Selecting an alternative to monday.com is usually less about “more features” and more about fit: the way your team plans work, captures requests, reports progress, and controls access. This guide focuses on verifiable plan data, platform capabilities, and practical selection criteria—so you can compare options with clarity and choose a tool that matches how you operate.
Decision Snapshot
If you want a structured work management platform with multiple views and portfolio reporting, tools like Asana, Wrike, and Smartsheet are frequently evaluated alongside monday.com. If you want a flexible workspace that blends docs and databases, Notion and Airtable are common shortlists. For lightweight boards, Trello remains a popular baseline, while Jira is often considered when Agile planning and governance are central.
Alternatives Compared
Public pricing can change and may vary by billing cadence and currency. The table below uses each product’s published pricing page as the reference point at the time of writing.
| Tool | Positioning | Common Fit | Published Entry Paid Price | Free Tier / Trial Signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asana | Work management with portfolios, goals, and multiple views. | Cross-functional project tracking, dashboards, and structured planning. | $10.99 per user/month (annual billing shown) [Source-1✅] | Free plan shown; paid tiers listed. |
| ClickUp | All-in-one tasks, docs, and workflows in one workspace. | Teams consolidating tools and standardizing templates and views. | $7 per user/month (Unlimited, annual billing shown) [Source-2✅] | Free plan listed; multiple paid tiers shown. |
| Trello | Board-first task tracking with views and automation at higher tiers. | Lightweight project boards and team collaboration around cards. | $5 per user/month (Standard, annual billing shown) [Source-3✅] | Free plan displayed; paid tiers list view expansions. |
| Jira | Agile planning and workflow governance with enterprise controls. | Agile teams needing boards, backlogs, roadmaps, and admin controls. | $7.91 per user/month (Standard shown) [Source-4✅] | Free for up to 10 users shown; trials listed for paid tiers. |
| Notion | Docs + databases with project tracking and structured knowledge. | Teams blending wiki, tasks, and lightweight workflows in one space. | €9.50 per member/month (Plus shown; currency selectable) [Source-5✅] | Free tier shown; business and enterprise controls listed. |
| Wrike | Project portfolio with request intake, proofing, and views. | Teams managing higher-volume workflows, approvals, and scheduling. | $10 per user/month (Team shown) [Source-6✅] | Free plan and a free trial signal are shown on the pricing page. |
| Smartsheet | Spreadsheet-style work execution with dashboards and automation. | Operations-style tracking, reporting, and sheet-based workflows. | $12 per member/month (Pro shown) [Source-7✅] | Free trial language appears on the pricing page. |
| Airtable | Database platform for workflows with interfaces and automations. | Teams that need structured records, forms, and app-like views. | $20 per user/month (Team, annual billing shown) [Source-8✅] | Free plan displayed; higher tiers emphasize governance and scale. |
What to Compare Before You Switch
Workflow Model
- Work unit: task, issue, card, record, or database row.
- Views: list, board, timeline/Gantt, calendar, table/grid, dashboard.
- Intake: forms, email-to-task, request queues, templated onboarding.
- Automation: rule limits, triggers, approvals, and conditional routing.
Governance and Scale
- Identity: SSO options, user provisioning (SCIM), guest controls.
- Admin: workspace policies, audit logs, role-based permissions.
- Data: exports (CSV), API access, retention, and residency options.
- Reporting: dashboards, portfolio rollups, and executive summaries.
Baseline Context (Why monday.com Often Sets the Comparison Standard)
monday.com is widely evaluated as a work management platform that combines boards, automations, and templates in a single environment. In its SEC filing for the year ended December 31, 2024, the company reports $972.4 million in revenue and 245,000 paying customers as of December 31, 2024.[Source-9✅]
Asana
Asana’s platform overview presents a structured environment for tracking projects, coordinating cross-functional work, and aligning execution to outcomes. Teams usually shortlist Asana when they want portfolio visibility with flexible project views and standardized reporting.
- Typical Center of Gravity
- Projects and tasks with optional portfolios for rollups.
- When It Stands Out
- Planning across teams, tracking dependencies, and consolidating progress into dashboards.
- Governance Signals
- Plan-dependent features like SSO and provisioning are part of enterprise-oriented tiers.
Good Fit If You Need
- Consistent project structure across departments.
- Clear ownership and deadlines tied to reporting.
- Portfolio rollups that support leadership views.
- Standardized templates for repeatable initiatives.
ClickUp
ClickUp’s product site emphasizes consolidation: tasks, docs, and workflows under one workspace. It is commonly evaluated when teams want one hub for task execution plus documentation, and prefer to standardize work via templates and views.
Operational Pattern
- Workspace hierarchy (spaces/folders/lists) for structuring work.
- Multiple perspectives (for example, list and board views) depending on team preference.
- Templates to scale repeatable processes across teams.
Evaluation angle: If your current monday.com usage depends on many custom boards, prioritize how ClickUp represents custom fields, permission scopes, and automation boundaries so your governance model stays consistent.
Trello
Trello’s official site is board-first: work is represented as cards moving across lists. It is often considered when the priority is a lightweight visual workflow that stays easy to adopt across varied teams.
Where Trello Typically Fits
- Teams that want simple boards for recurring work (content pipelines, basic project tracking, coordination).
- Workflows that can be expressed clearly as “to do → doing → done.”
- Stakeholders who value transparency through shared boards and consistent labeling.
Jira
Jira Software’s official overview is frequently evaluated when teams need Agile planning rigor—backlogs, boards, and workflow configuration—plus admin controls that support scaling. It is also commonly paired with adjacent ecosystem tools for knowledge and collaboration depending on organizational preferences.
Best Fit Signals
- Agile teams that manage sprints, backlogs, and dependencies.
- Organizations that require standardized workflows and role-based controls.
- Reporting needs that span multiple projects and teams.
- Typical Work Unit
- Issues with configurable workflows and fields.
- Common Planning Layer
- Backlog and sprint planning with boards and timelines/roadmaps depending on configuration.
- Admin Focus
- Permissions, policies, and auditability aligned to larger team structures.
Notion
Notion’s official site is typically shortlisted when teams want a unified space for documentation and structured tracking. Its core pattern is a workspace of pages combined with databases that can be viewed in multiple formats, which can align well with teams that previously modeled work as monday.com boards plus linked documentation.
Common Implementation Patterns
- Company knowledge base alongside project tracking in database views.
- Lightweight request capture that routes into structured databases.
- Teamspaces for organizing work by department or initiative.
Wrike
Wrike’s official site is often evaluated for workflow-heavy operations where intake, approvals, and scheduling matter. Teams typically consider Wrike when they want portfolio-style visibility plus structured request handling and proofing-oriented collaboration.
Strong Fit Environments
- Creative and marketing operations with approvals and asset workflows.
- PMO-style tracking where schedules and cross-team coordination are routine.
- Teams that benefit from structured request forms and standardized intake.
Migration mindset: Map your monday.com boards into a Wrike model by identifying the work item types you rely on (requests, projects, deliverables) and the approval points that drive throughput.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet’s official site is commonly compared to monday.com when teams prefer a spreadsheet-like execution surface combined with dashboards and automation. It is frequently considered for operations contexts where structured rows, dependencies, and reporting are central.
- Typical Center of Gravity
- Sheets (rows/columns) that represent tasks, work items, or operational records.
- Reporting Style
- Dashboards and rollups that summarize progress across multiple sheets.
- Common Transition Path
- Teams moving from board-based tracking to a more grid-centric model with consistent column schemas.
Airtable
Airtable’s official site is typically shortlisted when a team’s “board” is better represented as a database of records (assets, requests, inventory, content items) with multiple role-based views. Teams often consider Airtable when they want structured data plus app-like interfaces for different stakeholders.
Where Airtable Commonly Excels
- Workflows where each item has many attributes (status, owner, category, links, approvals).
- Teams that want different “front doors” into the same data (forms, grids, stakeholder views).
- Processes that require consistent schemas across multiple projects or departments.
Practical comparison: If your monday.com usage is highly “board as database,” Airtable can feel natural. If your usage is closer to task execution with frequent ad-hoc collaboration, compare how each tool handles comments, notifications, and personal task triage.
Migration and Data Portability Considerations
Data You Will Almost Always Want to Inventory
- Entities: boards/projects, groups, items/tasks, subitems/subtasks, and linked records.
- Fields: status types, date logic, formulas, dependencies, and custom field definitions.
- Automation: triggers, approvals, notifications, and any time-based scheduling.
- Permissions: guest access, workspace-level roles, and project-level overrides.
- Reporting: dashboards, portfolio rollups, and executive views.
A smooth transition usually comes from choosing a target tool whose core data model matches your reality. If your work is fundamentally record-centric, prioritize database-style platforms. If your work is execution-centric, prioritize task/project platforms with strong reporting and permission models.
At the final selection stage, it can help to run a short pilot that includes real stakeholders: a request intake flow, one reporting dashboard, and one cross-team dependency path. That combination tends to reveal whether the alternative’s workflow logic matches how your team actually operates.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Which alternative feels closest to monday.com for cross-team work management?
Teams that want a structured work management environment with portfolios and reporting often evaluate Asana, Wrike, and Smartsheet alongside monday.com. The best match depends on whether your work is task-centric (projects and assignments) or grid/record-centric (rows/columns with consistent schemas).
What is the most important technical factor to compare before migrating?
Start with the platform’s data model: how it represents items, relationships, and permissions. Then validate exports and API access for the objects you rely on (projects/boards, custom fields, status history, and attachments) so you can preserve operational continuity.
Do all monday.com alternatives offer the same views (board, timeline, calendar, table)?
Many tools provide multiple views, but the underlying behavior differs by platform. Board-centric products optimize card workflows, while database-centric products optimize record schemas. When comparing views, test filtering, permissions, and reporting rollups, not only visual layout.
How should a team compare automation capabilities safely and realistically?
Focus on the practical boundaries: trigger types, approval steps, action breadth, and execution limits by plan. Recreate one or two high-value automations from your current setup, including edge cases (missing data, role restrictions, and multi-step routing).
Which alternative is best when work looks like a database, not a task list?
Airtable and Notion are often shortlisted when each work item has many attributes, relations, and stakeholder-specific views. They can be especially useful when “records” (assets, content items, requests, inventory) are the core unit of work rather than individual tasks alone.