What Is Asana?

Asana is a collaboration and project management software aimed at helping teams get more work done.

The product first created at Facebook as a collaboration tool to help people work on projects more efficiently. Codenamed ‘Tasks’, the tool was created by Dustin Moskovitz, who was a co-founder at Facebook, and Justin Rosenstein, an ex-engineer at Facebook.

‘Tasks’ was created because Moskovitz and Rosenstein both realized that it took more time to plan and coordinate work than actually getting work done. The duo left Facebook to co-found Asana in 2008 when they found out that this was a common problem that affected everyone else and not just Facebook employees.

Mark Zuckerberg was an early investor in Asana, and the company had steadily increased its popularity over time. In 2018, Asana raised $125 million in a Series D and Series E funding round to help the company expand globally.

The goal at Asana is to reduce reliance on traditional emails and sync-ups. Instead, the company wants to provide a common space where users can manage projects and find all the information they need to get work done.

Essentially, as a product, Asana wants to reduce the need for emails and meetings so that users can spend more time getting actual work done.

Features of Asana

Being a project management software, Asana is equipped with a multitude of features to help you get more work done.

On Asana, you can create projects and break them down into detailed tasks to help your team visualize the roadmap. Each project workspace comes with a list view to detail the steps needed for the project, conversations to support team communications, a calendar to view the team’s tasks, a project progress view for status updates, and also files to share documents within the team.

Within each task, you can assign it to individual members and set deadlines. Add more information into the task description to hopefully prevent the need to have more meetings to align the deliverables.

If the task is dependent on another task being done first, you can set task dependencies on Asana so that your project flows seamlessly. If you want to save some time, Asana also has Gantt templates available so that you can track your tasks and all of their dependencies easily.

Additionally, Asana has an approval feature for tasks so that you can approve, request changes, or reject tasks.

Communication in Asana is done mostly within its conversations feature. You can send messages to team conversations to update users working on the same project. Team members can choose to follow conversation threads to stay updated, and also create tasks to move things forward from the chat.

Asana collaborated with Vimeo to launch a video messaging feature. With this feature, you can record video messages and embed them in your workspace to send messages to your team members. Video messages in Asana are also automatically transcribed to help you be more productive.

Asana also supports integration with many apps including cloud storage solutions such as Dropbox and Google Drive. This enables you to share files and documents from your preferred storage app.

What Is Asana Good For?

Asana is good for users and teams who are looking for a project management tool to plan and execute their projects and tasks. On Asana, you can create, track, and manage projects in their entirety to help streamline your processes.

If you're looking for solutions to managing tasks and projects with your team, Asana gets the job done pretty well. Asana also supports a large number of app integrations, which can help you improve your workflow.

However, some limitations come with Asana that you should consider before deciding on using it.

What Are Some Limitations of Asana?

Asana has a lot of features, and common complaints include newcomers finding the software hard to use. If you’re new to Asana, chances are that you will need to invest some time in learning how to use the software to your advantage. Without a proper introduction, you will probably feel overwhelmed when using Asana.

It’s good to load a project management tool with features to help users be more productive. But having too many features available might potentially affect your productivity than boost it if you're spending too much time choosing which features to use on each project.

Unlike Taskade, Asana doesn't allow you to export your project to use as part of a presentation. In Taskade, you will be able to export your project as image, text, and markdown. A key benefit of this feature is that exporting as an image allows you to export your project regardless of which project view you choose.

Asana allows you to assign tasks only to one person. Problems will arise when people leave your projects for various reasons as you will now have to reassign tasks to keep the project moving. With Taskade, you can assign tasks to multiple members including yourself to provide more clarity on who’s working on each task.

Although Asana was built to help with collaboration, communicating in Asana can be quite tedious. To chat with your team members, you will need to toggle to the conversations tab. If a specific project requires more alignment, you will find yourself toggling between features to get tasks done.

In contrast, Taskade has a built-in free unlimited chat and video call functionality in every project so that you can chat and get work done simultaneously in one unified workspace. This makes Taskade a better Asana alternative when it comes to real-time collaboration and communication.

There are a lot of competitors to Asana in the current market, but choosing which application to use ultimately depends on what your specific use case is.

Asana Pricing

Asana comes in 4 different pricing tiers which include Asana Basic, Premium, Business, and Enterprise.

Asana Basic Plan

Asana’s Basic Plan is free for anyone new to Asana and project management software. The free version includes unlimited projects and tasks with an upload limit of 100MB per file. With the free version, you will be able to collaborate with 14 other members on projects with access to multiple project views.

The Basic Plan also comes with unlimited messages and a wide range of integrations with other software and apps.

Asana Premium Plan

Asana’s Premium Plan adds a project timeline feature into your project management alongside other features. You will gain access to an admin console which gives allows you to manage members across your team or organization.

The Premium Plan is best used for teams of more than 15 people that require project management software to map out entire projects. Processes can also be cleaned up by using forms to request assets.

Although Asana’s Premium Plan has a lot of features and can be used for detailed workflows, it starts at a rather steep price of $10.99 per month for each user.

Asana Business Plan

Asana’s Business Plan brings you one step further by giving you access to even more features. You will gain access to Goals, which can be used to align everyone in your business to a common goal. The Goals feature shows everyone in your business how each project contributes to the company’s goals, which can have a positive impact on motivation.

The Business Plan also gives you access to Portfolios, which gives you a high-level overview of all your projects. With Portfolios, you can check the status of your projects, to see if any of them are at risk of getting off track.

Another neat feature that you’ll gain access to is the ability to assess your team’s workload for individual members. With this feature, you can distribute work more equally amongst employees.

Pricing for Asana’s Business plan starts at $24.99 per month for each user.

Asana Enterprise Plan

Asana also has an Enterprise Plan which unlocks all of its features to help boost productivity. The Enterprise Plan is best suited for large organizations that are looking to use Asana as a holistic solution to business needs.

The Enterprise Plan also provides advanced security features, admin controls, and priority support.

Pricing for this plan varies per organization.

What Is Taskade?

Taskade is a flexible productivity and collaboration tool that was founded by John Xie, Dionis Loire, and Stan Chang in 2017. The Y Combinator-backed startup aims to help remote teams and individuals get work done faster and smarter.

Taskade is where remote teams get work done. With Taskade, you can organize entire projects and break them down into tasks, change between multiple project views, automate repetitive workflows, collaborate via built-in video chat with your team, and more, via an all-in-one unified workspace. 

Get a headstart on your projects and find a suitable structure for your notes via Taskade’s versatile collection of templates. Simply choose from a wide variety of templates and add them to your projects to get started instantly!

Taskade is a supercharged productivity app that both individuals and teams can use to collaborate on projects in real-time.

Even though there are many Asana alternatives out there, Taskade is the best free Asana alternative because Taskade was designed with a remote-first approach, allowing teams to collaborate and get work done together virtually. 

Get started instantly for free today.

Key Features of Taskade

• Project Views. Visualize your projects in several different ways. Cycle between the List, Mind Map, Org Chart, and Board views to work the way you want. 

  • List View. This is the default view on Taskade. Create new lists here.
  • Board View. This view lets you work horizontally like a Kanban board. Visualize your workflow and tasks with this Kanban project dashboard.
  • Mind Map View. This view lets you work in a horizontal tree-structured manner and map out what you have in mind.
  • Action View. Work in table view and stay organized with your task due dates, and more.
  • Org Chart View. Break down larger tasks into smaller ones to help you get things done.

• Real-time Communication. Chat and video conference with your team while collaborating in real-time on the same page. 
• 500+ Templates. Choose from 500+ templates across 26 categories to improve your productivity and workflows. Customize existing templates or create new project templates across your workspaces.Zoom In, Zoom Out. Get a bird’s-eye view of the workflow by zooming out on all project views, or zoom in to focus on a specific area.
• Fold/Unfold. Fold (collapse) a parent task/bullet element to hide its subtasks. Indent outline elements with ⌨️ Tab and unfold lists with ⌨️ Shift+Tab.
• Multi-Select. Select and format multiple blocks or bulk assign them as tasks to other team members. You can also copy, paste, or indent selected blocks.

• Customize Sub-Tasks. Customize the format of your sub-tasks at individual levels. Choose from headings, numbered lists, shapes, and more.
• Recurring Tasks. Add due dates with start and end times to tasks within your project and set them to repeat daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly.
• Move Tasks. Move and copy selected tasks to other projects across any workspace. You’ll receive a pop-up notification on completion.
• User Roles & Permissions. Manage collaborators and assign user roles/editing privileges (Owner, Admin, Editor, Checker, Viewer).

• Sort Tasks. Sort sub-tasks/children elements by completed/uncompleted stats or the due date. Task sorting can be accessed from a convenient pop-up menu.
• Search. Search within projects or globally across workspaces and subspaces. Instantly browse and jump between projects anywhere in the Taskade.
• Keyboard Shortcuts. Navigate projects, create content blocks, reorder elements, and complete tasks using a set of handy keyboard shortcuts.

• Team Calendar. Aggregate all tasks and projects in a shared calendar. The Taskade calendar integrates with Google (two-way), Apple, and Outlook. 
• Reorder Tasks. Lists in Taskade aren’t set in stone. Reorder tasks and find them a new home with intuitive drag-and-drop mechanics.
• Project History. See all the changes made by you and other collaborators. Click on the entries to navigate to the edited items within the project.
• Version History. Taskade saves snapshots of your project so that you can restore a previous version of your project with a single click.

• Export and Print. You can export your projects as plain text or markdown files. Attach them to emails, presentations, or for print.

• Cloud File Upload. Share files directly from Google Drive, Dropbox, Instagram, and Box in your projects with our integrations.
• Breakdown Larger Tasks. Organize your thoughts with Taskade’s unlimited hierarchy to break down large projects into tasks.
• Quick Search. Use CMD / CTRL + K to jump between any projects within Taskade web and apps.

For an exhaustive list of Taskade’s features, click here.

Taskade Pros

• Free-forever plan is loaded with features
• Real-time collaboration with unlimited users within the same project 
• Free built-in video call and chat function in each project
• Customizable templates to give you a headstart
• Work and chat in the same window, in the same app
• Frequent updates based on user/your feedback and suggestions
• Tabbed workflow for working with multiple Projects

Taskade Cons

• No gantt view (yet)

Taskade Pricing

Taskade Free Plan Pricing

• Unlimited Projects & Tasks
• Unlimited Members & Guests
• Unlimited Folders & Teams
• Templates, Calendar, Repeat Tasks
• Real-time Collaboration
• Built-in Free Chat and Video Call

Taskade Unlimited Plan Pricing - Starts from $5/month

• Everything in Free, plus:
• Version History
• Advanced Permission
• Cloud Upload Integration
• 2-Way Calendar Integration

Click here for more information.

Is Taskade Right for You?

Taskade can be used by individuals and teams working from anywhere. Users can use Taskade individually or collaborate with your team for weekly agendas, team meetings, note-taking, project management, product roadmaps, and more. 

If you're looking for a collaboration tool that can help you create unlimited projects while maintaining a clear channel of communication with your team, then Taskade is your best bet.

Make use of customizable board views to visualize your projects into digestible smaller tasks. Multiple board views are available even on Taskade’s free plan, allowing you to get more work done the smarter way. 

Communication between users is key when it comes to projects. This is why Taskade allows you to collaborate with your team in real-time with free and unlimited chat and video conferencing available on every project. Automatic syncing ensures that your data is always up to date across devices.

Our customizable templates are available even with our free plan. Find the perfect template to help you get started with your project, and customize it to fit your needs!

Taskade is the simplest solution for managing task lists, checklists, and workflows. Manage projects and get more work done the simple way with Taskade.

Taskade is the best free Asana alternative. Try Taskade for free today.