Trello Alternatives: Top Picks for Businesses in 2025

In the ever-evolving landscape of project management, Trello has long stood as a go-to solution for teams seeking a visual, board-based tool to manage tasks and workflows. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and simplicity, Trello carved out a niche that made project management more accessible for countless users around the world.

However, as business needs become more complex in 2025, many teams find themselves searching for Trello alternatives and other tools that offer greater flexibility, deeper integrations, and better scalability.

Whether you're running a fast-growing startup or managing enterprise-level operations, Trello may no longer meet all your needs. In this article, we’ll explore why that is – and help you discover the best Trello alternatives for your business.

Why Look for a Trello Alternative in 2025?

Trello has earned its reputation as an accessible and user-friendly task management platform, especially for individuals, freelancers, and small teams. Its visual kanban interface, simplicity, and low barrier to entry have made it a favorite among many.

However, as workflows become more complex, teams expand, and organizations seek to integrate project management deeper into their business processes, the cracks in Trello’s foundations start to show. In 2025, more teams are actively seeking Trello alternatives that better align with their evolving needs. Here are the key reasons why.

1. Feature Limitations

Trello’s minimalist design is its hallmark, but it also severely limits its capabilities for businesses looking for more advanced functionality. The platform is essentially a set of kanban boards, and while it's great for visualizing basic workflows, it lacks a wide range of native features that are now considered essential for modern project management.

For instance, there is no built-in time tracking in Trello, meaning teams must rely on third-party power-ups or external tools just to understand how long tasks take – a critical insight for productivity analysis, billing, and forecasting.

Similarly, Trello’s reporting capabilities are basic at best. There are no robust dashboards, visual charts, or customizable reports to track project progress, team performance, or deadlines. Managers who need insight into bottlenecks, team utilization, or project velocity often find themselves frustrated.

Another major gap is the lack of integrated tools like CRM, invoicing, calendar syncing, or email communication. If your business needs a holistic view that combines project management with sales tracking, customer interactions, financial documents, or capacity planning – Trello falls short. Most of these functions require multiple plugins or subscriptions, resulting in fragmented data and a disjointed experience.

2. Pricing Model

Trello’s pricing model – while straightforward on paper – becomes increasingly problematic for larger teams and businesses looking to scale. The platform charges per user per month, which may appear affordable when a team is small, but costs escalate quickly as more team members are added.

A company with 50 users, for example, may end up spending hundreds of dollars each month just on task management, even though not every user is actively engaged or needs premium features daily.

Moreover, Trello locks many of its useful capabilities behind higher-tier plans. Features like advanced automation, admin and security controls, timeline views, and workspace-level templates are only accessible in the Premium or Enterprise tiers. This means even moderate functionality upgrades come with a significant price hike – without necessarily solving the underlying feature limitations.

For budget-conscious teams, or businesses operating in regions with tight margins, this pricing structure becomes a key pain point. It makes more sense to adopt flat-fee solutions that provide full access to features for a fixed cost, regardless of how many users are on the platform.

Solutions like Bitrix24 flip the script by offering predictable, scalable pricing – often with a broader feature set.

3. Workflow Complexity

As organizations grow, so does the complexity of their internal workflows. Unfortunately, Trello isn’t well-equipped to manage workflows that go beyond basic task tracking. While it excels at linear task progression – like moving a card from “To Do” to “In Progress” to “Done” – it struggles with conditional workflows, multi-level task dependencies, or anything that requires more than simple sequencing.

Let’s take a marketing team launching a new product campaign as an example. This initiative may involve tasks spread across multiple departments – content creation, design, legal approvals, sales coordination, and post-launch analytics.

With Trello, managing such a multi-faceted project means either cramming everything onto one board (which quickly becomes messy) or splitting work across multiple disconnected boards (which breaks visibility and flow). There’s no native way to visualize dependencies, timelines, or resource allocations across boards.

Moreover, while Trello does offer Butler automation, configuring it to handle real-world business processes is not intuitive. The automation is rule-based and can only handle relatively simple actions, such as moving a card when a due date arrives or adding a checklist when a card is created.

It can’t accommodate decision trees, conditional approvals, or integrations with enterprise apps – unless you go deep into custom scripting or external tools.

For companies that need fluid, dynamic workflows with high visibility and minimal manual intervention, Trello starts to feel like a bottleneck rather than a facilitator. More robust platforms – like Bitrix24 – come with native support for automation, process mapping, and task dependencies out of the box, streamlining operations without the integration headache.

4. Scalability

Trello is ideal for small teams or individual users who need a basic, visual task tracker. But as soon as your team starts to grow – whether in size, number of departments, or geographical spread – you’ll begin to notice that Trello simply doesn’t scale.

For one, Trello lacks advanced user permissions and role management. In larger teams, you may want to control who can view, edit, or comment on specific tasks or boards. Trello’s permission system is fairly flat and not designed for organizations with hierarchical structures or sensitive data access controls.

Secondly, Trello boards are siloed by nature. While this works well for one-off projects, it becomes a problem when departments need to collaborate or leadership needs visibility across multiple boards or projects. Trello offers no true portfolio management or executive dashboard – features that are essential when managing dozens of projects across different business units.

Integrations are another sticking point. Enterprise environments often depend on software ecosystems like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, or Slack. While Trello does offer some integrations, they’re often shallow and require middleware like Zapier for more advanced workflows. This results in unreliable syncing, maintenance overhead, and potential data integrity issues.

By contrast, scalable platforms like Bitrix24 are designed to handle cross-functional teams, offer clear permission layers, and provide a consolidated view of all work within the organization. Whether you’re managing five people or five hundred, the system remains responsive, organized, and capable of supporting long-term growth.

5. Support and Migration Concerns

As teams are looking for their Trello alternative, trying to switch to more powerful platforms, support and migration become critical factors. Unfortunately, Trello’s support infrastructure doesn’t always meet the demands of growing organizations – especially those handling complex workflows or large volumes of historical data.

Firstly, Trello’s support is primarily email-based, with limited availability of live chat or dedicated onboarding assistance unless you're on an Enterprise plan. This creates friction for teams that need immediate help setting up integrations, restoring lost data, or troubleshooting bugs. For a product that leans heavily on third-party integrations, lack of fast, human support can significantly hinder productivity.

Secondly, migration from Trello to another platform is not always straightforward. Exporting data from Trello yields a JSON file, which is not easily readable or usable for most project managers. Importing this data into another system – especially one with a different structure like Gantt charts, nested tasks, or databases – often requires custom mapping or manual data entry.

This becomes a serious challenge for teams with years of history and documentation locked inside Trello.

When Trello May Not Be Ideal

While Trello continues to be a strong entry-level project management solution, it’s important to recognize that its limited scope makes it unsuitable for many modern teams and use cases.

If your business has grown beyond simple to-do lists or you’re managing complex workflows, cross-functional operations, or regulated environments, Trello may quickly start showing its limits. Here are the key scenarios where you may consider a Trello alternative in 2025:

Fast-Growing Teams Needing Cross-Department Collaboration

As your organization scales, collaboration becomes increasingly complex. You no longer just assign tasks in isolation – you’re coordinating across departments, aligning roadmaps, and ensuring company-wide visibility. Trello, with its flat board structure and limited cross-board automation, makes it difficult to build a unified system of work.

Imagine a product team working closely with marketing, sales, and support. Each department may have its own board, but there’s no easy way to link these boards or create dependencies between them in Trello.

You can’t generate a bird’s-eye view of how initiatives are progressing across the organization or track shared milestones. Team leads may be duplicating cards, manually syncing deadlines, or struggling with disconnected communications – causing delays and errors.

Additionally, Trello offers limited permission controls, which makes it challenging to set appropriate visibility or access for different roles. As your team grows beyond 10, 20, or 50 users, it becomes increasingly hard to manage who should see what.

Tools like Bitrix24 solve this by offering layered access, cross-project reporting, and real-time collaboration across departments—ensuring everyone is aligned without sacrificing structure or security.

Agencies Juggling Multiple Client Projects

Agencies often run several client projects in parallel, each with its own deadlines, budgets, deliverables, and teams. Trello’s simplicity becomes a burden in this context. There’s no built-in way to manage multiple clients under a single organizational view or enforce standardized processes across projects. Each client board exists in its own silo, which creates inefficiencies, inconsistencies, and oversight gaps.

Billing and resource tracking – critical components of agency operations – are completely missing from Trello’s core offering. Agencies must resort to third-party plugins, many of which don’t integrate smoothly with Trello’s data model.

This leads to duplicate data entry, missed hours, or reporting errors. Additionally, clients may require periodic reports or shared views, which Trello does not easily support without manual workarounds or additional tools.

Agency workflows also benefit-router-outlet reusable templates, automation, and client-specific dashboards – features that Trello supports only superficially or not at all.

In contrast, platforms like Bitrix24 allow agencies to manage all client workspaces in one dashboard, track hours, generate invoices, collaborate with clients securely, and automate repetitive steps – dramatically improving productivity and client satisfaction.

Enterprises with Strict Compliance and Reporting Needs

Large enterprises often operate in regulated industries – such as finance, healthcare, or legal – where compliance, auditing, and reporting aren’t optional; they’re mandatory. Unfortunately, Trello lacks the advanced security, audit trails, data controls, and reporting infrastructure needed to meet these enterprise-level requirements.

For example, Trello does not offer native role-based access control (RBAC), IP whitelisting, SSO integration for all plans, or detailed audit logs. Enterprises may need to track who accessed what data and when, enforce data residency requirements, or prevent unauthorized exports of sensitive information.

These are simply not feasible within Trello’s environment unless you're on a high-cost Enterprise plan – and even then, feature depth remains limited compared to true enterprise-ready platforms.

Moreover, advanced reporting – such as SLA adherence, time-to-resolution tracking, KPI dashboards, and compliance exports – is not supported out of the box. Enterprises are forced to cobble together fragmented analytics using third-party integrations or manual exports.

On the other hand, enterprise-focused alternatives like a Trello alternative Bitrix24 provide built-in tools for compliance management, audit logs, secure authentication, and highly customizable reporting, all within a scalable and controlled environment. This makes them far more suitable for businesses bound by regulatory and operational governance.

Businesses Looking for an All-in-One Solution, Beyond Kanban Boards

For many organizations today, project management doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s part of a larger ecosystem that includes customer relationship management (CRM), internal communications, worktime tracking, invoicing, HR management, content collaboration, and more.

Trello’s kanban-only design, while useful for organizing tasks, doesn’t address the broader needs of an operational workspace.

Using Trello as your core work platform means relying on multiple disconnected apps to fill the gaps – Slack for chat, Zoom for meetings, Google Docs for collaboration, Harvest for time tracking, and so on.

This fragmented approach not only drives up costs but also hampers efficiency and data visibility. Teams waste time switching digital tools, information gets lost in silos, and the lack of a unified interface makes it hard to maintain focus.

Companies looking for true digital transformation need a central hub that brings everything together. Platforms like Bitrix24 offer exactly that – combining Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and calendar-based project tracking with built-in messaging, video conferencing, online documents, CRM, HR tools, invoices, AI-powered assistants, and more.

Everything is deeply integrated, ensuring seamless transitions between workflows and a 360° view of your operations.

This all-in-one approach eliminates tool sprawl, reduces IT complexity, and improves cross-team synergy. It also provides a consistent user experience across different departments, making onboarding and adoption significantly easier. If your business values consolidation, efficiency, and long-term scalability, Trello simply isn’t designed to support that vision.

How to Choose the Best Trello Alternative?

With so many project management tools on the market in 2025, choosing the right Trello alternative can be overwhelming – especially when each platform promises flexibility, better collaboration, and greater efficiency. But not every tool fits every team. The ideal solution for your business depends on your workflows, your size, your budget, and your goals.

Below is a breakdown of the most important factors to consider when evaluating Trello alternatives. Whether you're a growing startup, a mature enterprise, or an agency juggling multiple clients, these criteria will help you make a confident and future-proof decision.

Must-Have Features

Start by listing the critical features your team needs today – and will need tomorrow as you grow. While Trello’s core kanban system is great for simple task tracking, modern teams often require a broader feature set of project management tools to handle the complexity of real-world operations.

Some of the key must-have features to look for include:

• Multiple task views: Not just Kanban boards, but also list view, calendar view, table/grid, and especially Gantt charts for timeline planning.
• Task dependencies: The ability to define what needs to be completed before a task can begin.
• Built-in time tracking: Essential for billing, employee productivity, and project forecasting.
• Custom fields: Let you structure tasks in a way that matches your team’s specific processes.
• Recurring tasks: Automate routine responsibilities to reduce manual input.
• Task automation and triggers: Trigger actions based on dates, task status, assignee changes, and more.
• Reporting and analytics: Visual dashboards, team workload, time spent, and task completion rates.
• Collaboration tools: Integrated chat, file sharing, task comments, and real-time notifications.
• Document collaboration: Online editing of documents, spreadsheets, or whiteboards within the platform itself.
• Role-based permissions: Control who can see, edit, or manage different parts of your workspace.

If you’re only managing a few personal tasks, these may not seem essential. But for most teams, especially those working on complex, multi-stakeholder projects, these features make all the difference in keeping work structured and transparent.

Project management tools like Bitrix24 stand out by offering all these features – and more – under one roof, without the need for external add-ons or costly power-ups. Evaluate your current pain points and ensure any Trello alternative you consider actually solves them.

Price & ROI

Price is more than just a number – it’s a strategic factor that can impact your bottom line as your team grows. Many teams make the mistake of choosing a tool with a low entry cost, only to find it becomes unaffordable as they scale. Trello’s per-user pricing, for example, may seem inexpensive at first, but can become a financial burden when your organization expands.

Here’s what to consider when evaluating cost:

• Per-user vs. flat-fee pricing: If you’re expecting growth, flat-fee project management software like Bitrix24 can save thousands annually by allowing unlimited users within a usage bracket.
• Hidden costs: Are there fees for advanced features, support, extra storage, power-ups, or integrations? Trello often requires multiple paid power-ups.
• Value provided: Are you paying for a task tracker, or a full work operating system? Some tools may be more expensive but replace several others in your tech stack.
• Cost predictability: Especially for budgeting and finance teams, predictable monthly or annual costs are much easier to manage than user-based fluctuations.

It’s not just about finding the cheapest tool – it’s about maximizing ROI. A slightly higher price tag is worth it if it means your team works faster, makes fewer mistakes, and saves money by consolidating multiple tools into one.

Bitrix24 offers a rare pricing structure that’s particularly attractive: flat-fee plans with no per-user charges, making it perfect for fast-growing teams who want to scale without worrying about cost per head.

Free Plan Availability

For many teams – especially startups, freelancers, or those evaluating tools – a free plan can be a make-or-break factor. But not all free plans are created equal.

When evaluating a Trello alternative, ask:

• Is the free plan truly unlimited? Or does it expire after a trial period or cap the number of users?
• What features are included? Some tools use the free plan only as a teaser, locking away core functionality behind a paywall.
• Are there annoying usage limits? Like maximum number of boards, limited automation rules, or minimal storage?
• Is it suitable for long-term use? Can you realistically run your business or team on the free tier until you're ready to upgrade?

Trello offers a decent free plan, but with strict limits on automation, views, and integrations. Most growing teams quickly outgrow it and are forced to upgrade.

In contrast, Bitrix24’s Free plan is refreshingly different: it has no user limit, no expiration, and includes robust functionality that can support teams of virtually any size.

This means you can start using the platform with your whole company, at no cost, and only upgrade when you truly need the advanced features or extended capacity. It’s a perfect way to grow at your own pace.

Third-Party Integrations

No tool exists in isolation. Your project management software needs to work with the rest of your stack – email, communication apps, cloud storage, calendars, CRMs, and more.

When evaluating integrations, consider:

• Breadth: Does the tool integrate with your essentials – Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoom, Dropbox, Zapier, etc.?
• Depth: Are the integrations just cosmetic, or do they allow real-time sync, in-app editing, and automation triggers?
• Customization: Can you build your own integrations or workflows using APIs or webhook triggers?
• Native vs. third-party powered: Does the tool rely on middlemen like Zapier for basic functions?

Trello supports integrations via Power-Ups, but only one Power-Up is included on the Free plan. For multiple integrations, you need to upgrade – plus the Power-Up ecosystem can be inconsistent in quality, and often comes with separate pricing.

By contrast, Bitrix24 includes native integrations with all major business tools and also offers an open API for custom workflows. Whether you're syncing events to Google Calendar, automating tasks via Zapier, or embedding files from Dropbox, Bitrix24 keeps your tools connected and your data flowing.

Having a well-integrated system reduces context switching, saves time, and increases the reliability of your workflow – all of which are vital for productivity.

Scalability for Your Business

What works for a 5-person team today may break down when you grow to 50, or 500. Scalability is not just about the number of users – it’s about architecture, permissions, complexity handling, and performance under pressure.

Here’s what to assess:

• Performance at scale: Can the tool handle large volumes of tasks, files, and users without slowing down?
• Hierarchical organization: Can you create sub-projects, portfolios, or departmental views?
• User management: Is it easy to assign roles, groups, and permissions?
• Audit trails and compliance: Especially for enterprises, does the tool provide user logs, version history, and access controls?
• Data structure: Can it support custom fields, formulas, templates, and automation rules at an organizational level?

Trello’s design makes it hard to scale in a structured way. It has no built-in way to manage dozens of teams, standardize board templates across departments, or view cross-project reports. Its linear structure and flat hierarchy create clutter and inefficiencies as teams grow.

In contrast, platforms like Bitrix24 are purpose-built for growth. Whether you’re onboarding new departments, setting up an HR workflow, or expanding to multiple regions, Bitrix24 CRM, task management, and workflow automation scale effortlessly with you. The system adapts to your structure – not the other way around.

Support & Migration Options

Even the best project management software is useless if you can’t implement it effectively. Look for a provider that offers more than just documentation – they should be your partner in success.

Here’s what to consider:

• Migration tools: Can you import your data from Trello, Excel, or other platforms easily? Is the process documented or assisted?
• Onboarding support: Is there personalized help, training, or setup assistance for teams just starting out?
• Customer service: How responsive is their support? Do they offer live chat, email, or dedicated account managers?
• Community and knowledge base: Is there an active user community, detailed tutorials, and regular webinars?
• Longevity and roadmap: Is the provider investing in the platform and regularly rolling out improvements?

Trello’s support – especially on the free and lower-tier plans – can be slow, with limited onboarding assistance. Migration options are basic, and users often need to resort to JSON exports and manual reorganization.

Bitrix24 takes a much more hands-on approach, offering dedicated onboarding, one-click importers, and live support even on the Free plan. Whether you’re a 5-person startup or a 500-person enterprise, Bitrix24 helps you make the transition seamless – ensuring that your teams are up and running with minimal downtime.

Top Trello Alternatives in 2025

Below is a quick comparison of Trello and top alternatives we’ll explore in detail:

Let’s explore each of these Trello alternatives in more depth.

ClickUp

What is it?

ClickUp is a powerful work management platform designed to consolidate tasks, docs, goals, and more into one central hub. It’s used by teams looking for deep customization, multiple project views, and advanced automation.

Key Features

• Task management with multiple views (List, Kanban boards, Gantt)
• Docs and wikis
• Time tracking and goal setting
• Custom fields and dashboards

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Highly customizable
• Rich feature set for both small and large teams
• Constant feature updates

Cons:

• Can be overwhelming to set up
• Interface may feel cluttered
• Some performance issues reported with large data sets

Comparison with Trello

ClickUp offers far more functionality than Trello out of the box. With Gantt charts, time tracking, and customizable dashboards, it allows users to handle complex projects.

Pricing (as of mid-2025)

• Free forever plan (100 MB storage)
• Paid plans start at $7 per user/month

Best For

Teams looking for flexibility and customization, willing to invest time in learning.

TRY CLICKUP

Monday.com

What is it?

Monday.com is a work OS that visualizes workflows through dynamic boards. It’s especially popular among marketing teams, agencies, and software development teams that want to streamline collaboration and manage complex projects.

Key Features

• Visual project boards
• Automations and integrations
• Dashboards and workload tracking
• Timeline and Gantt views

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Visually appealing interface
• Easy setup with templates
• Strong integration ecosystem

Cons:

• Gets pricey quickly for larger teams
• Certain features locked behind higher-tier plans

Comparison with Trello

While both use a board-based interface, Monday.com offers much more structure and flexibility for tracking customizable workflows and dependencies.

Pricing (as of mid-2025)

• Free plan (up to 2 seats)
• Paid plans start at $9 per user/month

Best For

Marketing teams, agencies, small to midsize project teams

TRY MONDAY

Bitrix24

What is it?

Bitrix24 is a powerful all-in-one online workspace for the entire team, built to serve the needs of businesses ranging from small startups to large enterprises. It offers a fully integrated suite of tools – CRM, structured task management, Agile project management, team communication, video conferencing, file storage, online documents, calendar, workflow automation, HR tools, AI assistant, e-signature, and more – all under one flat-fee license.

Key Features

• Comprehensive project management with Kanban boards, Gantt, calendars, unlimited tasks and unlimited projects
• Built-in CRM, invoices, e-signatures, and estimates
• Unlimited users on Free plan and flat-fee pricing for paid plans
• Integrated messenger, video calls, and online docs & whiteboards
• AI-powered assistant to help automate and optimize workflows
• HR management, employee time tracking, and work reports
• Available in both cloud & self-hosted deployments

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• No user limit on Free plan (stay forever)
• Unlimited projects and project templates
• Paid plans are flat-fee, no per user charges
• One unified tool – no need for external integrations
• Scalable from SMBs to Enterprises
• Cloud and on-premise options

Cons:

• Some users may need time to explore all features
• Less suitable for teams needing just a set of Kanban boards

Comparison with Trello

Bitrix24 is more than just a Trello alternative – it's a full work operating system. Where Trello offers simple task tracking, Bitrix24 gives you everything from CRM and time tracking to AI assistance and HR management – all without the per-user pricing headache.

Pricing (as of mid-2025)

• Free plan: unlimited users, unlimited time
• Commercial flat-fee plans: $99/mo flat fee for up to 50 users (Standard plan)

Best For

• Businesses looking for a comprehensive, scalable workspace
• Teams that want all tools in one place
• Organizations seeking a cost-effective alternative to per-user pricing

Other Notable Trello Alternatives

Wrike

• Enterprise-grade PM with real-time updates and workload management
• Great for Agile project management by IT teams and enterprises
• Pricing starts at $9.80 per user/month

Asana

• Focuses on goal tracking, projects, and automation
• Elegant user interface but limited in reporting
• Free for up to 15 users, then $10.99 per user/month

Notion

• Docs and wikis with Kanban boards and other task views
• Great for solo or small teams, but lacks deep project features
• Free plan available, paid starts at $8 per user/month

FAQ – Trello Alternatives in 2025

Conclusion

Trello is still a strong player in 2025, especially for freelancers and small teams who need a simple visual task board. But if your business is scaling, managing multiple departments, or looking to consolidate tools, it may be time to consider a more powerful Trello alternative.

Platforms like ClickUp, Monday.com, other tools mentioned herein are fantastic if you want to customize workflows and track progress visually. However, if you're searching for an all-in-one business suite that replaces your CRM, file sharing, project manager, messenger, video conferencing, HR system, and more – all while saving you money with a flat-fee model – then Bitrix24 is your ideal match.
Start today with Bitrix24 – no credit card, no user limits, and everything your business needs in one place.