time-tracking features.No timeline view of tasks.
At times, MeisterTask may run slowly, and you won’t be able to download attached files because of its unresponsiveness.

User Review

“Simple and complete tool for managing tasks and projects.”

Monday

Monday, perhaps the biggest Trello competitor, is a Work Operating System (Work OS) that empowers teams to manage complex projects, streamline workflows, and collaborate better. It is ideal for task management, as it displays all information in one easy-to-access hub.

Features

Centralized project management.
Clients can be invited as guests to view and track the team’s progress in real-time.
Checklists.
Subtasks.
Automate various tedious tasks and streamline workflows.
Advanced search through images, updates, projects, and assignments with no date limit.
Monday apps — mobile and desktop.
Monday provides integrations with various third-party apps to streamline data flow and teamwork.

Pros

Built-in time tracking feature to analyze the team’s productivity and bill clients accurately for the work done.
You can customize your projects easily.
Gantt charts are available to make your projects more clear.
Trello and Monday have a significant degree of overlap as project management tools. Still, Monday is better than Trello due to its advanced functionality.

Cons

Tracking project goals is not easy.
Pricing can be a bit expensive compared to other tools.
The basic plan lacks many essential features that are typically included in every paid level, like private messaging, advanced search, and integrations.

User Review

“Monday can grow with your business needs from simple organization to a complete ecosystem.”

GitHub

GitHub is more of a development tool, but still works for project management great. It helps developers store and manage their code, as well as track changes to their code. It is also used for team collaboration.

Features

Create issues fast and easy.
Labels.
Milestones.
Tasks.
Assignees and mentions.
Notifications are available.
Codespaces — code, build, test, debug, and deploy with an instant cloud development environment.
Pull requests — review code and confidently merge code changes with automated status checks.
GitHub Actions — a built-in CI/CD tool.
GitHub pages let users host static websites by simply assigning HTML pages to another, separate repository.
Provides two-factor authentication for stronger security.

Pros

Project management on GitHub is actually fairly easy; it has quite a simple UI.
It offers a great documentation feature. You’ll be able to create robust documents to make development and team management easier.

Cons

It’s quite limited in features from a project management perspective.
It’s hard to push unresolved merge conflicts as a bad push is painful to reverse.
Lacks first-party support for mobile applications.

User Review

“It’s easy for multiple team members to work on the same project and merge changes (often) seamlessly.”

Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project (MSP) is a project management software developed to assist project managers with plan development, resource assignments, progress monitoring, and other project management stuff.

Features

Kanban boards for better workflow visualization.
Great task prioritization — focus on essential tasks first.
Project managers can assign activities to their team members easily.
Birds-eye view with timeline views.
Great collaboration features.
Provides resource management to manage requests easily.
Team calendar — get notifications about upcoming team meetings and events. Synchronize your work schedule with your team’s workflow.

Pros

Microsoft Project’s Gantt charts are designed very simple, so you can understand at a glance the pace your team is moving with.
The UI is quite simple.
It integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft products — it’s a great option for Microsoft users.

Cons

Not suitable for small organizations as the cost is high.
It works only on Windows devices.
It comes with a steep learning curve — it can be quite frustrating to users who have never tried Microsoft before.
Not ideal for collaboration and data sharing as it requires a significant degree of manual effort.

User Review

“It has become a standard in regards to setting up a better framework for idea manufacturing.”

Workzone

Workzone is a cloud-based project management tool. It is easy to use and, according to its advertising, it is ‘just right’ for every team and organization. It has some powerful features that make it an indispensable Trello alternative. It is much more robust than entry-level project management tools and less complicated than many high-end tools.

Features

The dashboard is super clean, granting your team a birds-eye view of your projects.
It offers project collaboration, document management, task management, customizable reports, resource, and time tracking.
Up to date project status information can be received through automated email reports.
Users can share files through the cloud.
Seamless integrations with DropBox, Teams, Google, One Drive, Slack, and HipChat.

Pros

Individual to-do lists for team members to manage their work.
The dashboard’s simplicity makes it easy to manage your entire workflow from one single place without bouncing between various 3rd party apps.
The customer support is merely excellent.

Cons

There’s no free version. Trello, on the other hand, has a free version.

User Review

“Our projects have never been more organized.”

Process Street

Process Street is a powerful and yet simple workflow management tool. It is a SaaS platform that provides an easy way to track, document, automate, and optimize your entire PM workflow.

With Process Street, you can manage your usual daily activities such as operations, hiring, maintenance, etc.

Features

Collaborative process workflows.
The software is easy to grasp even for non-technical people.
Track your progress from the main dashboard easily.
Move checklists with drag and drop.
Structured data can be captured through forms.
Activity feeds.

Pros

Create dynamic checklists through conditional logic so you can keep track of every single task in your workflow.
The support team is fast and extremely helpful. You’ll rarely experience serious issues with Process Street.
Integrations with Zapier and other 1000+ apps. Manage your entire workflow from one place.

Cons

The free version lacks essential features such as administrative controls.
It can’t move or color-code lists.
No option to print the code lists.

User Review

“Good for simple checklists; Bad for complex processes.”

ActiveCollab

ActiveCollab is a project management software that helps users become better organized. It is a worthy cloud-based Trello alternative, but you can host it on your own servers as well.

ActiveCollab has a user base of over 200,000 accounts, some of which are fortune 500 companies.

Features

Assign tasks.
Set due dates.
Track progress.
Notifications.
Comments.
Reminders.
File attachments.
Filter tasks.
Time-estimates.
Invoices.
Integrations with Slack, QuickBooks, Xero, PayPal, and Google Drive.

Pros

Users can access their tasks in different views: Kanban boards, timelines, calendars, or task board lists.
It has a great dashboard granting you a bird’s-eye view of your projects; people say it’s better than Trello in that way.
With ActiveCollab, you can set automatic payment reminders.

Cons

A lot of features means a steep learning curve.
No free version, just a trial.
Android and IOS apps are not well developed and maintained.

User Review

“Pretty robust feature set. Simple to access and easy to invite collaborators in & out of my company.”

Mavenlink

Mavenlink is a project management tool that helps teams with resource planning, automated project management, project accounting, and team collaboration. It’s an all-in-one PM platform.

It is a more feature-rich Trello alternative. Still, it’s fairly simple to get used to it.

Features

Integrations with a CRM tool of your choice.
Drag and drop.
Clone functionality to create similar tasks.
Alerts.
Permission settings.
Templates.
The free version is available with unlimited projects and users with 500MB storage.

Pros

Integration with Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce. Manage your workflow from one place.
Advanced analytic features and robust reports so you can get better insights into your team’s performance.
Bring team members on the same page quickly with tags.

Cons

The interface is a bit clunky.
The cost is pretty high compared to Trello’s pricing.

User Review

“Mavenlink is one of the best tools for team collaboration, time tracking system, team communication, file sharing, financial management and resources management etc.”

ProofHub

ProofHub is an all-in-one workflow management software.

Many of the world’s biggest companies use it — Google, NASA, TripAdvisor, and Nike. It’s definitely a worthy Trello alternative.

Features

Single platform for managers, team members, and clients.
Gantt charts.
Add tasks.
Assign tasks.
Task prioritization.
Recurring events.
Real-time collaboration.
Project reports.

Pros

Unlike the Trello app, ProofHub allows users to add custom roles and customize their teams and clients’ access levels.
The learning curve is relatively short; you can get used to it pretty quickly.
Users can set automatic reminders for important events.

Cons

No free version.
Notifications can be disturbing.
Lack of integrations.

User Review

“With Proof Hub I am able to run task and project management effectively. ProofHub creates beautiful Gantt charts for easy project tracking, and you can track time spent on projects.”

Kanbanize

Kanbanize is a great kanban software, if not one of the best, and definitely makes a good Trello alternative. It zeroes in on clarity, making it easy for you to track your progress.

Features

Customizable Kanban boards.
Timeline.
Swimlanes.
Roadmaps.
Milestones.
Integrations with Zapier, Trello, Google Drive, and Box.
Track and report billable hours.

Pros

Easy to set up and has a user-friendly UI.
All existing dependencies, processes, and interactions can be automated.
The multi-layered Kanban boards are extremely helpful when you want to keep a clear overview of your projects.

Cons

There are no Gantt or burndown charts available.
The mobile app runs badly; better use the web app.

User Review

“Kanban boards on a whole new level.”

ProProfs

ProProfs is an all-in-one project management tool. Except for project management, it offers various other solutions such as knowledge bases, training makers, survey makers, and more. It allows teams to organize projects, track progress, delegate tasks, create reports, collaborate, and much more. It’s a great project management alternative to Trello.

Features

Tasks and subtasks.Shared calendars.
Colored and labeled tasks.
Recurring tasks can be automated.
Users can assign tasks to individuals.
Client reports.

Pros

ProProfs’ Gantt charts can help you understand whether your team is moving behind or ahead of schedule.
You can discuss files, projects, and tasks in one place.
Generate invoices for clients and calculate billable hours instantly.
Automated payment reminders are available, as well.

Cons

The UI can be a bit overwhelming if you haven’t used ProProfs before.
Reports are pretty basic, without any in-depth information.
There’s a steep learning curve.

User Review

“The support has been excellent and there are constant improvements being added.”

FreedCamp

FreedCamp is a project management and collaboration tool. It helps users manage projects and almost anything like wedding plans, camping trips, events, and more. It is a pretty handy task manager alternative to Trello. It is widely used among small companies with smaller budgets and teams.

Features

Tasks and subtasks.
Kanban boards.
Set goals and deadlines.
Task grouping.
You can keep personal tasks private.
Tracks users’ time and billable hours for clients.
High-level security — password manager.
There’s a free version you can try.

Pros

Freedcamp provides you with many team collaboration features; you can bring your team on the same page easily.
Managing documents and keeping track of all your doc versions is quite simple as well.

Cons

It can be hard to grasp at first.

User Review

“We used Freedcamp for its free trial, and were left fairly satisfied with the product overall. It’s a very solid and feature-rich project management system that’ll fit most small-medium teams.”

OpenProject

OpenProject is an open-source task management software similar to Trello. It can also be presented as a Kanban-style project management tool. It’ll definitely bring clarity to your projects.

It comes with a free Community Edition, on-premise Enterprise Edition, and hosted Cloud Edition. It is among the top open-source task management solutions out there.

Features

Project objectives.
Roadmaps.
Reports.
Assignees.
Project wikis.
Budgeting.
Data security.

Pros

You’ll get access to insightful reports for your team’s performance and project progress.
Gantt charts are incredible. You’ll be able to look at your projects from a different, more clear perspective and make more accurate and better decisions.

Cons

There’s a steep learning curve.

User Review

“Fantastic GANTT implementation. Great ways to group / sort data while maintaining the GANTT view.”

Taiga

Taiga is an open-source project management tool mainly geared towards agile development teams. It has a very clean UI, and you can hit the ground running promptly; the learning curve is very short.

Features

Kanban board.
Scrum board.
Swimlanes.
Users can customize issue types, severities, and priorities.
Search filter.
If you’re switching from another PM tool, you can easily import your data to Taiga.
Team permissions and roles.
Reports.

Pros

Switching from Kanban to Scrum, and vice versa, is easy. Overall, the UI is pretty slick and pleasant to use.
It’s mainly geared towards smaller teams and individual users.
The mobile app runs smoothly as well; you’ll be able to stay in the loop regardless of your location.

Cons

Lacks features for more complex projects.
Tutorials are scarce.
The conference call feature freezes during calls.

User Review

“For startups or designers working with agile methods like scrum or kanban. Very customizable — you can adjust everything.”

Redmine

Redmine is an open-source, free, and web-based project management tool. It helps users manage and plan multiple projects from one single place.

Features

Issue tracking system.
Gantt charts.
Calendar.
Wikis.
Email notifications.
Custom fields for time entries, issues, projects, and users.
Supports various SCM integrations, including (Git, CVS, SVN, Mercurial, Bazaar, and Darcs.Multi-project tracking support.

Pros

The tool is quite straightforward; you can organize and manage your projects without any hassle at all.
It’s definitely great for personal use.

Cons

There’s a steep learning curve; you’ll need to train yourself and your team first to use this tool without any friction at all.
The UI gives you an outdated look.
It’s not a good pick for non-tech people.

User Review

“Redmine was the first project manager / team planner we used and it was helpful in order to control task completions, progress and term deviations.”

Codegiant

Of course, we’re biased, and therefore have to mention CodeGiant.

Nevertheless, we believe Codegiant truly offers the features and clean UI to make your management easier.

Without further ado:

Codegiant is an agile project management software mainly geared towards developers. It provides issue tracking, git repos, CI/CD, and publishable documentation in one place. Codegiant is preferred by both small and enterprise companies because of its clean UI and the smooth user experience it provides.

Features

The intuitive issue tracker offers Kanban and Scrum boards.
Drag and drop.
Tasks and subtasks.
Comments.
Linking tasks.
Priority.
Time tracking.
Story points.
Seamless integration with Slack.
It offers a detailed documentation guide for its API.
Fully integrated workflow for software developers.
Git repositories with a web IDE.
Codegiant Flow: a built-in CI/CD.
Documentation tool that makes documentation easier. It has a super robust search engine.

Pros

Codegiant is free for teams with up to 5 members.
Affordable pricing — suitable for both startups and enterprises.
The simplicity of the interface is unmatched.
Great documentation tool where users can collaborate, write and publish their documents online.

Cons