Asana vs Microsoft Project comparison

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Asana Logo
5,483 views|3,988 comparisons
88% willing to recommend
Microsoft Logo
9,903 views|3,830 comparisons
92% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Mar 6, 2024

We compared Asana and Microsoft Project based on our user's reviews in several parameters.

In summary, Asana stands out for its effective task management, team collaboration, and user-friendly interface, with highly praised customer service and positive ROI. On the other hand, Microsoft Project offers detailed task management, powerful reporting, and seamless integration with Microsoft programs, with excellent customer service and positive ROI as well. Differences include Asana's affordability, intuitive interface, and automation capabilities compared to Microsoft Project's detailed project tracking, versatile templates, and robust reporting functionalities. Users suggest Asana could improve its interface and integrations, while Microsoft Project could enhance collaboration features and streamline project scheduling.

Features: Asana's most valuable features include effective task management, team collaboration, project organization, seamless integrations, and a user-friendly interface. On the other hand, Microsoft Project stands out with its detailed task management, project progress tracking, interactive Gantt charts, and robust reporting functionalities. Microsoft Project also offers efficient resource allocation, effective collaboration tools, customizable project templates, and the ability to handle large and complex projects.

Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for Asana is generally described as transparent, affordable, and flexible, while Microsoft Project is considered to have minimal setup costs with no additional expenses. Asana offers various plans suitable for different business sizes, whereas Microsoft Project has a straightforward and user-friendly licensing process., Asana's ROI is achieved through improved task management, collaboration, productivity, and cost savings. Users praise its intuitive interface and automation capabilities. On the other hand, Microsoft Project's ROI comes from streamlined projects, resource allocation, team collaboration, and increased profits with its robust features.

Room for Improvement: Asana users have suggested an enhanced interface, better integration with other applications, improved mobile app features, advanced automation options, and customization capabilities. On the other hand, Microsoft Project users desire a better user interface, improved collaboration features, intuitive project scheduling and resource management capabilities, and enhanced integration with other Microsoft software.

Deployment and customer support: Users of Asana mentioned spending three months on deployment and an additional week on setup, while others mentioned spending a week for both deployment and setup. On the other hand, users of Microsoft Project provided feedback with various timeframes for deployment, setup, and implementation phases., Asana's customer service is highly praised for its excellent assistance and prompt issue resolution. Users find their support staff to be knowledgeable and attentive. On the other hand, Microsoft Project's customer service is highly regarded for its effectiveness and efficiency. Users appreciate the support team's knowledge, responsiveness, and availability of support channels.

The summary above is based on 74 interviews we conducted recently with Asana and Microsoft Project users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.

To learn more, read our detailed Asana vs. Microsoft Project Report (Updated: May 2024).
772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"I love the way it monitors all of the current and past projects, and it sends notifications to keep everything on the track.""It is stable and easy to set up.""Asana is a very simple interface for project managers to figure out, providing all the functions they need.""Asana has significantly reduced the number of emails we exchange because we can access the project directly. It organizes all the tasks related to each project, assigns them to staff with due dates, and tracks progress.""The solution scales well.""The tool has a lot of integrations.""It is pretty comprehensive when it comes to the different views that it gives you. It gives you a Gantt chart view, calendar view, board view, and list view. It is kind of helpful to have different types of views and see how it views your different tasks. I appreciate being able to do that. The biggest thing is that it is extremely user friendly. Asana is pretty intuitive. Someone who is not tech-savvy can kind of catch on quickly. It is better than other tools like Smartsheet. Some of the other tools like Microsoft Project and Excel are great tools, but you have to invest a lot of time to learn them, which is not the case with Asana.""I really enjoy the portfolios in Asana. One of the ways Asana stands out to me is with portfolios. You can have all your different projects, and you can have those assigned to different teams. If you want to customize a grouping of projects, you can use portfolios. For instance, one of the things that we do is we can assign a portfolio to a specific strategic objective we have, and we can put all those projects that are related to that strategic objective in that portfolio. We then know exactly what people are working on to help us achieve our goals. So, I really like portfolios."

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"The most valuable feature of this solution is time management.""It comes with our Office 365.""The solution is stable.""The built-in dashboards are powerful because they show both project and overall progress.""The ability to break down project phases is most valuable. Being able to align the tasks and reporting with project milestones and progress is also valuable.""The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that the product's GUI is very good...The product's scalability is good.""The most valuable features of this solution are the scheduling, managing the resources, budgeting, tracking the progress, viewing the progress, reporting, and it is very easy to use.""It is a complete and all-rounded enterprise product. From a portfolio management perspective and an individual project management perspective, it is a corporate-wide project management product. It can be used for resource planning, financial planning, task planning, etc."

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Cons
"The messaging feature could be better.""The solution can be difficult for new users to use because of the interface.""The inbox feature can be a little overwhelming if you are working with Asana just from its project boards and only checking it periodically.""The product's page is not user-friendly.""Auto-shift is an essential feature for planning, but it's currently not there. It should have this feature so that when you move a task that depends on another task, the dates should be auto-shifted. For example, you have two tasks dependent on each other. When the parent task is moved or delayed, the child task should also be delayed, and the date should be shifted. When we have a very long timeline, it's very complex to go task by task and shift the dates on the task. Auto-shift is a fantastic and basic feature of project management, and having such a feature in Asana would make our lives much easier. If Asana added this feature, it would complete the suit and close the project management cycle because currently, there is a gap.""In some instances, there were subtasks where more than one person needed to review it, but I could only assign it to one person. I would have to create a subtask under a subtask and then assign it to other people. This could be improved.""More features can be added.""You need to have an action plan, otherwise, it won't be as effective."

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"We'd like to have more resource allocation and monitoring features.""The scalability is co-dependent on the stability of the product. We have 4000 users, and at times the product is slow.""The solution is currently a bit slow and can be faster.""The new version has made it a bit more complicated.""The tool's most valuable feature is scheduling.""It is positioned at the more high end. Sometimes it's more complicated than we need.""The full suite would be pretty expensive.""Project is not easy to scale. It isn't a cloud-based solution where everybody can utilize it at the same time without version issues when you save your file. We use it at the enterprise level, but you have to share the files to others within your organization through Teams or SharePoint. One improvement would be to transition to cloud-based functionality. However, that might limit the functionality in other ways."

More Microsoft Project Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The price of this solution makes it quite accessible, and the plans fit my budget."
  • "Asana has two different types of structures: company vs workspace. Company is really best if all the users you plan to assign work to are all internal (have the same corporate domain in their user ID email address). Once one person signs up (even for a free account) with a corporate email address, Asana will automatically relate that person to that company, if it already exists. If you plan to use it for external collaboration as well as internal, then creating a workspace is a better approach."
  • "It has a free version."
  • "There is a free version of Asana, but we use the paid version to receive all the features we want. The overall price is reasonable."
  • "Its price is fair. Its licensing cost is cheaper than Microsoft Project. I would rate it a two out of five in terms of pricing."
  • "For what it brings to the table, I think Asana is fairly affordable. I would like to see the portfolio feature in our pricing plan, but other than that, it's definitely pretty good."
  • "We're on the business tier, which is $25 a month if you're on an annual contract. It's $31 if you're on a month-to-month contract. In my experience, there are no hidden costs with Asana. I know Smartsheet has these add-ons that you can buy, which is an additional cost, but Asana doesn't have any add-ons that I know of. When you're trying to scale the product and want to add users, you have to do it in buckets of five. This is also something to consider."
  • "This solution is reasonably priced."
  • More Asana Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I am not involved with this."
  • "I do not have personal experience with pricing or licensing of this product."
  • "You do not have to invest much in terms of configuring this solution to suit your needs."
  • "It gets expensive when having to add all of the plugins and everything that you need."
  • "It probably was $30 per license on a monthly basis. There is no additional fee."
  • "I do not remember the exact cost we paid but usually, they charge per user per month."
  • "Its price could be reduced a little."
  • "It was a three-year license deal that was reconciled on a quarterly basis. It is a reasonably priced product, and I consider that we got good value for money."
  • More Microsoft Project Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The solution's user interface is very good.
    Top Answer:Currently, I'm using Asana for free. The solution's free version can be used for basic functions. When my colleagues start using it, I will contact Asana and find the most efficient plan for us.
    Top Answer:Hi @Eire Zimmermann,  I helped an organization evaluate both MS-Project and Smartsheet when they were conducting their PM tool RFP. The short of it is this, MS Project is not caught up with the… more »
    Top Answer:The product's initial setup phase is easy.
    Top Answer:The product is not expensive. My company has opted for an annual subscription.
    Ranking
    Views
    5,483
    Comparisons
    3,988
    Reviews
    25
    Average Words per Review
    572
    Rating
    8.4
    Views
    9,903
    Comparisons
    3,830
    Reviews
    48
    Average Words per Review
    405
    Rating
    7.9
    Comparisons
    Microsoft Azure DevOps logo
    Compared 19% of the time.
    Wrike logo
    Compared 16% of the time.
    monday.com logo
    Compared 13% of the time.
    Jira logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Trello logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Also Known As
    Project Pro, MS Project
    Learn More
    Overview

    Asana is web-based software-as-a-service that helps teams coordinate and manage their work. It helps companies move faster by making sure everyone knows the team’s plan and process and who is doing what by when.

    Each user can create projects using a list, board, calendar, or timeline view. Within each project, users can add tasks, subtasks, sections, comments, attachments, start and due dates, and custom fields. Project and task followers get notifications on changes or comments on the project and/or task in their Inbox. Individual users can see all of the tasks they're responsible for across all of their projects in a view called My Tasks.

    Asana is available in English, French, Spanish, German, and Portuguese.

    Microsoft Project helps you get started quickly and execute projects with ease. Built-in templates and familiar scheduling tools help project managers and teams stay productive.

    Sample Customers
    Uber, Vodaphone, NASA, Spotify, Lyft, Baggu, Udacity, Patreon, Flipboard, Dropbox, Intel, Samsung, Airbnb, SFMoma, Hubspot, Trivago
    Aston Martin, ABANCA, Airbus Group, Capita, Cardiff University, City of Saskatoon, Intel, Pegasus Airlines, South Australia Power Network (SAPN), Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company13%
    Legal Firm13%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Non Profit13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization50%
    Computer Software Company7%
    Financial Services Firm4%
    Manufacturing Company4%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Government12%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization58%
    Computer Software Company5%
    Government4%
    Manufacturing Company4%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business73%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise55%
    Large Enterprise31%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise46%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business10%
    Midsize Enterprise63%
    Large Enterprise27%
    Buyer's Guide
    Asana vs. Microsoft Project
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Asana vs. Microsoft Project and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    772,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Asana is ranked 3rd in Project Management Software with 43 reviews while Microsoft Project is ranked 2nd in Project Management Software with 77 reviews. Asana is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Project is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Asana writes "Stands out with portfolios, easy setup, and real-time information, but needs big improvement when it comes to workflows, automation, and dashboards". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Project writes "A stable solution that very accurately runs projects". Asana is most compared with Microsoft Azure DevOps, Wrike, monday.com, Jira and Trello, whereas Microsoft Project is most compared with Jira, Microsoft Project Server, Smartsheet, Broadcom Clarity and monday.com. See our Asana vs. Microsoft Project report.

    See our list of best Project Management Software vendors.

    We monitor all Project Management Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.