Teams

Recommendation
To-Do Applications
Contents
Requirements .............................................................................................................................................. 2
Discussion of Options ............................................................................................................................. 2
Comparison................................................................................................................................................. 3
Usability.................................................................................................................................................. 3
Collaboration. ........................................................................................................................................ 3
Integrations ............................................................................................................................................ 4
Pricing..................................................................................................................................................... 4
Summary ..................................................................................................................................................... 4
Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................ 4
Final Opinion ......................................................................................................................................5
References .........................................................................................................................................5
 Recommendation Report:
To-Do Applications for Teams

Many work environments require high amounts of coordination between team members. Of primary
importance to teams is task management—who is doing what by when? Who has done what? There are a
bevy of to-do applications; this report will look at the distinctions between two of the most prominent in the
field, Asana and Todoist, and discern which is best suited for working teams. This report will examine at the
various features each application offers as it relates to usability and collaboration, as well as their relative
prices and integrations.

Requirements

The to-do applications will be compared on:

• Usability
• Collaboration
• Integrations
• Pricing
Ease of use and collaborative features are the most crucial aspects to investigate. The necessity of
integrations varies depending on the team. This report assumes a modest software budget.

Discussion of Options
There are many applications that could be compared, but are being excluded for one of two reasons:

1. To-do management primacy. The application’s primary function must be to-do management. As
such, other popular productivity applications such as Notion, Trello, and Airtable have been
excluded. While to-do functionality is an aspect of these applications, it is not their primary
function.
2. Collaboration. This excludes many popular task managers that do not have robust sharing features
or cross-platform compatibility, such as Omnifocus, Habitica, and Microsoft To Do.

Asana and Todoist are applications where to-do lists are the primary function, satisfying the first necessity.
Each has a suite of sharing features that work on any device found in most workspaces (Mac, PC, Linux, iOS,
Android, and Web), which satisfies the second.

Both applications offer various billing options. As this report is aimed at teams, we will compare their
“business” price points and features.
Asana. Asana is a task management application that offers a wide variety of ways to interact with the various
tasks assigned to team members. There are several different “views” that aid in visualization and
management, such as list, timeline, Kanban, portfolio, and calendar.
Todoist. Todoist is a task management application which allows for detailed customization of each task. It
sells itself on being intuitive and easy to understand.

Comparison

Asana and Todoist share many commonalities, but ultimately have two very different ethos guiding how each
application is meant to be used. While still allowing for access to easy collaboration, Todoist is more focused
on providing simple task lists for individuals, whereas Asana wants to make sure the whole team is
constantly seen in relation to other members.

Usability. Both applications have aspects to get used to. Todoist has an auto-detect feature that can
translate words you write in the task line into due dates, but it isn’t necessary to learn. Otherwise, Todoist is
straightforward with all needed options being readily available and easy to understand. Categorizing tasks
by project or tag is a simple matter.

By contrast, Asana has a lot of features it takes time to come to grips with. Asana has so many views and so
much functionality that it can be easy to get lost in the simple process of adding and completing tasks when
unfamiliar with the application.

While it is designed sensibly and ultimately not too difficult to get a handle on, there is a learning curve that
will take time to acclimate to. However, not all users within a team will need to become familiar with every
facet of Asana. Only a handful of administrators and project managers would find it necessary. Asana
doesn’t offer as much flexibility as Todoist when it comes to setting up recurring tasks. Todoist is the
simpler, quicker to learn option in terms of usability.

Collaboration. There are several basic collaboration features Asana and Todoist share. They both allow
for commenting on tasks, seeing who is assigned what, and providing various ways to look at team
information such as with boards and calendars.

Todoist’s simple design continues to work in its favor, but because of that it lacks much a user may find
exciting. The “gameification” feature where the administrator can incentivize completing a number of tasks
each day is interesting, but not overall that useful. The application is meant to work well as an individual as
well as in a team, whereas Asana makes no attempt to work as a to-do list for individuals and as such has a
stronger focus on team features.

The calendar, timeline, and boards are all more robust than those Todoist offers. Furthermore, Asana has
other options for coordinating and viewing tasks team-wide that Todoist doesn’t come close to touching.
There is a goal tracker that is more in-depth than Todoist’s gamification, reports that can visualize team
members’ work in graph form, and portfolios which collect the many projects a team could be working on
into a single, easily readable view. Asana is a powerhouse when it comes to being able to coordinate
assignments across team members.

Integrations. The modern work environment often necessitates coordinating between a lot of software.
Both Asana and Todoist boast vast lists of integrations with other applications and all with crucial
applications that team members may need to use, such as Google Calendar, Microsoft Teams, and Zapier.
While Todoist could theoretically integrate with any application of choice through Zapier, Asana has a
multitude more direct integrations with other applications that could prove vital, such as Salesforce,
Mailchimp, and much more. Asana offers far more integrations than Todoist.

Pricing. Todoist’s Business Plan costs $5 per month per member, paid annually. Asana’s Business
Plan costs $24.99 per month per member, paid annually. Presuming a team size of 20, Todoist
would cost $1,200 per year and Asana just shy of $6,000. Todoist is the significantly more costeffective
option.

Summary

In the following table (Table 1), each point of comparison between the to-do applications is assessed on a
four-point scale.

Table 1. Comparing the features of Asana and Todoist

Category Asana Todoist
Usability 2.5 4
Collaboration 4 2
Integrations 4 2
Pricing 1 4
Total 11.5 12
Note: 1—Poor, 2—Good, 3—Very Good, 4—Excellent

Conclusions

The following are conclusions to be drawn by comparing Asana and Todoist:

1. Todoist has a much simpler, intuitive interface than Asana.

2. Asana’s collaboration features are the most robust.
3. Asana offers significantly more integrations with other applications.
4. Todoist costs much less than Asana, roughly one-fifth the price.
 5. The majority of a team will not need to interact with Asana’s features, only the few whose job entails
them to pay attention to data and trends.
6. Asana’s price per user is too high to justify each one needing to have access to the same features.
7. Todoist is the best application for teams that require collaboration.

Final Opinion

While Asana has more features conducive to collaboration, the unintuitiveness and price tag make it
untenable for teams that don’t have a substantial annual software budget. Todoist has everything most
teams will need regardless of company status.

Users will find it easy to use and not distracting. Some teams will miss having more robust collaboration
features and integrations, but the integrations Todoist does have are strong and can be used to augment
Todoist to suit the needs of the handful of administrators or project managers.

References

[1] Asana, Asana Inc., [Link] [Accessed: 4 December 2021].

[2] Todoist, Doist Inc., [Link] [Accessed: 4 December 2021].