When comparing Trello vs Axosoft, the Slant community recommends Trello for most people. In the question“What is the best task management software for small teams?” Trello is ranked 1st while Axosoft is ranked 33rd. The most important reason people chose Trello is:
There are two primary columns: the board is shown on the left and all the other controls on the right. The main means of interaction is dragging and dropping to-do cards into the various lists. The board structure is very customizable, and includes a variety of features that help along the way: color-coding, due dates, card images, checklists with a graphics bar that allows following progress easily, and card aging for cards that haven’t been touched in a long time.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Simple and easy to use interface
There are two primary columns: the board is shown on the left and all the other controls on the right. The main means of interaction is dragging and dropping to-do cards into the various lists.
The board structure is very customizable, and includes a variety of features that help along the way: color-coding, due dates, card images, checklists with a graphics bar that allows following progress easily, and card aging for cards that haven’t been touched in a long time.
Pro Great real-time team collaboration features
Trello has permissions at the board level as well as the ability to assign multiple people to each card. There are a lot of sharing options available and boards can be made visible for the public. It's also possible to subscribe to a card to be notified of its progress. The simplicity of the UI makes collaboration easy because it’s very simple to see the progress of each card and who is responsible for it. It also updates constantly to reflect real-time changes in progress.
The simplicity of the UI makes collaboration easy as it’s very simple to see the progress of each card and who is responsible for it. It also reflect changes on boards in real-time.
Pro Highly flexible workflow
Trello calls items used in the workflow “cards.” Cards are double-sided and can contain subtasks as well as notes and other details.
Card columns can be used to simulate a workflow by moving cards from left to right as they are completed, or as a way of indicating task priority.
The workflow is highly flexible as the columns are completely customizable to suit the task flow. For example, tasks can be put through a workflow "idea > approved > in-progress > pending review > released" or simply "ideas > released" depending on the granularity level needed.
This makes Trello a great solution to feature management as it's possible to set up boards to handle everything from agile sprints to a more generic to-do list, all with status management.
Pro Free for unlimited users
Trello offers a very generous free version that has no ads, no restrictions on the number of users, and very little restriction on how the program can be used. The paid features are generally cosmetic, such as the ability to change the background, add stickers or integration with other tools.
Pro Works well for visual thinkers
The UI is based around Kanban, so you can see all your tasks and their status clearly.
Pro Functionality can be extended via plug-ins
Voting, view, and calendar plug-ins further increase the functionality.
Pro Markdown support with well-rendered images
Trello supports Markdown, meaning that HTML input is represented appropriately. Cards with attachments are also rendered well. For example, images are shown correctly on the card, bug links are detected etc.
Pro Sub-tasks
Each card can have one or even multiple task lists.
Pro Cross-platform and cross-sync
Trello works on all modern devices through the web application and has native apps for iOS, Android and Windows 8/10 devices.
Pro Attach files to cards
Keep all of your files (images, documents, etc.) organized on their relevant cards.
Pro Easy-to-use
Pro Best kanban for personal usage
Pro Excellent for groups using agile software development
The responsiveness and layers of customization make it easy for team members of various disciplines to collaborate on the same task board.
Pro Great prioritization, Due date and Story point features
Can set different priorities to various tasks, set appropriate due dates and Story points - timing allotted to each task.
Pro Good performance
Pro Features to add voting on cards
Trello offers support for features to add voting on cards, often referred to as 'power-ups'.
Pro Smooth media integration
Works like a charm.
Pro Great native app for Android and iOS
Pro Lots of API integrations
Pro Action history log allows you to rapidly follow changes
There is a global history system which allows to rapidly follow changes. There is also a notification system if another user updates the board while you're watching it.
Pro Helpdesk functionality
Turn emails into support incident tickets. A brandable self-service portal can be created for customers to create and edit tickets without using paid Axosoft accounts.
Pro Extremely fine-grained control over the lifecycle of each task
Tasks are divided into categories and each category can have one or more workflows which are followed by tasks belonging to that category until their completion.
In other words, workflows are used to set each step tasks need to take in order to be completed. Axosoft lets users have extremely fine-grained control over workflows and by extension, the whole lifecycle of each task. Each step in a workflow can be named and you can choose which fields are updated when a step is complete. This way you can automatically tweak tasks as they progress (you can set tasks to belong to different users once a step is complete, you can even change workflows for a task if a certain step is taken).
Pro Items can be exported as PDF
Each item has a PDF
button (among others) which lets you export all the information related to that particular item in PDF format.
Pro Allows you to view only the most useful information at a given time
Axosoft lets users pretty much create custom dashboards any time they want to view only a specific part of the project data and information.
You can choose which tabs to keep open and even how tasks are shown and what kind of data is shown for each task. This way you can see for example how much time is left in a sprint, or how much capacity the team has left to finish the project.
Cons
Con Subtasks lack features
Every task can have a list of subtasks which more closely resembles a standard to-do list.
These lack the functions that cards offer you. You cannot comment on a sub-list, give the sub-tasks due dates, or provide additional information. You are limited to only checking them off once completed.
Con No multi-board aggregation
If you have multiple boards with tasks on them there is no way to get all the tasks on one board in a way that changes on one board will update the other.
Con Can't get one view of cards across all boards
However, you can view all cards assigned to you.
Con Not really a to do list
Trello is much more a workflow and project management program than a typical to-do app, which makes it overwhelmingly robust for those looking to jot down their shopping list.
Con You can't add more than 1 Power Up without paying for it
Con Can't create dependencies between cards
Con Project management system only
This is cumbersome to get started.
Con Managing large projects may be difficult
Trello works best with medium to small projects and with very high-level overviews. It is less effective for projects that require very granular management due to the fact that it becomes considerably more difficult to keep track of various cards and priorities as they are pushed off the screen.
Con Impossible to use Pomodoro timer connected to Trello on iOS
Con No quick deadline assignment
You have to open a Calendar every time to set a date without any quick options like today, tomorrow etc.
Con Slow and requires a lot of mouse work to navigate
Con Light on features
Trello is focused on simplicity and as such forgoes certain common features that may or may not be important to you.
Con Can get rather expensive quickly
Axosoft can get pretty expensive pretty quickly for large teams and/or large projects. The cheapest tier allows for a maximum of five users and costs $20/month. However, for larger teams and larger projects it can easily go into the thousands of USD per month.