When comparing Asana vs ToDoList, the Slant community recommends Asana for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform task apps?” Asana is ranked 12th while ToDoList is ranked 17th. The most important reason people chose Asana is:
Asana has fantastic mechanisms for dealing with team collaboration. Not only can tasks be assigned to team members, but Asana lets users follow tasks and use hyperlinks to refer to team members within a task.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Powerful team collaboration features
Asana has fantastic mechanisms for dealing with team collaboration. Not only can tasks be assigned to team members, but Asana lets users follow tasks and use hyperlinks to refer to team members within a task.
Pro Free for up to 15 users
Pro Simple workflow
The Asana task workflow within a project is broken down into "Today," "Upcoming," and "Later." The tasks themselves have the status of either done or not done. There is also a subtask feature to group tasks together. Tasks can be assigned to other team members and are stored in the "Inbox" view for processing. This replaces email for some team communication.
Pro CSV export and print
Pro Very polished interface
Teams can have private (only visible to project members) and public (visible to anyone in the team) projects. Each member can also have their own personal projects.
Tasks can be viewed in list and calendar views. It's possible to display only the tasks assigned to the user or tasks organized by project or team. Single tasks can exist in multiple projects. Lists of tasks can be divided into sections and organized in many different ways – tasks that still have to be done, tasks that have been completed, by due date, by assignee, by popularity, etc.
Expanding a task will allow adding things like subtasks, tags, and attachments, as well as comments. Users can also subscribe to a task via RSS from this view. There's a separate view specifically for attachments.
Search lets you find what you’re looking for quickly.
Pro Tagging system allows easily filtering tasks
The tagging system enables project managers to easily filter tasks.
Pro Provides lots of help for getting started
There are many videos, tutorials, and reference documents to help you get up and running.
Pro Supports Kanban and list views
Asana provides a list view and a Kanban view which can be selected if a new project is created.
Pro Well thought out keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts all involve the Tab key, so it is unlikely that they will interfere with shortcuts that have already been established.
Pro Integrates with Slack
It's possible to have tasks appear in a Slack channel.
Pro Great functionality, lots of options
Cost, percent done, priority, you name it - you have it. If you prefer simple layout - no problem. You can configure everything.
Pro Configurable calendar view, day view, Gantt chart, Kanban
Plugins available for e.g. Kanban and MindMap.
Pro Comments with richtext format
It means comments can have different fonts, links to the pages or links to another tasks. You can format text your way.
Pro All features are free
Unlike many other to-do applications that have pricing plans to unlock additional features, all the features here are available for free.
Pro Multi-level subtasks
Pro Portable & lightweight
Default portable is 2.5 MB.
Pro You can set as many filters as many columns you have, as well as export your view or single tasks
Pro Dummy content (optional) included
Makes it easy to comprehend most features.
Pro Multi criteria sorting
Allows for sorting by 3 criteria. Missing in most task management apps.
Cons
Con Mobile version lacks calendar
Asana's calendar is present in the web version but is conspicuously missing in the mobile app.
Con Unable to manage multiple workspaces
Each "workspace" or "team" in Asana is strictly isolated. You cannot see your personal tasks versus work tasks or collaborations together, you need to log in to a different profile.
Con No task dependencies in free version
Dependencies is only available only to Teams and Organizations on Asana Premium.
Con Can not use list view and board view for a same project
Asana can only choose one, either a list view or a board view.
Con Strange UX with strange workflow
Similar to task the manager in Todoist or Wunderlist, but not too complex for under four members.
Con UX Design is overly opinionated
The workflow is not very customizable, which forces you to use a flow that may not be your preferred or best option.
Con Windows version startup too slow, on 1st time use
8G RAM, SSD, ToDoList Starting always takes 3-5 seconds to load, but if you go to settings and tune it to start with Windows and to minimize instead of closing, it will be instantaneous next time you use it.
Con Android app is in early stages still
Only the Windows version is fully-featured. The Android app is still in early development.