We believe there are better options available in this category, read below to learn what this software does well, and what they could do better. ⤵
Throughout our article below, we'll use the words overwhelming and overly complex a lot.
Many of the most popular project management tools are designed for large teams and organizations, and they can be overwhelming and complex to set up and use for smaller teams. Here's what to keep in mind:
For medium + large teams looking for a task-based project management tool, where goals and reporting are important.
Asana is one of the most reliable and stable project management tools on the market. We used it for 7 years before switching to Motion. We didn't switch because Asana was bad... Asana is fantastic, as long as you take the time to set it up properly and actually need all the features it offers.
Asana is exactly what a comes to mind when you envision a traditional project manager tool. It has traditional lists view, tasks view, custom fields, kanban boards, calendar (which isn't even worthy of the name when you compare Asana vs Motion), files, and timeline views. It even has robust project management features like gantt charts, workload management and advanced reporting features. If your organization has complex projects and is looking for a tool with all the bells and whistles, including reporting for upper management, then Asana would be our top recommendation for you.
Asana is now a public traded company and it's focusing more on enterprise accounts (1000+ seats). With that, comes more enterprise features, which, we'll never need as a small team.
Our needs are much more simple—we simply wanted a tool to help us get more work done fast (hence why we made the switch to Motion - read our full Motion review to better understand it's features).
When comparing Asana vs Monday or Asana vs ClickUp, Asana wins across the board. Why? Because Monday and ClickUp are trying to be "all-in-one tools", meaning they are trying to do everything in a mediocre way, rather than doing one thing super well. Asana is a project management software, through and through. They aren't trying to be a CRM, or a documentation software, or whiteboard or whatever other tool under the sun.
This means that 100% of their focus is on delivering the best project management experience. And that's what we appreciate about them! 🙌
You will like Asana if you fit into one or all of the below categories:
The main difficulty with Asana comes from from how much manual work is required to actually stay atop of the work you're trying to get done. Unlike a tool like Motion, where you just throw in your tasks and AI intelligently auto-schedules them, even if you don't get to them for the day, Asana requires that you continually push back due dates manually in order to not fall too far behind or get too overwhelmed with your work.
Asana is an incredibly well oiled product. The API has evolved a lot over the years and everything is quite stable. It just hasn't evolved to take advantage of the time management/calendar space, which feels like a big miss for any project manager.
That said, we've just finally finished migrating off Asana over to Motion (after 7 years of Asana), which should tell you something, specifically if you are a small team (less than 100–200 employees).
A project management tool built to streamline all workflows.
Wrike is often the tool favored by larger organizations or teams with complex, multi-faceted projects requiring advanced project management features and deep customization. Wrike is more of an enterprise-level project management tool (think similar to the Salesforce of project management).
While Monday and Asana are more user-friendly in terms of their user interface, Wrike's interface has a steeper learning curve due to its extensive features.
Wrike’s integrations are particularly beneficial for enterprise-level software ecosystems, think Salesforce, Adobe Creative Cloud, Jira, SAP, ServiceNow, and Tableau.
Wrike has an edge in advanced reporting and analytics compared to Asana and Monday.com, offering detailed insights that are crucial for large teams and complex projects.
In summary, unless you're an enterprise company, do not consider Wrike. If you're a team with under 1000 employees, Wrike alternatives like Asana or Monday will be much better suited for your team.
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