Trello Review: Can It Help Organize Your Projects?

Trello is all about helping teams to simplify their work. And with more than 50 million users worldwide, the golden oldie must be doing something right. But is Trello still a good choice in 2024, and if so, for whom?

We have taken a closer look at Trello and extensively tested its project management features.

Trello* is a cloud-based project management tool developed by Fog Creek Software and launched at the famous "TechCrunch Disrupt" conference in 2011. It is now part of the Australian software company Atlassian.

Highly versatile, Trello promises to bring "all your tasks, teammates, and tools together". Whether you're a casual user, a freelancer, or a large business, Trello can help arrange your meetings, deadlines, and projects.

Trello is web-based and can be used in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. It also has desktop clients for Windows and macOS and Android and iOS apps. We used Trello in Chrome and Windows.

First, you'll need a Trello account. Fortunately, you don't need to pay at this stage, because Trello offers both a free tier and premium plans (more details on Trello's pricing below).

You can try a premium subscription for up to two weeks. If you enter your banking details, you can extend this trial period to 30 days — just remember to cancel if you decide not to go on with Trello after all.

Once your account is set up, a brief tutorial walks you through Trello's basic features. Then, you can start managing your Workspace.

Like any project management tool, Trello consists of several components that help you organize your projects. The primary area you'll work in is the Workspace — a dedicated space for you and your team to manage various projects.

Within your workspace, you'll find three key elements:

Within a board, you can quickly create new lists and cards. You start by naming a card, and then you can customize it with a click, adding various elements like members, attachments, and locations — more on the options later.

Cards can be easily dragged and dropped between lists. Once a task is complete, just slide it to the next phase.

You can visualize your Trello board using various views to examine your projects from different perspectives. There are six views available:

There are two more Workspace Views, but these are just versions of the standard Table and Calendar views that go beyond the limits of individual boards. Here, you can view cards from all Trello boards in a centralized dashboard.

Trello covers the basics, but doesn't offer as many views as its competitors. We would have liked to see a mind map, milestone, or gallery view, for example.

Here's what Trello offers compared to other project management solutions:

Trello is also available on mobile devices: The Android and iOS apps offer a simplified display of the Kanban boards and allow users to quickly create cards and boards on the go. Cards can be edited as usual and moved between lists.

Not all of Trello's features made it into the mobile app — but more complex tasks tend to require a larger screen anyway. Like most project management mobile apps, Trello's is good for checking in and small adjustments, but that's about it.

Trello's biggest strength is how simple it is to use. While Workspaces can be extensively customized to meet various needs, the basics are easy to grasp and shouldn't take long to get familiar with, even for newcomers. The Kanban-based board view is intuitive, and new lists and cards can be created quickly.

Still, a bit more flexibility wouldn't hurt: Trello could easily offer more views and customization options without sacrificing its trademark ease-of-use.

Once you've grasped the fundamental principles of Trello, you can start customizing your workspace to meet your needs and begin planning your projects and tasks.

To create a new task (card), simply click "Add a card" within a list on your board. For now, all you have to do is name the card.

When you click on the card afterward, a detailed view will open where you can further edit the task. Here, you can add members, labels, deadlines, attachments, a description, and many other elements, as well as turn notifications on and off.

You can customize your card with the elements listed under the "Add to card" heading. This section also includes integrations, known as Power-Ups, which allow you to incorporate external apps like Slack or Gmail, as well as additional features.

Apart from the predefined elements, you can add custom fields to your cards, which have their own section in the detail view. Here, you can use elements such as checkboxes, dates, dropdown menus, and numbers to further customize your cards.

Trello covers the most important fields and allows users to customize their tasks with attributes and integrations.

However, Trello's built-in card editing tools are somewhat limited — and the same is true for the options available for custom fields. For instance, there are no elements for percentages, currencies, or formulas.

Here's how Trello stacks up against its competitors:

Unfortunately, Trello lacks a few standard task management features. For example, it's not possible to create dependencies between tasks — meaning you can't set up a task to only start once another specific task has been completed.

Trello also lacks built-in subtasks that can be assigned to parent cards. The only workaround is to set up a checklist within a card. Milestones also need to be configured manually.

You can use automations and Power-Ups to try and replicate these features, but native solutions would have been preferable.

Trello was built with Kanban in mind. If you want to visualize the "big picture" of projects and keep track of them using neatly designed Kanban boards, it doesn't get much easier than Trello.

For everyone else — especially those working on projects requiring a high level of detail management, such as defining dependencies between tasks, detailed scheduling, or handling subtasks — Trello might be less suitable.

Trello can be used by both individual users and teams. You can invite team members to either the entire Workspace or to specific boards.

To invite someone to your Workspace, simply click on the plus symbol next to "Members" in the menu or open the members area and click on "Invite workspace members."

You can invite contacts using their email address, Trello username, or a share link.

Workspace members are assigned one of two roles: admin or regular user. Regular users can create and edit boards within the workspace but cannot alter settings.

Alternatively, you can grant access to specific boards only. To do this, click the "Share" button at the top right of a board and invite the relevant individuals.

There are three categories of board members:

While Trello enables joint work on projects, it is not really designed for real-time collaboration. You can share workspaces and boards with team members and communicate via mentions (by typing an "@" symbol followed by the person's name), but that's about it.

Real-time collaboration features, such as direct messaging, group chats, joint document editing, or tools like whiteboards, are not available. External extensions might offer some of these capabilities, but many of Trello's competitors (like Basecamp, Teamwork, or ClickUp) are much stronger when it comes to native collaboration features.

Here's how Trello stacks up against other tools in terms of collaboration features:

If you're looking for a project management tool with robust collaboration features, Trello might not be the first choice. You can share tasks and projects with team members and jointly edit them, but you'll need a Power-Up or another program for everything else.

Trello might not be the most feature-heavy platform, but it does have a few surprises up its sleeve — a solid automation engine, for example.

Like the rest of the platform, Trello's automation features are intuitive and user-friendly. To access the automation creation area, click on the three-dot menu at the top right of the board and navigate to “Automation.”

There are several types of automations:

Many features not covered by Trello’s standard tools, such as dependencies between tasks, can be constructed using automations.

Automations are included in all Trello plans, but the number of executions per month is restricted in the free and standard plans. Premium and Enterprise plans also have limits, but these are relatively generous and should be sufficient for most users.

Want to integrate other tools into Trello or use features that are not supported by default? Then you can search through Trello’s Power-Ups for suitable integrations.

These are grouped into categories like "Analysis and Reporting", "Communication and Collaboration", or "Data Management" and offer plenty of features like time tracking (Harvest), whiteboards (Miro), or messaging (Slack).

The selection is large and varied, and there's no limit on the number of Power-Ups you can use. However, some integrations are paid only.

With automations and Power-Ups, you can fill in many of the gaps left by the platform's out-of-the-box capabilities. Still, we'd prefer native support for standard features (such as reporting, time tracking, or form building).

If you factor in integrations and automations, Trello offers a solid range of features, but other platforms are much more versatile out-of-the-box.

For Trello beginners, there are numerous useful guides and support resources available on the Trello website. For example, the Trello guide offers a thorough introduction to the basic concepts and features of the platform, with many screenshots and hyperlinks.

Users also benefit from detailed webinars and searchable FAQs, as well as a large Trello forum where users can ask the community.

For most queries that arose during our use of Trello, we were able to find answers on the Trello website.

Trello provides direct support only via support tickets; phone or chat support are not available. Trello, like many, seems to prefer that its users answer questions on their own before reaching out for help.

With that said, we only had to wait 30 minutes for an answer from Trello's support team. They answered our questions and directed us to relevant articles in the support center for further reading.

Overall, we were quite satisfied with Trello's support, though more contact options would be nice.

Trello offers four plans: Free, Standard, Premium, and Enterprise. Each plan charges a monthly fee per user.

Here is an overview of Trello's pricing:

Trello is among the most affordable solutions on the market. In our chart below, we compare the subscription cost of each provider for ten users with an unlimited number of projects:

Trello offers discounted rates for educational organizations and non-profits. There's also a free trial version, which you can test for 14 days (without payment information) or 30 days (with payment information).

Trello is an exceptionally user-friendly and beginner-friendly project management platform, ideally suited for small to medium-sized teams—particularly those looking to visualize their project progress in Kanban style and maintain a clear overview of tasks, to-dos, and team workload. Various views, powerful automations, and numerous extensions make Trello more versatile than it might seem at first glance.

However, Trello is not as versatile as other platforms: many features that are included out-of-the-box elsewhere (such as real-time collaboration, time tracking, or reporting) can only be added via integrations. And if you want to deviate from the Kanban method and manage projects with dependencies and/or subtasks, you'll need to build your own workflows using automations.

Trello's users appear to be very satisfied with the program. We've had a look at the verified reviews on reputable aggregators and gathered some of the most common feedback:

Do you find Trello's Kanban focus and the limited selection of custom fields too restrictive? If so, monday.com might be a good alternative: The platform is similarly user-friendly but offers significantly more flexibility. However, it is primarily designed for team use.

Are you mainly looking for the ability to more intricately adjust project workflows with dependencies, subtasks, milestones, and goals? Then Asana and ClickUp are worth a look.

You can find more alternatives to Trello here: