Asana vs Assembla

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Our analysts compared Asana vs Assembla based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Project Management Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Asana Software Tool
Assembla Software Tool

Product Basics

Asana is a cloud-based project management platform designed to help teams of all sizes manage and organize projects with customization, automation, AI and collaboration. Users can build custom workflows, templates and tasks, and visualize projects in multiple ways, including list, timeline, calendar, Kanban and Gantt views.

You can also build and trigger automation rules when tasks are moved or status or priority is changed. Stay aligned with goals, locate risks and hit project deadlines with reports and collaboration tools. Connect with other solutions using its open API and native integration with dozens of apps.

Our Research Process for Asana

Taking software at face value for a product page review is so passe. Luckily, with a little help from my company’s email address, I got a free trial of Asana’s Advanced plan for 30 days.

I set up a dummy project for content creation, complete with the stages and automations we currently use, so I’d have a more apples-to-apples comparison of a real-world project.

Additionally, I tested some “standout” features our researchers suggested and investigated the pros and cons users mentioned on review sites.

To learn the ropes, I visited the help center, watched demo videos and scoured Reddit for shortcuts. This webpage is the result of a week of dedicating all my working hours to living and breathing Asana.

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Assembla is an extensive suite of applications for software development, enabling distributed agile teams. It allows development teams to manage, initiate and maintain agile projects, applications and websites. It offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card needed. The suite offers Assembla Workspaces and Assembla Portfolios.

Assembla Workplaces is designed to provide a range of modules, including problem management and ticketing, code repository administration and collaborations. Assembla Portfolio, on the other hand, includes support for managing team jobs and multiple projects. The console also provides a unified user management console, a branded portal and multiple reporting modules.
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$10.99/User, Monthly, Freemium
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Tailored to your specific needs
$10 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
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Live Online
Videos
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Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
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24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Use Asana AI: Leverage AI in your project management strategy by using AI studio to draft workflows and create custom charts. Summarize your project and tasks using AI and use draft with AI to view next steps and actions. I drafted a project update by clicking on the Set Status tab and selecting “Draft update with AI.” After setting a status and date range, I also added an extra custom heading. The final product was comprehensive and easy to edit, which is great if you find staring at a blank page can be a stumbling block.
  • Create Tasks via Email: Make it easy to create tasks on the go by sending an email to your project email with all the details you need. I found the email associated with that project by clicking on the project dropdown and selecting import and then email. After that, I copied the email address and pasted it and added my email so I’d be the assignee, filled out the subject as the task name, added an additional description in the body and sent it. Like magic, the task showed up with all the details I wanted – 10/10, would recommend.
  • Set Up and Implement Custom Templates: Save time by creating your own custom cards and projects and converting them to templates or choosing from the built-in project templates. Click on the Customize button to add task templates and custom fields. I added a new article template with a relative start date, dependency and custom field for the editor and team.
  • Collaborate with External Users: Stay in sync with clients and suppliers by creating guest accounts and inviting them to access specific tasks and projects. I could invite users with a different email domain name and set access permissions like admin, editor, commentator or viewer in the invite.
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  • Robust and Versatile Platform: Provides its users with an efficient yet versatile platform that incorporates several tools and services to facilitate collaborative processes and project management, providing mobile and widely distributed teams with a cohesive digital workplace. 
  • Responsive and Flexible Functions: This solution is designed to keep up with changes in priority and needs that companies face when dealing with projects. 
  • Tracking and Management Capabilities: Users can use problem tracking and management capabilities during product development or ongoing projects to quickly and efficiently monitor and tackle potential problems. 
  • User-Defined Reporting: Offers practical user-defined reporting that allows users to make custom reports based on the organization's need. 
  • Accelerate Teams: Provides time-saving tools to accelerate teams. These tools include a wiki, message board, tools for collaboration and file sharing. The tools are integrated into a comprehensive activity stream, reinforced with other specialized tools to simplify team activities. 
  • Innovative Version Control: The platform provides an innovative multifunctional system, which allows users to manage their code securely in the cloud. Provides multiple infrastructure design options, including private cloud management, global deployment options in North America, EMEA and APAC with multi-node infrastructure and personalization options to meet the unique requirements of compliance safety and SLA. 
  • Streamline Issue and Ticketing Management: Allows users to view tickets in a cardwall view or simple list. Users can use the milestone feature to set critical dates for key tasks irrespective of their implementation phase. It makes code management easier and integrates with GitHub, Gmail, Facebook and Amazon Web Services. 
  • Enterprise-Grade Cloud Platform: Partnered with Hansoft, it offers large scale backlog management, Gantt chart planning and portfolio management. Use a combination of methodologies for planning to meet the needs of each project in a single tool. It supports Gantt, Kanban, Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall and SAFe tools. 
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  • Task Management: Create tasks with custom fields, deadlines, tags, subtasks, dependencies and descriptions during setup, adding tasks to the section you want when you create your first project or forwarding an email to [email protected]. Save time by converting your custom tasks into a template you can apply to new tasks and using AI to summarize tasks and draft subtasks. Switch between list, board, timeline, calendar and Gantt views to optimize visualization and drag-and-drop tasks between sections.
  • Project Planning and Scheduling: Kick your projects off with a plethora of templates ranging from product rollouts to hiring pipelines, or import your project from a spreadsheet. Convert tasks into milestones on the card and add details about why it’s a milestone. Add tasks to multiple projects and organize strategic initiatives by creating a portfolio where you can track the updates of all your projects.
  • Resource Management: Keep track of what’s on everyone’s plate by switching to the workload view. Drag and drop tasks to manage timelines and assignees and assign custom values like hours or points to tasks to accurately factor in employee effort.
  • Sprint Management: Hit the ground running by applying the sprint template to a new project. Add custom fields, use the timeline tab to map out sprint tasks and deadlines and set start and finish dates in the project view.
  • Collaboration Features: Add updates, questions and notes into the description. Comment on cards with mentions, files, lists, code blocks and even AI assists. Send messages directly to individuals or teams using the inbox. Keep your clients in the loop by creating guest accounts and sharing specific tasks and projects with them.
  • Reports and Insights: Tap into a bird’s eye view of your project by clicking on the dashboard tab where you can monitor overdue, complete and incomplete tasks and burnup charts and create custom charts with their AI tool. Visit the reporting tab to view trends, progress, resourcing and work health.
  • Custom Automations and Workflows: Build a workflow that’s a perfect fit for your project in the workflow tab by adding sections for each step in the process with custom transitions and rules when tasks are moved. Add custom automations and rules from scratch, use the options provided as a starting point or get a helping hand from the AI studio. Check out the automations we built in depth below.
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  • Project Management: Use cardwalls and task boards to visually manage projects that update automatically, in real time. Create tickets quickly and easily and add as many details as the project requires. Assign owners, due dates, add large files, create sub-tasks, co-workers, @mention teams and more. Set important dates in various phases of execution for a group of important tasks. 
  • Client Management: The Support tool enables customer project management through a simple mechanism for customers to collaborate. It integrates the tickets tool to provide customers with a supporting ticketing system to submit problems, bugs and requests for information. 
  • Time Tracking: Users can add working hours straight from a ticket or task they are working on or through the time tool. The time tool allows for time tracking, reporting and analyzing, while the track time page allows users to view all tickets/tasks assigned and export work hours from all spaces. 
  • Built-In Collaboration: Provides a variety of collaborative features and capabilities designed to maintain consistent information flows between teams and their respective members. It works like most social media platforms, so everyone is kept informed and up to date. 
  • Security: It exceeds compliance, controls and security norms, ensuring that the software development process is locked down from end to end. It protects, audits and monitors the company's most valuable assets to guarantee a safe DevOps life cycle. 
  • Code Analysis: AlphaScan finds access keys and hard-coded passwords in the source code and notifies teams before they’re deployed. It supports most desktop, web and mobile languages like Java, NET, PhoneGap, Cordova, Python and more. 
  • Assembla MyGet: It integrates existing source code ecosystems with a universal package manager and allows users to manage end-to-end packages. Centralized package management provides DevOps workflows with security, consistency and management. MyGet automates building and packaging processes from a central cloud platform. 
  • Wiki Tool: Embed and upload files or videos directly to the wiki to create content libraries or knowledge bases. It helps store and share team knowledge that can be lost in email inboxes and network drives. Users can create meeting notes, project plans, product specifications and look at the history of page changes to learn how they developed. 
  • Assembla NextGen SVN: It offers SVN applications for desktop, WebApp and mobile applications. It supports modern workflows that use merge/pull requests and also supports code searches in real time. Users can review code, lock files, identify defect roots, search repos and version files, create and edit code, check activity audits and more. 
  • Integration: Offers out-of-the-box integrations and APIs to enhance the user experience and boost productivity. It allows integration with various platforms like Slack, GitHub, Trialtext, Jenkins CI, Zapier, Trello and Jira. 
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Product Ranking

#2

among all
Project Management Software

#89

among all
Project Management Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Asana
Assembla
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Customizations Dashboards And Reporting Mobile Capabilities Platform Features Project Planning And Scheduling Project Tracking Task Management Team Collaboration Time Tracking And Management 84 77 69 93 82 58 95 97 50 0 25 50 75 100
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 27379 reviews
Great User Sentiment 312 reviews
89%
of users recommend this product

Asana has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 89% when considering 27379 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

85%
of users recommend this product

Assembla has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 85% when considering 312 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

4.8 (15)
4.9 (10)
4.4 (10490)
4.2 (126)
n/a
4.22 (84)
4.5 (13154)
4.2 (86)
4.3 (1084)
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4.2 (2636)
4.7 (6)

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

User Friendly: Reviewers appreciated that the system is easy to use and intuitive with a clean UI, even if you’re new to projects.
Overall Functionality: Workflows and automation, task management and collaboration are everything you’d look for in a project management system, according to users.
Customization: Users liked the customization options for unique team needs, projects and workflows.
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Intuitive Interface: Users praise Assembla for its user-friendly design, making it easy to navigate and manage projects without a steep learning curve.
Robust Feature Set: Assembla offers a comprehensive suite of tools, including task management, issue tracking, and code repositories, catering to diverse project management needs.
Effective Collaboration: Assembla facilitates seamless team collaboration through features like shared workspaces, threaded discussions, and real-time notifications, fostering efficient communication and progress tracking.
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>Cost: Users mentioned Asana’s paid plans were too expensive for smaller businesses making it difficult to upgrade from the limited free version.
Set-Up: Getting started can be overwhelming with so many customizations and task options. Users said you may need extra time to implement it effectively.
Advanced Features: Reviewers noted some features like AI, advanced project views, resource management and multiple task assignees require expensive plan upgrades.
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Limited Project Management Features: Assembla's strength lies in version control and code management, making it less suitable for comprehensive project management. Users seeking robust features like Gantt charts, resource management, and budgeting tools may find Assembla lacking.
Clunky User Interface: Some users find Assembla's interface outdated and cumbersome, leading to a steeper learning curve and potential frustration during navigation.
Cost: Assembla's pricing structure can be a deterrent for smaller teams or projects with budget constraints, especially when compared to more affordable alternatives in the market.
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Asana is a work management platform designed to help users organize and streamline operations with a user-friendly, customizable interface, automation and AI. Key features include the ability to create custom fields, deadlines, and subtasks, utilize various project views like Kanban boards and timelines, and leverage AI for summarizing tasks and drafting workflows. During my test of the software, I liked how easy it was to create a task by email and create project and task summaries using their AI tool.Customization was also a win. I built a task template for my Content Creation project with custom fields, relative due dates, assignees and a bulleted checklist. However, head’s up, adding task templates to existing tasks requires creating a new task with the template and merging it. Hands down, workflow management was one of my favorite parts of testing Asana. Adding in new sections (without having to go to the list view) and creating custom rules for transitions with a little help from their version of prompts was a breeze.Collaboration is another plus, with in-card comments and mentions, an inbox, group and individual messaging in platform and guest accounts with custom permissions for external users.On the downside, if you don’t have access to a free trial of the paid version (like I did), the free version may not be as effective. You won’t be able to access AI features, certain project views and resource management. The setup also isn’t exactly intuitive, and you may need training plus multiple visits to the help center to conceptualize your project and pick the right template.Overall, Asana is a fantastic all-in-one project management solution for users looking for a flexible tool with AI assistance and don’t mind springing for one of the paid plans.

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Is Assembla truly assembling all the best features of project management software? Assembla is a project management software that has been around for a while, and users have mixed feelings about it. While some appreciate its ease of use and ability to help manage projects effectively, others have expressed concerns about its high price point and lackluster customer support. One of the standout features of Assembla is its Kanban board, which allows users to visually track the progress of their projects. This is particularly useful for teams that are using agile methodologies. However, some users have found that the software's interface can be clunky and outdated compared to newer alternatives like ClickUp or Monday.com. Ultimately, Assembla might be best suited for smaller teams who are already familiar with the software and are not overly concerned about its price. Larger teams or those looking for a more modern and feature-rich project management solution might want to explore other options.

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