When comparing Asana vs IRC, the Slant community recommends IRC for most people. In the question“What is the best team chat software?” IRC is ranked 12th while Asana is ranked 28th. The most important reason people chose IRC is:
The IRC protocol is public and open, it is mature and stable, and has been implemented in numerous projects. This means that it can be used freely, for both open-source and commercial projects.
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 Open protocol
The IRC protocol is public and open, it is mature and stable, and has been implemented in numerous projects. This means that it can be used freely, for both open-source and commercial projects.
Pro Versatile
IRC offers choice. Choice in clients (mobile, desktop, web), in scripts those clients run, in servers and features those servers have. You can even set up your own server.
Pro Less distracting
Compared to other common solutions, IRC can be ignored when you are occupied doing something else. Most clients don't pester you with sounds or distracting visuals.
Pro Mentions
Every notable IRC client supports mentions - notifying you when your name is mentioned in the chat. The mentions in IRC are comparably better than Discord. Mentions used in Discord are easily abused; this doesn't happen in IRC. If someone's talking about you, you get a notification in IRC. This doesn't happen in something like Discord.

Pro Hundreds of avaliable clients
IRC has been around since 1988, so there is a ton of existing software to work with it. Everything from clients, to chat bots, to bouncers is already built.
Pro IRC networks are not centralized
You can choose your favorite server for an IRC network.
Pro No account necessary
No need to sign up for access, confirm your e-mail address. Just choose a nickname and you're done.
Pro User-friendly
IRC is user friendly if you use something like hexchat or kiwi webchat.
Pro DCC
Direct Client-to-Client allows users to share files in a similar way to torrenting.
Pro Great historic importance
Twitter hashtags came from IRC channel names.
Pro Upcoming IRCv3 will provide missing features
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 Complex and not user friendly
Con Assumes some level of prior knowledge
The features are not discoverable the way they are in other apps and services.
Con You have to "idle" to see what's going on
You will see a blank chat screen at first because there is no recent history kept on servers.
Con Can be addictive
Con Poor multimedia support
Sending anything besides text is not easy or intuitive and depends on the client.
Con Advanced functionality is client-dependant
