The 9 best Trello alternatives in 2026

Trello is the gold standard when it comes to Kanban apps. But it's also an all-around solid project management solution—so much so that it's on Zapier's list of the best free project management software and the best project management software for small businesses.  

You can use Trello to organize almost anything: your content calendar, goals, vacation plans, finances—it even works as a CRM. 

Of course, that doesn't mean Trello is the exact right tool for everyone. There are other great apps that offer a lot of what Trello does but with a different emphasis or a few extra features. Here are nine of the best Trello alternatives, so you can decide which one is right for you. 

The best Trello alternatives 

• Asana for scaling teams

• Paymo for freelancers and small agency teams

• monday.com for more customization and flexibility

• Todoist for managing to-do lists

• Any.do for planning your day

• Airtable for managing larger and more complex datasets

• Jira for Agile development workflows

• Pipedrive for a CRM for sales teams

• Microsoft Planner for Microsoft users

Why you may need a Trello alternative 

Trello has a lot going for it—particularly, its easy-to-use, drag-and-drop Kanban boards. In recent years, Trello has leaned further into personal productivity, adding features like Inbox (for capturing to-dos from email, Slack, and Teams) and Planner (for scheduling tasks on a calendar). But leaning personal means some gaps have grown elsewhere. Here are the main reasons you might want a Trello alternative.

• You need structured data on your cards. Trello's free plan doesn't include Custom Fields—the structured data types (dropdown lists, dates, checkboxes, numbers) that let you add real context to cards. Those require a paid plan. If you want a richer data layer without paying extra, other tools include them by default.

• You want a more powerful personal productivity experience. Trello's personal tools—Inbox and Planner—are clean and useful, but they're relatively shallow. If you want features like natural language task input, recurring tasks, AI-suggested subtasks, or gamification, dedicated personal to-do apps go deeper.

• You need a purpose-built CRM. Trello can double as a scrappy sales pipeline, but as soon as your funnel gets even a little complex, you'll feel its limits. A real CRM is built around contacts, deal stages, and follow-up tracking in ways Trello just isn't.

What makes the best Trello alternative?

Given that some of Trello's features may leave you wanting more, this roundup focuses on Trello alternatives that fill in those gaps. Not only do they include what you've come to appreciate Trello for—Kanban boards—but they also meet these key criteria:

• Collaboration tools. All apps that made the list offer some level of in-app collaboration, like tagging, in-app messaging, and file sharing.

• Customization. Every team works differently, and projects come in all shapes and sizes, so I've included apps that offer flexible ways to visualize and organize your projects. 

• Integrations. You don't have time to manually update every stage of your project management workflow, so your Trello alternative needs to integrate with the rest of your tech stack. 

• Affordability. I've focused on apps that don't break the bank. Either they come with a robust free plan, or their paid plans are affordable on a per-user-per-month basis.

• Bonus points for advanced AI, but not required. Trello offers basic AI features through Atlassian Intelligence, though full access requires a premium plan. If an app listed below offers AI features that go above and beyond what Trello offers, I'll call it out—otherwise, it's not a point of comparison yet.

And, of course, I was also looking for some kind of standout reason to use any of these apps over Trello. Based on my research and extensive testing done by the Zapier team, these are the best Trello alternatives that fit the bill. 

The best Trello alternatives at a glance 

The best Trello alternative for scaling teams 

Asana

Asana pros: 

• Flexible project view options 

• Robust template library, complete with preset automation workflows

Asana cons: 

• More expensive than Trello 

Trello and Asana are two of the most popular project management apps on the market. Compared to Trello, though, Asana is better for larger teams that want more project templates and views. When you build a project from a template, Asana will even suggest the best primary view (Calendar, Board, List, or Timeline), automated workflows, and app integrations. 

Asana's built-in features also make it easier for teams to collaborate. For example, you can assign tasks to individuals (this isn't as straightforward in Trello). There's also in-app direct messaging where you can attach files, record video messages, and tag other projects. 

Unlike Trello's built-in reports, which are extremely bare-bones, Asana offers more robust reporting features for paid users. You can measure a wide range of metrics using custom fields. For example, if you add a custom field to your tasks for cost, you can pull a report on costs per project or tasks per cost range. Or you can ask Asana's AI assistant to answer simple questions like "How many tasks in the project are currently in progress?" or "Show me all the tasks that are dependent on [insert milestone here]."

Want to do even more with Asana? Asana's Zapier integrations let you connect with thousands of other apps and automate your work so you can do things like turn saved Slack messages into Asana tasks. For more inspiration, check out some of the most popular ways to automate Asana, or try a pre-built workflow.

Asana pricing: Free for up to 2 team members, unlimited projects and tasks, and 3 project views (List, Board, and Calendar); from $10.99/user/month (billed annually) for the Starter plan, which includes additional features like Asana Intelligence, advanced reporting, and Timeline and Gantt views.

Read more: Trello vs. Asana

The best Trello alternative for freelancers and small agency teams 

Paymo

Paymo pros:

• Built-in features for time tracking, invoicing, and expenses

• Clean interface that makes invoicing and project scoping easy

• Affordable paid plans for solo freelancers and small teams

Paymo cons:

• You'll need a paid plan to work with multiple clients

While Trello is great for organizing tasks, Paymo goes a step further by including built-in time tracking, invoicing, and client collaboration tools—all the extras that service-based businesses need. 

You can track your time right from each task, mark it as billable or non-billable, set time estimates, and even keep an eye on how close you're getting to a project's time budget. Everything you need to track work and get paid is right there in the task details—no switching between tools or manually logging time elsewhere.

Paymo also makes it easy to loop in clients without giving away too much control. You can add them as guest users, so they can view and comment on tasks without editing or creating anything. Most freelancers will want to skip straight to a paid plan—the free tier is limited to one user and one client, which isn't much use if you're billing multiple accounts.

You can also connect Paymo to Zapier to automate the boring stuff—like tracking invoice status or blocking off calendar time—so you can stay focused on client work.

Paymo pricing: Free plan available for 1 user, 1 client, and 2 projects. Upgrade to the $5.90/month Solo plan for up to 3 clients and 5 projects, or the $10.90/month Plus plan for unlimited clients, projects, users, and additional views. 

The best Trello alternative for customization and flexibility 

monday.com

monday.com pros: 

• Super customizable visual project dashboards

• Built-in time tracking and capacity planning features

monday.com cons: 

• Only one level of subtasks (and you can't copy subtasks to other tasks) 

monday.com is another solid Trello alternative known for all the ways it allows you to visualize your projects. In addition to the views you'd get in Trello or Asana (Kanban, calendar, and timeline), there are workload views for managing team capacity, file views for a gallery-like view of all your board files, and form views for converting existing boards into forms. 

Setting up your view to be just right, however, can be a bit of a head-scratcher—especially when you first dig in. You have to tweak all the columns to your needs, which creates new views, and you have to use filters and sections to break up tasks. But therein lies the beauty of monday.com: it's highly customizable.  

monday's dashboard also stands out. It aggregates data and metrics across all your projects onto one clean visual interface that you can customize further. Meanwhile, Trello's "dashboard" view is extremely simple: it tells you only how many cards you have per list, due date, and label, and that's about it—even if you have the more premium plan.

One important thing: while monday offers deep customization options, some of these more advanced views and features are gated behind higher price tiers. This means that access to the full power of monday's customization capabilities might require stepping up to a more premium subscription. Still, the ability to tailor the platform extensively to your team's needs is a compelling reason to choose it. 

monday.com also integrates with Zapier, allowing you to take your project management tool even further. Learn more about how to automate monday.com, or get started with a pre-made workflow.

monday.com pricing: Free Work Management plan includes 2 seats, 3 boards, and 3 docs; Basic plan starts at $9/seat/month (billed annually) with a minimum of 3 seats for unlimited free viewers, 5 GB of file storage, and a project dashboard based on one board. 

Read more: Trello vs. monday

The best Trello alternative for managing to-do lists 

Todoist

Todoist pros: 

• Excels at managing tasks and subtasks

• Built-in natural language processing for adding tasks 

Todoist cons: 

• Limited big-picture collaboration features

The short version: Todoist is a to-do list app that's better suited for individual task management. 

The magic of Todoist lies in its simplicity. Creating and adding tasks is as easy as telling Todoist what you need done. With natural language processing (NLP) input, you can type something as simple as "Submit receipts at the end of every month," and Todoist magically schedules the task for you—no complicated setup or coding required. Trello, in contrast, doesn't offer NLP for adding tasks or projects.

You can nest subtasks within subtasks (Trello's subtasks, which are really checklists, only go one level deep), organize task lists into various projects, and sync your account activity across devices. Todoist also gamifies your productivity by awarding you Karma points—the more tasks you check off, the more points you earn. 

Todoist has about 60 built-in app integrations, including a native two-way sync with Google Calendar that automatically adds to-dos to your calendar. When you connect Todoist with Zapier, you can connect to thousands more apps. Learn more about how to automate Todoist, or get started with a pre-built template.

Todoist pricing: Free plan includes 5 personal projects, 3 filter views, and 1 week of activity history; Pro plan for $5/month (billed annually) includes 300 personal projects, more filters, AI Assistant, and task reminders.

Read more: Trello vs. Todoist

Best Trello alternative for planning your day

Any.do

Any.do pros:

• Great mobile experience

• "My Day" feature forces you to actually schedule your tasks, not just collect them

• AI can suggest subtasks to break down bigger to-dos

Any.do cons:

• Desktop version feels cluttered and less polished than the mobile app

• Recurring tasks and AI features locked behind the paid plan

Any.do isn't trying to be your team's project hub. It's trying to be the personal to-do app that gets you out of your own way. Where Trello is built for boards and team visibility, Any.do is optimized for the person staring at their phone at 8 a.m. and wondering how to get through the day.

My favorite feature is "My Day," a daily check-in that prompts you to go through your tasks and actually decide when you're going to do them. It sounds simple, but it's the thing that separates Any.do from the sea of apps where tasks go to die. The app integrates with Google Calendar and Outlook, so when you're in Plan my Day mode, you can see your calendar events alongside your task list. 

The mobile app is also the best way to use Any.do—which can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you like to access your to-do list. The mobile version is fast, clean, and intuitive in a way that makes the desktop version feel cluttered by comparison. 

Any.do also integrates with Zapier on paid plans, which means you can connect it to thousands of other apps and automate the tedious parts of task management. For example, when a new Google Calendar event ends, you can have Zapier automatically create a follow-up task in Any.do. Or when a starred Gmail message lands in your inbox, Zapier can push it straight to Any.do as a task. Learn more about how to automate Any.do, or get started with a popular template.

Any.do pricing: Free plan available with tasks, lists, reminders, calendar, and cross-device sync. Premium plan from $4.99/month (billed annually), which includes recurring tasks, WhatsApp reminders, AI-powered features, and location reminders.

The best Trello alternative for managing larger and more complex datasets

Airtable

Airtable pros: 

• Lots of templates to help with the initial setup

• 30 different field types, including barcodes, sound files, and links to other records

Airtable cons: 

• More involved setup process 

Airtable is a database tool (with a spreadsheet vibe) where you can store huge volumes of data and tackle complex projects; Trello is mostly a digital Kanban board. But since both apps can be used for project management, Airtable makes a strong case as a Trello alternative. 

In Airtable, you store data in records (like rows in a spreadsheet). You can include basically any kind of data—barcodes, URLs, audio files, the list goes on—and can import it from almost anywhere. Airtable not only stores more types of data than Trello, but it also lets you view that data in more ways: grid, calendar, gallery, Kanban, timeline, list, Gantt, and form. And within each Airtable view, you can filter, sort, group, and customize data in ways that make it more digestible and actionable.

The different views in Airtable already make it a more advanced tool than Trello, but it goes beyond that: Airtable allows you to build fully customizable interfaces for your team or external collaborators—complete with tables, charts, calendars, buttons, and filters. 

It will take some upfront effort to tailor Airtable to be exactly what you need—but if you're willing to spend the time, the sky's the limit. 

Airtable also integrates with Zapier, so you can do things like automatically track important information in Airtable and get notifications for activity in your Airtable base. For more inspiration, check out these Airtable automation ideas. Or get started with a pre-built workflow. 

Airtable pricing: Free plan includes up to 5 users, unlimited bases, 1,000 records per base, and 6 view options, and 500 AI credits/user/month. The Team plan is $20/user/month (billed annually) and includes 50,000 records per base, 20 GB of attachments per base, 15,000 AI credits/user/month, and more views.

Read more: Airtable vs. Trello

The best Trello alternative for managing Agile development workflows 

Jira

Jira pros:

• Purpose-built for developers and engineers

• Prominent issue tracker

Jira cons:

• Limited free plan

Jira is unique on this list in that it's owned by the same company as Trello: Atlassian. It makes sense, then, that both apps offer a lot of the same features to support the Agile project management philosophy. Jira, however, is purpose-built for software development teams. 

In addition to Kanban boards, Jira also offers Scrum boards (another popular Agile framework for software development). Not sure how to organize your team's workflows? Jira will recommend a methodology and project template based on your team's projects, level of experience with different methodologies, and deadlines. From there, you can create a backlog of issues, plan a Sprint to accomplish a certain goal based on them, manage the progress of your Sprint, and then repeat it all again.

That's not to say you can't accomplish all the same things in Trello—you can. But Jira's inherent framework makes it that much easier for Scrum users to manage their workflows. And Jira's catering to developers and engineering teams doesn't stop there: the app also integrates with other development tools like GitHub, GitLab, Sentry, and Jenkins to make quick work of updating and tracking your backlog.

Atlassian's AI features (called Atlassian Intelligence) are present in both Trello and Jira, but they're more advanced in Jira. Users get comment summaries, suggested subtasks, complex search filters, and even an automation builder that works from text-based prompts.

Overall, Jira is a great collaboration tool for Agile software development teams that use Kanban or Scrum. It can integrate with the apps and tools they use and provide the structure and 10,000-foot view that managers want. It's not that it can't do other things, but if you're not on an Agile development team, you're fighting against the inherent framework it provides. 

When you connect Jira with Zapier, you unlock thousands more app integrations so you can easily send data into and out of your project management software. Learn more about how to automate Jira, or get started with a pre-made workflow. 

Jira pricing: Free plan includes up to 10 users, unlimited projects, and 2 GB of storage; Standard plan for $9.05/user/month includes more granular user permissions and 250 GB of file storage.

Read more: Trello vs. Jira

The best Trello alternative for sales teams needing a CRM

Pipedrive

Pipedrive pros: 

• Pipeline cards offer at-a-glance status updates on leads 

• Deep reporting and analytics 

Pipedrive cons: 

• No free plan available 

Pipedrive and Trello share some features, but in the end, they belong to two distinct categories and serve two different audiences: Pipedrive is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool for sales teams. 

The day-to-day in Pipedrive involves adding contacts to the database and filling in all the relevant fields. You'll then use that data to reach out to your prospects, understanding which of them are better fits for the product or service you're offering. 

Pipedrive's AI-powered assistant also works behind the scenes to improve your sales workflows: it tracks your team's performance and lost rates, predicts the likelihood of winning a deal while providing guidance on how to increase the odds, and gives you progress updates so you know how strong the needle is moving forward.

As you may have more than one person working on the same deal, Pipedrive keeps all the communication activity centralized in the contact and deal pages, helping your team pick up where you left off. Of course, you could use Trello as a CRM, but it won't have the perfect-fit feeling of Pipedrive.

Pipedrive also integrates with Zapier so you can connect it to thousands of apps and automate your CRM. Learn more about how to automate Pipedrive, or get started with a pre-made workflow.

Pipedrive pricing: No free plan available, but there's a 14-day free trial; Lite plan for $14/seat/month (billed annually) includes data import and export, sales reporting, and an AI-powered assistant.

Read more: Pipedrive vs. Trello

The best Trello alternative for Microsoft users

Microsoft Planner

Microsoft Planner pros:

• Predictably, it plays nicely with the Microsoft app ecosystem 

• More structured task and project management than Trello

Microsoft Planner cons: 

• Can't use with a personal Microsoft email; must have a work email domain 

If you and your team are already deep in the Microsoft ecosystem, give Microsoft Planner a try. It integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365, making it an ideal choice for businesses that rely on tools like Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint for daily operations. You can add your Planner board directly to a Teams channel, letting your team collaborate on tasks in real time without needing to switch between apps. 

Planner also provides structured task management that helps teams stay on track. Unlike Trello's more open-ended approach, Planner encourages a more linear workflow with built-in progress markers, priority levels, and recurring tasks—perfect for teams that need a bit more structure. Plus, its built-in Charts feature offers a clear visual breakdown of tasks in progress, overdue items, and completed work, which makes it easy to monitor productivity at a glance.

For teams that need AI-powered assistance, Planner also includes Microsoft Copilot (with a paid upgrade), which can suggest tasks, track project progress, and even generate status updates. Trello has AI features too, but Microsoft's AI is tightly integrated with its broader suite of productivity tools, so it's a powerful option for businesses that are all-in on Microsoft 365.

If you're already paying for Microsoft 365, using Planner makes a lot of sense. It keeps everything organized within the tools you already use, provides structured task management, and enhances collaboration within Teams. While Trello might win on customization and flexibility, Microsoft Planner is a smart choice for Microsoft users who want a seamless, integrated solution.

Microsoft Planner pricing: Free for all Microsoft 365 users on Business plans; upgrade to Planner Plan 1 ($10/user/month) for full access to reporting, or the catchily-titled "Planner and Project Plan 3" ($30/user/month) to use AI in Planner.

Read more: Microsoft Planner vs. Trello

Other Trello alternatives 

There are plenty of Trello alternatives on the market—more than I could possibly list here. If none of the apps listed above quite satisfy your must-haves, here are some other popular options that are worth exploring. 

• Other project management software like ClickUp and Wrike.

• Open source Trello alternatives like Baserow and OpenProject.

• All-in-one productivity apps like Notion or Coda.

• Dead simple project management templates for Google Docs and Sheets users. 

• Tools built for Agile project management like Aha! and Zoho Sprints.

• AI-powered productivity tools like workstreams.ai.

• Task management apps built for small businesses like Nifty.

Which Trello alternative should you use?

I'm going to give you the answer that, if I were hearing it, would make me flop on the floor: it depends.

It does, though. Because what works for one team might not work for another. For example, if all you're looking to do is split up house chores with your roommate, Airtable is probably overkill. But if you're a product marketing team launching multiple products with overlapping dates, Airtable might invoke that where-has-this-been-all-my-life feeling. 

My advice: pick an app that sounds the most promising, and take it for a spin. All the apps on this list offer generous enough free plans (or affordable monthly plans) for you to test the waters, so you can decide for yourself if it's worth making the switch. 

The best Trello alternatives: FAQs

If you still have questions, I have answers. Here are some of the most common questions about the best Trello alternatives. 

Does Microsoft have something like Trello? 

Yes, and it's a great alternative—so much so that I already recommended it. Microsoft's project management solution is Microsoft Planner. It's a combination of the previous Microsoft Planner, Microsoft To Do, Microsoft Project, and Microsoft Copilot (it's a lot of Microsoft). With it, you can manage team communication and access advanced features like Gantt charts and dependencies, team workload, and goal management all in one place—something that's not natively available in Trello.

For a deeper dive into the differences between Planner and Trello, check out our app showdown: Microsoft Planner vs. Trello.

Does Google have something like Trello? 

Google doesn't offer a Trello alternative (yet). But if you're already comfortable with Google apps, you can get creative. For example, you can DIY a Google Sheets Kanban app. Here are some other Google project management templates to get you started.

Related reading: 

• Trello calendar views to help visualize your projects

• How to prioritize tasks: 10 task prioritization techniques

• How to streamline project management with automation and AI

This article was originally published in April 2024 by Jessica Lau. The most recent update was in April 2026.