Monday is a popular project management software with lots of tools to help you manage your projects and automate your workflows. However, it’s not the best fit for every business, which is why we’ve compiled this handy guide to the best Monday alternatives.
We’ve included all the top alternatives to Monday, including the best open-source, paid, and free alternatives. We’ve ranked them by overall usefulness and included a rundown of each option along with its key features, pros, and cons.
So, if you’re looking for a platform that will better meet your needs, check out our list of the best Monday alternatives.
- What is Monday?
- Why you need a Monday alternative
- Cons and disadvantages of Monday
- What’s better than Monday?
- Best open source Monday alternatives
- Free Monday alternatives
- Other top Monday alternatives
- Best alternative to Monday
What is Monday?
Monday is a cloud-based, no-code work management system that lets you create the tools you need to run all aspects of your work. Accessed as a web app or on a mobile device, it’s especially useful if you want to centralize all of your apps, processes, and files into one Work OS.
You can manage everything more efficiently using smart no-code automation, an array of pre-built templates, and lots of easy integrations. Custom dashboards and views help to simplify your tasks, data analysis, and reporting. Plus, it’s easy to collaborate and communicate with your team via updates, mentions, and notifications in Monday’s multimedia documents that are easy to organize and share.
Why you need a Monday alternative
While many users are happy with Monday Work OS, some feel that it lacks the features and capabilities they need. For instance, it uses a task as its core data element, which might be unfamiliar if you’re used to working with spreadsheet tables. Businesses with large amounts of data might prefer a spreadsheet database with more advanced capabilities for structuring, storing, and securing big datasets.
Another disadvantage of Monday is its pricing. It uses tiered, per-user pricing with a minimum of 3 or 5 users (called ‘seats’) depending on the plan. Even the basic account has a 3-user minimum, so even if it’s just you, you’ll still pay £21 per month for 3 seats. Pro starts at £42 per month for 3 users, plus £14 per month for each additional seat.
When it comes to customer support, some users say that Monday isn’t easy to reach over the phone. No live chat option seems to be readily available on the website, and contact buttons seem to lead to a variety of embedded forms. If any of these issues would bother you, then it’s time to look at some Monday alternatives.
Cons and disadvantages of Monday
Here are a few of the cons and disadvantages of Monday, according to its Trustpilot reviews:
- Expensive for teams.
- Steep learning curve.
- No time-tracking feature.
- No recurring tasks scheduling.
- Dashboard can be confusing.
- Lack of customer support.
- Can’t link tasks between boards
- Best features are only available in premium plans
What’s better than Monday?
The good news is, you’ll find many other solutions that are better than Monday. If you’re looking for a simpler way to manage project data and collaborate then Baserow is a good alternative. Baserow’s open-source, no-code database empowers teams to build powerful, custom applications without any coding. Other great Monday alternatives include Asana, Taiga, Freedcamp, Trello, Wrike, Airtable, and more. We’ll cover these in more detail in the following sections.
Best open-source Monday alternatives
Baserow
Baserow tops the list of alternatives to Monday if you’re looking for a simpler way to manage project data and collaborate, without all the bells and whistles of Monday. While Monday has a lot more in terms of project management functionalities, Baserow is more of a spreadsheet-database hybrid that uses tables with innumerable rows as the foundation for storing and managing any amount of data.
It has all the tools you need for non-technical teams to capture and organize data, automate processes, and build powerful work applications without the need for technical expertise. It’s especially suited to large organizations that need a wide range of features for organizing, structuring, and reporting on data. And if you are very technical, even better, because Baserow’s open-source nature allows you to build your own plugins and integrations.
Since it’s a relational database, it offers nearly infinite flexibility and scalability, along with great security features like access level permissions to keep your data secure. And because it’s an open-source platform that offers both SaaS and self-hosting options to cater to any user needs, there’s no vendor lock-in.
Both Monday and Baserow provide a wide variety of pre-built templates, allowing users to quickly access an example and get an idea of how it works. Both platforms offer Kanban, calendar, and Gantt chart views. However, Baserow will feel more familiar to those who tend to think in tables, while Monday is better if you prefer task lists.
In terms of pricing, Baserow offers great value for money with its hosted and self-hosted plans. The free plan is excellent, while pricing for paid plans starts at $5 per user, per month for the Premium plan. An Enterprise plan is available for organizations with advanced needs; those interested should contact Baserow’s sales team.
Baserow pros and cons
- A simpler way to manage project data and collaborate.
- No-code spreadsheet database with infinite flexibility.
- Role-based access permissions.
- Audit log feature.
- Competitive pricing.
- Lightening fast.
- API first to build powerful custom applications and integrate with virtually any tool.
- Can handle large volumes of data, up to 500.000 rows without a performance drop.
- Great security features.
- Excellent free plan.
- No mobile app yet.
Taiga
Taiga is a free, open-source project management tool with lots of features to help teams work effectively. Like Monday, it’s a task-style software with task boards and lots of templates to help you get started. However, it also focuses on scrum and agile methodologies.
Because it’s 100% open source, Taiga is ideal for larger teams that need to have all data on their own servers or who want to customize the software. Users can make the most of easy updates, a choice of community contributions, and good security and control.
While Taiga has its place among good Monday alternatives, it’s not the best choice if you need a simple and intuitive tool. Proponents of agile may take to it well, but it’s difficult to learn if you don’t have a deep knowledge of scrum and agile. Another downside is that its free tier only allows up to 4 users and only one of your projects can be private. The Premium plan costs $70 per month for an unlimited number of users and private projects.
Taiga pros and cons
- Good for scrum and agile work management.
- Customisation to fit your workflow.
- Custom fields supported.
- Can add a wiki to any project.
- Good filter options & search function.
- Difficult to learn.
- Restrictive free plan.
- Not a simple and intuitive tool.
Kanboard
Kanboard is another great open-source alternative to Monday. This project management application uses a Kanban board to implement a Kanban-style process management system. It has some great features, including a drag-and-drop web user interface, a common line interface, and the ability to automate repetitive tasks.
You can get a clear overview of your tasks and work, and drag and drop tasks between columns easily. It’s also simple to limit your work in progress, search and filter tasks, break tasks down into subtasks, and automate your workflows with automatic actions.
Kanboard focuses on simplicity and minimalism so don’t expect a fancy user interface. However, it’s a good choice if you’re looking for an open-source Monday alternative for individuals, remote workers, or small teams.
Kanboard pros and cons
- Completely open source.
- Kanban cards, columns & swimlanes.
- Easy to integrate with other systems.
- Customisable workflows.
- Good for remote teams.
- Uses SQLite and other SQL databases.
- Requires a web server with PHP installed.
- Limited reporting features.
- Very basic design.
Free Monday alternatives
Freedcamp
If you’re looking for free alternatives to Monday, then take a look at Freedcamp. This web, mobile, and desktop project management tool offers a great free plan, and its premium features are 100% free to nonprofit organizations, teachers, and students.
Built for teams, Freedcamp makes it easy to streamline projects and workflows with a host of tools including task management, a shared team calendar, time tracking, Kanban boards, Gantt Chart, team discussions, and more. In contrast to Monday, many premium features are available for free, with unlimited storage, users, control over permissions, and no project limits.
Freedcamp has some disadvantages though. Some users feel that more integration is needed between tools and that the mobile app is lagging behind the web version. What’s more, it’s not as flexible as options like Baserow if you’re a large organization looking for lots of data management features for large and complex datasets.
Freedcamp pros and cons
- A great free alternative to Monday.
- Premium features are free for nonprofits.
- Task prioritization and scheduler.
- Shared team calendar.
- Time tracking.
- Unnecessarily complicated navigation.
- Basic user interface.
- Limited functionality.
Asana
Asana is a great Monday alternative for managing your teams and tasks. You can use it for free for up to 15 users, or you can upgrade for a fee, but many individuals and small teams find the free plan sufficient. While Monday does offer a free plan, it’s too limited for most teams and it lacks essentials like software integrations and calendar views.
All Asana plans let you manage as many projects as you want. You can break down projects into tasks and subtasks, enabling you to divide tasks into very granular parts. Asana also has other useful tools such as custom task template creation, task dependencies and approval, batch task actions, and access to more than 200 integrations including Google Workspace, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Zoom.
While it’s a good task management platform, Asana has some disadvantages. Like Monday, it lacks a built-in time tracking feature, and new users are often overwhelmed with the number of features and options available. Asana also has limited exporting functionality in CSV and JSON formats only so you cannot export your project data into Excel or PDF.
Asana pros and cons
- Workflow automation.
- Good reporting tools.
- More than 200 integrations.
- Free plan for up to 15 users.
- Overwhelming for new users.
- No time tracking.
- Limited exporting functionality.
Other top Monday alternatives
Trello
Trello is a project management tool with intuitive Kanban boards that allow teams to clearly see the status of work items in real-time. It’s ideal for individuals or small teams looking for more clarity with their projects.
Overall, Trello and Monday have quite similar features. Both offer Kanban boards that allow you to set due dates and allow guest/client access to projects or tasks. And both offer integrations to extend the functionality of your projects. These include Slack, Dropbox, Jira, and Zapier. Only Monday offers Gantt charts, however, Monday’s pricing structure makes them expensive to access.
Both Trello and Monday have free plans that offer some decent features. Trello’s pricing starts at $5 for the Standard paid plan, increasing to $17.50 per user, per month for the Enterprise plan. In contrast to Monday, there is no minimum number of users, so you only pay for the number of users on your team.
Trello pros and cons
- Clear overview of tasks.
- Good collaboration features.
- Easy to create boards.
- Good notification system.
- Responsive design.
- Simple pricing plan.
- Has an iOS and Android app.
- Limited views.
- Limited integrations.
- Not for large projects.
ClickUp
Both Monday and ClickUp are SaaS (software-as-a-service) tools with lots of bells and whistles that allow users to plan, track, and manage projects via the cloud. Neither requires any coding, but both can be cumbersome to set up, after which everything is easier.
With ClickUp, you can make the most of tools like time tracking, pre-built templates, real-time chat, milestones, sprint points, custom exporting, and more, all from an attractive user interface. ClickUp has 15 different views to choose from, and it can be customized according to your business needs and workflows.
It offers integrations with popular tools like Zoom, Salesforce, Time Doctor, and more. You’ll also find plenty of keyboard shortcuts, a built-in word processor, and more than 50 automation to help you speed up your work. ClickUp also offers more security than most Monday plans. Unless you use Monday’s Enterprise plan, functionality around security is very limited.
ClickUp pros and cons
- Easy to use.
- Real-time collaboration.
- Spreadsheet-database hybrid.
- Nice user interface.
- Lots of views & automation.
- Not all views available on mobile app.
- No dashboard export feature.
- Advanced features are only available in paid plans.
- Baserow is better if you want a simpler way to manage data and collaborate.
Wrike
Wrike and Monday are both project management platforms that often get compared to one another. They share some similar features when it comes to managing tasks, collaborating, and automating workflows, however, there are some big differences, too.
Wrike’s clean, user-friendly interface is easier to navigate and work in, no matter how many tasks you are keeping track of, while Monday’s interface gets cluttered as you add more data. Wrike also makes it easier to collaborate across multiple projects, folders, and ‘Spaces’, whereas Monday doesn’t offer this. In addition, Wrike has more key features such as approvals and budgeting.
Now for the downsides. One of Wrike’s disadvantages is its pricing which is expensive for solo users or small teams. It offers a free plan with some basic features, but the more useful features are only available in the premium plans which can be expensive. Wrike’s Business plan is $24.80 per user, per month, while prices for its Enterprise and Pinnacle plans are only available on request.
Wrike pros and cons
- Automate tasks with no-code tools.
- Customise work types, workflows, and automation.
- Gantt charts and Kanban boards.
- Capture data with custom request forms.
- Built-in time tracking feature.
- Expensive premium plans.
- Some advanced features are only available as add-ons.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet is a work management system that lets you automate workflows, organize your projects, and securely handle your data. The software makes it easy to create workspaces where your teams can plan projects and reflect on their work using Smartsheet’s robust reporting tools.
Users can integrate additional apps like Excel, Slack, and Google Drive. In addition, Smartsheet API allows users to develop their own tools and programs, and easily integrate them into the software. Onboarding is easier with Smartsheet’s instructor-led training which is available as a plan add-on.
Smartsheet Business and Enterprise accounts both include unlimited users who can edit sheets and access dashboards and reports. This trumps Monday’s plans that limit guest editing. Smartsheet also has more customizable notification settings including mobile push, email, messaging apps, and approval requests, while Monday only allows email and push notification customization.
Smartsheet pros and cons
- Create programs and apps via API.
- Gantt charts and Kanban boards.
- Automation of repetitive tasks.
- A good range of customizable templates.
- Time tracking capabilities.
- Steep learning curve.
- Add-ons required for some features.
- Pages don’t update in real-time.
- User Interface feels a bit outdated.
So, what is the best alternative to Monday?
The best Monday alternative depends on your unique business needs. If you’re looking for a simpler way to manage project data and collaborate then Baserow is the best option. Baserow’s open source no-code software lets you organize and structure data, automate processes, and build custom databases without any technical skills. It can be used by anyone who needs to organize and collaborate on data, from SMEs to large companies and organizations with even the most complex needs.
With Baserow, you can decide how you want to structure everything, with a host of no-code tools and integrations that give you the powers of a developer without leaving your browser. It’s open source, so you can install it on your own server, with no vendor lock-in. And it stays lightning fast, even with a very large number of rows and databases. Get started with Baserow’s no-code platform and save hundreds of hours.
Check out our pricing, or get started with our free trial today!
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