Asana
Ranked 6 of 8 project management software by recommenders
Recommended for structured work tracking and sprint planning. Critics say per-seat costs and setup overhead are the main drawbacks.
Recommended for structured work tracking and sprint planning. Critics say per-seat costs and setup overhead are the main drawbacks.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 10
- approval share
- 38%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Per-seat cost and onboarding burden
“it's not actually in our budget and the process of onboarding and familiarizing with those large enterprise softwares was an absolute pain”
Comment from 25 Jun 2026 in “Questions” “But won't pay for Asana seats, so every user in your 100-person startup is a guest”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Putting Gemini to Work in Chrome” Takes more time than the work
“we were spending more time managing the tool than doing the work.”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: CodeBake – so that PM tasks aren't extra work” “force you to configure a database before you can draw a timeline”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 on Hacker News
Other project management software people recommend
The four most recommended other project management software, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Projects | 9 | 9 | 50% | 7 | — | — |
| Basecamp | 8 | 8 | 50% | 6 | — | — |
| OpenProject | 7 | 2 | 78% | 7 | — | — |
| ClickUp | 7 | 23 | 23% | 6 | — | — |
| AsanaThis page | 6 | 10 | 38% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
15 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Asana helped, I tried sprint planning like my time working for a startup”
“Oh dear, poor Asana customers...”
“do you not get the blatant second degree negative implications of what’s stated here, albeit manipulated and hyperbolic”
“Asana has the same problem. Really frustrating.”
“it's not actually in our budget and the process of onboarding and familiarizing with those large enterprise softwares was an absolute pain”
“Just absolutely dog slow.”
“Asana, Notion and Linear have major penetration in small companies.”
“check if it's about todos, then decide to add them to Asana”
“many are genuinely excellent at tracking structured work”
“since it couldn't do that itself”
“force you to configure a database before you can draw a timeline”
“But won't pay for Asana seats, so every user in your 100-person startup is a guest”
“we were spending more time managing the tool than doing the work.”
“Given the number of tools like Asana, Trello, Notion, ClickUp etc.”
“good luck using Asana, smartsheets, or ppt”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.