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In our comprehensive Asana review, we get hands-on with the tool and spill everything you need to know about this popular project management software. It has one of the most generous free plans, but is it good enough for you to invest in a paid plan? Find out as we explore Asana’s best features, pros, cons, and pricing—we’ll also compare it to some top Asana competitors.
Asana Pricing
Asana offers 5 plans in total—3 for individuals and small teams and 2 for enterprises. Here’s a quick overview of how these plans compare:
| Personal | Starter | Advanced | Enterprise | Enterprise+ | |
| Starting Price | Free | $10.99/user/month | $24.99/user/month | Custom | Custom |
| User Limit | 10 | 500 | 500 | ❌ | ❌ |
| Free Version | Free plan | 30-day trial | 30-day trial | 30-day trial | 30-day trial |
| Task/Project Limit | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Time Tracking | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Project Views | 5, including list and board view | 7, including timeline and Gantt view | 9, including goals and portfolio (limited to 20) | 9, including unlimited portfolio view | 9, including unlimited portfolio view |
| Automation | ❌ | 250 actions/month | 25,000 actions/month | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Custom Fields | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Approvals | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Templates | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Security | SOC 2 Type 2, MFA, 256-bit encryption | Private teams, admin console | Lock custom fields, Google SSO | SCIM, SAML, mobile data control | DLP integration, Trusted guest domain |
| Integrations | 100+ | 100+ | 100+ | 100+ | 100+ |
Asana Features
Asana is renowned for being one of the best project management software solutions, so we were excited to put it to the test. Here are the key standouts we found during our Asana review.
Projects Management Tools
Asana makes managing and keeping track of projects pretty easy. You can choose from 80+ workflow templates or build your own from scratch and save them as templates for future use.
You can add several tasks under each project, too, assign them to your team members, and keep track of the task’s progress — all pretty intuitively, might we add.
Asana offers a total of 9 project views (less than ClickUp’s 17+, but this is still ample), including Board, List, Timeline, Calendar, and Gantt, enough for various use cases and preferences.
For example, the Calendar view lets you plan your week to avoid overlapping tasks, whereas the Board view lets you view task statuses at a glance with “new,” “in progress,” and “complete” cards.
You can also add custom fields to fit your needs and choose from different field types like text, dates, people, or numbers. To add to the visual appeal, you can even color-code these fields.
Portfolio
A business usually has several projects running at a time, many of which may be interconnected. With Asana, you can create a portfolio consisting of different projects that are related.
For example, you can create a portfolio for each department, like marketing, sales, and purchase—or you can build a portfolio for each manager in the department.
Instead of going through each project’s progress individually, you can view all of them in one place with Portfolios. You can also build custom dashboards to track portfolio metrics.
This includes things like incomplete tasks and individual employee workload, for example. Plus, you can invite other members of your team to your portfolio, too.
You can even choose to keep certain projects private so that unauthorized team members can’t see them in the portfolio. This comes in handy when you’re dealing with a sensitive project.
Time Tracking
Tracking the time taken to complete tasks is an important part of project management. Asana offers a simple yet effective time tracker to help teams manage their time more efficiently.
Add time tracking to a project by simply clicking on “Customize” in the top-right corner and then on “Time your work“. Here, you’ll see two columns—estimated time and actual time.
For the former, you can enter the time you think each task should take. Next, to measure the actual time, you have two options:
- Manual time tracking, where your employees can enter the time taken themselves—after the work is done, of course.
- Automatic time tracking where all employees have to do is start and stop the timer as needed while working on a task.
You can even add charts to your dashboard to compare the estimated time with the actual time, which is great for resource planning.
Asana Integrations
Asana offers 1,000+ integrations to choose from. Some popular ones include Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Google Drive, Canva, Mailchimp, Tableau, Dropbox, and Trello.
The best part is that this rich catalog is in addition to the apps you can connect via Zapier. You’ll find a panel on the left side of the app marketplace where each of these integrations is neatly categorized.
When compared to some of its peers, Asana seems to be miles ahead. For instance, ClickUp offers around 80+ integrations, whereas Monday offers 200+ (excluding Zapier integrations).
Asana Customer Reviews
Asana is a user favorite, which is evident from the excellent online reviews it’s received. For starters, it’s got 3/5 stars on G2, which doesn’t sound that great, but this is from over 9,000 reviews.
Also, 92% of these are 4-star ratings and up. On TrustRadius, it’s rated a solid 8.4/10 from 2,400+ reviews. Over 96% of the Asana reviews on TrustRadius state users are happy with Asana’s features.
Plus, 86% of the users say they will buy it again, which is a true testament to its reliability. Most love Asana’s collaboration functions that allow multiple users to work and track the same project.
All project data is kept in one place, too, and there are tons of integrations (both native and through Zapier) so that you can seamlessly connect with tools you already use in your business.
However, Asana, as with any of even the best project management apps, isn’t perfect. Some find it pricey, for example, especially when compared to tools like Monday and ClickUp.
However, Asana’s level of security is hard to find, and overall, most are incredibly happy — both small and large businesses. Whether it’s best for you really depends on your needs and budget.
What is Asana Good for?
For example, you can create unlimited projects, tasks, and subtasks. You can also add unlimited comments and send unlimited messages, which makes team communication pretty seamless.
There’s unlimited storage, too— a rarity with free plans. It’s also one of the most security-driven. In fact, even its free version comes with multi-factor authentication and 256-bit encryption.
The Enterprise plans are designed for large businesses after a good mix of security and project management. They come with features like Nightfall and Theta Lake integrations, which help organizations keep their data secure.
That said, compared to some rivals, scaling with Asana can be costly for some, but this really depends on your specific needs and budget. Keep reading as we now explore how it compares to top rivals.
Asana vs Top Competitors
Asana is the go-to for many businesses, big or small, but it’s not the best choice for everyone. How does it compare with some of the best Asana alternatives? Let’s take a look.
| Project Management Software | Asana | Monday | Wrike | ClickUp | Smartsheet | Teamwork |
| Best For | Any-sized business | Small and mid-sized businesses | Marketing-oriented businesses | Automation | Spreadsheet project management | Time and project tracking |
| Starting Price | $10.99/user/month | $9/user/month | $9.80/user/month | $7/user/month | $7/user/month | $5.99/user/month |
| Free Plan | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Compatibility | Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, browsers | Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, browsers | Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, browsers | Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, browsers | Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, ChromeOS, browsers | Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, browsers |
| Top Features | Unlimited projects and tasks, Asana Intelligence, time tracking | Unlimited boards and docs, whiteboard collaboration, pivot analysis & reports | Unlimited projects, tasks & subtasks, interactive Gantt charts, project blueprints | Collaborative docs, sprint management, advanced time tracking | Conditional form logic, unlimited sheets, forms, and reports, custom help screens | Estimated time management, project budget expenses, task list templates |
Asana vs Monday
If you’re a growing business and need a more scalable solution, pick Monday. It offers a total of 5 plans, including a free one. As our Monday review discovered, it’s more economical for scaling, too.
However, if you’re after the best free project management solution, Asana is hard to beat, thanks to its limit of 10 users and unlimited tasks, projects, comments, assignees, and activity logs.
Most free plans are ideal for personal use, but many small businesses can take advantage of this one. You also get unlimited storage with a limit of 100MB per file.
For comparison, Monday’s free plan is limited to 2 users, 1,000 items, and 500MB of storage. It’s very clear that the value on offer with Asana’s free plan is a step ahead of most leading rivals.
Read More: Full Monday Review: Is it Really the Best PM Tool?
Asana vs ClickUp
For those on a tight budget, we’d highly, highly recommend ClickUp. In addition to an incredibly generous free plan, its two paid plans cost just $7 and $12/user/month, respectively.
Also, if you’re looking for powerful and easy automations, ClickUp does a good job with a library of 50+ Actions and Triggers—as well as 50+ automations on the free plan, too.
However, if you need a more clean and intuitive dashboard, Asana is a better choice. Its interface is less busy, and it boasts a slightly lower learning curve. If you’re after AI functions, Asana is best too.
It comes with smart fields, editors, answers, and summaries, and that too, on all paid plans. With ClickUp, you’ll have to purchase AI functions separately at $5/user/month.
Read More: ClickUp Review: Is it the Best Free Tool? – Better Than Asana?
Asana vs Trello
If you’re a large team with around 50 employees, Trello proves to be more economical. You can get Trello’s best plan at $17.50/user, and it includes everything Trello has to offer.
This includes unlimited Boards and workspaces, plus multiple views and custom fields, of course. However, even at this price, you don’t get a lot of security features – something you’d get with Asana.
So, if you’re looking for an enterprise-grade project management platform, pick Asana. Its top-tier plans offer several security integrations to ensure compliance.
Asana is also a better choice for businesses with a lot of ongoing projects because it allows you to make portfolios, which isn’t possible on Trello.
Recommended Read: Our Full Trello Review for 2024
How We Test Project Management Tools
Our team has over a decade of experience testing, reviewing, and comparing tech products. We’ve tried the best of the industry, so we know what a great project management tool should look like.
For testing purposes, our experts live with the project management solution for 2-3 weeks, using every feature that the platform has to offer to ascertain if it works as it claims.
This is also where we evaluate the ease of use of the software, but beyond functionality, we even reach out to the provider’s customer support to evaluate if they’re capable of solving real-life queries.
Additionally, we comb through review sites to see what other users have found noteworthy to mention. All of this combined allows us to craft our comprehensive, honest reviews.
How to Choose the Best Project Management Solution
Choosing the best enterprise project management software can be difficult, as there are many options to choose from. Here are some of the most important factors you’ll want to consider before deciding:
The first step is to decide on a budget. Keep in mind that this will depend on the sort of features you require. Having a clear budget in mind will help you shortlist the best tools that fall within this range and ensure you don’t overdo it. That said, we advise looking beyond the price and considering the feature-to-price value on offer.
List the features that are indispensable to your business. This will help you zero in on a provider that can give you these within your set budget. Remember, it’s all about finding the right balance between the amount you pay and the features you get for this.
Choosing a scalable solution ensures that you don’t have to switch providers when your business grows. Check if the provider has all the additional features you might need later and factor in whether the cost of scaling is justifiable and doable.
Every tool is different, and those with advanced functionality or a boatload of features tend to have higher learning curves. This isn’t necessarily bad, but definitely something to take into account. Have a look at the documentation available, and be sure to make use of any free versions before you commit.
Look for a provider that offers an abundance of integrations with other apps you already use or plan on using. For example, you may be using Slack as a means of communication within your team.
Some tools may not integrate with the apps you need, or certain integrations may be locked behind higher-end plans, so you’ll want to factor this into consideration when choosing.
Check the customer support hours and what communication methods are offered—live chat, email, and/or phone. We also recommend prioritizing providers with an in-depth knowledge hub containing lots of helpful articles.
FAQs
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References
- What is SCIM? (Ping Identify)
- Security and Project Management (Software Engineering Institute)
