Trello prides itself on providing its customers, for several years now, with the utmost user-friendly program. Their goal is to continue providing their users with a product that is at the highest level of integrity and quality. Oh, but wait! There’s a flip side – not everyone is as happy with the Trello simple approach.

To be frank, Trello frustrates some people because even with their power-ups, it doesn’t have all of the bare necessities as most Trello alternatives do.

Trello does NOT have the following features:

• Sub-tasks, Task Dependencies, and Multi-Board Reporting
• Export to Excel, Workload Reports, and Cost Tracking
• Expense Tracking, Time Tracking, and Import Microsoft Project Files

The Top 3 Project Management Software Alternatives to Trello

1. monday.com

monday.com is a powerful project management software that helps teams plan and execute projects that deliver results on time, whether they are in the office, home, or on-the-go. Its ease of use and flexibility means fast onboarding for your team and the ability to customize workflows your way.

With powerful productivity features such as time tracking, automated notifications, dependencies, timeline views and integrations, your team can achieve better and faster results for every project milestone.

Learn more about monday.com with this YouTube tutorial

2. Asana

Asana helps teams orchestrate their work, from daily tasks to strategic initiatives. With Asana, teams are more confident, move faster, and accomplish more with less, no matter where they are located.

More than 75,000 paying organizations and millions of organizations across 190 countries rely on Asana to manage everything from company objectives to digital transformation to product launches and marketing campaigns.

Get started in minutes to try Asana.

Learn more about Asana with this YouTube tutorial

3. Wrike

Wrike is an online work management solution that enables project tracking, team collaboration, and real-time reporting. Features interactive Gantt charts, Kanban boards, personalized dashboards, and request forms. These help organizations to automate processes and become more efficient and productive. Use customized workflows and shared folders to achieve full visibility of workloads and progress. Wrike offers a number of specialized solutions such as Wrike for Marketers and Wrike for Professional Services, along with tailor-made tools and templates for specific teams. Also features 400+ app integration from the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce. Used by 20,000+ companies across 140 countries. Both free and premium plans available (with per user per month pricing.)

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Top 8 Disadvantages of using Trello Software

The competition among companies across all industries is continuously growing and intensifying by the day. Every organization, therefore, strives to keep itself updated and in the loop on the many demands of their business and clientele, even if it means changing their strategies and processes, as well as their organizational structure.

There have also been the rising threats to security, as well as businesses shifting towards being more project-centric. These moves call for using the right project management software, in order to be on par with the competition.

Trello, without a doubt, is one of the leading online project management software today, claiming around 1.1 million users. However, even with this number, it still is not the panacea for all project management problems and here are some of its disadvantages.

1. Its views are limited. In order for project managers to have a holistic idea and overview of a project, they need to have different perspectives. Though Trello lets its users see the status view and priority view of the project, it cannot show these views simultaneously which limits the users from seeing a holistic picture of the project’s status. Though it offers the Kanban board view, this is just one of the views being offered by most other project management software.
2. There are better Agile tools than this. Many users believe that Trello supports Agile projects or those projects that are completed in small sections called iterations. Truth be told, Trello is most suitable only for general project management because it functions simply as a visual task management tool. The good thing is that it can be upgraded to make it an Agile tool through Power-Ups; however, it doesn’t have the support to enable it to review iterations. Agile teams can get better support and become more productive when they use real Agile project management tools like Wrike.
3. It isn’t the tool for everyone. Anyone who has used Trello will say that it is like an empty whiteboard with post-its containing tasks and who’s working on them that can be moved across the board. While it works for smaller projects, it might not be as useful for visualizing a project that deals with numerous tasks.
4. Trello doesn’t show task dependencies. Task dependencies pertain to the relationship between a succeeding task and a preceding task which is necessary for a project to follow a critical path. However, this can only be done through a solution that has a Gantt chart view which Trello doesn’t have. Therefore, tracking specific tasks and project scheduling is more challenging compared to using software that has the Gantt chart view. Tools like com have this helpful feature.
5. Communication needs improvement. Effective communication is the key to every successful project and should be a strong feature of every project management software. However, this is not very strong with Trello. Compared to other software that has built-in messaging systems, Trello only lets its users post comments on the back of cards for collaboration.
6. It has limited integration. For successful project delivery, it is oftentimes necessary for project managers to coordinate with other project management systems and deal with different file formats. This makes it necessary for software to have its own import tool but, unfortunately, Trello doesn’t have one. It is then impossible for managers to download files from even the most common project management software which is the Microsoft Project. In fact, users have to resort to third-party applications, use the API, or even copy and paste files.
7. It is suitable only for general project management. For small organizations that do general project management, work with fewer tasks, have smaller working teams, and follow a simple schedule, Trello is the way to go. However, as projects become more complex and teams grow bigger and start using a mixture of boards, it would be better to use a more intricate project management software.
8. It is not a fully-featured project management software. In order for Trello to be a fully-featured project management software, it should enable its users to do more than just collaboration and task management. It should also allow its users to track their time and expenses and help them make sure that they are working within their budget and time frame. Most of all, managers should have the resources to create accurate and regular status reports.

One of the most effective draw ins of Trello is its free version which actually provides just the right solutions for smaller projects and teams. However, as the project develops and requires more complex solutions, the only way to go is to upgrade to its paid version. In terms of its pricing, it is possible to find other project management software that allows the users to do more for almost the same price.

Final Thoughts

A project management solution can be really complex, but it doesn’t have to be that way. While I think the above 3 options are the closest potential alternatives to Trello, there are several other products that, depending on your needs, may also deserve to make your PM software shortlist.

Know any other good Trello alternatives or competitors? Leave a review for software that we missed and share in the comments below!