You can’t understand Trello or properly evaluate Trello alternatives without understanding the kanban board. The kanban board is easily one of the most popular task management tools available for project managers. If you’ve used one, it’s easy to see why it’s an important part of project management software.

Let’s take a look at what a kanban is, how Trello works and how it doesn’t. Then we’ll offer you a list of our favorite Trello alternatives, all of which have kanban boards and other enticing features. If you’re unhappy with Trello or looking for a Trello alternative, you’ll find one below.

How Trello Works

Trello is heavily associated with kanban boards. Kanban boards are visual tools that keep teams flexible, productive and focused on continuous project delivery. It’s a more efficient way to manage workflow and team collaboration. Understandably, so many Trello alternatives incorporate kanban boards given their diversity and simplicity.

That explains Trello’s popularity as it is task management software that uses kanban’s visual overview to manage projects. Trello implements the kanban board as a means for teams to manage simple tasks.

Trello has a user-friendly interface with key features including kanban boards, lists and cards to help teams organize and prioritize their work. It’s an easy method applicable to projects and even as a personal productivity tool. Trello kanban boards are intuitive and fun; project managers love them for the transparency they provide, and team members enjoy how they facilitate collaboration.

Why Seek a Trello Alternative?

Of course, there are limitations to Trello (which is why you’re seeking a Trello alternative). It’s solely focused on kanban boards which makes it more of an add-on than a real project management software.

To overcome this, Trello relies heavily on third-party integrations known as power-ups, which allow you to use other project management tools such as Gantt charts and workflow automation. However, these power-ups aren’t free and have limited features. If you’re already using Trello, you’ve probably hit some of those walls.

If you’re looking for a way around these shortcomings, we have some Trello alternatives that do everything Trello does and then some. Get on board!

2023 Best Trello Alternative Software Rankings

1. ProjectManager

ProjectManager is a work and project management software that helps project managers plan, monitor and report on every project phase. This Trello alternative offers multiple work views including powerful kanban boards plus project management and collaboration features. It’s designed to be flexible enough to work in waterfall, agile or hybrid environments. In fact, ProjectManager beats Trello at its own game, with superior kanban boards.

Compared with other project management solutions, this software is designed for novices and seasoned project managers alike. Any user who signs up will be able to tap into the full potential of the tool regardless of skill level or location. Tap into a range of project views to work in the way that suits your role the best.

Manage Projects with Kanban Boards

ProjectManager’s kanban boards allow teams to visualize workflows, reduce bottlenecks, clearly see assignments and manage backlogs. Project managers can assign tasks from the kanban view, gain real-time visibility and reallocate resources to avoid delays. Like Trello, users can manage projects with online kanban boards and view workflows across production cycles. Unlike Trello, ProjectManager offers workflow automation and task approvals to streamline processes and ensure project quality.

Track Projects with Real-Time Dashboards and Reports

ProjectManager has reporting features tied to the kanban board, making project status reports only a few clicks away. It’s easy to determine what projects are on schedule and what projects may require additional resources. Utilize the dashboard and reporting features to share key data insights with project stakeholders or make informed project decisions along the way. Trello sorely lacks these useful reporting capabilities. Even other Trello alternatives with dashboards often require user setup while ProjectManager requires no configuration.

Given these robust project planning and reporting features, including a more powerful kanban tool, it’s clear why ProjectManager is the best Trello alternative for Mac and PC users. If you’re ready to upgrade your project management software experience, then get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Pricing

• Team: $13.00 user/month
• Business: $24.00 user/month

Q&A

• Does ProjectManager offer a free trial? Yes, ProjectManager has a 30-day free trial
• Does ProjectManager have a mobile project management app? Yes, it’s available for Android and iOS

2. Airtable

Airtable is a suitable Trello alternative if you’re looking for a free kanban tool. This user-friendly software stores data and displays it in a kanban board, calendar view, or Gantt chart. Like Trello, it visualizes workflows with columns and kanban cards. It can filter and sort task cards by status and priority.

The main use case of this software is a hybrid between a spreadsheet and database for teams to manage their work. Another similarity is that Airtable offers add-ons that you can use to create your own kanban app, and as mentioned above, Airtable is a free Trello alternative if you choose the free version.

Available on mobile or desktop, Airtable provides a collaborative platform for teams in large organizations or smaller businesses. It acts like a spreadsheet that can attach files, but there is also a calendar view and reporting functionalities that are not as dynamic as other similar workflow automation tools.

While it has some project management tools, it’s not project management software. Therefore its kanban boards and Gantt charts are limited in what they can do for project planning and task management. Also, it’s proprietary software, so file sharing can be problematic.

Pricing

• Plus: $10 user/month
• Pro: $20 user/month

Q&A

• Does Airtable offer a free trial? Yes, Airtable has a 14-day free trial
• Does Airtable have a mobile project management app? Yes, it’s available for Android and iOS

3. Taskworld

Another Trello alternative is Taskworld, which is a cloud-based collaborative platform for teams. It helps with project and task management including communications and measuring progress on projects and tasks.

Taskworld features a user-friendly kanban tool, like Trello, with drag-and-drop capabilities. But unlike Trello, it includes task lists, project templates, file management, a people page and team collaboration features like task comments, file sharing, file storage and direct messaging.

Taskworld is not just a kanban board software like Trello. It offers more time tracking, task management and project planning features which make it a reasonable alternative to Trello.

Unfortunately, project management features are limited. Taskworld can only make and organize lists and assign tasks, both of which are important actions, but project managers desire more functionality. It offers more powerful organization features than Trello, but it has some problems. For example, it doesn’t integrate with Google Docs.

While the software tracks time spent on tasks, it doesn’t have real-time tracking or time estimation, which would provide valuable analysis of team performance. Its kanban view and project timeline features work best with small teams, but if you’re looking to scale, you may become frustrated and look elsewhere.

Pricing

• Premium: $8 user/month
• Business: $15 user/month
• Enterprise: $22 user/month

Q&A

• Does Taskworld offer a free trial? Yes, Taskworld has a 14-day free trial
• Does Taskworld have a mobile project management app? Yes, it’s available for Android and iOS

4. QuickBase

QuickBase is a cloud-based project management software that facilitates communications and team collaboration to improve productivity. QuickBase specializes in software development and it’s suited for agile teams. It offers Google Docs, DropBox, Box and other third-party integrations. Like our other Trello alternatives, QuickBase too has a kanban view feature.

It’s a flexible and scalable collaboration software that allows for complex workflows. There are timelines for projects and templates to help teams get started. While there is a bit of a learning curve before users become comfortable with the software, once acclimated, it’s pretty easy to use.

Reporting can be a problem as reports are not easily formatted. This means using different software to send customized reports to clients or teams. That’s just one downside to this Trello alternative. Surprisingly, QuickBase doesn’t have a standard calendar view. QuickBase offers a task dependencies diagram but not a Gantt chart.

Pricing

• Team: $600 per month, priced annually
• Business: $2000 per month, priced annually

Q&A

• Does QuickBase offer a free trial? Yes, QuickBase has a 30-day free trial
• Does QuickBase have a mobile project management app? Yes, it’s available for Android and iOS

5. Kanbanize

Kanbanize is another Trello alternative. It’s an online portfolio kanban board software that is especially useful for teams that work within an agile project management framework. Like other software with kanban features, it helps to visualize work, track projects and helps make workflow more efficient and transparent.

Kanban boards can be customized and users can structure their work and plan and break down projects into more manageable tasks. Task dependencies can be seen, too, and multiple workflows can be created for cross-functional teams.

While Kanbanize can’t be faulted as a kanban tool, and it does that one thing well, it’s not the best project management software. Mainly because it doesn’t have a suite of features that are essential for project management. On top of that, its kanban tool is not easy to see all tasks assigned to individual team members, making it challenging to prioritize workload.

It might be unfair to ask a kanban app to offer other project management features, such as resource management, dashboard and other project views. But it can be frustrating to use several different apps to control your projects.

Pricing

• Team: $149 15 users/month
• Pricing goes up depending on the feature set you choose.

Q&A

• Does Kanbanize offer a free trial? Yes, Kanbanize has a 30-day free trial
• Does Kanbanize have a mobile project management app? Yes, it’s available for Android and iOS

6. Wrike

Wrike is a Trello alternative that has kanban boards but goes further to offer other useful project management features. Some tools include dashboards, Gantt charts and resource management. It’s an especially good option if you’re working on managing several projects because of its cross-project visibility.

It’s customizable which is both a plus and a minus as Wrike can be difficult to use. It also tends to be more of a Trello alternative for teams that work in the creative field. Newcomers may be frustrated by the various customer plans and have trouble figuring out which one is best for their needs. Whatever plan you choose, you’ll be likely paying more than other Trello alternatives on this list.

While there are mobile apps for both Android and iOS platforms, they’re not user-friendly. Even the regular tool requires a lot of time and effort to understand what it can and cannot do, something that may be frustrating for beginners.

Pricing

• Professional plan: $9.80 user/month
• Business plan: $24.80 user/month

Q&A

• Does Wrike offer a free trial? Yes, Wrike has a 14-day free trial
• Does Wrike have a mobile project management app? Yes, it’s available for Android and iOS

7. Asana

Asana is a collaborative tool that helps teams manage tasks. It’s flexible software that looks good and even has a free version that’s more robust than many. It adds features often and even has a desktop version so you can get off the web.

These collaboration tools aren’t very simple, however. They aren’t as intuitive as other options and they require that the team put in time and energy to know how to use them. Asana allows for integrations with other apps such as Slack, Microsoft Teams and others.

That said, if your business does a lot of graphic work this isn’t the Trello alternative for you. You can sort of hack the board view as it allows you to set cover images for tasks, but there are no markup tools or other proofing features to foster collaboration.

Another issue that might have you consider another of the Trello alternatives on this ranking is Asana’s price. It’s higher than the others and while the free version has many features, it’s still missing a timeline, dashboard and more features you’ll miss.

Pricing

• Premium plan: $10.99 user/month
• Business plan: $24.99 user/month

Q&A

• Does Asana offer a free trial? Yes, Asana has a 30-day free trial
• Does Asana have a mobile project management app? Yes, it’s available for Android and iOS

8. ClickUp

ClickUp is a Trello alternative that works to boost productivity by facilitating collaboration and centralizing your business. It’s fully customizable, from web branding to project funnels within workspaces.

Teams can plan projects together with real-time collaboration and editable documents. There are also analytics and reporting tools for managers to track their team’s productivity. ClickUp is fairly easy to use and affordable for most team sizes.

What might have you running to another Trello alternative is that the features and customization add a layer of complexity that makes it difficult to use and onboard your team. The onboarding is also self-managed, something that enterprise customers aren’t going to like.

Pricing

• Unlimited: $5 user/month
• Business: $9 user/month
• Business pro: $19 user/month

Q&A

• Does ClickUp offer a free trial? No, ClickUp doesn’t have a free trial
• Does ClickUp have a mobile project planning app? Yes, it’s available for Android and iOS

9. Monday

Oddly, this Trello alternative chose to name itself after the often-dreaded start of the workweek, but Monday wants to inject fun into going to the workplace. They come close to rebranding the day with a fun interface that is colorful and easy to use.

It offers multiple project views to help cross-functional teams collaborate. The backbone of any project, the Gantt chart, is absent in Trello. Of course, there is the kanban, like all our Trello alternatives, for managing workflows.

One of the main reasons project managers love Gantt charts is that most allow for linking task dependencies, which helps avoid bottlenecks. Monday has limited dependencies which might close the door on this Trello alternative for many potential users. The software is customizable but this can make navigation more complicated. Naturally, you’re going to have to pay more to get all the features you need to manage a product successfully.

Pricing

• Basic: $8 user/month
• Standard: $10 user/month
• Pro: $16 user/month

Q&A

• Does Monday offer a free trial? Yes, Monday has a 14-day free trial
• Does Monday have a mobile project management app? Yes, it’s available for Android and iOS

10. ProofHub

If you want to manage a project with more than kanban boards, ProofHub is a decent Trello alternative, which gives you almost everything you’ll need. It has kanban boards and a Gantt chart to see your project on a visual timeline.

There is also a chat function to help teams collaborate. You can make custom workflows and set automatic reminders to keep teams on task, though managing your notifications is difficult and the alerts can be distracting. ProofHub is simple, straightforward and integrates with other apps that you likely use often.

Considering that a Gantt chart is one of the main reasons people look for a Trello alternative, it’s frustrating how difficult it is to set up and use it at the beginning of a project. Since Gantt charts are the backbone of most projects, it’s a big hole in the middle of this otherwise reliable tool.

Pricing

• ProofHub has a flat pricing fee of $89 per month or $45 with limited features

Q&A

• Does it offer a free trial? Yes, ProofHub has a 14-day free trial
• Does it offer a mobile app? Yes, ProofHub has a mobile app

If you’re looking for a Trello alternative that gives you more dynamic kanban boards and adds resource management, Gantt charts and a real-time dashboard, then look no further than ProjectManager. Our cloud-based software is the only project management software you’ll need. It has the controls and transparency project managers want and the collaborative platform that keeps teams productive. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.