Trello vs. monday: Which should you use for project management? [2025]

You can tell a lot about an app by the way its customers talk about it. 

Trello users tend to rave about how the app helped them transition from chaos to digital organization: "We were using caveman tools. It was all manually written, and none of it lived in a centralized place… Trello has cleaned up so much inefficiency."

monday.com's customers are more focused on advanced project management features: "We had to maximize monday.com's workload management capabilities, so we could quickly understand capacity across the team and easily present data to push back on low-impact or last-minute requests."

You can see this dynamic in action as you use each app. Trello focuses on approachable project management for a general audience, though it can get surprisingly powerful. monday.com aims to be a holistic work management platform, with features tailored to managing teams and running complex projects.

I've been a Trello user for years, and tested monday.com extensively for the purposes of this article. To choose between them, you'll need to decide whether your team needs a simple tool that scales surprisingly well, or a robust platform that's built for complexity from the start. In this article, I'll explain the pros and cons of Trello and monday.com to help you decide which you should use.

• Trello vs. monday at a glance

• monday has more advanced features for teams

• Trello is easier to use

• monday is more customizable

• Trello is cheaper and has a better free plan

• Both platforms integrate with 200+ apps and Zapier

• Trello vs. monday: Which is best?

Trello vs. monday at a glance

If you're looking for a quick takeaway, here's what you need to know:

• Trello is best for smaller teams and simpler projects. (It's also the best option for solo use, like personal task management.) Trello's drag-and-drop Kanban system is beyond easy, and its automations and integrations give it an impressive level of adaptability.

• monday is best for larger teams and complex projects. With real-time collaboration features, capacity planning, time tracking, and in-depth reporting, monday is a powerful work management platform that can drive your entire business.

monday.com has more advanced features for teams

monday.com markets itself as a Work OS (work operating system), and for good reason. This isn't just project management—it's an all-in-one powerhouse of an app, organizing everything your team could possibly want to organize, no matter how complex.

Take capacity planning: monday shows you exactly who's overloaded and who's available for more work, right out of the box. (No more guessing about team bandwidth or accidentally flooding your top performers with work.)

monday also has built-in time tracking. It goes beyond just logging hours: you can compare estimated versus actual time spent on tasks, helping you plan future projects more accurately and spot bottlenecks. When a task consistently takes longer than expected, you'll know it's time to investigate why.

Another collaborative feature that deserves a shout-out is WorkCanvas, a Miro-like platform that allows your team to ideate on a digital whiteboard. You can use it to plan Kanban workflows, design complex Gantt charts, and create Scrum boards. While WorkCanvas is technically a separate product, it has a built-in two-way sync with monday.com that allows you to add monday.com boards directly to your canvas. (There's a paid pricing tier, but WorkCanvas is free for up to 10 collaborators.)

Besides its Work OS project management tool, monday also offers three separate products (each at an additional cost): monday CRM, monday dev (for product and dev teams), and monday service (for IT and support teams). I'm not going to dig into those here, but it's a good indication of the breadth of the software when compared to Trello.

On the other side of things, Trello nails the collaboration basics, but don't expect the full-featured toolkit you'd find in monday.com. 

If you want to add team members to your project, assign tasks to them, and follow up, you'll have no problem doing that in Trello. Since it's simple to use, your collaborators will be able to intuitively dive in with comments, file attachments, and task updates, and the visual board layout puts task status and ownership front and center, keeping everyone accountable without extra effort. 

Still, while Trello is powerful enough for most projects, it falls short when compared to monday if you need real-time collaboration features or team management features.

Trello is easier to use

If you take a moment to browse Trello's customer feedback, you quickly realize something: everyone is focused on how easy it is to use. And after using Trello extensively, I have to agree. There's still no tool—including monday.com—that does Kanban-based projects quite as well as Trello.

Each Trello board represents a project, and within each board, you create lists to categorize stages of your project. Then, you add cards to your lists to represent individual tasks. Trello makes it easy to view all of your due dates, labels, and task descriptions at a glance and move cards around with ease. (And there's no beating the visceral thrill you get upon dragging completed tasks to the "Done" column.)

Meanwhile, monday is trickier to navigate, especially when you first dig in. You'll need to customize your columns, create specific views, and manually set up your "Done" statuses. The interface can quickly become cluttered with tasks, making filters and sections essential for keeping things organized.

Both apps have templates that reduce the learning curve and make it quick to get started. monday's templates tend to be slicker than Trello's and—helpfully—each comes equipped with detailed instructions showing how to use it.

Trello has an edge on template quantity, though. In the Project Management category of templates, for example, monday has four options while Trello offers 19. Many Trello templates are created by experts: you can use a Salesforce implementation template created by a Salesforce consultant, or a project board created by an analyst at Accenture.

monday is more customizable

While monday.com might take time to learn, the reason for its complexity makes it all worthwhile: it's incredibly customizable. The platform adapts to your workflow, not the other way around.

Views are monday's superpower. Need a timeline for visual planning? Done. Prefer number-heavy precision? No problem. monday offers everything from Kanban boards (yes, just like Trello) to Gantt charts, calendar views, and workload management displays. Each view can be customized and saved, so every team member can work in their preferred style.

monday's dashboards aggregate data and metrics across all your projects onto one clean visual interface. With over 50 widgets and apps available, you can just drag and drop the elements you need into the dashboard interface. There's also real-time tracking, meaning you'll be able to see possible deadline, budget, or resource management risks before they turn into problems.

Trello's dashboard view is comparatively simple: it gives you a barebones set of data (like Cards per list) that explains how team members interact with your board. But it does little to help you manage resources or help you understand whether your project is moving forward on schedule.

One important thing: while monday offers deep customization options, some of its more advanced views and features are gated behind higher price tiers. If you're on monday's Basic plan, for example, your dashboard options are limited, and you only get access to basic views.

Trello is cheaper and has a better free plan

Trello's free plan is capable enough that you could potentially use it indefinitely, upgrading only when you need more boards or users. You can create up to 10 boards, invite up to 10 team members to collaborate, and integrate with other apps—all without spending a dime. (You even get unlimited storage.) It's perfect for individuals and small teams who are looking for an effective way to manage projects without committing to a monthly subscription. 

If you do opt for a paid plan, Trello starts at $6/user/month for unlimited boards, advanced checklists, custom fields and 1,000 workspace command runs per month, and goes up to $12.50/user/month for additional workspace views, AI features, and unlimited command runs.

monday offers a free plan for teams of up to two users, though with only three boards, no dashboards, and not many alternative project views, you'll quickly run up against its limitations.

Paid plans start at $12/user/month for the Basic tier, which is designed for entry-level internal communication and project management. The Standard plan, at $14/user/month, adds guest access, 250 monthly automations and integrations, and timeline, Gantt, and calendar views. At $24/user/month, the Pro plan unlocks advanced features like time tracking, private boards, and formula columns, along with 25,000 monthly automations and integrations.

If you want to use monday for solo projects, or if your business only has two people, you're out of luck: monday's smallest plan is for teams of three.

Both platforms integrate with 200+ apps—and Zapier

Trello and monday each feature 200+ native integrations with apps like Slack, Mailchimp, and Microsoft Teams. While you can access these integrations on Trello's free plan, you only get access to monday's integrations if you upgrade to the mid-tier Standard plan. (monday's entry-level Basic plan doesn't include integrations.)

Because both Trello and monday integrate with Zapier, you'll be able to connect them both with thousands of other apps, too, so you can do things like automatically add tasks to your project management software from your inbox or team chat app. Learn more about how to automate Trello and how to automate monday.com, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

monday vs. Trello: Which is best?

Still not sure which project management app fits your needs? Here are some parting thoughts.

Choose monday.com if you're managing a larger team or complex projects that require detailed tracking. With built-in time tracking, capacity planning, and highly customizable dashboards, it's built for teams that need to optimize workflows at scale. Just remember: you'll need at least three users to get started.

Choose Trello if you want a versatile tool that works for both personal tasks and team projects. Its intuitive Kanban system and generous free plan make it perfect for freelancers, small teams, or anyone who values simplicity over complexity. While it might not have all of monday.com's advanced features, its powerful integrations let you add functionality as needed.

Related reading:

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

• The best free project management software

• How to make the most of your project management software

This article was originally published in March 2024 by Hsing Tseng. The most recent update was in November 2024.