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Choosing between Asana and Monday comes down to selecting the top all-around project management platform.
Both tools go beyond just project management—they offer a variety of features—but they are most commonly used for managing tasks and projects.
This comparison will walk you through their main features, use cases, advantages, disadvantages, pricing options, and more.
My goal is to provide a complete guide to help you decide which software fits your business needs best and ensures you select the most suitable project management tool.
Looking to explore other project management options?
Overview of Asana vs Monday
Asana and Monday are among the top-rated project management solutions available today.
Both platforms emphasize ease of use and include essential features typical of task and project management systems.
They also offer capabilities for team collaboration, resource scheduling, workspaces, and more.
Asana:
Asana is a versatile yet straightforward tool designed to help teams organize projects and tasks efficiently.
It enables users to create and manage projects, assign tasks, add subtasks, upload attachments, and more.
Key features of Asana include:
- Task and workflow management
- Automation rules to reduce repetitive work
- Mobile apps for iOS and Android
- File sharing across various formats
- Suitable for small to medium-sized teams and businesses
- Multiple views including Gantt charts, Kanban boards, timelines, and calendars
- Threaded comments, email notifications, and real-time updates
- Live reports to track team performance and project progress
All these features facilitate setting objectives, team discussions through comments, task assignments, and seamless workflow management.
Monday.com:
It helps teams organize tasks, craft more effective schedules, and boost overall productivity.
Monday’s core features include:
- Team and project management capabilities
- Inventory tracking tools
- Mobile apps for iOS and Android devices
- Automation builder for custom workflows
- Multiple views such as Kanban, lists, calendars, and timelines
- Drag-and-drop Gantt charts for scheduling
- Discussion threads and notifications
- Workload monitoring tools
It enables team members to collaborate on tasks, exchange ideas, share feedback, and stay aligned throughout projects.
In-Depth Comparison of Asana and Monday
Both Monday.com and Asana are comprehensive project management platforms. Let’s compare their features and performance in detail.
1. User Interface
Asana:
You can quickly create new projects, onboard team members, and set up workflows.
It also allows you to add meeting details, communication channels, and other important information effortlessly.
Whether starting from a blank slate or a predefined template, Asana provides a user-friendly experience designed to streamline project setup and management.
Alternatively, you can utilize pre-made templates provided by Asana to streamline your workflow.
Furthermore, importing data from a spreadsheet created with a third-party application is also supported.
Additionally, you can view your project in four different formats within your dashboard: List, Board (Kanban View), Timeline, and Calendar.
Each of these views has its own benefits. For example, the list view allows you to quickly see your tasks, prioritize important items, and identify upcoming deadlines. Conversely, the timeline view provides a visual representation of how tasks are scheduled over time.
Furthermore, Asana enables you to incorporate company goals into your project planning. This helps teams align their efforts with organizational objectives and prioritize effectively.
This feature allows you to set various business objectives with your team, such as company goal planning, market share targets, overall business goals, or corporate strategies.
Monday:
Monday shares a similar interface with Asana, making the transition seamless for users familiar with this platform. You can set up a board and customize its name to suit your project or workflow needs. This board can represent anything — a project, marketing strategy, sales pipeline, quarterly plan, or any other task group you want to organize effectively.
There’s also an option to organize your tasks by grouping related items together.
A group may represent a project phase, a particular time period, a sales deal stage, or any category you choose. You can keep adding items to these groups, where an item could be a task, a marketing campaign, a lead, a feature, employees, or any other element you need to track. One of the platform’s main advantages is that you can assign a single item to multiple team members simultaneously.
Beyond the main table view, you can explore various other perspectives to visualize your data, including a timeline view.
Here are all the different display options available:
– Table
– Calendar
– Gantt chart
– Bar Chart
– Kanban board
– Form view
– Workload overview
– File attachments
– Timeline view
For example, the chart view can be customized extensively to suit your needs.
You can tailor every aspect of your dashboard, including color schemes, item counts, and display styles.
Monday.com also integrates with third-party apps like Airtable, Word Cloud, Pivot Board, Collaborative Whiteboard, among others, expanding its functionality.
You can monitor all activity on your board, review recent updates, and see who last viewed it, with extensive filtering options based on time frames, groupings, column filters, team members, names, and other attributes.
If you prefer not to build a dashboard from scratch, Monday.com offers ready-made templates tailored to various needs.
Templates are available for:
- Marketing campaigns
- Content creation workflows
- Project management
- Documentation
- Sales processes and customer relationship management
- Freelance work
- Design projects
- Manufacturing operations
- Startup planning
- Real estate management
- And many more…
Multiple templates are provided for each category to fit different scenarios. For instance, within the freelancer category, there are templates designed for campaign planning, event management, handling customer requests, and managing a single project.
You can see a preview of the available templates before you get started.
Here’s an example of the “Customer Requests” template:
A view of the same dashboard in Kanban format:
This template is designed to give you a centralized place for managing all customer support requests, enhancing your service efficiency.
Create a streamlined workflow for handling customer requests using this ready-to-use dashboard. Monday.com also features a new “My Work” section where you can view all your assignments in one location, customizable to suit your team’s specific needs. Here, team members will find the tasks assigned to them across various boards.
Winning in this comparison, Monday stands out because both Asana and Monday are intuitive, integrate with numerous tools, and support task management, collaboration, and workflow optimization.Monday offers a simpler interface and more features, making it the better choice in this comparison.
2. Project Management and Task Organization
Handling projects and tasks is essential for staying productive.
Both Asana and Monday are among the leading tools used for task management today.
Let’s explore how each performs in this area.
Asana:
Asana offers over 50 templates to assist in planning and managing content calendars, campaigns, creative requests, events, product launches, and more.
To set up a new project dashboard, you have three options:
- Create it from scratch.
- Choose a ready-made template from Asana’s collection.
- Import data from spreadsheets from other tools.
These templates simplify the setup process, but starting with a blank project is also quick and easy.
For example, consider this IT Project Plan template:
This template guides you through starting an IT project by dividing tasks into sections with deadlines, clarifying what needs to be done and when. You can sort tasks by priority and stage to keep everyone aligned. Adding new sections or tasks is just a click away.
The only limitation is that each task can only be assigned to one person at a time, which may limit some team collaboration.
However, team members can still view progress and access the project overview. You can also create a detailed project brief to communicate the “what” and “why” behind your projects. You can choose to drag sections into your brief or simply write freely.
Moreover, you can embed various rich objects like files, YouTube videos, or highlight text to convert it into actionable items, making communication clearer.
You can communicate directly with team members through the dashboard by mentioning them with “@” or dragging projects and tasks into discussion threads. Messages can also be sent via email at it-project-plan@mail.asana.com.
In addition to task tracking, Asana offers real-time status updates, goal setting, prioritized task lists, streamlined communication with clients and vendors, file sharing, and a centralized place for project details.
Monday:
Like Asana, Monday allows you to break your projects into smaller, manageable tasks. Notably, Monday provides a dedicated “Project Management” template category designed to simplify building your project dashboards.Task management plays a crucial role in keeping projects organized and on track. For example, the Single project template helps teams plan, monitor, and coordinate complex initiatives across multiple departments and groups, providing a comprehensive view of progress. It also simplifies handling project requests and offers a complete overview of your entire portfolio, making it easier to manage resources and deadlines efficiently.
Compared to other tools like Asana, Monday offers a wider variety of layout options. Besides the standard Kanban board, calendar view, list, and dashboards, it includes additional views such as workload and chart views. The workload view is particularly useful for identifying team members’ capacity, allowing quick adjustments to balance workloads. The timeline view visualizes how tasks are scheduled over time, helping you coordinate activities more effectively. Users can effortlessly switch between these layouts based on their needs, facilitating better project oversight.
Monday.com provides features to foster effective team communication directly within the platform. You can start conversation threads on specific boards, keeping relevant discussions, documents, and updates centralized. This feature allows you to notify team members, attach files, and keep everyone aligned on project statuses without relying on external communication tools. Moreover, the platform enables you to add an unlimited number of columns, including pre-defined and customizable options, to tailor the project view to your specific requirements. Columns can also combine functions—for example, Date + Status or Timeline + Status—to streamline workflow visualization.
One of the standout features of Monday.com is its flexibility in assigning tasks. You can allocate a single item to multiple team members simultaneously, promoting seamless collaboration and reducing communication barriers. This shared responsibility helps ensure everyone stays informed and accountable, enhancing overall team productivity.
Overall, the choice between tools like Monday.com and others such as Asana often comes down to specific feature needs and preferences. Both platforms excel in workflow management, offering robust capabilities to plan, execute, and review projects. When it comes to task and project oversight, Monday’s extensive layout options, communication features, and flexible collaboration tools make it a strong contender—often resulting in a tie when compared directly with other top project management software.The platform lacks a dedicated workflow management feature. However, its “list view” and “timeline view” assist in smoothly transitioning between tasks. For example, the timeline view allows you to map out project plans over a timeline, visualize how tasks relate to each other, and stay updated on work progress and shifting deadlines. Additionally, assigning due dates to all tasks helps with prioritization. You can also organize your boards by labels such as Today, Upcoming, or Later, to better manage your schedule.
The “Calendar view” offers a way to identify overlaps and gaps in your timetable, enabling necessary adjustments. The “Company Goals” feature is also useful for workflow oversight, allowing your team to set organizational objectives and link work tasks to these higher-level aims.
Monday provides similar functionalities, with templates designed to centralize ongoing tasks and facilitate team collaboration. These templates typically combine quarterly-based boards with a weekly task list, streamlining daily operations. Moreover, Monday.com emphasizes automation, allowing workflows to run automatically. You can set up automated notifications to alert team members as deadlines approach, helping everyone stay on track and adjust schedules if needed. Automation features also include recurring task automation and moving tasks through different workflow stages. The platform offers numerous pre-made workflow templates, such as the “Single Project” template, which consolidates stakeholders, deadlines, budgets, and task progress into a single view, supporting sequential task management. You can categorize tasks based on their status (completed, pending, etc.) and priority, providing real-time visibility into work status. Additionally, various views like Kanban, calendar, charts, and timeline enable seamless workflow transitions. Overall, while both Monday.com and Asana offer similar workflow management features, Monday.com stands out with more layout options and a broader variety of templates.
Tracking project progress and team engagement is essential to gauge task advancement and identify the most active contributors. Reports can also verify if your strategies are yielding the expected results. Let’s explore how Asana and Monday perform in this area.
Asana provides a comprehensive overview with detailed reports to monitor both team and project progress. It offers three main report types: resourcing reports—which detail tasks by assignee, project, or custom fields for the week or month; work health reports—that track upcoming and overdue tasks by project; and progress reports—which highlight projects with the highest task completion rates and status updates for the month.
These charts update automatically as you use Asana, providing real-time insights into your projects and tasks.
You may find that these built-in tools cover most of your tracking needs, eliminating the need for additional software. They are more than enough to monitor projects, assign tasks, track employee performance, and more. If your requirements go beyond what these charts offer, you can create custom visuals tailored specifically to your project and team metrics.
Asana also allows you to assign deadlines to each task, with automatic reminders sent to team members as these dates approach. This helps keep everyone on schedule. The platform’s workload feature provides a clear overview of each team member’s capacity, helping you identify who is overloaded and who might need additional support. This way, managing task assignments becomes easier and more efficient.
Another powerful feature is Portfolio Management, which enables you to create dashboards displaying multiple projects and their current statuses in real time. You can oversee all your initiatives simultaneously, gain a visual summary of ongoing work, and make informed decisions quickly. Collaboration is also streamlined through task comments, team conversations, status updates, and other communication tools integrated directly into the platform, ensuring clarity and cohesion across your team.
Monday.com offers similar features for project tracking and management. It allows you to monitor time, task statuses, and project deadlines effectively. While it does not feature as extensive reporting as Asana, it provides a “My Work” section where all your team’s tasks and projects are organized by deadlines. This centralized view simplifies workload management by giving you a comprehensive snapshot of what needs to be done without navigating multiple screens. Additionally, Monday.com has a “Workload” section similar to Asana’s, which offers insight into your team’s capacity, helping to balance work distribution and prevent burnout. Besides project management, Monday.com also functions as an inventory management system, making it a versatile tool for teams that need to oversee stock levels along with their projects.It helps you efficiently oversee and monitor your inventory from the moment it’s collected until it reaches the customer.
Core features of inventory management include scanning QR codes to track items, receiving instant updates about stock levels, and more.
Winner: Asana stands out with its comprehensive reporting tools that provide a complete overview of projects, progress, and team members.
In the section on automations, Asana offers pre-set rules that automate routine tasks like assigning responsibilities or updating statuses, saving you time on manual management.
Some automation examples include moving a task to a specific section when it’s no longer blocked, setting due dates as deadlines approach, or marking tasks complete and relocating them. Custom automation rules can also be created if necessary.
Using automation, Monday.com allows you to create tasks, assign due dates, and set reminders automatically. The goal is to plan tasks, delegate responsibilities, and let the software handle notifications and updates.
You can also implement rules, such as triggering status changes to initiate updates in related items. These no-code automation capabilities help reduce lengthy meetings, email threads, and repetitive work.
Both Monday.com and Asana excel in automation features, allowing you to customize actions and streamline workflows. Therefore, this round is a draw, as both platforms offer powerful automation tools that improve efficiency.
Regarding integrations, both platforms connect with numerous third-party apps to simplify project management, collaboration, administrative duties, and creative processes.
Asana integrates smoothly with major tools you’re already using, enabling you to add tasks in Slack, attach files from Google Drive, or create team discussions directly within the platform. This seamless connectivity helps maintain uninterrupted workflows without switching between applications.
Asana offers a variety of integrations, including popular tools such as Jira Cloud, Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Slack, Tableau, Google Calendar, and Gmail, among others. It also features its own API and supports integration with services like Zapier, GitHub, and Trello, making it adaptable to different workflows.
Monday:
Monday seamlessly connects with most major CRM systems, marketing platforms, software development tools, and more. It offers a wide range of pre-built integrations with services like Salesforce, Shopify, Zendesk, Copper, Twilio, Stripe, Pipedrive, WooCommerce, MailChimp, Zoom, Dropbox, and others. Users can utilize preset automation recipes to streamline tasks, such as automatically notifying a Slack channel when a task’s status updates to “Done.”
7. Comparing Asana and Monday.com Pricing Plans
Both Asana and Monday offer four tiers of subscription plans, including options for businesses and enterprise organizations. Here’s a breakdown of what each offers.
Asana:
Asana’s four pricing tiers are:
- Basic (Free forever): Unlimited projects, tasks, messages, activity logs, file storage up to 100MB per file, and support for up to 15 team members. It includes basic features like project briefs.
- Premium ($10.99/month): Adds timeline views, unlimited dashboards, reporting across unlimited projects, custom fields, unlimited guest users, automation rules, and forms.
- Business ($24.99/month): Builds on the Premium plan with project portfolios, goal tracking, workload management, custom rules, advanced form options, approval workflows, and more.
- Asana Enterprise (Quote-based): Provides advanced security, enhanced control, dedicated customer support, configurable member settings, and increased data management features.
For example, the Basic plan is ideal for teams just starting with task management and offers core features without advanced automation or analytics.
Monday:
Monday’s four subscription options include:
- Individual (Free): Unlimited boards, documents, over 200 templates, multiple column types, and support for two users.
- Basic ($8/month): Includes everything in the free plan plus unlimited viewers and items, 5GB of storage, and additional features.
- Standard ($10/month): Adds timeline and Gantt views, calendar overview, up to 250 automation actions per month, and the ability to link up to five boards.
- Pro ($16/month): Includes time tracking, chart views, up to 25,000 automation actions monthly, and options to connect up to 10 boards.
- Enterprise (Quote-based): Offers advanced reporting, detailed permissions, personalized onboarding, priority support, and the capacity to link up to 50 boards.
These plans allow you to add up to three team members, except for the free version, which permits only two teammates. The price increases as you add more seats.
There is an overall comparison between Asana and Monday below:
Both tools are well-suited for small and mid-sized businesses, offering features like customizable workflow templates, automation capabilities, and mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.
However, Monday provides a slight advantage with over 100 pre-built workflows and additional automation rules that make project management more efficient.
Get started with Monday.
On the other hand, Asana offers more detailed reporting and progress tracking features, making it easier to monitor project developments.
Get started with Asana.
Both tools provide free plans with basic features, allowing you to test their functionalities before choosing the best fit for your needs.
For further insights, you can explore these comparison articles on stepthroughtheportal.com: