monday.com vs Asana: configurable boards or projects and portfolios
monday.com builds work on boards whose columns you design. Asana organizes tasks into projects, with portfolios and goals above them on its Advanced plan.
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Choose monday.com if
monday.com fits teams that want to track work as structured data in columns they define, with free read-only viewers and dashboards that combine boards from Standard.
Choose Asana if
Asana fits teams that want a task-and-project structure with dependencies from the first paid plan, and portfolios and goals for managers on Advanced.
| Topic | monday.com | Asana |
|---|---|---|
| Built around | Boards where each item is a row and the columns you add hold owner, status, dates and other data. | Tasks with owners and due dates, grouped into projects. Portfolios and goals sit above projects on Advanced. |
| Views | Kanban on every plan. Timeline, Gantt, Calendar and Map from Standard; Workload and Chart from Pro. | List, board and calendar on Personal. Timeline and Gantt from Starter. |
| Gantt and dependencies | Gantt from Standard. The Dependency Column is on Pro and Enterprise, with Flexible, Strict or No action modes. | Task dependencies from Starter, with a red line on the timeline when dates conflict. Critical path on Advanced. |
| Free plan | Up to 2 seats, up to 3 boards, up to 3 Docs and 200+ templates. | Personal: 2 users, unlimited tasks and projects, list, board and calendar views. |
| Seat and billing rules | Paid plans start from 3 users. Unlimited free viewers from Basic. Guests from Standard, where every 4 guests count as 1 billed seat. | Starter has no user seat limits and lists unlimited free guests. Enterprise adds view-only licenses. |
| Automation | Standard: 250 automation actions and 250 integration actions a month. Pro: 25,000 of each. Enterprise: up to 250,000. | Unlimited automations from Starter. Automations are not listed on Personal. |
| Docs and wiki | Docs: up to 3 on Free, per the pricing page. Private boards and docs on Pro. | Notes on every plan, for project notes, meeting minutes and documentation. Asana's help center now calls them Pages. |
| Time tracking | Listed on Pro: tracking and monitoring the time spent on each task. | Native time tracking on Advanced. Personal lists time tracking through integrations; Timesheets & Budgets is an add-on. |
| Reporting | Dashboards draw on 1 board on Free and Basic, up to 5 boards on Standard, 20 on Pro and 50 on Enterprise. | Reporting dashboards from Starter; portfolios to track related projects on Advanced. |
| Best suited to | Teams whose process already lives in a spreadsheet and who want many views and cross-board dashboards on top. | Teams running several dated projects that need linked dates early and manager rollups on Advanced. |
| Pricing | Check current monday.com pricing ↗ | Check current Asana pricing ↗ |
The main difference
monday.com and Asana are both work management tools for teams, but they start from different building blocks. In monday.com, everything begins with a board: items are rows, and you choose the columns that hold owner, status, dates or any other data. In Asana, everything begins with a task that has an owner and a due date, and tasks live in projects.
That changes where the setup effort goes. In monday.com you design columns, and some features depend on them: a Dependency Column drives date shifting on the board. In Asana the task and project structure is fixed, and the plan you choose decides which layers sit on top.
How each organizes work
monday.com items can be tasks, clients or anything else you track. You add board views to see the same items in other ways, up to 100 views per board, and from Standard a dashboard can combine several boards. Basic adds unlimited items and boards.
Asana's features page describes tasks, projects, portfolios for monitoring connected projects, and goals that connect team work to company objectives. Projects can be viewed as a list, board, calendar, timeline or Gantt chart. My tasks collects each person's assignments in one list, and Inbox filters updates about the work they follow.
Planning and timelines
- monday.com: dependencies work through one Dependency Column per board, on Pro and Enterprise. Support describes four dependency types and lead and lag time, both being released gradually, and cross-project dependencies are being gradually released to Enterprise customers.
- Asana: you can draw dependencies on the timeline, and the assignee of a dependent task is notified when the blocking task is completed. Critical path on the timeline is on Advanced.
For linked dates, the entry plan is Pro in monday.com and Starter in Asana. If later tasks must move by exactly as much as an earlier one, test monday.com's Strict mode during the Pro trial.
Plans and limits to check
We do not publish prices because they change. Check monday.com's and Asana's pricing pages for current numbers. The thresholds that usually decide the plan:
- A third person: monday.com Free stops at 2 seats and Asana Personal at 2 users, so either way a team of three needs a paid plan. monday.com paid plans start from 3 users.
- Workload and capacity: monday.com lists the Workload view on Pro and resource management on Enterprise. Asana lists resource management within a portfolio on Advanced, and universal resource management and capacity planning on Enterprise.
- Automation volume: monday.com Standard allows 250 automation actions a month, and Pro raises that to 25,000 actions a month. Asana lists no monthly count from Starter.
- Managers' rollups: monday.com lists portfolio management on Enterprise. Asana lists unlimited portfolios and goals on Advanced.
- Trials and AI: monday.com offers a 14-day free trial of Pro, and its pricing page lists AI features from Basic with monthly AI credits. Asana's help center describes a trial with full access to paid features, and its paid plans include AI Teammates and AI Studio.
Where monday.com is stronger
- Columns you define let one board hold whatever data your process needs, and the same items feed many views.
- Workload, Chart and Map views on a board, on the tiers shown in the table.
- Dependency settings include Flexible, Strict or No action modes.
- Up to 100 views per board.
Where Asana is stronger
- Timeline, Gantt and task dependencies come with the first paid plan, Starter.
- Automations are listed as unlimited from Starter, with no monthly action count to plan around.
- Portfolios, goals and resource management arrive on Advanced rather than Enterprise.
- Unlimited free guests from Starter; on monday.com Standard, every 4 guests count as 1 billed seat.
How to decide
Match your main need to a plan:
- Linked task dates on the lowest paid tier: Asana Starter. monday.com needs Pro.
- A workload view: monday.com Pro or Asana Advanced.
- Many colleagues who only read status: monday.com, since viewers are free from Basic. In Asana, view-only licenses are on Enterprise.
- A process that already lives in a spreadsheet: monday.com, because boards keep the rows-and-columns shape.
- Goals and cross-project status for managers: Asana Advanced.
Then rebuild one real project in a trial of the plan you picked and check that its limits fit a normal month of work.
Common questions
Which plan do I need for Gantt charts with dependencies?
In monday.com, Gantt views start on Standard, but dependencies between items need Pro or Enterprise. In Asana, Timeline and Gantt views with task dependencies start on Starter.
Which one includes time tracking?
monday.com lists time tracking on Pro. Asana lists native time tracking, which compares estimated and actual effort, on Advanced, and sells a Timesheets & Budgets add-on.
Do monday.com and Asana include docs?
Yes. monday.com's pricing page lists up to 3 Docs on Free and private boards and docs on Pro. Asana lists Notes on every plan for project notes, meeting minutes and documentation, and its help center now calls them Pages.
Sources
Vendor pages used for this guide. Plans and features change, so confirm details on the vendor site before you buy.
- monday.com pricing checked 19 October 2026
- monday.com support: The board views checked 19 October 2026
- monday.com support: Dependencies checked 19 October 2026
- Asana pricing checked 19 October 2026
- Asana features checked 19 October 2026
- Asana Help: Managing tasks and dependencies with timeline checked 19 October 2026
- Asana Help: Critical path on timeline checked 19 October 2026
- Asana Help: Pages in Asana checked 19 October 2026
- Asana Help: Free trial checked 19 October 2026
- monday.com support: Pricing for guests checked 19 October 2026
- monday.com support: Available plan types checked 19 October 2026
- monday.com support: User types explained checked 19 October 2026
- Asana Help: Task dependencies checked 19 October 2026
Next step
Read the full review of each tool, or answer six questions to see which tools match your team.