Asana vs Monday Compared: What's the Difference?

As far as competitions and comparisons go, the wide world of business SaaS is teeming with head-to-head rivalries. In this article, we take on the no hold’s barred, royal rumble that is the Asana vs Monday.com comparison.

Why should we pit two project management softwares against one another, you might ask? How is this better than just giving the reader separate reviews for each solution and letting them decide for themselves? 

A side-by-side comparison of Monday and Asana lets us pick apart their similar tools and functions, as well as showing you which set of business needs are best served by one or the other platform.

First we’ll go over a brief description of what Asana and Monday do, and project management software overall. 

Then, we’ll compare, contrast and rate their general characteristics, like pricing plans, free versions, customer support, knowledge bases, ease of use and market share. 

After that we get into the fun stuff: the project management tools themselves. These will include such popular features like templates, email tracking, time tracking, workflows, and various views: list views, timelines, Kanban boards, and Gantt charts.

Ready to learn about the difference between Monday.com vs. Asana, and ultimately, to find out which one is better? Let’s get ready to rumble.

What is the difference between Asana and Monday?

The difference between Monday and Asana is something that might not be too obvious at first glance. These two systems are examples of project management software. Both are designed to help team members coordinate on task management using a range of project management tools.

You can read our Asana review for a singular look at the app’s features from top to bottom. You can also check out our Monday review to get a thorough rundown of that app. 

What’s different between Monday.com and Asana is how both apps approach smaller tasks with larger project goals. Monday is great for team management when it comes to sharing and delegating tasks.

Asana puts more emphasis on larger company projects. However, both workflow management apps are constantly upgrading their tools. This means Monday is getting better at big picture project management, and Asana is improving its more detailed task management. 

It’s not uncommon to see Trello compared with Basecamp. Monday’s views get talked about a lot, particularly its Kanban boards and Gantt charts, although Asana offers these views as well. 

The difference between Asana and Monday in this regard could be purely aesthetic. Monday.com has neat, minimal and colorful dashboards. Asana’s user interface is a bit less visually-pleasing, and sometimes might feel overwhelming.

There are many more differences between Asana and Monday which we will cover in this article. But first, let’s go over the general comparison chart between both of these team collaboration solutions.

Asana vs Monday comparison chart

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Asana vs Monday.com pricing

Monday offers more pricing packages, so you get more flexibility. There is a Monday free plan, 3 set premium plans, and an enterprise solution option with bespoke pricing. 

Meanwhile Asana only has 2 paid plan options and a free plan too. Asana’s first-tier paid plan costs about the same as Monday’s basic plan. It’s roughly between $10 and $12 per user per month billed annually.

Which is best for you?

Monday.com has more pricing options overall, so this might make it a more desirable choice if you’re scaling and/or need a more scaffolded pricing structure. Asana 

Monday vs Asana free versions

With the free plan for Asana you get unlimited tasks, unlimited projects, unlimited messages and most importantly, unlimited file storage. With Monday you get unlimited boards and unlimited docs.

Asana’s free plan is good for 15 team members, while Monday’s is only good for 2. Sadly, neither free plans offer automation. But both free plans come with mobile apps for iOS and Android.

Which is best for you?

Monday is more flexible for paid plans, but Asana offers more features with their free plan. 

Customer support

Monday has 24/7 customer support for all its plans including the free version. The more expensive packages can get a dedicated customer success manager. 

The enterprise plan also guaranteed a SLA uptime of 99.9%. Asana also has 24/7 support but only for the enterprise premium plan.

Which is best for you?

Monday has stronger customer support for lower tiered plans, but once you get to enterprise-level this advantage disappears. 

Knowledge base & learning

Monday offers a robust self-service knowledge base which includes tutorials, guides and articles. These are very useful especially during onboarding. Monday also has a webinar hub. 

Meanwhile Asana has a product guide which can serve as a knowledge base too. There are some instructions for getting started and onboarding. Asana offers on-demand webinars. 

Which is best for you?

Monday probably has a more comprehensive knowledge base. The truth is, in this category they are close.

Asana or Monday for ease of use

Asana might seem a bit more complicated at first, while Monday may appear more straightforward. But as you delve deeper into the features and functionality, this perception may change. 

For example, Monday’s workflows are a bit easier, but Asana’s overall project management will begin to feel like second nature after a short time. 

Which is best for you?

Here’s the thing when it comes to the ease-of-use category, everyone needs a bit of time to learn the software. Asana has a bit more of an initial learning curve, while Monday has more of a bump in its learning curve later on. 

Market share

When you go over some of the various market share websites, you should know that not all use the same metrics.

Depending on the metrics used, Asana is said to have over 11,000 customers while Monday is a tad under 5,000. Other data shows Monday has a market share percentage of only 0.06% while Asana’s is 2.84%. 

Which is best for you?

It’s true that Asana consistently scores higher than Monday when it comes to market share. Neither are true juggernauts of this SaaS genre, yet both are growing and stable options so this shouldn’t be a category warranting concern. 

Monday vs Asana features & functionality

Now that we’ve compared things like pricing, premium plans, free plans, customer service and market share, it’s time to get into the tools, features and functionalities of both systems.

Project management tools

Monday gives you monthly and quarterly project overviews. These can be grouped by teams or by phases. You get columns for owner, status, due date and timeline. These project dashboards are intuitive and customizable. 

Asana is all about easy toggling between list views, boards and timelines. Big picture dashboards show you individual and team progress updates. 

Which is best for you?

In essence, the suite of project management tools forms the foundation of both Asana and Monday.com, and we’ll compare some of the specific features further on. But first, an overall assessment. As far as overall project management tools go, Monday and Asana are equally good.

Workspaces

Not to be confused with workflows, “workspaces” are virtual spaces, where individual accounts can come together to work as a team, even if the users have separate organization accounts. 

With Asana, an individual user can join multiple workspaces and organizations, while the user’s other colleagues who are not part of the same workspace will not be privy to what’s happening there. It functions similarly with Monday, where you can create, join and manage workspaces. 

Which is best for you?

Monday’s workspaces are probably slightly easier to use. You may not be too concerned about this slight advantage once you get rolling with using Asana on a daily basis. 

Templates

In Asana, templates are categorized by departments like marketing, operations, design, product, sales, IT, HR and customer success, among others. 

Monday also categorizes its templates by marketing, project management, sales and CRM, design, software development and HR, among others.

Which is best for you?

Both Asana and Monday have pretty good template galleries to choose from. In both cases, many of the templates are highly customizable.

Email tracking

Email tracking covers a range of possible functions. Chief among them is when a platform lets you know when someone opens your email. It can also show you on which device they used to open the email, and if they clicked a link inside the email. 

Which is best for you?

Monday gives you email read receipts for email tracking. It also offers dashboard email notifications, but these are only automated emails regarding your dashboard reports. Asana lets you turn emails into tickets, or you can connect it to Zapier. 

In other words, Asana does the trick for email tracking but requires more steps to implement than Monday.

Time tracking

Time tracking lets users track and monitor how much time was spent on each individual task by individual team members. 

With Asana you get the best time tracking through integrations. Those include Microsoft Teams or Jira Cloud. 

One thing about Asana, however, is their task dependencies feature, which makes sure one task won’t get started before another is finished, thereby making sure time tracking stays on point regarding due dates. 

For Monday, time tracking is part of the pro and enterprise premium plans. 

Which is best for you?

Monday works out of the box, making it the more intuitive option here. But Asana can be made to do the same thing with integrations. 

Workflows

Monday and Asana include workflow features which automate a lot of the simple or repetitive tasks when moving a project along. 

Monday’s workflows are easy to customize without needing any code. It follows a “when this happens, do that” logic. You get workflows based on agile systems, waterfalls, and sprints, among others. 

Asana has a broader series of workflow solutions, including for project management, goal management and agile management. 

Which is best for you?

It’s pretty intuitive to figure out Asana’s workflows in order to streamline your business activities. Also, if you’re looking for breadth, Asana is the more able tool. Monday’s customizability might charm some users, however. 

Views

Perhaps the selection of views is one of the most important aspects of task and project management, especially for small teams and small businesses (as larger organizations likely have dedicated departments and specialists for these purposes). 

Which is best for you?

Asana starts with great Gantt charts that are easy to build with custom fields. You also get awesome Kanban boards, calendar views and other timeline views. Monday has similar views, like calendar, timelines and list views. Both platforms do well here, but Asana is probably a bit more able.

Collaboration

Asana is truly designed to make collaboration a snap. It has a team assignees features. This lets users like managers assign tasks to specific employees. 

It also provides good permissions and privacy controls access. This is doubly useful if you need to loop in outsiders like freelancers into a project.

Monday also lets managers assign orders and tasks with deadlines. They include customizable permissions to control access for users and 3rd parties like freelancers.

Which is best for you?

Both platforms are great for collaboration. Asana is really designed around this feature, and is more intuitive. 

Portfolios

Portfolios are ways that managers can keep up to date with ongoing projects in real time. This way any roadblocks or other obstacles can be solved without delay. 

Which is best for you?

Asana is pretty useful for portfolio management. Monday’s portfolio management is more full-featured, however, incorporating everything from strategy, prioritization and real time ROI data all in one. Monday’s portfolio tools can provide the core center for executing your business plan.

Document management

Collaboration only works so far as everyone is on the same page and that goes for documents and attachments too. 

Which is best for you?

Monday lets teams co-edit docs in real-time. You can embed dashboards and other media into your docs, or create new tasks from docs. Monday also lets you tag individual team members in a doc. 

With Asana it’s a bit lighter. You have the ability to upload attachments from Google Drive or Dropbox to projects, individual tasks or conversations. 

Monday.com vs Asana integrations

This is always a tricky category, as integrations speak equally to the tools and features of 3rd party apps than just the ones we review here. 

Monday has a robust app marketplace which lets you integrate it with tools like CRMs. Some top built-in integrations here include Outlook, Slack, Dropbox, Zoom and Mailchimp. 

Asana has many of the same integrations too, along with others like Salesforce, Github, Adobe Creative Cloud, Google Drive, Gmail and Zendesk. 

Which is best for you?

With APIs, both platforms can connect to other apps that do not have built-in integrations. Or, you can sometimes use Zapier. In short, there isn’t a ton of difference between the apps here qualitatively speaking.

Mobile versions

Monday has both iOS and Android apps. Likewise you can download mobile apps for Asana from the Google Play store and the Apple Apps store. 

Monday’s mobile app is great for team collaboration, project management and for boosting productivity. Asana’s mobile app excels at keeping things organized, especially with lists, calendars and Kanban boards. 

Which is best for you?

The interfaces for both mobile apps look pretty good, and get the job done. That said, Asana has perhaps succeeded a bit more in putting the most relevant tools and data front and center, making it slightly more user friendly.

Product limitations

Monday has some limitations when it comes to its features unless you are willing to get the more expensive versions. These include integrations and automations, which is no small deal. But where Monday really has limitations is in its data analytics department. 

When it comes to Asana, the limitations are more centered around administrative controls, including admin announcements. Likewise, some of the business intelligence tools of Asana are limited to the paid plans.

Which is best for you?

In part, this comes down to the tier of pricing plan you go for (the higher you go, the less limitations you’ll encounter). However, as noted above, Monday’s analytics are limited, whereas Asana is limited in the admin department. 

Which project management software is better, Monday or Asana? 

That comes to the end of this review of Monday.com vs. Asana. As we see, both workflow management tools have their pros and cons. That’s probably not a shocker. 

But yes, we’d like to emphasize the crux of the difference for Asana vs. Monday. 

Monday may edge out Asana when it comes to organizing and managing small teams doing task-sprints for short-term projects. Meanwhile, Asana might better suit your needs if you are all about setting more long-term goals and coordinating with larger teams. 

However, you might find quite the opposite, as everyone’s experience differs according to their needs and means. 

If you check our comparison of project management software, you’ll find both apps rank high in the field among the competition. It’s never a bad idea to shop around and gain context on the project management app choices out there.

There are also direct Monday alternatives to consider. And there are Asana alternatives that might suit as well. You might be interested in checking these out for breadth. 

Some of these alternatives are more communication-focused like Slack, others more Kanban-centered like Trello. Microsoft Teams and Basecamp do a lot of the work that both Monday and Asana do as well.

But the truth is, when it comes to free and/or basic plans with neat user interfaces and solid team collaboration powers, most people will not need to look much further than the Asana or Monday divide. 

And, since both solutions have free plans, and sometimes free trials for their paid plans, we highly recommend that you begin your project management journey with either Monday.com or Asana. 

So, to wrap this thing up once and for all, remember, tasks don’t complete themselves, projects don’t manage themselves, and goals don’t meet themselves. 

Ultimately, it’s up to you and your team to complete tasks, manage projects, and meet goals. However, a great project management solution like Asana or Monday will definitely help you achieve all of these things in a more streamlined and more organized way.