Asana vs. monday: Which project management software is best? [2025]

Back in the early 2010s, as a project manager for a manufacturing company, I lived in spreadsheet hell. Nothing tests your project management skills quite like juggling factory defects, container ship timetables, and impatient customers—all while trying to track everything in endless Excel files. (I still get a twitch whenever someone mentions pivot tables.) If you'd shown me tools like Asana or monday.com back then, with their real-time tracking and automated notifications, I probably would have hugged you.

These days, both platforms offer sophisticated solutions that would have transformed my manufacturing struggles. But while both Asana and monday.com can handle complex project tracking, they take different approaches. Asana focuses on AI-powered automation and intelligent workflows, making it perfect for teams who want to reduce manual work and leverage smart features. monday, on the other hand, has evolved into what it calls a "Work OS"—a deeply customizable platform that lets teams build and organize their workspace exactly how they want it, down to the smallest detail.

I've spent extensive time testing both platforms to compare their strengths, limitations, and ideal use cases. In this article, I'll help you understand which tool might work better for your needs, whether you're managing manufacturing operations, handling product launches—or simply in charge of a project that needs a better solution than spreadsheets.

• Both apps are easier to use than you'd expect

• monday wins on flexibility and customization

• Both offer excellent collaboration features for teams

• monday's reports and dashboards are more robust

• Asana offers more advanced automations

• Asana has more powerful AI features

• Asana has a stronger free plan and offers more on its paid plans

• Both apps have strong integrations and both integrate with Zapier

Asana vs. monday at a glance

Here's a high-level rundown of the key differences between these two productivity apps:

• Asana is best for teams prioritizing smart automation. Its AI features, natural-language tools, and clear workload tracking make it perfect for growing teams that want powerful project management without the complexity.

• monday is best for teams that need total workflow control. Its flexible layouts, deep customization options, and detailed reporting tools let you create exactly the system you need, whether you're handling one project or dozens.

Both apps are easier to use than you'd expect

Project management tools are, perhaps unavoidably, naturally intimidating because of the quantity of information they need to incorporate. There are dates, assignees, priorities, statuses, asset files, comments, and so much more. So despite the commendable efforts of both Asana and monday to make project management more approachable, there's no getting around it: you'll still be faced with panic-inducing screens like this one from monday.

Fortunately, that's as scary as it gets. Don't believe me? Here's the task-level view in monday, complete with a SpongeBob SquarePants GIF.

monday makes it ever-so-slightly easier to understand tasks at a single glance because of its split-screen task view (available in the My Work view), color coding, and status summaries, with essential details on the left and project updates on the right. Asana's task view is user-friendly, too, but it takes a bit more digging to get the same level of detail.

I'm a big fan of templates for getting started quickly, so I was pleased to see that both monday and Asana have a strong selection of prebuilt options for different use cases. For example, Asana's post-sales handoff template comes pre-loaded with stages (onboarding, support, churn risk) and built-in automations that trigger as you drag clients from one category to the next.

Both apps also make it easy to see everything assigned to you. The My Work view in monday, for example, lets you organize tasks by priority, date, or status, and update task statuses without jumping between boards. (In Asana, there's an equivalent view called My tasks).

monday wins on flexibility and customization

Asana tends to nudge you to keep your projects simple, with only a handful of columns included by default in its List view, for example (though you can add more). monday, on the other hand, wants you to customize to your heart's content: it boasts an entire "Column Center" with three dozen columns, including niche options like world clock, rating, and color picker.

The folder organization in monday is particularly powerful, especially since monday's recent addition of an extra layer of folder hierarchy. (Now, you can have two levels of folders within folders, Inception-style.) This is particularly useful if you're organizing multiple projects for multiple clients.

One thing that both Asana and monday both get right is views. It's easy to use either app to jump between, say, Gantt and timeline views to see your project from different angles. Each team member can view the project however they want: your social media manager can use a calendar layout while your creative director uses a Kanban board, and nobody gets in each other's way.

But Asana is limited to a smaller (though still robust) selection of views: List, Board, Timeline, Gantt, Workload, and Calendar. monday offers 15+ views, including everything Asana offers plus Map, Chart, Pivot Boards, Sales Pipeline, and more.

Both offer excellent collaboration features for teams

Both Asana and monday turn each task into a mini-collaboration hub. Each offers basically the same experience: you can comment on the task, tag colleagues, attach files and images, and use AI to summarize the task or recommend edits. Each has unique advantages, too: monday lets you expand your collaboration space with views like File gallery and Rich descriptions, while Asana lets you record and embed video directly into the chat.

Asana takes this a step further by also allowing you to send direct messages to other collaborators. This has some advantages over relying on third-party tools like Slack: Asana's direct messaging system keeps all project chatter centralized and easily referenced; it also neatly formats internal links to tasks and projects.

monday's collaboration advantage is monday workdocs, which lets your team create and edit documents together in real-time. Unlike Google Docs, monday workdocs lets you embed live project boards right into your documents, track changes, and even set up automated workflows based on document updates. For example, your marketing team could embed a campaign timeline directly into their launch plan doc, so everyone's always working with the latest info.

You can also use either tool to manage your team's workload. Asana's Workload Forecast feature shows you who's swamped and who has bandwidth (and even makes smart suggestions about who might be able to take on extra work). monday's Workload view uses color-coded indicators to show team capacity: blue for at-capacity, light blue for available bandwidth, and red for overload. (You can also adjust how "effort" is measured, factor in time off, and view workloads across multiple projects.)

monday's reports and dashboards are more robust

monday's reporting tools are incredibly customizable: you can design your own reports using 50+ drag-and-drop reporting widgets. Since your reports update in real time, they can serve as a high-level project command center, letting you know when you're at risk of going over budget, maxing out your team's capacity, or delivering a project late.

Asana's reports are great for keeping your project on track—showing you at a glance how many tasks are overdue, for example—but not quite as well suited to creating in-depth ROI-style reports. Still, you can customize your dashboard with all sorts of widgets, and Asana is adding more all the time. (Recent additions include burndown charts and stacked bar charts.)

Asana offers more advanced automations

Asana offers three ways to create automations: you can select premade automations, draft them visually using a flowchart, or create custom rules (manually or via AI). This gives you an impressive amount of flexibility when automating your processes.

If you need to create a relatively simple rule—like moving a task when its due date approaches—there's a prebuilt automation for that.

For anything more advanced, you can create complex multi-step workflows manually. Or, you can use Asana's AI-powered Smart Rules feature, which lets you create automations using plain language—just type something like "when design is approved, create review tasks due three days later," and it sets everything up for you.

monday offers hundreds of prebuilt automations (e.g., "Every day, if [date] has passed then archive item"). For anything more complicated, you can create custom automations with monday using a delightfully simple "when this, then that" format. While it's super accessible for beginners, complex processes can be a challenge: you might find yourself creating multiple automations to accomplish what Asana can do in one go.

Both Asana and monday put their automation features behind a paywall, with similar limits at each tier (you get 250 monthly automations to start, with 25,000 or more if you upgrade). But Asana's higher tiers come with more advanced features, like approval workflows and complex date-based automations, making it the better choice if you need sophisticated process automation.

Asana has more powerful AI features

Asana has really thought through how to make AI useful in project management: their AI features feel natural and helpful, rather than tacked on as an afterthought. For instance, Asana Intelligence can create entire project frameworks from just a project name—type in "Q4 Product Launch," and it'll build out a complete task structure with all the right milestones, dependencies, and timelines.

Asana AI has a whole suite of features for different project management applications. Smart Goals helps you refine objectives using best practices, Smart Rules lets you create automations using everyday language, and Smart Summaries automatically boils down project updates into clear highlights you can actually use. For enterprise users, there's also AI Studio, which lets you create AI-powered workflows that handle routine tasks automatically (Asana is planning to eventually roll this feature out to other users, too).

The most impressive feature might be Smart Chat, an intelligent project management assistant that can quickly pull data from your Asana projects and tasks and give practical suggestions.

Worth noting: Asana Intelligence isn't free. The Starter plan includes 150 monthly AI actions, while Advanced users get 1,500. Additionally, some of the most powerful features, like AI Studio, are restricted to Enterprise customers.

While monday's AI features show promise, they're still in beta. (They're also tough to access: you have to take a complicated journey through the settings menu to enable the feature.) monday AI covers the basics, like summarizing text and generating tasks, but it doesn't match up to Asana's more comprehensive AI toolkit yet.

Asana has a stronger free plan and offers more on its paid plans

monday's entry-level Basic plan, at $12/user/month, offers basic project management but doesn't include automations or integrations. Upgrading to the Standard plan, at $14/user/month, adds key features like timeline views and automations, while monday's Pro plan ($24/user/month) gives you time tracking, formula columns, and much higher limits for automation and integrations.

Asana's offers two plans to choose from. The Starter plan, at $13.49/user/month, includes 250 automations/month, Asana AI, and basic reporting. Asana's Advanced plan, at $30.49/user/month, includes 25,000 automations/month, time tracking, approvals, and advanced team features like workload capacity.

Neither app caters to solo users: monday requires at least three users for any paid plan, while Asana requires at least two. So if you're a solopreneur or freelancer looking for ways to manage your own tasks, you'll need to stick with the free plan unless you're willing to pay for more seats than you actually need.

If you're working with zero budget, Asana wins hands down. Their free plan is surprisingly generous: unlimited projects, tasks, and storage for up to 10 users, plus three project views and common integrations. monday's free tier feels pretty limited in comparison, with just two team members, three boards, and basic columns.

Both apps have strong integrations and integrate with Zapier

Asana connects with 250+ apps, while monday connects with 200+ apps. The apps they connect with—like Slack, Zendesk, Salesforce, and Microsoft Teams—are similar. One difference is that monday's entry-level Basic plan doesn't include integrations.

While Asana integrates with slightly more tools natively than monday, both tools integrate with Zapier, which opens you up to the thousands of software connections that Zapier supports. That means you can automatically create tasks in Asana or monday based on events in other apps—or send information from Asana or monday to another app.

Learn more about how to automate Asana and how to automate monday.com, or get started with one of these prebuilt workflows.

monday vs. Asana: Which should you choose?

If you're still weighing your options, here are some final thoughts to help you decide.

Go with monday if you want flexibility. Its extensive customization options, robust reporting, and powerful organization features make it perfect for teams managing multiple complex projects. monday's rich team features—including monday workdocs for real-time collaboration—make it accessible for businesses that want complete control over how they organize and visualize their work.

Go with Asana if your priority is automation and AI capabilities (or if you're looking for a free plan). Its direct messaging system and comprehensive project visualization options make Asana perfect for growing teams that want powerful features without complexity.

Related reading:

• ClickUp vs. monday: Which PM tool is best?

• ClickUp vs. Asana: Which is better?

• The best free project management software

This article was originally published in June 2019 by Emily Esposito and has also had contributions from Hsing Tseng. The most recent update was in November 2024.