Asana vs ClickUp: Project management software comparison

Many professionals find project management to be tedious and time-consuming or feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to complete all of their important tasks. Thankfully, project management tools can help you improve your productivity, stay organized and feel accomplished. Below is a breakdown of features offered by Asana and ClickUp, two of the best project management solutions to manage your team’s daily workflow.

What is Asana?

Asana is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) project management software that centralizes your team’s work for easy management, improved communication and collaboration and minimizes the need for meetings or emails. It provides a single space for team members to work on complex projects and streamlines job activity monitoring.

What is ClickUp?

ClickUp is a user-friendly project management software that breaks down team projects into smaller, more manageable tasks and comes with some automation features. You gain complete creative control over your projects or tasks and can simplify team collaboration and communication.

Asana vs. ClickUp: Main features

Both Asana and ClickUp come with similar core features, such as creating lists, boards and calendars, allowing you to track task statuses throughout the team. Both tools are cloud-based, so that you can access them from tablets, smartphones or computers.

Asana includes advanced customization features that allow companies to manipulate fine details in their project management. For example, Asana enables you to set up dependencies to show team members what tasks need to be done and in what order.

Another benefit of Asana is the Admin Console, which gives administrators easy access to administrative controls, such as performance insights, permissions, onboarding and billing information.

Asana allows users to engage in conversations easily. Each project has a Conversations view, where team members can collaborate on projects, share critical project files or documents and start new discussions all in one place.

ClickUp goes beyond basic project management software. The company has positioned its software as a complete work operating system (OS) because of its intuitive features, such as to-do lists, long-term projects and other key tasks.

A notable ClickUp feature is Time Tracking, where administrators can see how long employees take on specific tasks, add time estimates and access detailed time tracking information in a report. Time tracking capabilities can help managers monitor workers’ movements and productivity to ensure progress is made on important tasks. This can be especially useful for remote-friendly or remote-first organizations.

A 2021 survey found that 26% of remote employees found managing scheduling and time zone differences challenging, and ClickUp’s time management features can help overcome this challenge.

SEE: Feature comparison: Time tracking software and systems (TechRepublic Premium)

Asana vs. ClickUp: Ease of use

As organizations scale and teams grow bigger, managing projects can become overwhelming. Ensuring you use the best project management software to meet the needs of your team is crucial. A tool’s ease of use is a significant factor worth considering.

Asana is somewhat limited in the level of customization its features can offer you. However, its intuitive layout and design make it simple to use. In contrast, ClickUp provides a high customization level, meaning that it does require adequate training and comes with a slight learning curve.

Asana and ClickUp both offer customer support. ClickUp’s impressive, free customer support is available 24/7, including holidays, whereas Asana provides 24/7 support on its most expensive plan. Asana does make up for this by offering learning resources, guides and a blog to answer your organization’s frequently asked questions. Additionally, Asana and ClickUp are both capable of app integrations, a valuable feature for modern, tech-savvy companies.

Asana integrates with Salesforce, Tableau, G-Suite, Zoom, Slack, Dropbox, etc. ClickUp integrates with GitHub, Slack, Harvest, G Suite, Outlook, YouTube, Zoom, etc. It’s important to consider these tools’ app integrations, as they can streamline workflows and make accomplishing tasks across apps easier.

SEE: Task management vs. project management: Which is best for your team? (TechRepublic)

Pricing

Both Asana and ClickUp offer free plans that may suit smaller businesses. Asana’s first-tier plan starts at $10.99 per user and ClickUp’s first-tier plan starts at $5.00 per user. However, most companies know that while the price is an important factor, ensuring the project management tool provides value, is easy to use and comes with useful features is just as important.

Both tools’ premium plans offer more features, so it may be wise to start with a free trial to learn more about the tool, its interface and what you can accomplish and then consider upgrading later. Many organizations have a dedicated IT budget to manage spending on critical software, including project management tools. Using this method will help you feel more confident in your choice when considering Asana versus ClickUp, as these two project management tools are so similar.

Asana vs. ClickUp: Which project management tool suits your organization?

As you take time to research which project management tool will suit your needs, you should understand that there is no universally best option. Every workplace is unique and may require different features in its project management software. Identify your organization’s needs and research all available tools to see which one is most appropriate. You can enroll in free trials to give both Asana and ClickUp a try before spending a lot of money.

If your company is just starting out with a project management tool, you may want to use Asana because of its ease of use and clean interface. But if your employees have experience using project management software, you may want to opt for ClickUp to take advantage of its advanced customization options. Either way, both Asana and ClickUp offer similar project management features that simplify tasks, streamline workflows and boost employee productivity.