ClickUp vs Asana: Which one is better?

You’re searching for a project management tool for your business, and you’re overwhelmed with choices and the amount of information about each and every one of them. 

So you think “Oh, it’s okay, I’ll just choose the one that is popular and has the highest rating. That would be best, right?” 

Wrong. 

The most important thing is to pick a project management tool that would fit the needs and budget of your business. 

According to FinancesOnline, as many as 64% of teams use more than one task manager. So, how can you avoid spending money on 2 or 3 task managers? 

You need to find the one that offers all the features you need and, ideally, doesn’t smother you in features you don’t.

In this article, we are turning our attention to ClickUp and Asana — 2 task management tools currently popular on the market. We are going to compare these 2 tools according to their:

• Pricing,
• User interface,
• Task management,
• Team collaboration,
• Progress tracking, 
• Administration,
• Integration, 
• Support, and 
• Security. 

Hopefully, by the end of this article, you’ll know which of these tools would work best for your business. 

So — is Asana or ClickUp better? Let’s find out! 

ClickUp vs Asana overview

Before we get into details of what each of them has to offer, here’s a quick overview of ClickUp and Asana. 

ClickUp is a relatively new task management tool — it was founded in 2017.

It’s an end-to-end product with good pricing plans and a bunch of features to help you organize your work.

The cloud-based tool is available for web, macOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS. 

Founded in 2008, Asana has become a recognizable name in the world of project management. 

It is a user-friendly tool that helps you organize your work and collaborate successfully with your teammates. 

It is available for web, macOS, Windows, Android, and iOS. 

Here’s an overview of ClickUp’s and Asana’s features:

Feature	ClickUp	Asana
Pricing	Free plan Paid plan starts from $5 per user per month	Free plan Paid plan starts from $10.99 per user per month
User interface	Complex	User-friendly
Task management	Robust	Robust
Team collaboration	Comments and mentions in tasks Chat view Watcher in tasks	Comments and mentions in tasks Team Conversations Direct messages Followers in tasks
Progress tracking	Reminders Daily Summary Filter and sort options	Universal Reporting Goals Filter and sort options
Administration	User roles: – Owner  – Admins – Members – Guests  Four levels of permissions	Guest access Customizable permissions Private, public, and comment-only projects Admin console
Integrations	1,000+	200+
Support	Knowledge hub 24/7 support	Knowledge hub 24/7 support (for Enterprise customers)
Security	Advanced	Advanced

ClickUp vs Asana pricing 1:0

No matter how great an app’s features, a steep price can be a deal-breaker for many. So we dedicate the first round to pricing. 

ClickUp has a free plan that includes many features, such as:

• 5 Spaces, 
• Unlimited tasks, 
• Whiteboards and Kanban boards,
• In-app video recording, 
• 100 MB storage and more. 

Aside from a free plan, ClickUp also has 4 paid plans:

• Unlimited — $5 per member per month,
• Business — $12 per member per month,
• Business plus — $19 per member per month, and
• Enterprise — you need to contact the sales team for information.

If you are a non-profit organization, a startup, a student, or an educator, you are eligible for a discount for ClickUp’s paid plans. 

Asana also offers a free plan. It includes:

• Unlimited storage space,
• Unlimited projects, tasks, messages, and activity log,
• Integration with 100+ apps, 
• Board, list, calendar view, and more.

If these features are not enough for you, Asana has 3 paid plans:

• Premium — $10.99
• Business  — $24.99
• Enterprise — contact sales

It offers a discount on Premium and Business annual plans for non-profit organizations. 

ClickUp vs Asana pricing verdict

What sets ClickUp’s and Asana’s free plans apart is that ClickUp offers unlimited members in the free plan, while in Asana, you can collaborate with up to 15 people in the free plan. 

Also, ClickUp is overall more affordable than Asana. 

Therefore, ClickUp scores the first point in this competition.

Feature	ClickUp	Asana
Free plan	✔️	✔️
Starting price	$5	$10.99
Refund	Full refund within the first 30 days	❌
Overall impression	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐

ClickUp vs Asana user interface 0:1

The interface plays an important role when choosing a task management tool for your business. It should be clear and user-friendly since everyone on the team must be able to use it.

ClickUp offers a great variety of features and options. However, this means its interface is quite complex, and it might take some time to learn how to best utilize its features. 

ClickUp is organized according to the project hierarchy. You have a workspace, which is divided into spaces, which contain lists. These lists of tasks can be grouped into folders. They make lists easier to organize if you have a large number of them within one space. 

For example, if your project was about opening a new branch of your company, you would have a workspace for that project. In it, you could create spaces for each team involved in the project, and those spaces would include lists of tasks. 

So, for example, the HR team would have its own space with task lists related to employing new people, relocating someone from the company to the new branch, etc.

You can use automations to make your work simpler and faster. ClickUp offers over 100 templates to choose from, but you can also create your own automations. For example, you can set the priority of a task to automatically change when its due date arrives. 

To make your everyday work in ClickUp easier, you can mark the locations you use often (e.g. a space or a list) as your favorites, and they will automatically appear in the sidebar, so you can find them quickly.

Asana has a clear user interface that is not hard to master. 

You can simplify your work by automating common processes. In Asana, automations are present in the form of Rules. There are already pre-set Rules to choose from, or you can make your own custom rules to fit your business needs. You need to choose the trigger that activates the rule, and the action is automatically performed. 

It’s actually simpler than it sounds — here’s an example:

Trigger: Task priority has been updated to high.

Rule: When a task’s priority is updated to high, add followers.

Action: Followers are added to the task. 

You can also create task templates. This is a handy way to save time since tasks within a project tend to be similar. You can choose the task type and customize components such as assignee, collaborators, dependencies, etc. 

You can also create projects from templates. Asana has a template library where you can find templates cataloged by teams. But you can also create a new template from one of your existing projects.

ClickUp vs Asana user interface verdict

In this category, Asana gets the point because it has a more user-friendly interface.

ClickUp vs Asana task management 1:1

As the name suggests, the main reason people decide to use a task management tool is to better handle their everyday tasks. So, how is task management organized in these 2 apps?

Tasks in ClickUp are highly customizable. You can add information to each task such as assignee, due date, status, priority, time estimate, etc. 

Also, one task can be added to multiple lists, and each task can have multiple assignees. 

Tasks can also contain subtasks, checklists, and descriptions for a more detailed view. 

ClickUp offers 15+ views to choose from, such as:

• List,
• Board,
• Calendar, 
• Gantt chart,
• Map,
• Timeline and more.

You can view your tasks in Asana in different ways, including:

• Board,
• List,
• Calendar, or  
• Timeline.

When creating tasks, you can add different fields for a clear overview of the most important information related to them. For example, you can add priority, assignee, or due date fields or even create custom fields that are specific to your project or organization. 

So, the finance department, for example, can create a custom field called “Cost” or “Salary”, while the sales team will have tasks with fields such as “Customer” or “Deal value”. 

In Asana, you can sync tasks across projects, so you can have the same task in different projects. You can also duplicate tasks within the same project. 

Unlike in ClickUp, in Asana, one task can have only one assignee, which can be a bit of a problem when several people work on the same task. One way to get around this is to add subtasks with different assignees. 

ClickUp vs Asana task management verdict

Both ClickUp and Asana have an array of features to help you organize and manage your tasks, so both get a point in this category. 

ClickUp vs Asana team collaboration 0:1

Team collaboration is a significant factor when it comes to project success. You need to be able to communicate with your team effectively for projects to run smoothly. 

ClickUp offers several ways for you to collaborate with your team. 

If you are working on a task together, you can message each other in the comments section of the task. You can attach files to comments to make communication easier. 

If you want to talk to a certain teammate, you can @mention them in the comment, and they will get a notification. ClickUp allows you to reply to these comments from the notifications section — you don’t have to open the task to do it.

If you wish to discuss topics broader than just one task, you can do that in the chat view. 

Sometimes, you want to be kept in the loop even if you are not directly working on a task. In that case, you can be added as a watcher instead of an assignee. You will be notified of all the changes in the task, but no items will be assigned to you. 

In Asana, there are several ways to communicate with other people in the organization. 

You can send direct messages to a teammate. Or, if you want to chat with the whole team, you can create a Team Conversation. You can name conversations and add descriptions. Also, each project has a space for messages about the project, where you can communicate with everyone involved in it. 

You can also collaborate with team members at the task level. Asana allows you to comment directly in a task. If you want to address a specific team member, you can @mention them in a comment. You can also add followers to a task, so they can stay updated on the changes in that task. 

ClickUp vs Asana team collaboration verdict

Both apps have a variety of ways for teams to collaborate. But we like how Asana organizes communication on all levels, so we award a point to Asana in this category.

ClickUp vs Asana progress tracking 1:1

ClickUp offers a wide range of ways to keep an eye on how your project is coming along. 

You can filter and sort tasks according to different criteria (assignee, date, priority, etc.). These options give you a clearer view of tasks you want to keep track of. You can include more than one criterion to filter. For example, you can filter tasks where:

a) One of your teammates is an assignee, and 

b) The due date is tomorrow.

Notifications are customizable in ClickUp, so you can decide which notifications you want to receive and where (in app, on mobile, in email). You can also add reminders for comments, conversations, or notifications to ensure you don’t forget to answer if you are too busy to do it at that moment. 

You can receive a Daily Summary of your tasks in your email to remind you what you need to do and where you stand with your project. 

You can track project progress in Asana using Universal Reporting. It allows you to: 

• Receive reports from your teams and departments, 
• Create and share dashboards containing real-time information, and 
• Visualize data in the form of charts and graphs.

If you want to check the progress of certain tasks, you can use the filter and sort options to see them all in one place. Asana has multiple filter and sort options. 

So you can, for example, filter tasks to show you only unfinished tasks that are assigned to you, and then sort them by due date. 

Another way to track progress is through Goals. You can create goals to help you and your teammates get a clear picture of what you need to accomplish. 

Goals have an owner and collaborators. There is also a hierarchy — goals can have parent goals or subgoals. 

For example, you can create a goal called “Organize a company get-together” and be the owner, while your teammates are collaborators. 

Its subgoals would be “Find a venue for the party”, “Confirm the number of guests”, etc. As your subgoals are advancing, Asana will calculate your goal progress in percentages. 

ClickUp vs Asana progress tracking verdict

Both apps allow you to track your progress in many different ways, so they both deserve a point in this category. 

ClickUp vs Asana administration 1:0

Every project manager wants to be able to have control over a project. So, the administration settings and permissions are a significant factor when choosing a task management tool.

There are 4 user roles that you can be assigned in ClickUp:

• Owners — the people who are in charge of a Workspace. They can transfer ownership of Workspaces or Spaces and delete Workspaces. 
• Admins — the people who manage the Workspace. They can add or remove members, manage permissions, billing, integrations, etc. 
• Members — people who work in a ClickUp Workspace. They can have access to public Spaces, create tasks, lists, folders, and spaces and make them private, and more. 
• Guests — people outside your organization who you’ve invited and shared your Workspace with. 

If you’re on a Business or Enterprise plan, you can create custom roles to fit the needs of your organization.

In ClickUp, you can invite an unlimited number of guests, regardless of the type of plan you have. However, in the free plan, you can’t manage guests’ permissions.

You can make any task, list, folder, or space private and choose who can access it. You can also set permissions for those who have access. There are 4 levels of permissions:

• View only,
• Comment,
• Edit, and 
• Full access.

In Asana, only paid plan users can invite an unlimited number of guests. 

You can also customize project permissions. Each project can be public or private. If a project is private, only the users you add have access to it. You can even make a project only you have access to and no one else. 

And if the project is public, it can be accessed by any team member or even by anyone from the organization depending on the project permissions.

You can also create comment-only projects — which means that you can share the project with your teammates, but they can’t edit anything. 

In paid plans, you get an admin console, which enables you to manage your team, so you can add, deactivate, or restore members. You can also manage security settings or billing information for your organization. 

ClickUp vs Asana administration verdict 

ClickUp has better-organized user roles and permission levels, so it’s the winner of this round.

ClickUp vs Asana integrations 1:0

If you want to have a useful all-around task management tool, integrations are a must. They help you keep everything in one place. 

ClickUp integrates with 1,000+ apps, including GitHub, Slack, Zoom, Clockify, etc. More than 50 of these integrations are included in the free plan.

Asana offers over 200 integrations, including Microsoft Teams, Zapier, Slack, and Clockify. Over 100 of these integrations are available in the free plan. 

ClickUp vs Asana integration verdict

ClickUp wins this category since it integrates with more apps than Asana. 

Feature	ClickUp	Asana
Number of integrations	1,000+	200+
Overall impression	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐

ClickUp vs Asana support 1:0

You are only human — you can’t know everything. So, when you come across a problem you can’t solve or a feature you don’t know how to use, it’s important to have a support system to turn to. 

On ClickUp’s help page, you can read articles that can help you familiarize yourself with ClickUp and find answers to a problem you might have. If you can’t find what you are looking for, you can contact support by submitting a request on the help page. 

ClickUp offers 24/7 live support to all of its users, even those on the free plan. It also offers live chat support to all of its paid plan users.

If you are looking for more advanced support, you can opt for an Enterprise plan in which you get:

• An onboard training workshop,
• Priority support,
• An admin training webinar
• A dedicated customer support manager, and 
• Access to managed services.

Asana offers a diverse selection of materials to help you get better acquainted with their platform, including:

• The Asana forum,
• Asana help,
• Developer’s guides, 
• Asana use cases,
• Video tutorials,
• Academy courses, and
• Live webinars in English, Japanese, and German. 

If you want to directly contact the support team, you can submit a form on their support page. 

And if you are an Enterprise user, there is also 24/7 customer support. 

ClickUp vs Asana support verdict

Both ClickUp and Asana offer a knowledge base rich with articles, tutorials, and tips to help you navigate their apps. But, ClickUp takes this round on account of offering 24/7 support to all its users.

Feature	ClickUp	Asana
Knowledge hub	✔️	✔️
24/7 customer support	✔️	Only in the Enterprise plan
Overall impression	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐

ClickUp vs Asana security 1:1

Data security is extremely important to every company. You want to make sure that your project management tool keeps your data safe at all times. 

All ClickUp communication is encrypted with TLS 1.2, and all data is encrypted at rest with AES-256 encryption. Customer data in ClickUp is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

ClickUp offers two-factor authentication and Google Single Sign On.

It holds and maintains the following security certifications and compliances:

• ISO,
• SOC 2,
• HIPAA, and 
• GDPR.

In Asana, all data is encrypted in transit and at rest. You can also export and delete data at the organizational level.

Asana offers multi-factor authentication and Google Single Sign On.

It possesses many certifications and attestations: 

• ISO,
• GDPR,
• SOC 2 (Type 2) and SOC 3,
• HIPAA,
• CCPA,
• APPI,
• GLBA,
• FEPRA, and 
• CSA STAR Level 1. 

ClickUp vs Asana security verdict

Both apps work hard to keep your data secure, so both have earned a point in our last category. 

Feature	ClickUp	Asana
Two-factor authentication	✔️	✔️
Google Single Sign On	✔️	✔️
Data encryption	✔️	✔️
Relevant Certifications	✔️	✔️
Overall impression	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

ClickUp vs Asana verdict

We have reached the end of this comparison, and the winner is — ClickUp.

Feature	ClickUp	Asana
Pricing	1	0
User interface	0	1
Task management	1	1
Team collaboration	0	1
Progress tracking	1	1
Administration	1	0
Integration	1	0
Support	1	0
Security	1	1
Total score	7	5

However, this isn’t by any means a definite answer. It all comes down to what you are looking for. 

So first, make a list of all the things you need for your business. Then, compare it to the features we have mentioned in this article and see if ClickUp or Asana tick all (or most of) the boxes on your list. 

Looking for a ClickUp or Asana alternative? Try Plaky

If you haven’t found what you are looking for in either ClickUp or Asana, you should consider Plaky — a secure task management tool with a user-friendly interface. As a cherry on top — it is completely free.  

With Plaky you can:

• Create boards from scratch or one of many templates,
• Collaborate with your team members, 
• Create tasks with customizable categories,
• Organize tasks into groups,
• Sort and filter items, 
• Get notifications,
• Track time by integrating with Clockify, and much more.

It is a great alternative to Asana, since it offers:

• An unlimited number of users and workspaces, 
• A 24/7 customer support, and
• Google SSO.

And if you are looking for a tool that offers guests with permissions and an unlimited number of workspaces and folders for free, consider Plaky as an alternative to ClickUp. 

✉️ Do you have any experience using ClickUp or Asana? How did you like them? Contact us at blogfeedback@plaky.com and let us know, and we may include your answers in this or some future post. If you found this post useful, share it with someone you think will be interested in it.