Project management solutions have come a long way in the last few years. Two of the most popular platforms that dominate the market are Asana and Monday. But it’s not just because of their ubiquitous advertising which you’ve likely seen while browsing the web.
These two platforms have been refined substantially since their original launch and now offer a highly efficient and customizable way to facilitate teamwork and overall project management.
But is there a major difference between these two platforms and is one better than the other?
Below, we’ll tackle that question and compare these two project management solutions so you can decide which one (asana vs monday) is best for your team.
What Is Asana?
Originally launched in 2014 by several Facebook co-founders, Asana is an all-in-one project management and collaborative platform that runs completely in the cloud.
The original design goal for Asana was to provide deep project management features while still maintaining a clean and simple interface that is fast and streamlined. Despite the many additions to the software, Asana has held true to that goal and the platform is still very intuitive and uncluttered.
Project management veterans and new users alike will feel at home with the design choices that help make finding what features you need easy.
Another key aspect of Asana is its flexibility. Beyond just strict project management to deal with initiatives with clearly defined start and end dates, Asana allows for open-ended work to be managed as well. With Asana, you get highly detailed control over tasks and subtasks within your project.
Asana also continues to add new features, such as new AI capabilities, which are, of course, all the rage in business software today.
For example, Asana has features that can help rewrite and expand goals or other initiatives based on your past projects. As with all AI tools, these are a new technology and the results can be mixed.
Some results are shockingly good, while others are laughably bad. That’s not to say that Asana’s AI tools are lacking, it’s just due to the nascent stage of AI as a technology.
But it does show how Asana is constantly evolving and trying to match the needs of their customers by using the latest technology available. Monday has also recently added their own AI tools, but they are featured more like an assistant and are less integrated into the platform’s workflows.
Asana’s Features
With any project management tool, it all comes down to the features and whether or not those features match your workflow. Below, we’ll outline the standout features of Asana and where they perform best.
Main Display Window
Asana uses a traditional layout for its initial display. There is a left panel with your current workspaces as well as options to create new items.
The right-side main window then displays the details of each item you select or create. You can also drill down further in this main view or add other options, such as assigning users to tasks.
The main display offers a lot of customization options. There are a host of filters you can use at any time. These can be used to only display the information you need at that moment. It’s a good way to keep the interface uncluttered when managing several projects and teams.
Overall, the clean interface is one of Asana’s strengths.
Project Views in Asana
At the top of the main display is a menu bar where you can easily switch between project views.
Asana offers several views to match various projects and objectives.
- List view (all plans)
- Board view (all plans)
- Calendar view (all plans)
- Timeline view (Starter Plan and above)
- Gannt view (Starter Plan and above)
Creators or managers of a project can set the default view but the users can choose their own views and that selection only affects their display, not the overall project.
Depending on how the project is set up, the views may not all display exactly as intended if information is missing.
Managing & Tracking Tasks
Task management is key to any successful collaborative project and Asana does a good job at keeping this feature simple yet also powerful.
You can manage an entire project almost entirely through tasks and sub-tasks. Tasks are easy to set up and assign and automations can be set up to move or update tasks as they change status.
Assigning tasks is done through a simple drop-down menu and other team members can be alerted to tasks or changes to a task through a mention system. You can also create templates for tasks that your team repeats often.
One area where users are sometimes critical of Asana is due to the fact that you can only assign one person to a task. If a task requires multiple team members, you have to create additional duplicate tasks or subtasks.
This is a minor quibble and there are workarounds, but if your projects involve many tasks that have several team members working on them, it’s something to consider. Asana flows better with projects that have one team member per task.
Compare Write vs Asana as well.
Dependencies
Asana allows you to easily set up dependencies for tasks that require some prerequisite before they can be started or completed. Dependencies can be made using the visual timeline and you simply connect the dependent tasks.
Other users can also easily view these dependencies to see where they are in the overall task process.
Reporting Features
In Asana, managers can access reporting features directly from the left-side menu of the main display. These reports can be filtered to help give you an overview of your team’s performance, task completion rate, and overall state of the project.
There are also powerful data visualization tools so your reports don’t look like simple spreadsheets or rows of data. These can also be used for presentations or summaries after a project is complete.
Recently, Asana added a view-only roll-up feature to further enhance reporting capabilities and customization.
App Integrations
Asana has ready-made integrations for 200 business productivity apps. These are all no-code integrations and you simply enter in your login credentials to complete the integration.
This integration allows for things like syncing with your Google Calendar or receiving notifications and alerts via Slack.
Related: Monday.com Vs. Airtable
Asana Automation
Automation keeps your team from getting bogged down with repetitive tasks. It also helps to avoid errors when simple task changes aren’t made manually due to an oversight.
Asana automation tools let you set up condition-specific operations from a drop-down menu. These are easy to set up and you can create some complex automations despite the simplicity of the system.
There are also pre-made automations to help with a variety of common task-related functions and notifications.
Budgeting Tools
Asana does have basic built-in budgeting functions that allow you to apply a total budget to a project and then assign costs to various tasks. As tasks progress, the overall budget is updated.
For more advanced budgeting, you’ll want to use one of the available integrations. For budget-focused project management, something like Smartsheet may be a better option.
Templates
For those who prefer templates, Asana offers 140+ templates to choose from to match a variety of project and business-specific initiatives. The templates are easy to browse by category and you can fully edit every template to make it your own.
Templates are also available for individual items such as task creation, automation, and budgeting.
Asana Pricing
Overall, Asana has a straightforward pricing structure along with a generous free plan that allows you to test many of its core features.
Asana Personal Plan: $0/Month
- Up to 10 users
- Unlimited tasks
- Unlimited projects
- Unlimited messages
- Unlimited activity log
- Unlimited file storage
- Unlimited assignee and due dates
- List view projects
- Board view projects
- Calendar view
- Time tracking via integrations
- Basic search filters
Asana Starter Plan: $10.99/Month – Per user
- Everything in the Personal Plan
- Up to 500 users
- Timeline view
- Gantt view
- Asana Intelligence
- Workflow Builder
- Project dashboards
- Advanced search
- Global custom fields
- Forms
- 250 Automations/month
- Start dates and times
- Custom project templates
- Admin Console
- Private teams & projects
- Unlimited free guests
Asana Advanced Plan: $24.99/Month – Per user
- Everything in the Starter Plan
- Up to 500 users
- Workloads
- 25,000 Automations per month
- Forms branching & customization
- Approvals
- Proofing
- Lock custom fields
- Advanced Reporting
- Builtin time tracking
- Scaled security
What Is Monday.com
Monday is a flexible project management platform that is adaptable to many different workflows while still staying rooted in basic project management essentials.
Compared to Asana, Monday focuses on board and table views as the main interface. You can have timeline views which are basic Gantt charts, but Monday works best when you stick to its board/table default views.
You can think of Monday as a simple spreadsheet that was converted to an easy project management platform. Rows and columns are populated with tasks and those assigned to the tasks.
If you prefer grid layouts or the logic of a spreadsheet, then Monday will likely be more appealing to you.
Monday also has their own CRM platform that can work with the project management features within Monday. Asana doesn’t offer this and to get CRM features in Asana, you need to integrate a third-party app, such as Salesforce or Hubspot.
Monday’s CRM is not as fully featured as a dedicated app, but it does still provide the essential functions and automation of a CRM that can immediately be paired with your ongoing projects or campaigns.
It’s a nice addition for marketers and others when leads and prospects are a key part of their projects and campaigns.
Monday’s Features
Monday offers many features for both project management and for managing ongoing work with its simplified table layout.
Monday Project Views
Monday offers many of the traditional project views you would expect, but it also offers some unique ones, such as its user workload view. The workload view shows how individual team members are being utilized relative to the team and overall project.
Below are all the views available on Monday.
- Board view
- Chart view
- Gantt view
- Calendar view
- Workload view
- Timeline view
- Table view
- Kanban view
- Form view (form builder)
- Cards view
- Files view
Overall, there are many options within Monday and some platforms like Asana don’t have as many views. However, some of these are more basic, so you get more total views, but each one is not as deep as Asana.
It’s a tradeoff where Monday offers more flexibility at the cost of some deeper features. Overall, this approach makes the platform more adaptable to a variety of work situations beyond just project management.
Role Assignments
Monday allows for easy role assignments across your entire team and project. Unlike Asana, you can easily add more than one person to a task or card using a simple drop-down menu. Add the first team member and then repeat the process for any additional team members.
There is also a user manager where you can assign custom roles and permissions. This feature does require one of the higher-paid plans though.
CRM Features
This is something not offered by Asana unless you integrate it with another app. Monday has built-in CRM functionality that works especially well for marketing and sales teams who also need project management features.
Lead management, contact management, and deal management are all within the platform. These functions can all be merged with your projects for deeper reporting and analytics.
It’s a unique hybrid of platforms that may not be right for everyone, but for some teams, it’s a perfect fit.
Integrations
Monday has over 200 integrations with popular business apps and services. Asana and Monday are pretty equal in this regard and there is no real advantage one has over the other.
Templates
Monday currently has over 200 templates covering a wide variety of project management situations. They also have slightly more variety in their templates than Asana. Not just the total number, but they have many smaller templates that work with Monday’s strengths and flexibility.
The templates are all easy to browse by category and load instantly into your workspace.
There are also pre-made automation templates that you can search through and apply to your existing projects.
Budgeting
Monday’s board view lends itself to easier budgeting. You simply add a column for numbers and then you can apply various formulas as you add additional columns and start to enter your figures.
Formulas are stored in separate columns and they allow for anything from basic to complex budget calculations.
You can also set up automation around your budget so that alerts are sent when certain thresholds are met or exceeded.
Overall, the budgeting is a little stronger on Monday than it is with Asana and allows for more complexity.
Automation
Monday offers your standard automation functions based on logical conditions. You use triggers, conditions, and actions that can be combined to perform the tasks you need.
It’s a strong system and Monday also offers pre-made automations to fit many project management situations. These can also be used as a starting point for you to tweak as needed.
Asana and Monday are both similar in their automation features and there isn’t a big difference between the two.
Reporting & Analytics
You can easily create reports and use data visualization tools within Monday to get snapshots into your team’s efforts.
The advanced budgeting options along with the built-in CRM tools mean you can get detailed analytics that allow you to look into sales, expenses, and other more critical areas that may fall outside of standard project management reporting.
You can also easily combine data from several boards or projects to view in your dashboard.
Monday Pricing
At first glance, Monday is priced slightly below some competitors such as Asana. However, the pricing places a maximum on the number of users for each tier. So you may end up paying more if you need to move to a higher tier due to your team size.
Monday Free Plan: $0/month
- 2 users
- Up to 3 boards
- 200+ templates
- 8 column types
- iOS and Android apps
Monday Basic Plan: $8/month – Per seat – max of 24 seats
- Everything in the Free Plan
- Unlimited free viewers
- Unlimited items
- 5GB of storage
- Priority support
- Create a dashboard from one board
Monday Standard Plan: $10/month – Per seat – max of 30 seats
- Everything in the Basic Plan
- Timeline and Gantt views
- Calendar view
- 250 automation actions per month
- Integrations (up to 500 actions per month)
- Create a dashboard from 5 boards
Monday Pro Plan: $16/month – Per seat – max of 48 seats
- Everything in the Standard Plan
- Private boards
- Time tracking
- Formula column
- Dependency column
- Create a dashboard from 10 boards
- 25K automation and integration actions
Monday Enterprise Plan: Contact Monday for custom pricing
- Everything in the Pro Plan
- Enterprise-level automation and integrations
- Advanced reporting and analytics
- Advanced permissions
- Custom onboarding and training
- Create a dashboard from 50 boards
Asana vs Monday: Comparison
These two platforms are very similar and the differences really come down to the finer details. For those who want a strict project management platform that follows standard project management workflows or ideologies, you’ll likely enjoy Asana more.
Monday is more of a “light” version of project management, but that doesn’t mean it lacks features or can’t handle complex projects. It just means it takes a simplified approach that you can use for a variety of projects.
Also, Monday can be used for simple work management, such as managing an office that doesn’t specifically work on projects. Asana can do this as well, but doing so wastes many of its features and adds complexity that you simply don’t need in that situation.
For ease of use, the choice is Monday. It’s faster to set up and you can start as simply as you like with a basic table view listing your team members. Some of the menus on Monday are overly complicated, but overall, it is easier than Asana.
But that simplicity does have a cost. Asana excels at more complex task structures and more granular task setups. For these situations, Asana is more capable, and setting up recurring tasks can be easier with Asana as well.
If your projects depend heavily on task management and subtasks, then Asana will be a better choice. You’ll likely feel frustrated with Monday’s more overview-centric approach that allows for less granular detail.
Monday may be flexible in the type of work it can handle, but the actual workflows are not as flexible. You have to work within the Monday style. Asana on the other hand does allow more customization of the actual workflows within each project you create.
Monday vs Asana: Review & Wrap-Up
Overall, these two project management platforms are very capable. The features are relatively similar, although Monday does have CRM features and built-in marketing and software development options.
The real difference is likely going to be your own style of project management. For those who need detailed control over their workflow and processes, then Asana will serve you best.
For those who enjoy having more of an overview of their projects without needing to maintain highly granular control over every detail, Monday will be faster to set up and use.
Finally, there’s the interface. This is almost always subjective and some users will simply “click” with one software platform over another regardless of features or other aspects.
For that reason, it’s always a good idea to take advantage of both free plans and give yourself time to work through each platform. You’ll likely find that one quickly resonates with you over the other, and this will help you in your final decision.
