Trello vs Zoho Projects: 2024 Comparison (2024)

Trello and Zoho Projectsare two of the most popular project management tools available today.

But how do they stack up against each other?

Which one manages tasks better?
Which one helps you allocate resources more effectively?
Which one is more affordable?

Discover all the answers in our detailed comparison guide.

A. Project and Task Management

Get. Things. Done.

You and every project manager likely live by those words.

It’s also the heart and soul of any project management software.

This is why, before anything else, you must evaluate a tool’s ability to help you manage your tasks and projects.

Features to look out for:

Project structure: A simple, intuitive way to organize work and toggle through multiple projects, tasks, boards, etc.
Views: Board, list, timeline, Gantt, and other types of views that let you visualize various types of information within each project.
Tasks & subtasks: Dedicated spaces offering the ability to drill down to the smallest level of actionable detail about each project item.
Statuses: Effortless ways to communicate the exact progress of each task, board, project, etc.
Checklists: Quick to-do lists for each task so things don’t fall through the cracks
Task templates: Easy-to-copy templates to create identical tasks at scale across multiple projects.
Assignees: The ability to assign tasks, boards, or projects to individual team members, groups, or even teams.
Priorities: A way to communicate the urgency level of each task, subtask, or project.
Automations: Trigger-based (if X happens then do Y); ways to automate repetitive actions such as notifications, comments, status updates, etc.

1. Project Structure / Hierarchy

a. Trello

Track your workload in Trello by organizing it into:

Workspaces > Boards > Lists > Cards

Workspaces: A container for all the Boards in your team. You can create multiple Workspaces to classify your work further.
Boards: A simple Kanban board interface to view task progress within a Workplace.
List: A series of tasks (Cards) at the same progress stage. For example, To-do List, Doing list, Done List, etc.
Cards: The smallest component of the board with all the actionable aspects of the project.

b. Zoho Projects

Transform your workspace with the help of a simple, user-friendly project hierarchy.

Portal > Project groups > Projects > Milestones > Tasks > Sub-tasks

Portal: A centralized hub to manage projects, track progress, and communicate with team members.
Project groups: Organize multiple projects into a single project group for easy access.
Projects: A collection of milestones and tasks to achieve a specific objective.
Milestones: Short-term goals that let you break down projects and represent a key stage of progress.
Tasks: Actionable items that help achieve milestones and the project’s objectives.
Subtasks: Granular action items within each task.

2. Views

a. Trello

Trello provides seven project views, namely:

Boards: View your tasks on a Kanban board. It’s the simplest way to go from idea to action, plan projects, and track tasks.
Timeline: Stay on top of project timelines, sprints, and goals. It’s great for adjusting dates on the fly and spotting potential gaps.
Calendar: Perfect for managing schedules or to-dos; plus, you can sync it with third-party calendars.
Dashboard: Offers a bird’s-eye view of projects and processes, helping you manage workloads and spot bottlenecks before they start.
Map: Ideal for location-based data. Great for tracking properties, planning events, or organizing fieldwork.
Workspace: Manage work across multiple Boards. Create custom overviews for detailed tracking of both minor tasks and large projects.
Table: See your work like a spreadsheet. Sort and filter to focus on what matters.

b. Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects offer several views for managing tasks and tracking progress:

Work Overview: Displays a comprehensive view of all tasks, projects, and milestones across a portal.
Project List: Presents a quick view of completion rates, task statuses, budget details, and more of all the projects.
Task List: A list view of all tasks, with columns displaying information such as task name, assignee, due date, and status.
Issue List: Displays a vertical view of all issues, including their project, classification, status, severity, due dates, and more.
Project Gantt: Showcases project and task timelines, schedules, and progress. You can view the projects on the right side and schedule information on the left.
Custom: Use filters to select specific criteria and customize your project, task, and issue views.
Kanban: Organize cards (tasks and issues) in columns to indicate statuses, priority, and modules. Click on the cards to view comments, files, and other relevant information.
Chronology Gantt: Visual representation of the timeline and the relationship between tasks to help manage task dependencies and overlaps.
Milestone Gantt: Get a hierarchy-based view of all the tasks that fall under a particular milestone, along with the due dates, overdue tasks, and other task details.
Calendar: A calendar-like display of your project, task, milestone, and issue deadlines on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

3. Tasks & Subtasks

a. Trello

Manage tasks, goals, or anything that needs to get done via cards on Board.

Your cards can hold a variety of useful information, like:

Members who are responsible for the task
Due dates
Attachments
Labels
Comments
Location
Custom Fields

You can also track and monitor task progress via a Checklist of smaller to-dos within the task.

b. Zoho Projects

A task in Zoho Projects helps manage simple and complex projects by breaking them down into actionable items.

Tasks provide information on:

Task descriptions
Assignees
Tags
Due Dates and Time Estimates
Checklists
Attachments
Comments

4. Statuses

a. Trello

Move cards to specific lists that indicate the workflow stage they’re in. Customize these lists to suit your workflow.

b. Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects offer statuses to help users track the progress of projects, tasks, and issues.

Create custom task statuses that suit your project workflow under the ‘Open’ and ‘Closed’ categories.

Milestones in Zoho Projects have their own status categories like Active, Completed, and Archived.

When you complete all the tasks under a milestone, the tool automatically updates its status. Similarly, following a milestone status update, project status can also be updated automatically through custom functions.

5. Checklists

a. Trello

Add multiple checklists to a single card. @mention team members in checklist items to notify them.

You can also track checklist completion with the help of a progress bar at the top that shows the completion percentage.

b. Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects doesn’t offer native checklist features.

6. Task Templates

a. Trello

Trello allows you to create a default Card Template. You can do this from a blank or new card, where you can:

Format the description
Add custom fields
Copy over checklists, and more.

b. Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects offers ready-made task templates. Even better, you can make your own custom template to perfectly suit your project.

Each template can retain information, such as:

Title
Description
Checklists
Tags
Assignees
Priority
Attachments
And more

7. Assignees

a. Trello

Assign a Card by going to the Members icon and selecting a member or multiple people from the dropdown.

b. Zoho Projects

Assign projects, milestones, tasks, and issues to individuals and teams in Zoho Projects.

8. Priorities

a. Trello

Use the custom fields functionality to add a Priority field to each Card.

b. Zoho Projects

With Zoho Projects, you can set tasks to None, Low, Medium, or High Priority levels. Plus, use different colors to represent priority levels.

9. Automations

a. Trello

Trello’s automation features include:

Card and board buttons: Adds buttons to automate the next step in a workflow
Rules: Set triggers to automate actions
Scheduled automations: Set up recurring actions
Due date automations: Trigger actions when a task reaches its due date

b. Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects’ automation features include:

Blueprint: Design workflows and automate routine tasks, like setting task statuses, creating custom task fields, and adding assignees.
Workflow rules: Use conditions to auto assign tasks, update fields, send alerts, and add webhooks.
Custom functions: Reassign issues, notify stakeholders via SMS, or send client updates automatically through custom rules and conditions.
Webhooks: Automate HTTP push alerts from Zoho Projects to third-party applications.
Business rules: Use conditions to automate issue management processes, like assigning issues to a user and changing issue severity.

B. Time Management

Time is money for a reason.

The right software can be the difference between pinching pennies and raking in the big bucks.

Effective project management software offers effortless time management features to help you befriend the clock.

With the right one, expect to keep all your tasks running as scheduled and meet your deadlines with ease.

Features to look out for include:

Due dates: Communicate expected delivery dates.
Time estimates: Make capacity decisions based on how much time each task or project is expected to take.
Time tracking: Measure productivity with accurate time consumption data for each team member.

1. Due Dates

a. Trello

Trello lets you add and edit start dates, due dates, and due date reminders in a card.

b. Zoho Projects

Add due dates to milestones, tasks, and subtasks. The tool also lets you set due dates directly from the list views and dashboards.

2. Time Estimates

a. Trello

Trello doesn’t have a dedicated time estimates feature. However, you can create a custom field to note a time estimate for working on a card.

b. Zoho Projects

Time estimates are called Work Hours or Planned Hours in Zoho Projects.

Add Work Hours to indicate how long a task should ideally take. You can use the Planned vs Actual charts to assess the actual time taken, helping you measure and improve productivity.

3. Time Tracking

a. Trello

Trello doesn’t offer any native time-tracking features.

b. Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects offers time-tracking features for users to record time spent on different tasks, generate invoices, and bill clients.

You can either log in time manually using timesheets or start task timers to record hours automatically.

C. Reporting

What you can’t measure, you can’t improve.

Reporting and analytics features can help you track real-time progress, monitor key metrics, and sniff out bottlenecks like a detective.

Armed with these insights, your team can stay ahead of the curve no matter the situation.

Expect better resource management, superior deadline compliance, and a more focused and decisive team.

Features to look out for include:

Goals and milestones: Record targets for the whole team to see and work towards.
Dashboards: Visualize data from all corners of the team into a user-friendly, interactive interface.
Gantt charts: Keep your plans flexible with Gantt charts that allow you to adjust timelines based on changing resource availability and task completion ratio.

1. Goals & Milestones

a. Trello

Browse the Trello template library for templates to help you set and track goals. For example, you can clearly define project goals and track milestones with the OKR (objectives and key results) template.

b. Zoho Projects

Milestones in Zoho Projects are goal-based targets consisting of task lists and tasks. Completing these should take you closer to the project objective and help assess the overall project progress.

Additionally, you can duplicate milestones from one project to another and automate them through blueprints.

2. Dashboards

a. Trello

Trello keeps it simple and user-friendly, so its reporting mainly consists of the Dashboard View — a bird’s-eye perspective on your projects and how much work needs to be done.

You can add bar or pie charts in tiles that tabulate the number of cards (tasks) per list, due date, member, and label.

b. Zoho Projects

The Zoho Projects dashboard is composed of different widgets, such as Task Progress Chart, Timesheet Summary, Team Status, and more. It lets you view:

Progress of work items
Performance indicators
Reports and summary charts
Pipeline work item indicators

3. Gantt Charts

a. Trello

Trello doesn’t have any native Gantt chart capabilities. However, it does offer a timeline view that provides a visual representation of project interconnections and deadlines.

It allows you to:

Adjust start and end dates for issues
View by day, week, month, or quarter
Group by member, list, and label
View unscheduled cards

b. Zoho Projects

Along with a Global Project Timeline Gantt, Zoho Projects provides two Gantt chart types:

Chronological Gantt: View tasks by order of occurrence
Milestone Gantt: View tasks by order of Milestones

With Zoho Projects Gantt charts, you can:

Create Gantt charts that support four types of task dependencies — Finish to Start, Start to Start, Start to Finish, and Finish to Finish.
Add new tasks and details like task description, owner, and due dates.
View and edit important task information, such as the owner, progress percentage, start and end dates, and a list of all predecessors and successors.
Share Gantt charts via email or export them in PDF files.

D. User Management

Software, features, and other tech things aside, the real heroes of any project are your team members. So make sure to pick the kind of project management software that puts them front and center!

How do you do this?

Look for software that knows what different team members need and helps you deliver the right experience.

Features to look out for include:

User groups: Create internal teams representing various departments, functions, or projects.
Permission levels: Grant different access levels depending on the users’ information requirements and the company’s security concerns.
Guest users: Invite team members from other companies/teams to collaborate with your team without compromising on confidential data.

1. User Groups

a. Trello

Trello doesn’t let you create custom user groups with different permission levels.

b. Zoho Projects

User groups in Zoho Projects allow you to group portal users into different teams for better project resource management.

Create a user group under a team and add them as followers to tasks or issues. You can assign a team lead, associate teams to projects, and @mention them in comments.

Plus, manage team communications through a single email alias to notify multiple team members together about project updates.

2. Permission Levels

a. Trello

Set different permission levels for all team members. Choose who can comment, react, invite, or remove members on your Trello boards.

b. Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects offers three levels of profile permissions:

Portal Level: Applies only to project users. You can’t assign portal-level permissions to client profile users.
Project Level: Applies to user profile and client profile users. Client profile users can access just forums, pages, and events.
Module Level: Applies to both user and client profiles. It offers various permission categories:
- View
- Add
- Edit
- Delete
- Reorder

The module level permission categories can change depending on milestones, task lists, tasks, issues, and timesheets. For example, a task list has a reorder permission category, while a milestone doesn’t.

3. Guest Users

a. Trello

Invite guest users to one or multiple Boards to view and edit Cards.

b. Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects offers just read-only access to guest users.

Read-only access users cannot add, edit, or delete any entities in Zoho Projects. You can assign them to tasks, issues, and milestones with view permissions.

E. Collaboration

In project management, collaboration and communication are like a ballroom dance — if everyone isn’t in sync, you’re just stepping on each other’s toes!

A project manager should encourage their team to be on the same page regarding everything happening on the project. This could involve regular meetings, periodic status updates, shared checklists, etc.

But things can get tricky when you add different team structures (remote, hybrid, distributed, etc.).

The trick is to balance ‘informing everyone’ with ‘over-communicating.’

The solution is to forge a shared space where the whole team can contribute without hampering individual productivity. Picking a suitable project management software is the first step toward achieving this goal.

Features to look for include:

Comments: Simple ways to send feedback or discuss a task or project.

Threads: Keep all relevant comments in a single thread.

Tagging/@mention: Mention a team member on a task, in comments, or in any shared space to notify them.

Sharing tasks: Share tasks with relevant team members for efficient collaboration.

File management: Attach and store files, create and annotate documents, etc., for ready access to project documentation.

Notifications: Customize how team members receive notifications.

1. Comments, Threads, & Tagging

a. Trello

Click any card to open the comments section and leave a comment. Add attachments in them and @mention team members to collaborate on tasks.

Edit your comments to keep them up to date with the latest information. Or delete them to avoid miscommunication.

Right-click the timestamp to get a share link. Share these comments with others to invite more people to view and comment on the cards.

b. Zoho Projects

In Zoho Projects, users with comment access can add comments and @mention to tag members in project documents and tasks.

Additionally, you can hide comments from clients by marking them as internal comments.

2. File Management

a. Trello

Attach files to cards to offer more insight into the task.

Trello automatically makes it the Card cover if it’s an image file.

b. Zoho Projects

Attach documents and images to projects, tasks, and comments for real-time collaboration and task management in Zoho Projects.

To start discussions on the attached documents, just click the ‘Add Comments’ field on the right side of the file name.

3. Notifications

a. Trello

Send and receive notifications for various actions such as adding cards, being mentioned on them, changing due dates, moving cards, and more.

Change how and when you receive these notifications.

b. Zoho Projects

View all Zoho Projects notifications on a single page. You can also select the projects for which you want to get notifications.

Plus, set up email alerts to automatically notify users about certain actions, like changing a task’s status.

F. Customer Support

Individual users in smaller teams often face a steep learning curve with most project management software.

In their case, having access to responsive support executives and a wealth of helpful resources can make a significant difference, turning a frustrating experience into a positive one.

However, customer support is just as crucial for larger teams.

Even if these teams initially received thorough onboarding and training, their needs and use cases tend to evolve over time. Continuous and adaptable customer support becomes essential to address these changing needs effectively.

With adequate customer support, you can:

Derive maximum value from the app with the help of professional guidance whenever required
Ensure your team is making full use of all the features you’re paying for
Learn from case studies of other teams using the same software
Expand your use cases with time
Learn about the features your team uses the most and avoid spending on those you don’t need
Solve minor issues on your end by going through help resources
Get hands-on support when you get stuck
Keep a record of all your complaints and feedback for the platform to aid future buying decisions
Send feedback to the app’s developers so they can design the features you most desire

Features to look for include:

Detailed knowledge bases and documentation to aid DIY solutions to common issues
Case studies, templates, guides, and other resources
Easy access to resources for all types of users — free or paid
Async support executives to cover for the time difference
Live agents who can respond via chat or phone
Screenshots and recordings to display how the tool works
Translations to resources in other languages, if needed

Trello

Atlassian University: Product training and certification for Jira, Confluence, Trello, and more
Atlassian Playbook: Free workshop resources to address common team challenges
Atlassian Documentation: Help to administer Atlassian products
Developer Resources: Build, deploy, and manage your apps while Atlassian takes care of security, computing, and storage
Atlassian Community: Ask questions to product experts
Atlassian Support: Resources for users and administrators
Migration Program: Cloud migration support for all teams
Enterprise Services: Support for enterprise teams
Support: Email/Help Desk, Chat, 24/7 Live rep, Phone

Zoho Projects

Knowledge Base: Information about features and its usage
FAQs: Answers to questions about the tool
Projects Community: A community of Zoho Projects users
Video resources: Interactive Zoho Projects tutorials
Customer support: Email, live chats, and phone

G. Platforms Supported

Distributed and field teams might not always be armed with laptops or computers.

But that doesn’t mean productivity has to stop.

With a mobile-friendly project management tool, the workflow keeps humming along, turning those smartphones into mighty workflow tools.

More reason to look into this?

If your company follows a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) approach, your team members need the freedom to switch between various devices.

With support for all types of apps, you can:

Ensure uniform access irrespective of device type
Save on the cost of buying the same types of devices for the whole team
Give all team members a chance to log work from anywhere, anytime

Features to look for include:

App support for the latest Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android versions.
Maximum coverage for all key features across devices

Trello

Browser: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge
Desktop: Mac, Windows
Mobile: iOS, Android

Zoho Projects

Browser: Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge
Desktop: None
Mobile: iOS, Android

H. Pricing

Whether you have deep pockets or shoestring budgets, there’s project management software out there for every kind of organization.

But the confusing combination of features and numbers on pricing pages can make it difficult to choose.

Here are some easy tips for starters.

If you plan on buying the software subscription for just yourself or a small team that’s not likely to grow rapidly anytime soon — stick to the free plan as long as possible. Or pick the cheapest monthly subscription possible. These should cover most of your feature requirements comfortably in most cases.

However, if you expect to hire rapidly and grow to a sizable number, go for a plan that grows with you — ideally with a per-user rate that doesn’t add up exponentially.

Finally, most software offers flexible enterprise plans that let you cherry-pick your favorite features into a custom package. If you’re part of such a team, it’s best to contact the sales team and get the best deal possible.

Trello Pricing

Trello’s four pricing plans are as follows:

Free: Up to 10 boards, 250 workspace commands a month
Standard ($6/user/month): Everything in Free plus unlimited board, 1,000 Workspace commands a month
Premium ($12.50/user/month): Everything in Standard plus extra views, Unlimited Workspace command
Enterprise ($17.50/user/month): Everything in Premium plus unlimited workspaces, public board management, SSO and user provisioning

Zoho Projects Pricing

Zoho Projects offers the following pricing plans:

Free: Upto 3 members, 2 projects, 5GB storage
Premium ($5/user/month): Unlimited projects, 20 project templates, 100GB of storage space
Enterprise ($10/user/month): Unlimited projects, 30 project templates, 10 read-only users, 120GB of storage space

I. Best Suited To

Picking the right project management tool is like finding the perfect pair of shoes. They must be a snug fit but also leave you some wiggle room to get comfortable!

In other words, the tool you pick must fit all your current needs and grow alongside your future requirements, too.

So make sure you’ve covered all bases in your research when picking project management software for your team.

One way to do this is to check what types of teams your choice serves best.

For instance, what works for a small software development team might not suit a large marketing agency.

When hunting for a PM solution, it’s vital to match the tool’s features and use cases with your team’s workflow. Tailor your search to find a tool with all the necessary features to manage your tasks and boost productivity.

Trello Verdict

Trello is an exceptionally user-friendly and intuitive PM tool. It focuses heavily on visualizing work, especially on Kanban boards (though other views are available in higher-paid tiers). And its customization features make your workspaces visually engaging to make work more fun.

These factors make Trello perfectly suited to PM beginners, startups, and SMEs with relatively simple processes and small teams.

It’s also great for personal productivity and project management — E.g., if you’re a freelancer or you’re planning a big party.

The tradeoff for simplicity is, of course, limited complexity. Trello isn’t the best choice if you want to manage big projects with lots of simultaneous tasks, team members, and moving parts.

For example, Trello’s commenting functionalities are quite linear and not well-suited to multiple conversation threads at once.

There are extensive options to expand the app’s functionality with account upgrades, integrations, and power-ups. However, these will also cost extra money and time.

Zoho Projects Verdict

Zoho Projects is a no-brainer for teams that want a feature-rich project management solution at an affordable price.

Here’s what makes Zoho Projects shine:

Comprehensive project management tools with impressive automation capabilities that cover everything you need, from task management and time tracking to reporting.
An intuitive interface with user-friendly features like drag-and-drop actions and dashboard customization.
Robust collaboration and communication tools, like feed and chatrooms, that facilitate smooth teamwork.

However, Zoho Projects’ reporting features might not be extensive for larger teams and bigger projects. For example, it has a limited dashboard functionality, making it difficult to add client information or arrange tasks and projects.

Additionally, only Enterprise users have full access to reports like Gantt charts and resource utilization charts.