When you get project management software, you want to know it can handle your business’s workflow.
Both Asana and Monday.com have their merits in this area, but ultimately Asana comes out on top. Its intuitive, user-friendly platform gives you everything you need to run your business without a hitch.
If you need a comprehensive project management solution, Asana has the features to help you build a more efficient team, save time, and grow your business.
Asana Compared to Monday.com
Despite its high price, Asana’s ease of use and extensive features make it worth the investment. With plenty of customization tools and a short learning curve, you can onboard your team in no time. It has some limits when it comes to collaboration features, but overall, it earns its place as one of the most popular project management solutions.
Do you run a nonprofit? Check out Asana’s 50% discount.
Monday.com has tons of templates that fit your specific business needs and make it easy to integrate sales with your project management system. Its collaborative and onboarding resources make it stand out, though it’s not as easy to learn as Asana. With fewer features, its price may not be worth it for everyone.
And if you are still in school, check out Monday.com’s special pricing for students.
More Top Project Management Software
We tested several project management software solutions to find the best ones for you and your business. Our top six picks made it into our list of the six best project management software options. See all of our top picks.
Where Asana Shines
As one of the most popular project management tools, Asana has plenty of features that make the software worth trying; But it’s not perfect, so before you decide to jump in, check out what it does well and what needs improvement to see if it’s right for your business.
Easy to Use: Asana ranks among the best for user-friendliness, which is part of what makes it so popular. It doesn’t take long to figure out its intuitive interface, and its advanced search function lets you instantly find team members, appointments, and tasks. Its convenient layout makes it easy to add tasks, send invitations and reminders, set up meetings, and more.
Convenient Templates: Asana has templates for all project categories, including engineering, design, sales and marketing, HR, and more. Each template tailors its features and design to that specific category to improve functionality. You can create a template for separate teams within each category to create a cohesive system for every project.
Extensive Customization Features: Asana lets you create custom fields and integrations to tailor your workflow to your team’s unique needs. Custom fields allow you to label your projects in whatever way works for your team. Plus, you can visualize projects using sorting, colors, and other details, as well as customizing rules to prioritize your most important tasks while increasing functionality and boosting value for your team.
Fast Onboarding: Your team can jump right into Asana with a clear interface that makes learning the software quick. Where other project management software leaves you to fend for yourself, Asana gives you a starting point with a base dashboard setup. To start, simply select your industry template and choose your objectives to narrow your focus.
User Resources and Instructions: Asana has resources to show you how to make the platform work best for you and customize your dashboard based on your needs. It gives you clear instructions for setting up your board, including popup instructions with helpful hints. Plus, it has lots of resource videos on its website.
Unlimited Automations: Asana’s unlimited automations take recurring tasks off your team’s plate. You can choose from 54 different rules and integrate them with other project tools, including Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zendesk. With automations, you keep work moving within your team, allowing you to devote attention to bigger projects, meet deadlines, and minimize errors.
Unlimited Storage: With unlimited storage, you can conveniently store all relevant project documents without worrying about having to shift them around later. It makes it easier to collaborate in one space while integrating other collaborative features, like project message boards. This feature comes with a 100 MB limit per attachment.
Project Message Boards: Project message boards help you keep all your project communication organized. You can create new boards based on the members you want to include and use each one to share necessary project information. Each thread keeps your conversations contained, so you can easily find any information you need from previous topics.
Clear Workflow and Dashboards: Asana keeps all your project information at your fingertips, so you always know where to find it. Its color coding features help you keep track of who’s on a project, what tasks have been completed, and task deadlines. It also enables quick communication with commends, messaging, project and team conversations, and status updates.
Extensive Chart Options: With many different charts and visuals to choose from, Asana helps you create any necessary visual aids for your projects. It comes with Kanban, Gantt, and other chart types to help you keep track of every detail. You can easily filter these tasks, charts, stats, and other information, too, so you only see what you need for your project.
Team Progress Tracking: The platform’s portfolio and workload features show your team members how their project compares to the company’s overall progress. Tracking keeps everyone on the same page, and you can use extensive admin controls, including permissions, privacy, and data security, to ensure everyone stays on task. Plus, Asana tracks milestones, important dates, approvals, subtasks, attachments, and more, so you never miss a beat.
Where Asana Falls Short
Every project management software has its shortcomings, no matter how great it looks on the surface. Here are some things to consider about Asana that might affect your decision to use it for your business.
Expensive Pricing: Asana comes with many features, but at a cost. It does have a free version that may work for businesses that don’t have complex workflow and organizational needs, but won’t be robust enough for those that do.
No Built-In Document Collaboration: While many project management solutions offer built-in document collaboration, Asana doesn’t. This makes it less convenient since you have to use a third-party solution like Google Docs and attach them in Asana. It’s not a huge disadvantage, but it does add an extra step for the team, and for Asana’s price, lacking this type of collaboration makes it slightly less accessible.
Where Monday.com Shines
Monday.com boasts a few features that Asana lacks, and it’s uniquely suited to sales and marketing. Explore it below to see if it’s right for your business.
Onboarding Resources: Monday.com might have a steeper learning curve than some project management software, including Asana, but it has plenty of resources to help you through. Its walkthroughs offer a detailed look at how to set up your dashboard, and its project demos show you how to put it all together.
Project Management Learning Center: After onboarding, if you need further information on how to customize your dashboard, the project management learning center has additional resources to help. It shows you different features that you can use to enhance your experience with the software. When you take advantage of the learning center, you can ensure the software adapts to fit your team, rather than the other way around.
Built-In Document Collaboration: Monday.com has a built-in document collaboration system. It’s a beta feature right now, but it allows you to create both public and private documents that you can share with your team members as needed. You can even communicate right in the document through comments and chat and keep your documents organized in project folders.
Communication Support Features: Monday.com reduces the steps needed to communicate with your team using built-in document collaboration, as well as other communication features. With the discussion board, you can have longer conversations with team members and keep them together using threads. The software allows you to create your own activity logs, forms, videos, checklists, and more to help your team connect without relying on attachments.
Detailed Templates: Monday.com’s templates conform to your team’s needs so it works to maximum capacity for your business. It minimizes generic functions, and you can choose from templates that include marketing, sales and CRM, freelancers, HR, manufacturing, and operations.
Sales and Marketing Specialties: You can use Monday.com to plan your sales and marketing tactics, including sales funnels. It works well for managing your client lists and needs while keeping track of marketing activities, customer projects, supporting sales materials, and customer contacts and onboarding. With these specialized templates, Monday.com lets you focus on strategy, creating success with a convenient reference.
Where Monday.com Falls Short
While Monday.com excels when it comes to its sales specialties and templates, it has some shortcomings. Consider these factors before you get it for yourself.
Difficult to Navigate: Despite its many onboarding resources, Monday.com is still hard to pick up compared to other project management software. Some tools are difficult to find or inconvenient to use, like the quick add button, which is available in individual projects but not on the overall dashboard. You also can’t add integrations, apps, and other features easily.
Limited Filtering Capabilities: Monday.com has limited filtering when it comes to searching for information and projects. It has two search bars, and the first only allows you to search for your projects. The second is more advanced, but it only filters by specific criteria rather than customizable filters.
Entry-Level Plan Lacks Many Features: Monday.com gives you a free trial, but when it runs out, you still have to choose a plan to keep your existing features. And if you choose the Basic plan while using certain features like natural language processing and task templates, you don’t get to keep them. You also don’t get automations, which are a staple for maintaining efficiency for many teams. Only the higher-level plans include these features.
High Pricing: At first glance, Monday.com’s pricing doesn’t look so bad, until you realize it charges by the user. With a minimum requirement of three users, that means you won’t get away with paying less than $24 per month for your plan. The free plan allows for two users, but that plan doesn’t have the same tools and features as the paid plans.
The Final Verdict on Asana Compared to Monday.com
Asana comes with tons of features, but at a steeper price than most other project management solutions. It does have a free version, which still has plenty of tools if you for some small businesses. However, for more advanced options, it’s a big jump in terms of pricing.
Asana offers four plans:
- Basic: Free
- Premium: $10.99/mo billed annually, or $13.49/mo billed monthly
- Business: $24.99/mo billed annually, or $30.49/mo billed monthly
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
The Basic plan comes with unlimited tasks, projects, messages, activity logs, and storage. You can use it with up to 15 teammates with over 100 integrations. You also get list, board, and calendar views.
Premium gives you everything in the Basic plan, plus Timeline, workflow builder, and unlimited dashboards. It includes advanced search, rules, custom fields, and unlimited free guests for when you need to add another person to your project. Its admin console and private teams and projects help make it Asana’s most popular package.
The Business package is Asana’s most expensive, and it comes with more advanced integrations, portfolios, goals, and a custom rules builder. Along with forms branching and customizations, as well as approvals and proofing, it has everything larger teams need to run smoothly.
The Enterprise package gives you custom features with scaled pricing. With it, you get advanced admin features, visibility, support, and more.
Despite its high price, you get what you pay for with Asana. Its ease of use makes it worth it if you’re looking for a quick learning curve. Plus, it makes up for the cost with fast onboarding and an immediate rise in team efficiency and productivity.
Plus, if you’re a nonprofit organization, Asana offers 50% off for eligible businesses.
Monday.com’s plans offer fewer features and are more expensive than Asana’s. Monday.com has five different packages:
- Free
- Basic: $8/user/month
- Standard: $10/user/month
- Pro: $16/user/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
If you’re a small business, the free plan may work for you. It gives you unlimited boards and documents, plus over 200 templates and 20 column types to choose from. While Asana allows for up to 15 team members with its free plan, Monday.com only lets you have two.
The Basic plan includes all free features, plus unlimited free viewers and items. It comes with 5GB of file storage and priority customer support.
Standard gives you more board views, including Gantt, Timeline, and Calendar, as well as guest access to your projects. It also comes with 250 automation and integration actions per month.
The Pro package has private boards and documents, chart view, and time tracking. With 25,000 automation and integrations a month, it gives you significantly more to work with than Monday.com’s cheaper plans.
Enterprise allows for a custom number of automations, integrations, and security. It also comes with advanced analytics and reporting, tailored onboarding, and premium support.
Overall, Asana has more features at a better price, though both project management solutions are expensive. Asana is easier to onboard and use, making it more efficient and effective for your team.
Monday.com may work better if you’re looking for a specific template for a particular business need, but even without those templates, Asana’s intuitive platform makes it easy to customize your dashboards.
The project management software for you depends on your unique team and business needs. Explore more project management software options in our top list.
The 6 Best Project Management Software Options to consider:
- Clickup—Best project management software for most
- Asana—Best balance of power and simplicity
- Trello—Lowest cost for setting up your PM software today
- Teamwork—Best for client and service-based businesses
- Monday.com—Best for partnering sales with project management
- Smartsheet—Best for turning spreadsheets into project management gold
