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.
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its project management tracking systems."
"This solution is easier and faster to use compared to Jira. It's not very structured and you can add sub-tasks and issues easily."
"My task box displays all of our tasks, organized by day, helping us to focus on what needs to be done each day."
"The tool has a lot of integrations."
"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."
"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."
"It's an easy way to communicate."
"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."
"Microsoft Project is used to track the project delivery and the project management."
"The features I find the most valuable are scheduling and reporting."
"The user interface is simple and it helps me in planning what needs to be accomplished."
"It is very stable. I haven't had any kind of issues with it. It is also very scalable."
"I especially like the reporting tools, which are visual tools and offer visual reports."
"Microsoft Project is one of the only solutions you can use in just about any industry. It's difficult to do that with most other project management tools. There is a lot of flexibility within the product assets. Most sectors can utilize Microsoft Project successfully because it doesn't have any generic adapters."
"The pricing is pretty good on the enterprise agreement we have."
"The calendar view in Asana has shortcomings and can be improved."
"We don't get enough notifications."
"Some updates are outdated, and their functionalities can affect the end outcomes."
"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."
"The stability of Asana is good. However, there are some issues with maintenance, when the solution is down. For example, there might be maintained for a few hours where we cannot use the solution."
"I rate the support from Asana a four out of five."
"The mobile application of Asana has to be improved a lot because no one wants to do a complete project management task on mobile."
"On the development side for technical project management, Asana is missing features. We only use it for discussing tasks and strategies, and we use it for customer to-do lists. It doesn't have the source code integration that Jira and Jira Service Desk both have."
"Microsoft Project could improve the dates. Sometimes the dates are not aligned. This occurs even when you auto-schedule the dates. We have to go and define the schedule daily this should more easily accessible."
"The stability of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"In a future release, the dashboard should improve because there isn't one, I had to create my own."
"The setup and scalability can be somewhat difficult for new users until they gain knowledge."
"What could have been better is the integration with Office 365 so that if you're discussing a project on Teams or there's an email related to the project, it can be tagged to the project in Microsoft Project. That functionality is currently not there."
"It is a traditional Waterfall-based solution, so it doesn't lend itself particularly well to Agile development. You can record Agile sprints within it, but it is not really an Agile-based product. It can store the basic information about budgets that an Agile set of work is looking to use, but that's about it."
"If Project had a better mechanism to allow those who are not the project manager to see their own work tasks, that would be of help or of value to us."
"Collaboration is an area that needs improvements."
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.
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