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Trello vs Asana: Which One Should Agencies Choose for Their Workflows and Why?

Updated on May 31, 2023

26 Min Read
Trello-vs-Asana

In this article, you will learn why agencies are choosing Asana over Trello.

At an agency, how do teams track, organize, and manage their projects, workflows, and processes better and faster? Through project management tools like Trello and Asana.

Where Trello is a Kanban-style, list-making, web-based application, with a desktop app (compatible with Windows and macOS), and a mobile app too (compatible with Android, and iOS). Asana is a web application that allows teams to “work on big ideas without the busywork” with a mobile app (compatible with Android, and iOS) too.

But which one is better for agencies?

After our in-depth reviews of Miro vs Mural, Clickup vs Monday, and Figma vs Sketch, it’s time for us to review Trello vs Asana so you can decide which one is better for your digital agency.

If you are a web design and development agency with large and profitable projects,  know that Asana is that tool that can facilitate you in managing your clients’ projects, workflows, teams, and processes better. However, if you have simpler projects, smaller team, and don’t have to delegate tasks and sub-tasks that often, then you can choose Trello.

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Trello vs Asana Reddit: What Does the Debate Look Like on the Web?

Here’s a quick snapshot of what drives the Trello vs Asana Reddit debate.

Trello-vs-Asana-Reddit-Debate-1

You see how the Reddit user prefers Asana for personal use?

The user below, on the other hand, thinks Trello is for personal use and Asana is for managing teams.

Trello-vs-Asana-Reddit-Debate-2

Of course, we cannot derive a conclusion about whether Trello or Asana is better from these comments. This debate thread is more about individual users than agencies. But it gives insight into the debate surrounding these two tools.

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Trello vs Asana: At a Glance

If you want to see how Trello and Asana stack up against each other, this comparison table will give you a quick idea of what these two project management tools have to offer, and where one is better than the other.

Basic Features

Comparison-table-basic-features

Advanced Features

Comparison-table-advanced-features

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Management-Centric Features

Comparison-table-management-features

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Trello vs Asana: What Are These Two Tools For?

Here’s an overview of two of the most popular project management tools: Trello and Asana.

What Is Trello?

what-is-trello

Through an organization system of boards, lists and cards, Trello lets your web design and development agency assign clients’ projects to team members, collaborate with them, and track progress.

You can organize tasks and work with your teams on different boards. Each board has different cards that team members can regularly update on their tasks.

You can add people to a board and then to specific cards where their input is needed.

I will discuss the Trello interface in detail when I compare the features of both project management tools below in the upcoming sections.

Google, VISA, ZOOM, Grand Hyatt, Coinbase, and John Deere all use Trello.

Haley Enness, HR Manager at Sprout Social, says this about Trello: “Now that we’ve switched to a remote environment, with the use of Trello, we can now limit the number of meetings we have regarding specific projects and turn to Trello for updates instead.”

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What Is Asana?

what-is-asana

Asana is also a project management tool that helps agencies stay connected and organized, bringing the agency’s work together in one shared space.

You can choose between different views for projects that suit your style and collaborate from wherever you are.

Big names like Amazon, Google, Slack, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Deloitte, Spotify, Uber, Harvard University, The NewYorker, Paypal, Vox Media, MTV News, Snap Inc., Figma, Business Insider, National Geographic, Facebook, Twitter, Adobe, Accenture, Pinterest, Hubspot, Nielsen, Intel, and more, all use Asana for project management.

Ashlee George, Associate Director at Impact Justice, says, “I cannot stress how important it is to have all of our information in one central place. We use Asana to capture all of our documents, notes, and next steps, so we keep consistency.”

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Trello vs Asana: An In-Depth Feature Comparison

From our research with different agencies, the general consensus around Trello vs Asana seems to be that Trello is easier to use because of its card-based, real-life-board-like task management approach.

On the other hand, Asana offers better workflow functionality as it has a much broader set of features that let users follow a goal-centric and task-oriented approach.

Let’s look at how Trello and Asana compare with respect to their features.

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Trello vs Asana: Interface, Dashboard, and Ease of Use

Trello

trello-vs-asana-interface-dashboard-ease-of-use-1

After signing up on Trello, you’ll first see this dashboard, where you can explore the different icons on the dashboard.

trello-vs-asana-interface-dashboard-ease-of-use-2

You will need to set up a Trello board when planning out a project. Just click on Create Board, give a title to the board, and you are good to go.

Next, you’ll invite your agency team members to the project board, and assign them to work on a given client’s project, about, for instance, setting up a client’s website from scratch.

trello-vs-asana-interface-dashboard-ease-of-use-3

Then you’ll add all the major tasks that need to be completed in the form of lists on the board. You can name the list to stay organized and manage tasks within each one separately.

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In the image below, you will see how there are three lists, each with their own cards for different tasks: To Do, Doing, and Done.

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A card is generally used for one task and you can add members to a card, i.e. your agency team members who’ll work on it.

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When you create a card, you add a title (generally the name of the task at hand), the due date, description of the task, and then add members. You can also add a cover image to a card to make it stand out visually on the Trello board.

Here is how the card looks after you’ve added details. You can now easily attach files and post comments as you progress with each sub-task.

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On the side panel to the right of the image above, you will see the option to create a checklist, which may have sub-tasks for the main task at hand.

You upload an attachment, with a comment tagging your team members, and write done and ready for review. Your team member will then get notified and can review your work in the file you have attached.

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Once that sub-task is finalized, you can then check it off. Your checklist will show right below the comment bar.

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When all the sub-tasks are completed, you can move the card on the Trello board to the Done list. Just drag and drop. It’s that easy!

You can also automate this process. Once you tick off all the sub-tasks in the checklist, the card will automatically move to “Done.” Simple!

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There is also the Calendar feature that you can click on to access the calendar on the top right of your screen. You can refer to this to track the project timelines and deadlines.

trello-vs-asana-interface-dashboard-ease-of-use-11

Trello has a pretty straightforward interface and dashboard. There was nothing complex in my explorations. It is pretty simple to navigate and very easy to use.

Now, let’s talk about Asana.

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Asana

asana-interface-dashboard-ease-of-use-1

Asana is much more than a to-do list; it lets you set up your workflows, systems, and automations.

You first need to sign up to Asana. The free plan gives you access to tons of options like unlimited tasks and projects, unlimited storage, lists, boards, and calendar views.

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Once you sign up, you will land on the Asana dashboard, where you can see the number of tasks completed and the number of collaborators. You can see all the upcoming, overdue, and completed tasks on the dashboard as well.

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You will first need to click on “Create a Project,” from the left panel. Right above that option is the functionality of inviting people to work and collaborate with you.

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You can have a team and create individual projects within it. For instance, if you look at the image above, there is an “operations” team and all the team’s individual projects appear right underneath.

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Once you click on “Create a Project,” you will see three options: to start a blank project, use a template, or import a spreadsheet.

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You must then name the project, with a title like “Web Design and Development For Client X,” for example. You can set the privacy based on your requirements.

You can also choose from among different kinds of views: a board view, a calendar view like in Trello, and a timeline view.

You can access all these views in the free plan, except the timeline view which is only available in the premium plan or higher plans. More on pricing in the pricing section.

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After creating a project, you can add tasks, define the project, upload all the relevant documents, and share the project with your teammates for organized collaboration.

Here is how you should begin adding tasks to Asana.

Firstly, create a section, and name it with the major task, like “course launch” in this case. Then add sub-tasks or individual tasks underneath – the things you will need to do to execute the major task.

asana-interface-dashboard-ease-of-use-8

You can assign the sub-tasks to individual team members by going to the Assignee column on the right side and entering the email addresses of your team members there.

You can even set the due dates of each task in the column right next to the Assignee column. We’ll talk about setting due dates in detail in the upcoming section particularly dedicated to this topic.

asana-interface-dashboard-ease-of-use-9

There is also an option to view the task or project’s details. Click on it to see a side panel open like this:

asana-interface-dashboard-ease-of-use-10

Here you can provide more details on how to execute a given task.  So, in the description, you can put in the instructions, and any reference links.

You can even add sub-tasks by clicking on the option right below where you can add the description.

asana-interface-dashboard-ease-of-use-11

Adding sub-tasks will help you brainstorm and streamline the processes involved in a task. This will also help you break one big goal into smaller goals. This should give you the mental energy and space to accomplish more.

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You can also add tags to mark whether a task is super important, urgent, critical, or not. This is especially helpful when you are working with critical clients at your agency. Just tag a project with a “critical client” tag to signal to your agency team members to be extra cautious with that task.

You can also assign a color to this tag. When you customize this view by clicking on the “Customize” option above, you can enable the “show tags” feature. These colored tags would appear right next to the due dates.

Assigning colors to tags gives you an instant idea of the important or critical tasks. Let’s suppose you assign the color red to the “important” tag. Red tasks will then stand out.

asana-interface-dashboard-ease-of-use-13

Now this is the list view. Asana also has a board view in case you prefer kanban-style project management. You can easily switch from the list view to the board view using the tabs right on the top.

In the list view, you can easily drag tasks from one section to another.

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You also have the calendar view to help you visualize and plan out projects.

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Then in the premium version, you can also access the timeline view.

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You can set the color and icon of a project by hovering over the little dropdown arrow to select the set color and icon option.

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If you have many projects going on, it will be easier for you to view all your tasks in one place. Just go to the “My Tasks” option on the left panel to see which task belongs to which project.

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Assigning icons and colors to projects can make your tasks appear incredibly organized in the calendar view as well. You get a color-coded calendar with all your tasks pertaining to different projects.

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You can also check off your tasks from here. Just hover over a task in the calendar view and mark it as complete by clicking on the tick.

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You can switch from the month view to the individual week view from the option on the top right of your screen. This will help you focus on the tasks you have in that particular week.

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Similarly, you can click on the unscheduled option on the top right of your screen to see all the tasks that you haven’t scheduled or assigned due dates to yet.

You can either go back to the list view to assign due dates to these tasks, or you can drag and drop the tasks that appear on the “unscheduled tasks” panel on the calendar.

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Look at the image below to see how the drag and drop feature works when you drag your unscheduled tasks to the calendar in the calendar view.

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Trello vs Asana: Workflow, Dependency, and Process Management

You’re looking to streamline your agency processes better and organize and manage your tasks and clients’ projects. Which project management tool suits your agency more, Trello or Asana?

In my comparison of the interfaces of Trello and Asana above, you will be able to see that:

  • Breaking down projects into different categories is oh-so-simple with Asana. You can create groups of tasks easily within the different categories as well.
  • Asana lets you easily move tasks from one group to another based on their current status, and you also get to group all relevant tasks together for a particular team. All the tasks appear distinct through the application of colors and icons to projects.
  • Trello lets you easily move a task down through a set pipeline of tasks that is the same for everything. If you want to develop a website for a client, you can move tasks from the “optimize SEO” list to the “planning out scripts and language” list, to the “mapping out design” list. You can also do this with Asana’s board view.
  • Asana lets users create dependency tasks in multiple projects. This lets the team know exactly when to start a task especially if it is dependent on another. Your agency team or team members will know to only start a task when another is done.

This kind of dependency management feature is only available through power-ups in Trello where you can set a parents-child relationship. You have to pay for these power-ups.

Trello-vs-Asana-Workflow-Dependency-and-Process-ManagementSource: Beewits

  • The timeline view or feature in Asana also helps in dependency management. It is incredibly easy to spot roadblocks and bottlenecks, especially when people are idly waiting for other tasks to get completed.

You can easily solve such problems and manage these dependencies the right way with Asana. This is an area where Asana definitely works better than Trello.

  • When it comes to workflow automation, Asana lets you set custom rules that allow for automated routine tasks. You get to choose which task you want to automate and then set and configure those automations with the rule builder.

Trello has a no-code automation tool called Butler that suggests you to automate those tasks that your employees complete most frequently.

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Trello vs Asana: Support

When it comes to support, both Trello and Asana have proper documentation, which is especially helpful for an agency just starting out.  Both have courses on their workflows, structure, as well as process management.

There are also video tutorials available online for beginners looking to get a hang of how things work on both project management tools.

Both Trello and Asana have community forums, contact forms, and email support.

However, Asana’s video demos are more detailed and extensive. And its step-by-step guides free courses offer comparatively greater support thanks to the Asana Academy. The videos are available for free on Youtube.

Trello vs Asana: Integrations

Both Trello and Asana offer a number of integrations with different popular tools that are actively used by agencies to support their workflows, processes, and project management.

Trello offers the following integrations to enhance the user experience:

  • Adobe XD
  • Google Hangouts
  • Mailchimp
  • Slack
  • GitHub
  • Jira
  • Zapier
  • Dropbox
  • Gmail
  • Salesforce
  • Google Drive

Asana offers the following integrations:

  • Mailchimp
  • Everhour Reporting
  • Trello
  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Google Calendar
  • Slack
  • Dropbox
  • Zoom
  • Google Drive
  • Salesforce
  • Microsoft Teams

Trello vs Asana: Storage Capacity

Both Trello and Asana offer an unlimited amount of storage capacity. They do not charge for data storage.

You can easily see activity history, and invite as many team members as you want. Both charge a fixed price per team member.

Trello vs Asana: Sharing and Collaboration

When it comes to team collaboration and sharing roots, Trello and Asana differ in task organization.

We know that Trello uses the Kanban approach that allows team collaboration. Asana has a more traditional approach that organizes teamwork around an individual project.

Trello-vs-Asana-Sharing-and-Collaboration

Asana allows sharing with the entire team. Individual projects can be shared externally. You can also invite unlimited free guests to easily collaborate with them. Trello also allows sharing with the entire team, but allows inviting unlimited guests in the enterprise plan only.

Trello-vs-Asana-Sharing-and-Collaboration-2

With Asana, you can assign tasks to individual members. Tasks from different projects are automatically gathered in one place i.e. in the “My Task” section.

Trello does not let you assign tasks to individual people. There are cards dedicated to tasks with “Members” that are tagged and notified about task progress.

Asana also makes task reporting easy with features like Advanced Search, Saved Search Reports, Milestones, Project Progress, Portfolios, and Workload Management. Trello lacks these features as of now.

Asana Workload provides a holistic view of the team’s schedule and bandwidth so you can assign resources to the projects. This keeps your projects from being understaffed, and your employees don’t burn out. Trello does not have this feature.

Trello vs Asana: Assigning Due Dates

Asana lets you assign a due date to each individual task, be it a major task or a sub-task, as you can see below.

Trello-vs-Asana-Assigning-Due-Dates

With Trello, you can assign due dates to a card, and have a checklist of sub-tasks on each card. But you cannot assign due dates to those sub-tasks.

Trello-vs-Asana-Assigning-Due-Dates-2

Trello vs Asana: Color Coding

In the interface section, we covered how easy it is to set colors and icons to projects in Asana. You can also go to the “My Tasks” section to see all the tasks from different projects in one place. Asana’s color coding lets you easily distinguish which task belongs to which project from one column.

There is also a column that shows color-coded tags you can assign to individual tasks on Asana. I used an example in the interface section where I mentioned how adding a red-colored “important” tag can make all the important and critical projects stand out.

Look at the image below to see the color-coded projects and relevant tasks in Asana in the timeline view.

Trello-vs-Asana-Color-Coding

Trello lets you assign colors to different cards, and these colors can be seen without you having to open the card.

Where Asana has tags, Trello has labels. You can set labels and use them to organize tasks and to filter out relevant tasks. For example, by using the label “critical” in the filter you can easily filter out cards dedicated to critical client projects.

Here is how the cards look in the Kanban-style on Trello when they are color coded.

Trello-vs-Asana-color-coding-2

This is what they look like when you have set and added the labels to each card.

Trello-vs-Asana-color-coding-3

The color-coding feature is available in both Trello and Asana. Asana gives you an added feature to assign colors to individual tasks. This is not possible with Trello.

Trello vs Asana: Project Management

Asana has more elaborate project management features that could be better suited to your agency than Trello. Here’s why that’s the case.

Asana lets you easily collaborate with all the stakeholders, especially your clients, using the unlimited free guest sharing feature in all paid plans. Moreover, even individual projects can be easily shared externally with the entire team.

With Trello, even though sharing is possible with the entire team, you can only avail the unlimited guest option to collaborate with clients in the enterprise plan.

Asana also has more project viewing options than Trello, with Kanban, Calendar, and Table views in the free plan, and timeline (Gantt chart) view in premium and business plans.

Trello only offers the Kanban view in the free plan, and Calendar, Timeline (Gantt chart), Table, Map, and Dashboard view in the premium and enterprise plans.

Trello-vs-Asana-project-management

Asana even lets you change feedback into tasks. You can do this by using proofing in Asana to mark up images and automatically turn feedback into tasks. Or you can assign feedback to your team to move work forward.

In Trello, you can give feedback using comments on the card, but cannot turn them into tasks or assign them.

Long-term planning, multiple project management, as well as tracking time spent on tasks is easy with Asana.

You can take a bigger objective or goal and split it into smaller tasks easily. You can keep track of multiple projects separately. You can organize tasks under multiple projects, using colors, and different project views. You can look at all the tasks under “My Tasks” and easily see which project they belong to, and more.

Trello-vs-Asana-project-management-2

All of this is not possible with Trello. You can use the Time in List Power-Up to track how long the card has been in a particular list, but that’s about it.

Trello vs Asana: Pricing

You can get started with the free plans in both Trello and Asana.

The standard plan on Trello starts with $5 per user when billed annually. The premium plan is $10 per user billed annually, while the enterprise plan is $17.50 per user billed annually. The image below showcases the offerings specific to each price plan in Trello.

trello-pricingTrello Pricing

As for Asana, the premium plan starts at $10.99 per team member billed annually, while the business plan starts at $24.99 per team member billed annually. The image below showcases what features are included in each plan.

Asana also has an enterprise plan to offer a much more advanced work management platform.

Asana-pricingAsana Pricing

You can contact Asana’s sales team to negotiate the pricing for the enterprise plan and inform them about your project management needs for your agency (depending on how big your agency is and your business processes and needs).

How to Choose Between Trello and Asana

While the key features of Trello include visual and colorful collaboration with card covers, advanced checklists to curb board cluttering, and a searchable database, Asana makes for better collaboration, and smoother workflows.

How?

Asana makes it possible to break huge tasks into smaller ones. It also makes it possible to configure the platform to show tasks and projects in the best possible way.

Having sprint campaigns for your agency will also be a smooth process as Asana lets your agency team members fully recognize the tasks and deadlines required by a specific campaign.

Asana’s different project views can help the agency team view all the different steps of the projects from start to finish. You can set the view according to the type of project going on to see all the work obligations.

For instance, the calendar view can work better for tasks with strict closing dates, whereas the Kanban boards can help you observe certain steps from start to completion.

In a nutshell, choose Trello if:

  • You like visual planning and focus solely on Kanban boards
  • You want an intuitive and easy to use project management platform
  • You want to work on the free plan initially

In a nutshell, choose Asana if:

  • You want a more elaborate and task-centric approach to organizing your team’s work for individual projects while keeping everyone on track
  • You have larger projects at your agency and want to delegate numerous sub-tasks or manage multiple projects simultaneously
  • You want to work on the free plan initially with upto 15 team members

Trello and Asana Alternatives

Two popular alternatives for Trello and Asana are ClickUp and Monday.com.

Agencies use Monday.com and ClickUp to manage and track projects via the cloud. Neither requires coding but are still difficult to set up if you compare them with Trello and Asana. However, once everything is set up, managing tasks gets extremely easy.

ClickUp’s marketing suggests that it takes productivity to the next level, beating monday.com, Asana, and Jira. As a project management tool, it includes time tracking, milestones, goals, as well as custom exporting.

Monday offers pretty much the same features, and both of them offer popular integrations as well.

However, the project management tool your agency needs depends on what you’re using it for. For larger organizations, we recommend choosing Monday, and ClickUp for solo or small agencies/teams.

Here is a detailed comparison of ClickUp vs Monday so you can decide which one you need for your agency.

Trello vs Asana: What Are Agencies Using and Why Do They Choose One Over the Other?

I interviewed some agency owners to find out what they use at their agency i.e. Trello or Asana. I wanted to know the reasons behind their chosen project management tool so I asked them some targeted questions that I thought could be helpful for you in making the right choice.

1. Julie Ewald, Chief Everything Officer, Impressa Solutions LLC

Julie-Ewald

Cloudways: What is the most useful tool for digital agencies? Trello or Asana?

Julie Ewald:Trello and Asana are both useful for agencies, but the utility really

depends on the agency. For an agency that just wants to track the progress

of projects, organize ideas, and get started with a workflow, Trello can be

very useful. We used it for years. Once our projects got more complex and

more moving parts were added to our deliverables, Trello was no longer

useful, and we turned to Asana.”

Cloudways: How does Trello or Asana help you with your agency workflows and processes? What have been the challenges you have been able to solve with either of these tools?

Julie Ewald: “Both Trello and Asana allow agencies to develop trackable, measurable

workflows and processes. However, the Asana offers far more possibilities

and flexibility, particularly for more advanced or involved processes with

multiple steps and several stakeholders involved.”

Cloudways: Asana or Trello, which is better for agencies and why?

Julie Ewald: “When Impressa Solutions was a younger agency that did less complex

projects, Trello was perfect for us. It was simple, had decent

integrations, and allowed us to keep tabs on deliverables. We tried Asana

then and felt like it was hard to use and over-complicated things. 

As we grew and our projects got more complex, we outgrew Trello; it just didn’t

have the feature set we needed to accommodate large retainers and ambitious

campaigns with a lot of moving parts. What we thought was over-complicated

was actually just geared for more mature processes that we didn’t have. So,

the TL;DR: Trello is good for younger agencies and/or simple processes and

deliverables, but for anything more mature and/or involved, it’s Asana all

the way.”

Cloudways: List some features that you find the most useful in either Asana or Trello, and explain how it is better?

Julie Ewald: “In full disclosure, I’m not so hands-on with Asana anymore, but there

are many features that make us so fond of the platform. I really appreciate that a task can live in multiple projects, as that allows us to have client-specific and team-specific areas for organizing tasks. We also are very keen on being able to set dependencies in tasks and subtasks, as that allows multiple folks involved in a project to stay in alignment and not get ahead of themselves. I’m also personally a huge fan of the celebrations when I check off a task.”

Cloudways: What would you like to improve in the tool or any feature you would want to be added in?

Julie Ewald: “There aren’t any features that my team and I are clamoring for in Asana. The only change I’d love to see is the pricing. There are features in the Business tier that we would like to explore, but at more than twice the amount per user than the Premium plan, the value just isn’t there, so we won’t be upgrading any time soon.”

2. Tyler Brooks, Founder, Analytive Digital Marketing

Tyler-Brooks

Cloudways: What is the most useful tool for digital agencies? Trello or Asana?

Tyler Brooks:We find having multiple clients is much easier to manage in Asana. With

Trello, tracking which boards/cards belonged to which client becomes too

confusing.”

Cloudways: How does Asana or Trello help you with your agency workflows and processes? What have been the challenges you have been able to solve with either of these tools?

Tyler Brooks: “Trello and Asana both offer features that allow users to create and manage tasks, projects, and deadlines. Trello also offers a Kanban-style board

view that can help visualize workflows, and Asana offers a Gantt chart view

to help with project planning. Both tools have been helpful in managing

agency workflows and processes. However, there have been some challenges

with using both tools. For example, it can be difficult to keep track of

tasks and deadlines in both tools, and it can be easy to miss updates or

notifications. Additionally, both tools can be expensive for larger

agencies.

Ultimately, we use Asana, and it has solved 90% plus of our project

management and communication issues. It helps us keep track of urgent

tasks, schedule tasks in the future, and map out our to-dos even when

working with multiple clients..”

Cloudways: Trello or Asana, which is better for agencies and why?

Tyler Brooks: “We chose Asana as it’s easier to divide up clients and handle multiple

projects that live within a client. That’s made it much easier.”

Cloudways: List some features that you find the most useful in either Trello or Asana, and explain how it is better?

Tyler Brooks: “The ability to add subtasks in Asana is really powerful. We can then

assign subtasks to team members under the main task. We also attach a LOT

of stuff to each Asana task (communication, images, files, etc.). I think

you can do this in Trello as well, but Asana was way more intuitive.”

Cloudways: What would you like to improve in the tool or any feature you would want to be added in?

Tyler Brooks: “I wish Asana had a snooze function so you could put a task out of mind

until it needed to be tackled. When planning months in advance, the amount

of Asana tasks can become overwhelming. Hiding all of those until we needed

them would be great.”

3. Radu Tyrsina, CEO & Founder, Reflector Media

Radu-Tyrsina

Cloudways: What is the most useful tool for digital agencies? Trello or Asana?

Radu Tyrsina:We use Asana, to set goals for your team, in form of list items. What we

like is that these are interactive, so that team members can collaborate

with each other through them.”

Cloudways: How does Trello or Asana help you with your agency workflows and processes? What have been the challenges you have been able to solve with either of these tools?

Radu Tyrsina: “Asana is extremely flexible. When you create a ‘to-do’ list, you can

assign it to a team member, set a due date, upload or link to associated

documents, add tags, and even subscribe to the project, and receive

notifications about any changes.”

Cloudways: Asana or Trello, which is better for agencies and why?

Radu Tyrsina: “It’s mostly a personal choice depending on what types of projects your

agency works on. I know a lot of agencies prefer Trello even though there

are some missing features, like the ability to mark a milestone as done,

which is important for us. Also, we work with a large group of independent

contractors from around the world and Asana is more accessible for many.

The downside of Asana, I think in terms of communication, there are

definitely better options. However, you can combine Asana with Slack, to

solve that..”

Cloudways: List some features that you find the most useful in either Asana or Trello, and explain how it is better?

Radu Tyrsina: “Asana is generally available for free, so it’s a great way for smaller

teams or independent contractors to use, offering all the basic options.

You can set up a team of up to 15 people and create unlimited projects and

tasks, but with limited Dashboards.”

4. Stewart Dunlop, Founder & Chief Strategist, LinkBuilder.io

Stewart-Dunlop

Cloudways: What is the most useful tool for digital agencies? Trello or Asana?

Stewart Dunlop:Asana is the best. It’s become the golden standard for digital agencies because it has so many integrations. Teams can use it from all over the world, making it more connectable than Asana.”

Cloudways: How does Trello or Asana help you with your agency workflows and processes? What have been the challenges you have been able to solve with either of these tools?

Stewart Dunlop: “I’ve been able to set up an effective hierarchy. Delegation is really important in my business, and creating an effective chain of command helps me work more effectively. I can involve multiple people in managerial positions, making my life so much easier.”

Cloudways: What would you like to improve in the tool or any feature you would want to be added in?

Stewart Dunlop: “I would like more access to collaborative documents. Creating a version number for every document is a pain. If Asana had more integrations that allowed for collaborative documentation, it would be the perfect tool.”

5. Michael Rhoads, CEO and Founder, As Prescribed Media, Inc

Cloudways: What is the most useful tool for digital agencies? Asana or Trello?

Michael Rhoads:Hands down Asana.”

Cloudways: How does Asana or Trello help you with your agency workflows and processes? What have been the challenges you have been able to solve with either of these tools?

Michael Rhoads: “We can literally use them for everything from managing team projects to onboarding and managing our clients. Anytime remote work comes into play, there are weak points in the communication and project management. These tools make it so easy to create, share and complete any important tasks we have while allowing everyone to know where we are in the project timelines.”

Cloudways: Trello or Asana, which is better for agencies and why?

Michael Rhoads: “Asana is better. With all the powers of Trello, Asana allows users of all preferences to select the details they prefer. We have some who love the board view while others prefer a list. Asana gives that ability. Trello falls short when it comes to project management and if you are going to put up the investment for the team, why not go with something that has the most flexibility.”

Cloudways: List some features that you find the most useful in either Asana or Trello, and explain how it is better?

Michael Rhoads: “Looking at Asana, we love the ability to create tasks, toggle between multiple different views, set company goals, set different dashboards, and even reporting. The workflows (Rules) features help a ton as well. Asana is just flat out flexible from managing simple to complex projects.”

Cloudways: What would you like to improve in the tool or any feature you would want to be added in?

Michael Rhoads: “If anything, I would say always be working to have either tool be able to integrate with more software, as agencies are always forced to shift with the times and sometimes that means changing operations software or adding other ones.”

Conclusion

Now that you have gone through a very thorough and in-depth comparison of Trello and Asana as project management tools for agencies, you can make the best decision to streamline your agency processes and manage, organize, delegate, and collaborate on tasks and projects in an effective and productive way. Supercharge your agency growth by making the right decision.

If you want a recap, choose Asana for your agency if you have larger, more complex projects, and a big team. Choose Trello if you have smaller projects and a small to medium-sized team. You can also read our blog on ClickUp vs Monday if you are confused between these four most popular project management tools.

Q1. Is Trello better than Asana?

Both Trello and Asana are great for project management. But Asana is better and have much better features when it comes to task planning for larger, long-term projects. Trello is best if you have simpler prjects, smaller team, and when you don’t have to delegate tasks and sub-tasks that often.

Q2. Which is easier to use Trello or Asana?

Trello is a lot more user-friendly than Asana. This is because it is for simpler projects and smaller teams. However, if you have complex projects, and need to breakdown sub-tasks and delegate them to team members, you will find that doing this is a lot easier in Asana.

Q3. Is Asana or Trello free?

Both Trello and Asana have a free plan.

However, Asana’s free plan offers more functionality for e.g. it offers 100MB worth of file storage while Trello offers only 10MB. Asana’s free plan includes the ability to work on iOS and Android mobile app, as well as time tracking with integration, and list, board, and calendar view for projects. But where the free plan in Asana allows to work with 15 team members, Trello’s free plan allows unlimited team members.

Q4. Is Trello actually useful?

Trello is useful if you like visual planning and focus solely on Kanban boards, want an intuitive and easy to use project management platform, want to work on the free plan initially with unlimited members, and have simpler projects with smaller team.

Q5. What is the biggest difference between Trello and Asana?

The biggest difference between Trello and Asana is that Asana facilitates you more when you have large, complex projects with a longer list of sub-tasks. Delegation of such sub-tasks is a lot easier in Asana. However if you have simpler, smaller projects and a small team, Trello is better for you. Both are project management tools and useful in their own ways.

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Sadia Zia

I work as a Senior Digital Content Producer at Cloudways. Creating content keeps me busy for the most part, but I relish discovery, adventure, and thrive in challenging situations and environments.

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