Tech Showdown is a new, regular feature of JoHILA. Novel products, software, and technologies will be compared against each other to determine who is the winner, based on available features, ease of use, and price. If you have an idea for Tech Showdown, or would like to see a comparison of two particular technologies, please email Cass. 

How do you manage and organise projects within your team? Perhaps you use a spreadsheet to keep track of tasks. You might have a whiteboard in the office with a simple checklist. Maybe you use a shared inbox and delegate items to team members with labels. Well, there’s an easier way – the online project management tool.  

In the blue corner, we have Trello, in the red corner, we have Monday.com. Both products leverage the idea of a Kanban board. A Kanban board is a way to visually represent a project. The board has columns, usually titled ‘To Do’, ‘In Progress’, and ‘Complete’ – although the columns can be called anything, depending on your context. Tasks are written on an individual card and the card is moved through the columns, depending on what stage it is in.  

Trello and Monday.com boast of their capacity to increase productivity and collaboration, but implementing new systems for a team can be time consuming and doomed to fail if it doesn’t suit your needs. Let’s compare the two in detail before you sign up for an account. 

Round 1: Features 

Winner – Trello. Monday.com also has integrations and automation features, but these are not available for the free plan, only the mid-tier and above plans. Interestingly, Monday.com offers integration with Trello. Is Monday.com admitting that Trello is the superior product? 

Round 2: Ease of Use 

Both Trello and Monday.com are browser-based and do not require you to download anything, which is always a huge plus in environments that require an admin username and password to install programs on work devices.  

Trello’s interface is uncluttered and simple to use. Drag and drop cards to move them between your columns. Click on a card to expand and read more, add comments, or attachments. Add new cards to existing columns with a single click.  

Monday.com, meanwhile, is overcomplicated. You can’t drag and drop and all the features and options are laid out on the page, whether you want them or not. Monday.com also offers a messaging system between team members, which seems unnecessary.  In a world saturated with emails, text messages, and instant chat, we don’t need another way of being contacted. 

Winner – Trello. Simplicity is key. 

Winner – Trello by a knockout. The free account has no limit on the number of users and a more reasonable cap on boards.   

Winner 

Trello, hands down. Not only is the free account very generous with caps, user limits, and features but the platform is simpler to use.  

Also, Trello is a catchier name than Monday.com and deserves a bonus point.