Why I Ditched Trello (and What I Use Now)

Quick Verdict

Trello was fine until I needed to ship something with actual deadlines. It’s a digital corkboard, not a project manager. I tried Asana, ClickUp, and Notion — here’s the honest score.

Asana **** (4/5) — best for structured teams. ClickUp ** (3/5) — ambitious but bloated. Notion *** (3.5/5) — great docs, weak tasks. If you’re rich and don’t care about budget, Monday.com is solid, but I’m not paying that.

Here’s the petty truth: I left Trello because of a stupid automation limit. I had 47 boards across work and personal stuff. Trello’s Butler — their “powerful” rule engine — wouldn’t let me set a simple “mark card as overdue” unless I paid $17.50/month. For a color change. I spent a Sunday afternoon trying to hack it with Zapier. Failed. The next day I exported everything. Bye.

I wanted something that treated tasks like they had weight. Not just “card moves across a list and that’s progress.”

Asana

What I liked: Asana assumes your project matters. Timeline view, dependencies, workload — it’s serious. I set up a marketing launch with 30 tasks, each with a concrete due date, and it just worked. The free tier lets you have up to 15 team members, which is generous. The UI is clean — no cartoon clouds or clippy companions. I also like how they handle subtasks: they’re actual tasks, not card inside card inside card.

What I didn’t like: Asana is rigid. You can’t just drop a card wherever on a board — it has to be in a column. The free version locks custom fields (that’s a $10.99/user/month add-on). And the mobile app is laggy. I accidentally marked an entire list as “complete” while the app was spinning. The client called me. Awkward. Also, the “My Tasks” view is weirdly disconnected from project views. I never trusted it.

Personal failure: I set up a rule that emailed the team every time I completed a task. I completed 12 in a row while testing. Subject line: “Steve completed [task].” They started replying with “stop.” I didn’t know how to turn it off for three days.

ClickUp

What I liked: ClickUp does everything. Timelines, mind maps, docs, whiteboards, goals, time tracking, even a CRM-ish thing. It’s a Swiss Army knife that also wants to be a tractor. I liked the customizability — you can make your own fields, statuses, views. I made a board that looked exactly how I wanted. For a week, I thought I’d found heaven.

What I didn’t like: ClickUp is slow. The web app takes three seconds to load. Every click waits for a spinner. The mobile app is worse — I tried to open a task on my phone and it crashed twice. The learning curve is insane. I still can’t explain the difference between “Spaces,” “Folders,” and “Lists.” I asked support and they sent a 10-minute video. I didn’t watch it. Also, updates break stuff. One morning my custom statuses were gone. I migrated to Asana the same day.

Negative about a popular tool: Everyone gushes about ClickUp’s feature list. Nobody mentions that using those features requires a PhD in their hierarchy. I’d rather have 10 fast features than 100 that crash my browser.

Notion

What I liked: Notion is gorgeous. I love making pages. I used it for personal projects — a database of books, a habit tracker, a blog planner. The free tier is legit: unlimited pages, unlimited blocks, up to 10 guests. The Gallery view makes a decent Trello clone. I could link databases, write documents, embed spreadsheets. It felt like a second brain.

What I didn’t like: Notion is not a project manager. No native dependencies. No Gantt chart without a complicated formula. The mobile app is terrible for task management — I tried to reorder a to-do list on my phone and gave up. Notifications are flaky. I missed a deadline because Notion pushed the alert an hour late. Also, real-time collaboration is messy — two people editing a database at once creates conflicts that aren’t fun to resolve.

Free option: Notion is excellent if you just need a place to organize info. But for managing actual work with deadlines, it’s a compromise. I keep it for personal notes, not team projects.

Rich option: If you have a corporate card, just buy Monday.com. It’s expensive ($10/user/month minimum, with a 3-seat floor), but it actually does project management out of the box. I didn’t test it because I’m not paying for a demo.

I’m using Asana now. It’s not perfect — I hate the mobile app, and the free limitation of 15 members stings if you grow. But it’s reliable. I don’t wake up to broken automations or missing statuses. For now, that’s enough. Next year maybe I’ll try something else. But for now. Asana.

Pros & Cons

Asana

• Clean, professional UI that doesn’t distract
• Dependencies and timelines that actually work
• Generous free tier for small teams

• Mobile app is slow and buggy
• Removing custom fields behind paywall feels greedy
• Rigid board structure — no free placement

ClickUp

• Feature overload — almost everything you’d ever want
• High customizability — make it yours

• Slow loading times across all platforms
• Steep learning curve (Spaces vs Folders vs Lists)
• Updates break existing configurations

Notion

• Beautiful, flexible pages for docs