Skip to main content
Best Tools
10 Best Trello Alternatives For 2022 (Free & Paid Options)

Best Trello Alternatives Shortlist

In this review, we examine the following software:

  1. monday.com

    Best for customization features

  2. ClickUp

    Best free plan for a Trello alternative

  3. Miro

    Best for built-in brainstorming & diagramming

  4. SwiftKanban

    Best for customized card types & attributes

  5. MeisterTask

    Best for automation capabilities

  6. Zoho Projects

    Best price for freelancers and small teams

  7. Kanban Zone

    Best cross-portfolio Kanban board

  8. ZenHub

    Best for agile project management within GitHub

  9. Blossom

    Best for software development

  10. Breeze

    Best combination with a full project management suite

Below you’ll find an overview of each of these Trello alternatives, with screenshots, feature overviews, and pricing.

Trello is one of the best-known Kanban project management tools available today, and, because it offers a free version, it’s often the go-to option if you plan on using the Kanban methodology. However, when you need a little more oomph from your Kanban tools, such as the extra functionality or integrations that don’t come with Trello’s free version, you’re going to need to pay for those “Power-Ups”.

Before you sign up for something that doesn’t quite serve your needs, it pays to look at alternatives to Trello—and there are plenty of Trello competitors on the market.

Here’s what you’ll find in this review of the best Trello alternatives:

Let’s take a closer look at Trello, the Kanban method that it’s based on, and the best Trello alternatives on the market (both paid and free).

trello alternative logos list

The Digital Project Manager is reader-supported. We may earn a commission when you click through links on our site — learn more about how we aim to stay transparent.

The Best Trello Alternatives For 2022

Here are a few of the best Trello alternatives:

1

monday.com

Best for customization features

monday.com, an award winning platform, is one of the few tools that prides itself in ‘not being a project management tool’! They’ve done away with a lot of the trimmings of typical tools and focused on simple structures that help clarify the sequence of work that needs to be done.

This tool is a great Trello alternative that can actually offer quite a bit more than Trello can. monday.com features include multiple views of work—view as a list, on a map, on a Kanban board, in a spreadsheet, and other views. Users can upload and attach files to cards, make comments, mention teammates, and more. It also offers a great project reporting dashboard that can collect data from multiple boards, allowing better tracking abilities of progress.

Some standout features of this tool include tools to automate certain processes, as well as customizable task boards that let users manage tasks by cards, assignees, due dates, hours spent, etc. Overall, it’s a highly customizable tool that lets you work in whatever methodology—kanban or otherwise—that fits your project and team.

monday.com’s integrations include project management apps like Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform and many more, accessible via Zapier.

monday.com costs from $6/user/month and comes with a free 14-day trial. They offer a free plan for up to 2 users.

14 days free trial

From $6/user/month

2

ClickUp

Best free plan for a Trello alternative

ClickUp is a project management software and Kanban tool with powerful features for managing and completing all your team’s projects in one platform. Users can plan projects, schedule tasks, and manage resources in a centralized workspace on Kanban boards, as well as calendars, Gantt charts, timelines, and more.

Task management features include task checklists, subtasks, and task templates, as well as the ability to filter, sort, search for, easily reorder, and view tasks in the manner most convenient for the team. Users can also create Gantt charts, calendars, and timelines to visualize tasks.

ClickUp also includes features for creating, sharing, and collaborative editing for Wikis and documents. Users can comment on documents and tasks, assign comments, and chat with other team members for increased communication and collaboration. Reporting features include the ability to create custom dashboards, as well as six built-in report types for team reporting.

ClickUp offers native integrations with Slack, G Suite, Dropbox, and many more tools, as well as over 1,000+ integrations through Zapier.

ClickUp’s free plan is robust and includes all primary features. The unlimited plan starts at $5 a month per user and offers additional functionality.

Free forever with paid plans starting at $5/month

3

Miro

Best for built-in brainstorming & diagramming

Miro is a collaborative online whiteboard with over 1,000 templates including mind maps, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, product wireframes, research boards, and flowcharts. It’s trusted by 99% of the Fortune 100, and used by teams at TransUnion, HP, Upwork, Cisco, Qlik, and Atkins. Miro’s visual platform is built for hybrid work, and has robust resources for continuous learning like Miro Academy, online events, and a community forum.

Miro has an intuitive Kanban template that will totally replace Trello for you. One of its key features is that it comes with visualization and collaboration features that Trello doesn’t have for brainstorming and diagramming your ideas and project workflows. Try Miro’s Meeting Agenda Template for daily standups or the Likert Scale Template for employee feedback.

At The Digital Project Manager, we use Miro to map out content clusters and to visualize content workflows from start (brainstorming ideas) to finish (publishing the content on our site).

Miro has integrations with a whole suite of tools, including Zoom,
Figma, Asana, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Slack, Google Drive, Box, Airtable, Notion, Azure, and Webex. Some integrations are limited to paid plans only.

Miro is free to use for unlimited members with up to 3 editable boards. Paid plans start at $8/user/month (billed annually).

From $8/user/month

Pros

  • Free forever plan available
  • Intuitive and easy setup
  • Built-in communication features for streamlined collaboration

Cons

  • Visitor/guest accounts locked to paid plans only
  • Zooming can be jumpy on larger projects
  • Free version does not allow high-quality export to pdf
4

SwiftKanban

Best for customized card types & attributes

SwiftKanban from Digite is a powerful enterprise and portfolio Trello alternative for both co-located and distributed teams. It combines the best of visual management, Kanban, and Scrum to give you a powerful tool for lean/agile software development, visual project management, and business collaboration improvement.

SwiftKanban makes collaboration between multiple teams easier through better visualization of work. Teams working remotely can see the tasks that their colleagues are working on in real-time. SwiftKanban has a number of cool features built-in for defining work-in-progress (WIP) limits, card coloring, highlighting bottlenecks etc. It allows product owners to define their backlog flexibly using a varied set of features. SwiftKanban is a great alternative to Trello since it offers way more features and customization options.

SwiftKanban also lets users automate actions within their Kanban board based on any criteria they set using rules. From simple IFTTT rules to automating repetitive tasks to complex configuration of cards and boards, SwiftKanban has it all. Plus, SwiftKanban comes with AI-capabilities built-in where users will be able to get suggestions for similar cards when creating new cards, using historical data, saving time, and eliminating duplication of work.

SwiftKanban can be integrated with a wide variety of enterprise-class tools such as TFS, Jira, CA Agile Central and many others using its SwiftSync integration platform. It provides native integration with Slack and MS Teams. Using Zapier, you can also integrate SwiftKanban with a wide range of productivity apps like Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, and GitHub. You can also use SwiftKanban REST APIs as service endpoints to interact with your boards remotely and perform various card functions.

SwiftKanban costs between $0-15/user/month for annual subscriptions and comes with a 30-day free trial of its enterprise plan.

30 days free trial

From $15/user/month for annual subscriptions

5

MeisterTask

Best for automation capabilities

MeisterTask is a beautifully designed and incredibly intuitive alternative to Trello. Its Kanban boards can be customized to fit any workflow, from software sprints to sales funnels, and from editorial calendars to your company’s onboarding process. Teams can collaborate on one simple platform, where they can communicate, work together on tasks, and easily track the time they spend on them.

With MeisterTask, you can not only visualize processes but also automate them in various ways. Creating recurring tasks, adding predefined checklists, notifying stakeholders when a task is completed, or ensuring that tasks are assigned and tagged correctly when they are moved to a specific section — all of this can be done automatically. Larger teams will find MeisterTask’s sophisticated roles and permissions management as well as the insights gained through various statistics and reports particularly useful.

MeisterTask offers an extensive online help center, free webinars for new users, and fast email support in case you need to talk to a real person. However, thanks to MeisterTask’s focus on simplicity, even companies who are just getting started on their journey to digital organization are usually able to get productive within minutes after signing up.

MeisterTask integrates with the mind mapping app MindMeister where you can brainstorm and plan with a mind map and then export it onto a Kanban board. MeisterTask comes readily integrated with popular tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, GitHub, Zendesk, Harvest, and various email apps. In addition to these native integrations, you can use Zapier or IFTTT to connect your projects with hundreds of other tools.

MeisterTask costs from $8.25/user/month. They also offer a free plan with limited functionality.

From $8.25/user/month

6

Zoho Projects

Best price for freelancers and small teams

Zoho Projects is an award-winning project management and collaboration tool from Zoho. It offers flexibility and customizations to suit the needs of traditional project managers as well as agile teams.

Drag and drop kanban cards towards completion. The cards can be sorted as per status, priority, completion percentage or even across task lists.

The dashboard can be fully customized according to user preferences. And with Zoho’s Analytics integration, these capabilities can be extended – users can generate 50 plus charts and reports with this integration.

All aspects of the UI from theme colors to arrangement and visibility of the various modules can be changed to suit a user’s preferences. By converting projects into templates, users can reuse previously created timelines and assignees for future projects. Zoho projects also offers free onboarding for its customers, free support and a comprehensive online help guide for all users.

Being part of the Zoho’s ecosystem allows Projects to connect to several of Zoho’s own services such as Zoho Books, Zoho CRM and Zoho’s finance suite. The new Zoho marketplace allows 3rd party integrations as well. Integrations via Zapier and Zoho Flow are also supported.

Starts from $4/user/month billed annually. Also has a freemium model is available. Free trial/Freemium terms: ’10 days free trial. No credit card is required.

10 days free trial. No credit card required

From $4/user/month billed annually. Also has a freemium version upto 3 users for 2 projects

7

Kanban Zone

Best cross-portfolio Kanban board

Kanban Zone is designed to allow teams to visualize their entire agency and organization by connecting teams and processes. The tool offers a highly flexible Kanban board editor that does not constrain users to perfect grids and instead allows them to truly map their ideal flow of work.

The tool also includes a timeline view for increased planning capabilities, as well as templates and a Portfolio Kanban for traceability across projects. Also available are project and Kanban metrics, collaboration features such as comments and notifications, and workflow management capabilities.

Kanban Zone has a simple interface that helps teams focus on the work at hand, and a team of support experts to help with onboarding and ongoing questions.

Kanban Zone pricing starts at $5 per month for a personal plan and $8 per month for professional plans. A free 30 day trial is also available.

30 days free trial

From $5/license/month and $0 for viewers/subscribers

8

ZenHub

Best for agile project management within GitHub

ZenHub is an agile project management tool within GitHub with Kanban board views among other project planning features and is used by the likes of Shopify, Microsoft, Adobe, Comcast, and SAP. If you are already using GitHub, you’ll love ZenHub—it lets you assign tasks, build your timeline, and design stories and sprints without leaving the platform.

Some of ZenHub’s noteworthy features include tasklist boards, a real-time reporting suite, workflow automations, and visual roadmaps. Unlike some other comparable software, ZenHub lets you stack epics within epics to more easily represent a larger idea or body of work. The user interface is also top-notch—easy to navigate and looks quite smart.

Despite doing a lot, using ZenHub may require you to still pop into the GitHub project to more granularly modify issues and milestones. However, you’ll find the pros outweigh the cons. For example, ZenHub Workspaces also allows for different teams to customize their Kanban board view even when working from the same set of GitHub Repositories.

ZenHub’s API lets you connect the platform with other services such as Slack, Gitter, HipChat, Spark, and other project management tools.

ZenHub is free to use on public repositories. Paid plans cost from $7.95/user/month and come with a 14-day free trial.

14 days free trial

From $7.95/user/month

9

Blossom

Best for software development

Designed uniquely for software developers (and specifically with distributed work teams in mind), Blossom is a more specialized tool. It offers features that are especially useful for software development teams, but beyond software dev, it’s also a viable Trello alternative.

In fact, with its clean, simple interface, built-in integrations, and extra functionality (make work in progress limits, analyze performance, and more), it’s arguably better than Trello for only a slightly higher price.

The product is easily integrated with GitHub, and thanks to its automatic project status updates, you don’t need to leave your code base and can focus on getting projects completed. A bonus of using Blossom is that they offer full training, including online and in-person options, to make it easy to onboard your team.

Blossom costs from $19/month for teams of up to 5 users. Blossom goes the extra mile by offering free trial periods for all versions (Startup, Company, and Enterprise), so you can try the full product as opposed to a typical promo version that’s limited in features and functionality.

14 days free trial

From $19/user/month

10

Breeze

Best combination with a full project management suite

Breeze is one of the few Kanban boards online that offers a full suite of project management tools, including everything from budget management and time and expense tracking, to milestone tracking, project planning, and portfolio management.

It has a simple interface, and, although it does provide a wider scope of tools than many platforms, Breeze makes a point of not being a “feature factory”, keeping only the features that are critical. For it’s simplicity, it’s a bit pricey, but if you want something clutter-free, lightweight, and streamlined, it’s worth the price.

Because Breeze wraps a kanban project management tool inside of a full management suite, the added functionality—and correspondingly higher price—isn’t a great fit for simpler projects.

On the other hand, the all-encompassing nature of this platform is a major advantage for some teams, as you may save time, resources, and headache by managing everything in one place.

Breeze does come with built-in Google Drive and Dropbox integrations, but compared to the integrations offered by other similar tools on the market, it could up its value by offering a few more.

Breeze costs from $29/user/month and offers a free trial version.

14 days free trial

From $29/user/month

Need expert help selecting the right Kanban Software?

We’ve joined up with the software comparison platform Crozdesk.com to assist you in finding the right software. Crozdesk’s Kanban Software advisors can create a personalized shortlist of software solutions with unbiased recommendations to help you identify the solutions that best suit your business’s needs. Through our partnership you get free access to their bespoke software selection advice, removing both time and hassle from the research process.

It only takes a minute to submit your requirements and they will give you a quick call at no cost or commitment. Based on your needs you’ll receive customized software shortlists listing the best-fitting solutions from their team of software advisors (via phone or email). They can even connect you with your selected vendor choices along with community negotiated discounts. To get started, please complete the form below:

Best Trello Alternatives Comparison Chart

Tool Free Option Price
1
monday.com

Best for customization features

14 days free trial

From $6/user/month Check out monday.com
2
ClickUp

Best free plan for a Trello alternative

Freemium version

Free forever with paid plans starting at $5/month Check out ClickUp
3
Miro

Best for built-in brainstorming & diagramming

Freemium version

From $8/user/month Check out Miro
4
SwiftKanban

Best for customized card types & attributes

Freemium version

30 days free trial

From $15/user/month for annual subscriptions Check out SwiftKanban
5
MeisterTask

Best for automation capabilities

Freemium version

From $8.25/user/month Check out MeisterTask
6
Zoho Projects

Best price for freelancers and small teams

Freemium version

10 days free trial. No credit card required

From $4/user/month billed annually. Also has a freemium version upto 3 users for 2 projects Check out Zoho Projects
7
Kanban Zone

Best cross-portfolio Kanban board

30 days free trial

From $5/license/month and $0 for viewers/subscribers Check out Kanban Zone
8
ZenHub

Best for agile project management within GitHub

14 days free trial

From $7.95/user/month Check out ZenHub
9
Blossom

Best for software development

Freemium version

14 days free trial

From $19/user/month Check out Blossom
10
Breeze

Best combination with a full project management suite

14 days free trial

From $29/user/month Check out Breeze

Or Try Another Alternative

Here’s a list of a few more alternatives to Trello:

  1. LeanKit

    Best for lean project management

  2. Kanban Tool

    Best for visual project management

  3. Taskworld

    Best large variety of robust features

  4. Hubstaff

    Best project management software for agile capabilities

  5. Proofhub

    Best simple-to-use Trello alternative

  6. Airtable

    A Trello alternative with multiple views including calendars, grids, and Gantt charts

  7. Basecamp

    Best for remote teams

What is Kanban?

Kanban is a project management and workflow method based on a work management system developed in Toyota manufacturing plants in the 1960s. The Kanban method allows you to minimize multitasking, streamline your work in progress efficiency, and improve the speed and quality of the work your collaborative and self-managing teams produce.

Trello Alternative Comparison Criteria

What do I look for when I select the best alternatives to Trello? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:

  1. User Interface (UI): Is the user interface clean and attractive, even when navigating complex projects? Does the task management tool make it easy to assign, tag, share, and comment without hassle?
  2. Usability: Kanban boards should have a small learning curve thanks to drag-and-drop functionality, easily modifiable data fields, and simple resource management features.
  3. Integrations: Does it offer any third-party add-ons? Any pre-built integrations for things like G Suite, Slack, Asana, Microsoft platforms, or GitHub?
  4. Value for price: How appropriate is the price for the features, capabilities, and use case? Is pricing clear, transparent, and flexible?

Trello Alternatives: Key Features

These are some of the key features I look for when selecting a Trello alternative:

  1. Work-in-progress limits
  2. Recurring tasks and/or task templates
  3. Time tracking integration within task views
  4. Bottleneck and task dependency flagging of some sort
  5. Different ways to sort cards (alphabetically, due date, assignee)
  6. Workflow automations, like status changes or notifications

How To Choose The Right Trello Alternatives For Your Team

As with anything involving project management, there are a few things to consider before making your selection among workflow apps. In your decision, account for these important considerations:

The Size Of Your Team

Which app is going to best suit your team, and will it scale properly to suit a growing team over time?

Which Tools It Should Integrate With

Maybe you’re using GitHub, Slack, Asana, or other team management tools, or maybe you need it to work across multiple devices, including mobile. Make sure the tool you choose covers all your needs—or is customizable enough that it can be upgraded later.

Project Workflow

Not all tools can handle the volume of projects some businesses produce, so check how many projects you will easily be able to manage at once. Does the tool allow you to create unlimited projects and have multiple projects running at the same time?

Set-up Time And Cost

How soon can it be installed, or is it immediately available on the cloud? What kind of ongoing support do they offer? Is it a hosted solution or will you have to maintain the infrastructure?

Ease Of Onboarding

How simple is the platform to start using right away, and how much training will be needed to get everyone up to speed?

Trello FAQ

What Do You Think?

What other considerations have you made when looking for a Trello alternative? Have any recommendations for good project management software? Let us know in the comments below.

By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 15 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

5 Comments

  • image
    The best Trello alternative is, in my opinion, kanbantool.com . It's easy to use, it has all the features I need, it's not expensive (or even free, if the plan consisting of 2 boards for 2 people is enough for you). I like it, I think it's worth trying.

    Reply

  • image
    Nice post, I'm just a bit dissapointed I didn't find Kanban Tool (kanbantool.com) in here. Complete, funcional and very personalizable tool that's worth trying. Time tracking makes you keep up on working and lets you improve your productivity :)

    Reply

  • image
    For our company, a primary requirement is data security. We prefer the data to be hosted on an internal server if at all possible. Restyaboard offers this, Trello does not. Which other tools allow an internal data storage?

    Reply

  • image
    Hi Ben! Thank you for the mention of Hygger! Another great feature that differentiates it from Trello - is built-in prioritization, that allows you to focus on the strategically essential features.

    Reply

  • image
    Hi Ben - I was surprised that Digite' SwiftKanban was not on your list. Did you not know about them? They are definitely worth looking at and putting on your list since they directly compete with the likes of Planview/Leankit

    Reply