Asana vs Wrike – Which is Better?

After testing 10 project management apps, our results suggest Asana is a better overall project management software solution than Wrike, scoring 4.5/5 to Wrike’s 4.4/5. Asana came joint third overall on our tests, while Wrike came fifth – which means there isn’t much separating the two at all.

However, if you’re part of a smaller business, Asana will be the better option over Wrike. It scored higher on our ease of use tests (4.3/5) than Wrike (4.1/5), has a great dashboard view for displaying project data, and has better customer support options for users.

If you’re part of a larger business, Wrike will be a better option because it’s got a vast range of integrations, offers better complex task management tools, better security options, and has two enterprise-facing plans.

Check out the table below for a whistle-stop tour of the two providers and how they stack up against one another. However, if you don’t have much of a budget to spend on software, bear in mind that monday.com topped our ease-of-use tests and is a cheaper option than Wrike and Asana – so make sure you check it out before you make your decision.

Wrike (which has a good free version to try) will be ideal for your business if you have multiple teams working on projects concurrently and you want to implement a strict organizational hierarchy. Asana, meanwhile, appeals to teams who just want a list of tasks, with milestones and task dependencies to help guide them along. And yes, there’s a free Asana tier you can try out, too.

Both Asana and Wrike performed really well in our testing, with Asana edging Wrike on our ease-of-use tests and the pair being awarded high marks for their integration libraries, which are the best two available. Wrike has a much wider range of marketing and finance integrations than any of the other project management providers we regularly test. This helped it to a score of 4.9/5 for integrations and will make it appealing to large businesses already using a large suite of apps and platforms.

In this guide, we’re going to break down the differences between Asana and Wrike, so that you can make your own decision. Alternatively, you can view our deals comparison chart to filter project management tools based on your own criteria.

In this Guide:

• Asana vs Wrike: Table
• Asana vs Wrike: Which Is Best?
• Wrike vs Asana: Head-to-Head
• Asana vs Wrike: Team Sizes
• Asana vs Wrike: Pricing and Reviews
• About Our Research and Testing Methodology
• Asana vs Wrike: The Verdict
• Frequently Asked Questions

Asana vs Wrike: Which Is Best?

Deciding on which is best between Wrike and Asana really comes down to the needs of your company or team, but Wrike has the edge over Asana if you need a project management tool for a large team or business. Asana is a better choice than Wrike for individuals and small teams.

Both performed well in our testing and count themselves among the best project management software products on the market right now.

• Asana is best for individuals and personal projects, with its simpler hierarchy and interface
• Asana is best for small businesses and teams that need a place to track tasks
• Wrike is best for large organizations that want a very clear hierarchy for their projects
• Asana has better customer support options, while Wrike has better security options
• Wrike is best for marketing teams, with specific integrations geared towards the industry

Asana vs Wrike: Head-to-Head

Below, there is a short review of both Wrike and Asana, but we’ve got individual sections for things like business features and customer support further down in this article. here’s a rundown of the sections:

• Best Value: Tie
• Best for Ease of Use: Asana
• Best for Business Features: Asana
• Best for Customer Support: Asana

Best value: Tie

Arguably one of the most important metrics to consider when it comes to installing new software is how much value you’re getting for the price you’re paying, and how many features you can obtain for the lowest price. After assessing Wrike and Asana’s pricing plans, we awarded both providers just 3.7/5 for pricing – which is pretty mediocre.

That being said, Asana’s first paid plan, the Premium plan, is $10.99 per user, per month whereas Wrike’s Team plan is $9.80 per user, per month, and you won’t get access to that many more features for that extra $1.19. So if pricing is your top priority, then Wrike’s first paid plan is the one you’ll want to go for, even if it’s not quite as capable.

Wrike’s Calendar view (available on the Team plan). Image: Tech.co’s testing process.

The Business plans offered by Asana and Wrike are similarly priced and similarly expensive, retailing at $24.99 and $24.80 per user, per month respectively. They’re positioned at the most expensive end of the market so if you are tightly monitoring your outgoings at the moment, then we’d suggest looking elsewhere.

For example, Teamwork scores 4.4/5 for pricing and has a first-paid plan available for just $5.99 per user, per month. Teamwork’s second paid plan is actually $9.99 per user, per month, which is still cheaper than Asana Premium. Jira – our best value provider with a 4.8/5 score for pricing – has a paid plan available for $5 per user, per month, and it has a pretty decent rank of task management and collaboration tools for that price.

Zoho Projects is the provider you’ll be after if you want to spend as little as you can – Zoho Projects Premium is available for just $4 per user, per month.

Best for ease of use: Asana

Wrike scored 4.1/5 on our recent ease-of-use tests, but Asana scored 4.2/5. Both these providers were among the easier-to-use pieces of software – they’re less complicated than Smartsheet (3.6/5 for ease of use) and the likes of Zoho Projects (3.2/5 for ease of use).

However, it was the functionality of Wrike’s more advanced features that let it down. For instance, several members of our group tried to build some mock automations during testing and didn’t find it very straightforward. “I’d used a custom column earlier on, which created a limitation when I wanted to use automations” explains Alice Martin, who participated in our recent user testing series. “It didn’t seem to recognize the purpose of my tags,” she added.

There were a couple of other issues with Wrike. “I started to add in tasks and I thought there was an autosave,” said Tech.co’s Insights Manager Natasha Willet, referencing how most project management tools will automatically save your work when you’re inputting task information. “In fact, there wasn’t no auto-save, but everything I had input within the first five minutes just disappeared.”

Asana, on the other hand, makes it easier to hop between views than Wrike, auto-populates your dashboard view with project data, and even makes smart suggestions about tasks you should be linking together. Its interface will initially feel a little cramped when you open a task to edit it, but you definitely get used to it.

Wrike’s Kanban Board. Image: Tech.co’s Testing Process.

If your team isn’t that computer savvy at all, you’ll be better off with monday.com than Asana or Wrike. Its clever use of white space and minimalistic approach to the layout of the interface will instantly make you feel more organized, while many of the advanced features are intended to be more intuitive.  I was also personally impressed with monday.com’s responsive live chat function, which I used to connect to agents and troubleshoot a number of issues.

Best for business features: Asana

Both Wrike and Asana score 4.3/5 for features, a criteria made up of four sub-categories; task management, workflow creation, data visualization, and collaboration.

When it comes to workflow creation, Asana rules the roost (4.1/5) – putting it joint first for this criteria out of all the providers we tested – thanks to one of the better automation builders we tested. It is incredibly straightforward and easy to use, and there are quite a few competitors (like ClickUp) that, while being great programs, make this function overly complicated.

Task management, on the other hand, is a far better experience when carried out with Wrike. Wrike scores 4.7/5 for this criterion, including a spreadsheet-style view with formulas (Asana comes without). However, Asana scores 4.3/5 in this category because it also had a broad range of task management features, many of which were discussed earlier on in this article.

Managing tasks in Asana. Image: Tech.co’s testing process.

In terms of data visualization, Asana wins again, with a 4.8/5 score. It’s fair to say Asana has the best data dashboard that we saw during testing, making it incredibly easy to glean insights into your team and how they’re working. Also, you can build your own charts from scratch, but you can’t do that in Wrike.

However, it’s worth noting that neither Wrike nor Asana includes any of their tools on their free plans. ClickUp, which scored the same as Asana on our latest tests (4.5/5), offers a dashboard, as well as preset and custom widgets, on its free plan.

When it comes to collaboration, Wrike (2.7/5) and Asana (also 3/5) don’t offer much to write home about. You’ll be able to comment on tasks and post on a project message board, but aside from that, they’re pretty bare. There’s no online whiteboard like the one offered by ClickUp, and neither provides a document editing function like monday.com.

If you’re still not convinced, see how Wrike and Asana compare to other providers.

Best for customer support: Asana

Asana has better customer support than Wrike, but only just. Asana scores 4.5/5 overall for this assessment area, while Wrike scores a respectable 4/5. Asana edges it largely due to the fact that live chat help is available on every plan, including the free plan.

Live chat is a really important support option to have because most of the issues you’re going to run into on a daily basis aren’t going to be major, project-defining problems – so it’s useful to have someone on hand to correct your course if there’s a small technical hiccup.

Asana also offers 2/47 live support on its enterprise plan – which Wrike doesn’t provide, so that’s something worth considering if you can’t afford to have any downtime. Both providers offer onboarding assistance on their paid plans, however.

Asana vs Wrike: Team Sizes

Asana and Wrike are both very respectable options when it comes to project management software. The most important way to identify which project management tool one might be better for you and your business is the size of your team.

We break down the differences with a few helpful comparisons below, but you can also use our free comparison tool to see how the two compare against other providers.

Asana is better than Wrike for individual projects

Asana is a great option for individual projects or for freelancers looking to keep their work in order. Most people should be able to get by with the free tier, Asana Basic. This tier doesn’t include sub-tasks or dependencies, but as long as you can do without those features, Basic should be all you need.

The Basic plan’s essential features include task creation (naturally), as well as list view, board view, and calendar view. Basic supports up to 15 team members, compared to Wrike’s five, meaning you can invite collaborators as needed. Basic also lets you assign tasks to others when you’re collaborating.

However, we’d recommend Teamwork’s free plan over Wrike and Asana for individuals – it has a three-person user limit, but it’s got more task management features, five different project templates and you’ll be able to access phone-based support. It’s also easier to use, scoring 4.3/5 on our ease of use tests to Asana’s 4.2/5. Completing basic project management tasks during setup was slightly smoother. Both providers have quite a similar layout, but Asana’s felt marginally more cluttered.

For anyone who needs more than that, it’ll cost $10.99 per user, per month to move up to Premium. This tier is where the feature set really explodes, offering milestones, dependencies, subtasks, timelines, and advanced reporting. With so much functionality on offer, we found it to be overkill for any single-person projects.

Why Asana is better for individual projects:

• Asana Basic (free tier) is likely to be enough for most single users
• It supports up to 15 collaborators
• Going beyond the free tier is overkill for most individuals
• Offers more users than Wrike’s free tier, as well as user permissions, two-factor authentication, and a calendar

Asana’s List and Timeline views, chart creation area and resource allocation tool

Asana is better than Wrike for small teams and businesses

Although this is a head-to-head comparison of Asana vs Wrike, it’s safe to say both providers will satisfy the needs of small businesses, despite Asana marginally having the edge. They both score well for task management, customer support, security, and integrations, but Asana provides access to more features, on cheaper plans.

If you’re a small business with very little budget to spend on project management software, then you’ll be wanting as much bang for your buck as you can get. Asana’s cheapest paid plan edges Wrike’s cheapest paid plan, with a calendar, custom, and preset charts, custom fields, and unlimited storage, all of which Wrike doesn’t provide. Overall, it’s a better value-for-money plan despite being $1.19 more expensive per user, per month.

Another reason Asana is better for small businesses is onboarding assistance, which is available on all plans but the free plan. This will be particularly useful for your small business if you don’t have an IT team or simply the time to teach staff the ins and outs of a new software program. Along with the live chat function we discussed earlier, this helped Asana to a 4.5/5 for customer support.

However, Wrike is better for small marketing teams thanks to an array of marketing features and integrations included on the Business plan. As well as this, as we’ve covered, Wrike is slightly more usable, particularly for managing ongoing projects. If the $24.80 per user, per month Business Plan is within your budget, you’ll have one of the best sets of task management features currently available, and features like file and video proofing which will be useful for marketing campaigns.

Wrike is better than Asana for mid-sized teams

When your team starts to grow to a certain size, keeping your data organized so things run smoothly becomes even more important. Wrike offers a good way to do this with its folder structure. Many project management services offer a project, and then lists of tasks under that. Some of these apps allow you to create lists to better organize your tasks.

None, however, allow as much depth of organization as Wrike, with its ability to create folders and sub-folders within a project. That may be too much organization for some teams, but for those who need to keep an unruly project (or projects) on track, those folders are a big help. There’s also built-in time tracking for the Business tier and higher, as well as 5GB of storage per user.

Another plus for mid-sized businesses is that Wrike provides a comparative overview of each team member’s resource, including week-by-week and month-by-month breakdowns. You can also use the Gantt chart to view tasks by team members.

Wrike will also let you assign budgets to individual tasks, whereas some project management tools will only let you assign one for a whole project. These features helped Wrike to a test-high 4.7/5 for task management, along with easy-to-use classics like a Kanban board, Gantt chart and standard table view.

Wrike is better for large/multiple teams

Wrike doesn’t mess around when it comes to adding features that large companies and enterprises will benefit from. For example, it scores a perfect 5/5 for security. Wrike comes with the usual features, such as SAML 2.0 for single sign-on management, password policies, and two-factor authentication on all plans.

It can also integrate with many business intelligence tools via the company’s application programming interface for moving data. There’s also a built-in integration tool for Tableau, a popular data management service, and a huge range of marketing and financial integrations, helping Wrike to a test-high of 4.9/5 for integrations. If you’re using a web of apps and you want to centralize your data around one place, Wrike is a good option.

Other key features for enterprises include network access and compliance policies to restrict Wrike to whitelisted IP addresses, which is an option on Wrike’s Enterprise and Pinnacle plans, but isn’t available on any Asana plan. There are also “advanced user access controls” for controlling inheritance permissions on folders and sub-folders, as well as access reports to see who can get into all the various company projects.

What’s more, Wrike’s Business tier ($24.80 per user, per month) is a couple of cents cheaper than Asana’s equivalent Business tier ($24.99 per user per month) while also including time tracking and the potential for CRM functionality.

Wrike’s Table and Calendar view, Analytics dashboard, and its automation builder. Images: Tech.co’s testing process

Asana vs Wrike: Pricing

Arguably one of the most important metrics to consider when it comes to installing a new software at your business, pricing comparisons between Asana and Wrike can be incredibly helpful. Use our free comparison tool to see how the two stack up against other providers, or see a quick breakdown of both pricing plans below.

Wrike Pricing

Wrike has five tiers. The three publicly priced tiers are the Free plan, the Professional plan ($9.80 per user per month), and the Business plan ($24.80 per user per month). There’s also Pinnacle and Enterprise plans with custom pricing you’ll have to contact sales for.

Asana Pricing

Asana has three payment plans, as well as a bespoke plan where the price depends on the limits and options you include. Their three payment plans are the Free plan, the Premium plan ($10.99 per user per month), and the Business plan ($24.99 per user per month).

Wrike Review Summary

If you compare Wrike to other project management services, you’ll notice its more conservative interface and approach. For example, Wrike uses a folder hierarchy by default, although you can opt to ignore this uncommon approach and use a Kanban-style board instead. There is also a spreadsheet-like view, rather like you’ll get with Microsoft Project.

For those who like a well-organized hierarchy of tasks, Wrike is the ideal choice – but a well-structured way to keep your data sorted isn’t all it has to offer. For example, Wrike provides you with multiple customizable calendars, which can be assigned to individual projects, teams, or even a specific folder.

For those who like a well-organized hierarchy of tasks, Wrike is the ideal choice.

Check out our in-depth guide to Wrike pricing for more information

Another great feature is document history, which is available for files you upload to Wrike. It requires Wrike’s desktop plugin, but once that’s up and running, you can make changes to a document and view past versions in a single location. Document versioning is a must-have feature for any company, and while you can find it in online services such as Google Docs, it’s nice that Wrike offers it as part of a project management tool.

Wrike also beats Asana in spreadsheet functionality, as Wrike provides “formula” columns, which enable automatic calculations. Asana has no such feature.

Features

• Built-in time tracking
• Capable free tier
• Multiple views, including spreadsheet
• Customizable calendars

Asana Review Summary

Asana is a popular option for project management for a number of reasons. It has a great interface and offers all the key features required for basic project management in its two lower tiers. Tasks, subtasks, dependencies, and milestones are all available with Asana Premium. There’s also a timeline as part of Premium for those who need it.

Asana’s project templates are also helpful if you’re just getting started with project management. The idea is to create the bare bones of a basic project, and then have the team fill in the rest. Asana’s basic templates include a cross-functional template for projects that involve team members from different departments. There’s also a template for marketing, product launches, and many other options. There are a number of templates available at the free tier, with other options only available for Premium subscribers and upwards.

Asana’s project templates are helpful if you’re just getting started with project management.

Check out our in-depth guide to Asana pricing for more information

For those with larger teams, Asana offers a number of solid options to keep projects on track. These include Portfolios, which offer an overview of all team projects and their current state. Workload complements this by providing a look at each team member’s workload, to help better manage the team’s overall effectiveness.

Looking at ways where Asana specifically beats Wrike, Asana comes out on top in both its forms and its automation builder. While Wrike has a form builder, Asana’s is a lot more streamlined and easy to use. The same applies to their automation builders as well. Wrike does have one, but it’s hidden away and also much harder to use. Asana’s is once again smoother and more streamlined.

Features

• Clean design
• The free tier allows up to 15 team members
• Portfolios and Workload are helpful features for large teams
• Useful project templates

Asana vs Wrike: Our Methodology

At Tech.co, we do all our own research in-house. For our project management software category, our research team tested 10 high-quality providers and ranked them based on a variety of different criteria.

The specific criteria were decided upon after conversations with business owners and employees, and reflect many of the common pain points that working people experience when trying to decide which software is the best. Our key assessment areas for project management were:

• Ease of Use: An assessment of how easy it is to complete basic project management tasks with the software
• Pricing: An analysis of whether the product is good value-for-money, based on what you get for what you pay
• Customer Support: Review of the customer support options available, and how useful they are for common problems.
• Functionality: Assessing how quantity and quality of features that facilitate task management, workflow creation, visualizing data, and collaborating with other team members.
• Integrations: Review of the integration libraries and app marketplaces offered by different project management providers.
• Security: An analysis of the security options on offer, including account-level tools like 2FA, but also enterprise-grade security features applicable to large businesses, like IP restriction capabilities.

Although we have commercial partnerships with some of the providers we write about, this never ever affects our editorial independence or the conclusions we arrive at in our articles. All of our verdicts, rankings and scores are based solely on the research we carry out.

Frequently Asked Questions