Asana Review 2023: Is Asana Project Management Software Good?

You'll rarely see a "best apps list" that doesn't feature Asana. You'll find the app mentioned as one of the top apps for remote work collaboration and project management. 

But what is it, and what are its pros and cons? 

Do teams use it just because it's hip, or does this software come packed with high-quality features that make work faster?

That's a mystery we'll try to solve in this Asana review. 

Asana review 2023: Is Asana project management software any good?

Absolutely! There are a few reasons why we think Asana is a great project management software, and you'll find out why in this Asana review below. 

To begin with, Asana is a powerful collaboration tool that helps teams of all sizes track their work, from tasks to workflows to even team projects. Productivity enthusiasts love the app, and for a good reason. Asana works well for all kinds of projects, both short-term and long-term. You can use it to collect creative feedback, get budget sign-off, or even launch a brand campaign. 

As if that’s not enough, Asana is also suitable for both on-site and remote teams across different departments, as it is one of the best work from home apps. Marketing teams can use the app to plan and manage content calendars; engineering teams can track bug reports and sprints; sales teams can track prospects through their sales funnel.

Heck, it's even great for cross-team collaboration. You'll be able to interact with members from other teams flawlessly and establish working relationships. 

In addition to that, businesses of all types and sizes can use Asana to achieve their goals. This includes small businesses, as well as large enterprises. 

Asana pricing plans

First of all, how much does Asana cost? Let’s first review Asana prices:

How much is Asana for nonprofits?

Asana supports nonprofit organizations by offering special pricing. Nonprofit organizations can subscribe to the Asana Premium or Asana Business plan and get 50% off a one-year subscription.

Are there any Asana coupon codes or promo discount vouchers?

Coupon codes and promo codes often have limited time before they expire. A quick google search might bring up some current ones. 

Asana overview: What is Asana & What is Asana used for?

You've probably heard the name "Asana" more than a few times in your life and know it's all the hype in the tech world. 

Still, you find yourself wondering: 

What does Asana do? 

Let's dig a little deeper and try to uncover what this app is all about!

In short, Asana is a cloud-based collaboration and work management app. It comes packed with all the features teams of all sizes need to stay in sync, meet deadlines, and reach their goals. 

Teams across all departments can use the app to plan, organize, and manage their work from end to finish. For example, marketing teams can plan events, track paid marketing campaigns, manage their content calendar, and more. 

Everything on the app happens in Kanban boards. This is where teams can plot out projects and workflows using columns and cards. The digital Kanban boards are great for task management, letting you visualize your progress and see how your team moves tasks from to-do to done. You can drag and drop Kanban cards from one stage to the next, add comments to cards, attach files, ping other team members, create sub-tasks, add due dates, and more.

And Boards are just one way how you can view your projects. There are three other project views: list view, timeline view, and calendar view. 

With Asana, there's no more need to jump from one app to another. You will have all of your information in one central place. This is where you can keep your documents, notes, sensitive information, and more. No work will be duplicated, messages won't be missed, and people won't struggle with prioritizing their tasks.

And get this: the app lets you automate mundane routine work by setting rules. How does it work? It's simple! You create a custom Rule, which can be done in a few seconds, and automate common tasks like assigning work and setting due dates. 

The Forms feature also makes it easy for people to submit work requests. And if that's not enough to convert you to a paid Asana user, you might be happy to hear the app lets you choose between 50+ project templates you can fine-tune to do work your way. To top it off, you can customize your workflows and create workflows that work for you. 

And with 200+ available integrations, you can connect the app with all the other tools your team needs to communicate, collaborate, and coordinate work.

Asana free vs paid: what’s the difference?

In a nutshell, Asana offers one free plan and two paid plans, plus an Enterprise plan for which you have to get in touch with the sales team to learn more. There's a lot to like with the free plan, and you'll find that many smaller teams don't need anything more for workflow management. 

The free plan lets you access three of the four available project views, all except Timeline view. You'll also be able to upload as many files as you want, as long as those files are not larger than 100MB. When it comes to integrations, the free plan lets you integrate Asana with 100+ apps, including Slack, Outlook, Google Workspace, and more. Unfortunately, the free plan lacks some powerful features like Automation, Forms, Portfolios, and Workload. 

Another downside of the free plan is that it has a user limit of 15. In other words, if your team counts more than 15 members, you'll be required to subscribe to a paid plan. 

The Premium plan elevates your game by introducing some cool functionalities. For instance, the Premium plan removes the cap of 15 users and 1,000 tasks. You also get unlimited guests, which are users who can view a project but can't interact with it, which is quite useful if you're working with contractors. 

Another perk of the paid plans is the Timeline project view that lets everyone on your team see how all the pieces fit together. 

The Business plan introduces a few more features that are not available with the Premium plan, like Portfolios, which provide a holistic view of all your important projects in one place. This functionality can come in handy for managers tracking several projects. There's also the Workload feature that lets you visualize how much your team has on their plate to avoid burnout. 

Asana features list

The main features of Asana are:

• Timeline 

• Boards

• Calendar 

• Integrations 

• Reporting

• Goals

• Forms

• Automation

• Portfolios

• Workload

• Desktop and mobile apps

1. Timeline 

The Timeline feature is one of the app's most useful features for project planning. Considering all projects can get quite complex as you add more tasks and people, many things can fall through the cracks. But with Timeline, the entire team can see how all the pieces of the project fit together in Gantt charts so they can stay in sync.
 

2. Boards 

Kanban project boards are the most recognizable feature of Asana. They're what made the platform so popular in the first place. In short, Kanban boards are a type of visual project management that lets you plot out projects and workflows by using columns and cards. 

This means that the entire team can visualize the project and see how tasks progress from the to-do column to done. And the best part is the Boards can be used to plan out any type of project, from product roadmaps and work requests to product sprints and content calendars. 

Using the Boards is relatively simple, too! Users can create Kanban cards for new tasks, drag and drop cards from one column to the next, add comments to cards, tag team members in comments, attach files to cards, assign tasks, add due dates, create sub-tasks, and more. 

The good news is that you don't need to discuss matters with your team separately as all the project details will be located in one central place. Another cool thing is that you can customize your columns to align with your specific project. 
 

3. Calendar 

With the Asana Calendar project view, you'll always know what's on your Calendar today or any given day. Boards are a great way to visualize your work, but you can sometimes get lost in all the tasks and subtasks, but not with Calendar. 

By clicking the Calendar project view, you'll be able to see your team's work in one online Calendar. It's probably one of the surest ways to avoid missing your deadlines. 

You can move tasks by dragging and dropping them from one day to another. You can create new tasks by clicking on the day you want. You can even mark tasks complete directly from Calendar view. There's also the option to click into any task to comment, heart, attach a file, and more.
 

4. Integrations 

The good news is that with Asana, you don't have to jump from one app to the next, using valuable time in the meantime. The app integrates with 200+ third-party apps like Slack, Dropbox, Google Drive, Zapier, and Zoom. These integrations extend the app's functionality and simplify your work processes.

For example, if you connect Asana with Slack, you'll receive a notification in Slack every time a task is updated on Asana. It's worth mentioning that some advanced integrations, like Salesforce and Adobe CC, are only available with the Business Plan. 
 

5. Reporting

Universal Reporting is a feature that lets you see your organization’s work from every angle. It's the most useful functionality for managers who oversee many projects across many teams. So, instead of searching through emails, pinging people, or sifting through spreadsheets to learn how a project is going, you'll have real-time visibility on all projects in one place.

With Universal Reporting, you can access real-time dashboards across teams and projects that contain information on workloads, budget, timing, and more. There's no need to do anything manually; the system takes care of everything.

And then, once you understand what is happening on each team and project and why it is happening, you can take action right in Asana. 
 

6. Goals

Goals is a goal-tracking system that assures team leaders and executives their teams are on track to meet company and team goals. This feature is a great way to improve team performance and motivate employees to perform better. Business and Enterprise customers can create two types of Goals in Asana: company goals and team goals. 

In short, company goals are long-term goals that are tied to the company's mission, while team goals are short-term goals that ladder up toward the company’s mission-oriented objectives. The best part is that Goals are visible to everyone so that people across every level of the company know what the company's priorities are at any given time. 

Each goal has its own detail page. Here, you can do a number of things, like add a description for more context, collaborators, and even sub-goals. Sub-goals are connected to a parent goal to create a goal hierarchy. For instance, if the main company goal is "Grow Customer Loyalty," a possible sub-goal is "Create a rewards program." Finally, you can link Goals to Projects and Portfolios. 
 

7. Forms

Premium, Business, and Enterprise customers can benefit from another powerful feature called Forms. When someone fills out a Form, it will show up as a new task in the project it's connected to. Once a Form is created, you can change the name of the form, add a description, and more.

People can add attachments to forms such as creative briefs, images, documents, PDFs, and other files. Forms are especially useful for collecting creative requests, bug reports, customer feedback, IT requests, and team brainstorms.
 

8. Automation

If you're an Asana Premium, Business, or Enterprise customer, you can start saving time and steps with the app's suite of Automation features. The Automation feature like Rules lets you automate repetitive tasks and processes to focus on more important work like strategy and creative thinking. Adding and creating Rules is pretty simple. You can choose a ready-to-go option from the Rules Gallery or use the apps' custom rules builder. Some applications of the Rules feature include:

• Assigning work to the right teammate

• Setting due dates

• Moving tasks to the correct project
   

9. Portfolios

Portfolios are another powerful functionality that's available to Business and Enterprise customers. In a nutshell, Portfolios provide a holistic view of all of your projects in one central place. Managers can organize their most important projects, monitor their progress, and get every information they need. Clicking on one of your Portfolios will let you see all projects contained within that Portfolio.

For example, you can have an IT Portfolio that contains projects like Bug Tracking, IT Requests, and New Hire Onboarding. From the Portfolio view, you can add another project, view the status of each project, edit a project's due date, edit a project's priority, view the custom field values for each project, and view the project owner. Once you've created a Portfolio, you can export it to Google Sheets at any time.
 

10. Workload

Workload is a feature available to Business and Enterprise customers. It's a feature that lets managers see how much their team has on their plate at a given time to avoid burnout. Using the Workload feature is quite simple; all you have to do is add a project or a group of projects to a Portfolio, then navigate to the Workload tab. You'll see how much work your team has lined up.

You can even set a maximum capacity for each team member. If a team member goes over that capacity, you'll see a red line informing you they have too much on their plate. Then, you can easily reassign tasks, change due dates, and shift priorities to make sure no one is overworked. 

Asana pros and cons

Here are the advantages and disadvantages of Asana:

Asana advantages

There's a free plan. Even if you're a small business with a tight budget, you can still use Asana. The free plan is quite generous and gives you access to features like Boards, Project Views, and Integrations. It's suitable for SMBs who are just starting out and employ a small team of up to 15 people. 

It's very easy to use. Asana's user interface provides an exceptional user friendly experience. It has been thoughtfully designed to help users navigate the app with ease. The slight learning curve means you'll have an easier time onboarding and training people. Ease of use can also reduce errors and boost team productivity.

You'll reduce time in weekly stand-up meetings: Working in Asana can help teams save an hour or two every week that you would otherwise spend in meetings. Your team won't have to share status updates about what they’re working on because all information will be publicly available in the app. 

You'll build a culture of trust and accountability: Asana is the best tool if you're looking to build trust within your team or between teams. Everyone will know who's working on what and when things are due, and team members will hold each other accountable. 

It integrates with 200+ tools: Another wonderful thing about Asana is the unending list of second and third-party software it seamlessly integrates with. For example, the Slack integration lets teams send project updates from Asana to Slack channels and turn Slack messages into Asana tasks. The Zoom integration lets teams take meeting notes in Zoom and capture them in Asana. If you're a Business or Enterprise customer, you can connect the app with powerful apps like Salesforce and Adobe CC.

There are desktop and mobile apps. You can use Asana on the web, as a desktop app for macOS and Windows, and as an Android app and iOS app. In the mobile apps, you can do everything you can do in the web app. The best part is that all of your work will be synched in real-time across the web, phone, and desktop apps. The mobile apps have good offline capabilities.

Asana disadvantages

It's not a traditional project management tool. Don't confuse Asana for a traditional, full-scale project management platform. The app doesn't offer features that you would find in a traditional project management tool like resource management tools or budgeting and expense tracking tools.

Its monthly fees are slightly higher than its competitors. Asana increased its prices in 2019, and now they're slightly higher than its leading competitors like Trello, Bitrix24, and Basecamp. To compare, Trello's Standard plan costs $5 per user per month, while their Premium plan stands at $10 per user per month.

It might not be suitable for heavyweight projects. Asana is great at handling ongoing work like content calendars, bug fixes, and product launches. However, it falls short when it comes to more heavyweight projects that involve dozens of moving parts and a great deal of coordination.  

Tasks can't be assigned to more than one user. This is one of the most common issues customers have with Asana. Tasks can have no more than one assignee. One way to handle this issue is to add a task collaborator or use subtasks. Or, you can duplicate the task and assign it to another user. 

Asana complaints & praise (from real Asana customer reviews)

We looked at Asana reviews online to see what existing customers say about using the system. According to them, there are some aspects where the app shines and where it falls short.

Looking at online reviews, it seems like most users are switching to Asana from Trello. They seem to prefer Asana's functionality more. Many people like the app's list/calendar/Gantt abilities than the board default of Trello. As one user has put it, "Asana does everything Trello does and more." Other people seem to like how they can quickly onboard new users and see immediate gains in productivity and morale. Subtasks are another part of Asana that gets good reviews, with customers saying how they can now get a step-by-step list of directions for each task. 

Although it lacks some software-development-specific features, Asana seems to work well for engineering teams, too. 

The quirky animations that appear when you mark a task complete are a favorite of many users. People seem to be liking these celebratory animations, saying, "This is obviously not something that's necessary or a way to help users stay more organized, but it is fun and adds a little extra flair to the software." 

Some less favorable reviews mention things like Asana becoming more expensive over the years and being more expensive than many of its competitors. Other users wish Asana could have a time-tracking functionality to track how long each member worked on a task. Other features that customers want to see being introduced are budgeting and time planning functionality.

Review of Asana support

Many users praise Asana's customer support team, saying that f you need assistance getting to know the program, there are plenty of self-help guides and tutorials you can find on the support page. Users also seem to like the Asana Academy, a set of courses that guides users through all the software has to offer. There are also the forums, which are frequented by knowledgeable users and Asana staff. 

A few people complain how it is incredibly difficult and time-consuming to research and dig around the articles and forums to find an answer. Other users complain that customer support is slow and requires multiple calls to fix an issue.

Is Asana worth it? Our conclusion

At the end of the day, is Asana worth it?

That will depend on your budget and your needs. 

If you need a tool that's intuitive and easy to use so that people can focus on high-value work, then Asana is a great pick. A bonus point because it integrates seamlessly with other tools your team loves to use, making it one of the best team chat apps as well.

All in all, it's a great tool for both starters and existing companies who're struggling with project management and task assignments. Especially if your projects are starting to get complicated and need details, attachments, and dependencies, Asana is your best bet.

Most importantly, Asana's long-term free plan has all the features smaller companies need to complete projects. So, if your budget is tight and you don't need the advanced features from the paid plans, you can use the app day and night without spending a dime. 

However, if you are looking for a set of different features and pricing plans, you may want to check out our top Asana alternatives.

FAQs

Is Asana secure?

Asana hosts its data in secure SSAE 16 audited data centers via Amazon in the USA. It's regularly audited and holds certificates for SOC 2 Type I and II. Data is encrypted with TLS when in transit. 

Is Asana free

Asana offers a free plan, in addition to three paid plans. The free plan is perfect for smaller teams with up to 15 people and comes with unlimited projects, tasks, storage, and comments. You can access three of the four available project views, and integrate Asana with 100+ apps.  

What are the Asana free version limitations?

The Asana free limitations include advanced features like Automation, Forms, Portfolios, and Workload. There's also a user limit of 15. Project permissions and comment-only projects are also only available with the paid plans.