Slack and Asana are two widely used project management software programs. Both are great products with excellent integration and good pricing.
This post compares the major differences between Slack vs Asana to help you decide what suits you best.
Slack
Slack is an ideal product for you if communication and collaboration are top on your list. The messaging app is designed to help businesses and projects connect their teams to relevant information. This way, the application facilitates collaboration and unifies teams working on projects.
The revolutionary app is a major player in transforming the way organizations communicate with each other. It does this by offering highly intuitive features, such as channels or chat rooms organized by topic, private groups, and direct messaging.
Asana
On the other hand, Asana is a web and mobile application that helps you stay on track of your projects while keeping your team organized and focused. Projects need organization, tracking, and proper management if they must be successful. Asana handles all of these pretty easily.
Savvy project managers do not take Asana for granted. The app works well for individual and collective projects, as well as for small-scale and large-scale projects.
Asana also allows for easier visualization of projects and ensures seamless integration with other programs.
Comparing Slack vs Asana task management, it is easy to see that the former is mainly a communication and collaboration tool for teams, while the latter is a more suitable project management tool.
In other words, Slack is a collaboration tool application while Asana is purpose-built for projects and small teams.
It is also important to note that both applications complement each other quite well rather than serve as direct alternatives to each other.
Now, let’s dig deeper to see the key differences between both programs.
1. Ease of Use
Slack is very easy to use. Virtually anyone can use the app, regardless of experience.
That’s not the case with Asana.
You’ll need some level of professional expertise to use Asana task management. And while this doesn’t take away from the relatively simple user interface, Asana requires a little more effort when it comes to usability.
2. Ease of Access
Slack offers instant access as soon as the application is opened. On the other hand, Asana requires inputting relevant data for each project before access is granted.
The good thing with Asana is that it is very simple to set up and configure. The app simplifies the process of project management, thanks to its simple user interface.
3. Integration
In terms of integration, Slack offers a variety of tools that you can use to manage projects. With over 800 integrations (it can integrate with nearly all software programs), the app is far superior to Asana, with only 100 integrations.
By integrating with other apps, you can manage tasks on Slack. However, that doesn’t mean Slack can replace Asana and vice versa.
Asana prioritizes effective coordination and collaboration with teams working on a project, assigning tasks to persons and assigning dates to them.
In many cases, Asana integrates with tools you are already using. But because the founders of the program were former employees at Google, there’s a lot of integration with Google applications and software.
For example, the app integrates with Microsoft Teams, Dropbox, Box, Hipchat, GitHub, and JIRA, and more. Interestingly, Asana also integrates seamlessly with Slack.
4. Features
The basic features of Slack are designed primarily designed to facilitate communication. That means you can use the program to chat in channels, pass information to groups, create threads, send information through direct Slack messages, make audio and video calls, and share files.
Slack does not have any features for tracking unlimited tasks or managing projects and team collaboration in the strict sense. You cannot make conference video calls on Slack unless you are on the paid plan. However, you can make one-on-one calls.
Regardless of your plan, Slack allows you to upload files that are as large as 1GB.
On the flip side, Asana is primarily a project management tool, so its features are designed to support project management, functionality, and productivity.
With Asana, you can assign tasks, track projects, monitor them, and manage a team. You can also set a due date for projects in Asana.
Although it has messaging abilities within teams and projects, Asana cannot communicate with teams as extensively as Slack does.
You can’t make calls on Asana without integration with other messaging tools like Zoom.
On Asana, you can share files of up to 100MB per file. You will need to integrate with other tools to share larger files.
5. Design and Interface
One of the why we’re considering these two tools is because they have similar layouts and designs. Both Slack and Asana have provisions for customization. They have left sidebars and the main pane that is used for the main conversations.
6. Communication
Slack is designed for team communication. So, it has everything you’ll need to communicate effectively, from text to video.
Asana is not a team communication tool, although it can support some level of communication between teams.
7. File Sharing
As mentioned earlier, Asana only allows a limited file upload limit. You can share a maximum of 100MB per file.
Slack is better in terms of file sharing. You can send as much as 1GB, regardless of what plan you’re on.
Conclusion
Since Asana and Slack have different features and purposes when it comes to task dependency and functionality, integrating them would be a good idea. This way, you can create Asana tasks from any Slack message, and then get project notifications in a Slack channel, and do much more.
However, since Slack already has a very large user base, using it to manage projects may not be a bad idea in the long run. Doing so can offer cost-effective benefits as well as improve collaboration among team members.
Make no mistake; managing projects is Asana’s business. While communication using the app may not be as extensive as what’s obtainable with Slack, your team will still be effectively carried along until project completion.
