ClickUp vs Trello Compared: Is Trello Better Than ClickUp?

In this article, we’ll be comparing ClickUp vs Trello. Both of these are among the best project management platforms on the market, especially for small teams and small businesses. 

Firstly, we’ll describe each software, then compare some of the basics like pricing, free plans, customer service and ease of use. Next, we’ll look at some of the specific features of these project management software solutions.

What is the difference between ClickUp and Trello?

The main difference between Trello and ClickUp is that Trello is a task management tool which relies on a Kanban-board like system. ClickUp, on the other hand, is mostly about unifying project management, team collaboration and document management. Which one is more suitable for your project or organization? Read on!

Trello is made by software company Atlassian. Many Trello reviews comment on how simple and straightforward Trello is for creating projects and managing tasks. Alternatives to Trello often attempt to copy some of Trello’s basic interface and tools.

Your typical ClickUp review will generally comment on the fact that ClickUp is a very thorough and robust PM system yet still manages to be relatively affordable. ClickUp alternatives generally need to offer something special or undercut ClickUp’s price tag.

ClickUp vs Trello comparison chart

Let’s take a quick glance at this overview of our ClickUp vs Trello ratings.

ClickUp vs Trello: Pricing

ClickUp has 5 pricing plans. The first is free, and the unlimited plan, business plan and business plus plan are reasonably priced, after that there is an enterprise plan with custom pricing. 

Trello has 4 pricing options. The first is a free plan, and the standard plan, premium plan and enterprise plan are reasonably priced after that. You get unlimited boards beginning in Trello’s standard plan.

Winner: Trello

We feel there is more bang for your buck at the lower end of the pricing options with Trello over ClickUp. For example, most of ClickUp’s awesome tools like advanced time tracking are in the more expensive paid plans.
 

Trello vs ClickUp: Free versions?

Trello’s free version gets you unlimited cards but not unlimited boards. You get unlimited storage but with a 10 MB file max. You can run up to 250 workspace commands per month for free. There is also a little customization for the interface. 

ClickUp’s free plan offers 100 MBs of storage, unlimited tasks, unlimited number of users, real-time chat, collaboration tools and a whiteboard, among other things.

Winner: ClickUp

Trello might be a better deal for the least expensive of the paid plans, but when it comes to the free versions, we are giving this award to ClickUp because of the unlimited number of users and the real-time chat, whiteboard and native time tracking.
 

Customer support

ClickUp has a help center that offers 24/7 support, and it’s not bad at all. There is live chat support in the paid plans. The most expensive plans have priority support and a dedicated customer success manager. 

Trello has a help site where you can submit support requests. Premium and enterprise Trello users will get priority email support promising faster response times.

Winner: ClickUp

ClickUp’s 24/7 support and live chat support are slightly superior to the options you will find at Trello, that is, unless you are on the more expensive Trello plans, and in that case, it might be better.
 

Knowledgebase & learning

Trello has an online community that acts like a learning center, although it is a bit overwhelming at first and not for everybody. You can ask questions in natural language, however. 

ClickUp has something similar, but they also offer an intelligent FAQ machine with great NLP capabilities for finding answers.

Winner: ClickUp

Following from their customer service and other support modules, ClickUp seems to have done a slightly better job at making sure users have access to resources like a knowledgebase and FAQ sections to quickly serve themselves. 

Trello vs ClickUp features & functionality

For our side-by-side feature comparison between Trello vs ClickUp, we’re going to break things down into views, templates, workflows, customization, permissions, mobile apps, integrations and storage capacity.
 

ClickUp or Trello: Ease of use

Both of these project management solutions have short learning curves, which is great, because who wants to waste time learning new features? 

Trello might be the fastest SaaS to onboard according to many of us users who have tried a bunch of similar apps.

Winner: Trello

Just to be clear, by putting Trello in the number one spot for being user friendly, we are not saying that ClickUp is anti-user-friendly, not at all. Both are amazingly good for ease of use, but Trello is maybe an inch easier.
 

Trello or ClickUp: Views

Depending on what you are looking for, great project management tools should offer several options for dashboard views. 

For example, drag and drop Kanban boards are great for task management and workload management, lists are great for visualizing subtasks, while calendar views are good for scheduling and due dates. 

Winner: ClickUp

ClickUp has the full set of views for your project management. These include list views for to-do lists and checklists, box views, mind maps, calendar views, activity charts, Gantt charts, timelines that show dependencies, workload views, tables, spreadsheets, and more. 

Trello specializes in the Kanban board, but there is also timeline view, calendar view, table view, map view, dashboard and workspace view. Both project management solutions are highly customizable with their views, and use real time data to stay up to date.
 

Templates

Templates are a fantastic way to kick start any project, task or work activity. A great project management software should offer a robust library of templates for different use cases, departments and project types. 

Winner: Trello

Trello is world wide famous for its template library, with categories like business, design, marketing, HR, operations, productivity maximization, project management, sales and support. 

Some PM templates of Trello include site trackers, simple project boards, and Salesforce projects. ClickUp also has solid templates, like agile Scrum management, roadmap whiteboards and simple Gantt charts.
 

Workflows

Automation is how you train your software to take over simple and repetitive administrative tasks. This includes things like data entry, automated reminders and notifications, regular reporting, status updates and more.

Winner: Tie

Both ClickUp and Trello are automation machines with great built-in workflows which are also easy to modify. Or you can create your own workflow automations without knowing anything about fancy computer coding. 

Perhaps Trello’s workflow builder is easier on the eye and simpler to figure out, but ClickUp’s is hardly difficult. On the other hand, some say ClickUp’s workflows are more versatile, but not by much.
 

Customization

It’s great when a business software comes ready to use out of the box, but sometimes you want to customize some aspects of the software. It might just be the layout and look, or it could be a manner of what metrics of data are most crucial for you in your reports. Either way, customizability is an important field of a project management tool kit.

Winner: ClickUp

Customization is central to the ClickUp platform from the ground up. You get customizable tasks from over 35 ClickApps, there is custom field data, you can set custom statuses and task IDs. 

The ClickUp automations are also easy to customize, and you can apply customized rules to things like repeated tasks or bulk actions. Trello lets you have a lot of custom field options, which is highly useful for its purposes, but comes up short next to ClickUp.
 

Permissions and roles

A good project manager delegates to the project team members, and sometimes a great project management solution provides tools to facilitate delegating tasks, assigning roles, and granting permissions as to who can access or change any project document. 

Permissions are also ideal for allowing outside freelancers or subcontractors to use your systems as a collaboration tool.

Winner: ClickUp

ClickUp’s basic plan offers you a guest permission feature. This lets clients or stakeholders take a glance at some aspects of your project management system so they can stay in the loop. 

At the more premium plans, ClickUp has custom and advanced permissions. The enterprise edition also gets you unlimited custom roles. Trello, on the other hand, offers organization-wide permissions and attachment permissions in their more expensive plan.
 

Mobile app

These days, more and more teams are going remote, and sometimes working in different parts of the world. What’s more, people are staying on top of their projects on the go, at lunch, on the subway, everywhere. 

For these reasons and more, mobile apps are clutch for a project management system. Some companies just have responsive user interfaces that change their layout on smaller screens. But not ClickUp nor Trello, they have dedicated mobile apps.

Winner: Trello

Both Clickup and Trello have mobile apps for iOS and Android. Trello is going to get the gold spot in this category because its app is incredibly well designed, both in terms of intuitive features and convenient layout, as well as aesthetically pleasing.

It is great for to-do lists, reminders, team collaboration, and of course the famous Trello drag and drop cards and boards. Clickup’s mobile app, however, is also among the best project management tools that you could keep in your pocket.
 

Integrations

It is usually the case that a software solution that includes every single app, feature and tool under the sun can cost an arm and a leg, like an ERP or the most expensive enterprise version of Asana or Salesforce. 

Normally, you have an affordable package with a solid SaaS and if you need something it does not include, you do an integration with another app that will then let the two share data, or you use their API to build the tool you want along with data sharing.

Winner: Trello

Trello has both integrations as well as what it calls Power-Ups, which is the reason Trello is the crowned winner of the integration category. Power-Ups are specific tools or actions from other apps that you can bring into Trello, for example, imports from Excel, connections with Slack, and sending notifications to Microsoft Teams. Trello regular integrations include Jira, GitHub, and Twitter. ClickUp integrations get you Slack, Dropbox, Outlook, and Google Calendar.
 

Storage

Wherever you use a SaaS, that is a software as a service, it means that you are likely having all your data and tools stored in the vendor’s servers online. 

This has many benefits, it saves you the work of keeping and maintaining and backing up your stuff, and it saves you server costs. How much storage you get is therefore a big determining factor when looking for project management software.

Winner: ClickUp

ClickUp offers you 100 MBs of storage in their free version, but after that, beginning with their unlimited plan, it is unlimited storage, and it does not seem there is a file maximum size to that. 

Meanwhile, Trello has unlimited storage right away in their free plan but with a 10 MB max size per file. This gets better as you move up in their plans, however. The judges figure that it’s best to avoid max file sizes and therefore ClickUp just barely beats out Trello in this category.

Which is better, Trello or ClickUp? Our takeaways

ClickUp is the winner today, but who knows what tomorrow will bring, as both of these amazing project management solutions are always improving and upgrading and looking to the future. 

If for some reason you are not fully convinced with either of these apps, do not fret, you can always find an alternative project management platform and check it out.