With the recent innovations in project management software, teams now have access to a variety of sophisticated tools to optimize productivity.
When deciding which tool is best for your team, Notion vs Asana stands out as a common debate, each providing a unique and valuable set of tools to suit different types of teams.
At Slam Media Lab (Slam), we’re a Type-A team that has spent hundreds of hours figuring out which tools are ideal to support a fast-paced top-tier workflow.
We’re so Type-A that we’ve created a whole hub of products dedicated to crushing operations and PMing. You should take a look–our resources hint (pretty obviously) at which tool we think is better based on our research, time, and hard work.
In this article, we’ll share everything we’ve learned about these tools, breaking down their features, pricing, use cases, and more to help you determine which is best for your team.
Notion vs Asana: Introduction to Our Tools
Notion and Asana are both designed to streamline project management and promote productivity, but each tool takes a unique approach.
Notion provides a diverse and customizable workspace, spanning much further than your typical project management tool. Asana, on the other hand, is dedicated solely to project management, providing a more simple and intuitive approach to managing tasks and deadlines.
Why Do Companies Use Asana?
Asana is often a go-to choice for teams seeking traditional project management. This software also provides a wide variety of features to organize and optimize tasks, workflows, and collaboration.
You might prefer Asana if your team is looking for the following:
- Advanced collaboration
- Ease of use and clean UI
- Extensive project management tools
While its features aren’t as comprehensive as Notion’s, Asana is a common choice for teams seeking solely a project management tool for the reasons mentioned above.
Asana is also a common choice for teams with multiple projects and varying deadlines. With their suite of project management resources, you can easily organize and optimize your team’s productivity with powerful communication features.
Why Do Companies Use Notion?
Notion is known for its versatility and scalability, providing a collaborative workspace to organize and optimize all processes.
At Slam, we’ve used Notion to organize and optimize over 20 projects at once, and have found Notion to be ideal for teams seeking extensive customizations, broader use cases, and cost-efficiency.
With everything from project management to information infrastructure, Notion stands out as a great pick for those looking for an all-in-one solution.
At Slam, we use Notion for exactly that, allowing us to optimize everything from the writing of this comparison to the fulfillment of our services. One of our favorite features of this software is the ability to create and edit templates, allowing us to share resources like our Notion Wiki Template and Notion Content Creation Template with teams like yours.
Notion vs Asana: Features
While Notion and Asana have many similarities, each tool provides a unique suite of features. In this section, we’ll put their offerings head to head to see which best suits your team!
Which Features Does Notion Offer?
Project management is only a fraction of Notion’s offerings. While you might face a bit of a learning curve when putting together your first workspace, you’ll gain access to all of these features:
- Docs: This feature lets you create, edit, and share documents with ease. It’s perfect for taking notes, drafting content, and keeping your information all in one place.
- Wikis: With this feature, you can build a knowledge base for your team, allowing everyone to easily access information like brand guides or company procedures.
- Projects: Notion’s project management features allow you to assign tasks, set deadlines, create automations, and track progress using a variety of views.
- Calendars: This feature allows you to visualize projects, events, and deadlines, keeping the team on-track with important dates.
- AI: This feature maximizes your team’s productivity by helping you generate ideas, summarize content, translate text, and more.
With Notion, these features can be compiled into a fully customizable workspace, allowing you to visualize your project however you see fit. While its project management capabilities aren’t as comprehensive as Asana’s, Notion makes up for it with a broad range of other tools.
Notion also allows you to search and customize a wide variety of templates, providing a versatile starting point for all of your team’s needs.
Which Features Does Asana Offer?
While their offerings aren’t as broad as Notion’s, Asana provides everything you need to do to organize, monitor, and optimize your projects. Their offerings include:
- Project management: Asana’s project management feature is the backbone of their software, allowing users to organize, prioritize, and optimize their team’s tasks.
- Workflow automation: With Asana’s workflows, you can streamline repetitive tasks by setting custom rules, triggers, and actions.
- Goals and reporting: This feature is key to an optimized campaign, allowing teams to set goals, track progress, and even compile detailed reports.
- Resource Management: With resource management, teams can optimize productivity by allocating resources based on current workloads and capabilities.
- Asana Intelligence: Like Notion, Asana offers its own artificial intelligence tool to maximize productivity, but we’ll compare these head-to-head in the next section.
Asana also provides a variety of project views for projects, allowing you to leverage Kanban boards, calendars, timelines, and more when optimizing your processes.
Notion vs Asana: Artificial Intelligence
One of the most powerful innovations in project management comes from artificial intelligence (AI), which both tools offer. However, the capabilities of these AI models vary greatly.
Notion’s AI is more developed than Asana’s, offering a broad range of tools:
- Grammar and spelling
- Text generation
- Translations
- Paraphrasing
- Explanations
Asana’s AI model, called Asana Intelligence, also offers some interesting features. While not as plentiful as Notion’s, these features come in handy when streamlining project management:
- Task recommendations
- Smart generation
- Message prioritization
- Timeline optimization
Unfortunately, Asana doesn’t have a text generation feature yet, but their current offerings provide more sophisticated project management automation than Notion’s, making it ideal if you don’t plan on leveraging the text generation ability.
Regardless, both companies are rapidly developing their AI capabilities, meaning you’ll likely see a range of new features in the near future.
Notion vs Asana: Pricing
Both Notion and Asana offer a variety of plans to suit the unique size, needs, and budgets of different teams. Both tools offer a free plan with vastly different capabilities.
How Much Does Notion Cost?
Notion offers four pricing plans, each increasing the capabilities of the software. As they progress in cost, users gain access to a more features and less restrictions:
- Free ($0): Collaborative workspace, integrations, basic analytics, 7-day page history, 10 guests limit.
- Plus ($8/user/month): Unlimited blocks, unlimited uploads, 30-day page history, 100 guest limit.
- Business ($15/user/month): Private teamspaces, bulk exports, advanced analytics, 90-day page history, 250 guest limit.
- Enterprise (Custom): Advanced security, audit log, customer success manager, workspace analytics, unlimited page history, compliance integrations.
Notion’s pricing plans are both intuitive and cost-effective, allowing you to scale your workspace alongside your team. However, if your team is looking for a free tool, it’s important to keep in mind that you’ll need to upgrade to “Plus” to access unlimited blocks and uploads.
How Much Does Asana Cost?
Asana offers five pricing plans, each weighing in a few dollars higher than Notion’s.
With Asana, each pricing plan provides access to a variety of new features, while also increasing the team and workflow limit with each plan.
- Free ($0): Unlimited essentials, three project views, basic workflows, basic reporting
- Starter ($11/user/month): Five project views, automated workflows, Asana intelligence
- Advanced ($25/user/month): Advanced workflows, advanced reporting, resource management
- Enterprise (Custom pricing): Advanced customization, standardized workflows
- Enterprise+ (Custom pricing): Data access controls, advanced compliance solutions
Unlike Notion, Asana offers team access and unlimited storage at all pricing tiers, so you’ll only need to upgrade if your team needs more views, workflows, or members.
Which Free Plan is Better?
For startups and small teams seeking a free solution, Asana’s free plan is often superior as it offers a less restricted workspace.
With Asana’s free plan, you’ll get access to unlimited projects, messages, storage, and more. It also allows for up to 10 collaborators and provides over 100 integrations, making it an extremely generous free plan compared to many alternatives.
On the other hand, Notion’s free plan offers a 7-day page history, up to 10 guests, and unlimited blocks for individuals. While this plan is fairly comprehensive for individuals, teams will need to upgrade to gain access to unlimited storage and team blocks.
So, if you're running a one-man-show, you might benefit from Notion’s free plan, allowing you to access a broader range of tools. However, if you’re on a team, Asana’s free plan is likely the more efficient choice for simpler and less restricted project management.
Notion vs Asana: Use Cases
At this time, you’ve likely begun to narrow down your favorite platform. However, let’s evaluate some more specific needs to determine which is truly best for your situation.
The most common uses of Notion and Asana include:
- Project Management
- Internal Collaboration
- External Integrations
- Information Management
Notion vs Asana for Project Management
Both Notion and Asana offer excellent project management software, allowing you to view projects and tasks in a variety of displays.
While Notion offers more features, this variety restricts the simplicity of the UI and development of its specific project management systems. So, if you are looking for a simple tool to organize your team’s projects and monitor task progress, Asana is often the better choice.
Asana also provides more detailed reporting, allowing users to view the productivity of the team through multiple dashboards. With these sophisticated reporting features and built-in workflows, Asana provides a more intuitive choice for those looking for solely a project management tool.
Notion does make up for this deficit with some project management features that Asana lacks, such as detailed cards and unique properties. It’s also a common choice for those seeking an all-in-one project management solution, as Notion’s workspace extends far beyond Asana’s traditional interface.
As you can see, Asana is generally ideal for simple and traditional project management, but Notion is superior when you're searching for a more dynamic and comprehensive solution.
This versatility is one of the reasons our team at Slam chooses to work with Notion to organize and optimize our projects. Over time, we’ve refined our workspaces to maximize productivity for each project and team member.
To help other companies scale like Slam, we’ve also published a Notion task list template, which we use for everything from client acquisition to project tracking. If your team has complex and dynamic needs like ours, but still wants a simple interface, consider leveraging this template to get the best of both worlds!
Notion vs Asana for Information Management
When it comes to information management, Notion is often the simpler choice. With Notion’s tools, you can create wikis and publish documents, all without leaving the software.
These information management systems can be used to elaborate on tasks, draft content, or even establish standard operating procedures.
Whether you start from scratch or kickstart your information management with a template, Notion provides a variety of resources to help you streamline the process.
Asana, on the other hand, doesn’t have a native information management feature. To manage documents, you’ll need to integrate with creative suites like Office 365 or Google Drive. Fortunately, Asana allows you to easily link these documents with integrations.
While Asana’s third-party information management isn’t as convenient as Notion’s internal information management solutions, it’s an excellent choice for those already using creative suites.
Notion vs Asana for External Integrations
Asana offers more sophisticated built-in automations and a broader range of external integrations, making it ideal for those prioritizing automations and integrations. Asana’s apps include over 200 external resources, such as:
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Salesforce
- Google Drive
- Vimeo
- Canva
Notion only offers 80 integrations, but they provide some valuable resources for streamlining complex workflows, such as:
- Slack
- Zapier
- Pipedream
- SendOwl
Both tools also allow users to create custom integrations with their API, so tech-savvy teams can benefit from a wide range of resources within either software.
So, if you’re looking for a variety of automations and integrations, Asana is likely your best bet, but if you’re looking for custom or complex workflows, you might want to explore Notion’s integrations.
If integrations and automations are your priority, Asana might currently have the upper hand, but Notion seems to have another trick up its sleeve.
Following their acquisition of automate.io, Notion has been developing high-quality, native workflows for individuals, teams, and even Notion developers. With these resources, they’re working to compile hundreds of tools into one software, providing an all-in-one workspace.
While these innovations are still underway, Notion is consistently adding and improving features, such as their artificial intelligence and workflows. As they’re offerings expand, be sure to stay up to date with Notion’s releases, detailing their latest additions and improvements.
Notion vs Asana for Internal Collaboration
When it comes to collaboration, Notion and Asana both provide multiple avenues, yet each tool takes a unique approach to team communication.
With Asana, you can send messages to people, groups, or teams, entirely within the platform. This is especially convenient for teams looking to store all project-related information in one place, contributing to Asana’s overall ease of use.
Notion, on the other hand, doesn’t offer a direct messaging feature, but you can still communicate with ease using a third-party integration like Slack. Once you’ve created your Slack account, you’ll have quick and easy access to all of the collaboration features as if it were native.
While Notion’s direct communication features aren’t quite as cost-efficient as Asana’s native messaging ability, Notion also makes it easy to leverage other collaboration tools.
If the cost is your concern, consider using an external collaboration tool, such as:
- Microsoft Teams
- Discord
- Google Chat
Like Slack, these tools allow you to organize your team into groups, creating a collaboration hub for all of your projects.
Then, you can simply paste a link to these groups in the respective Notion workspace for easy access to everyone in your team.
Or, if your looking to avoid third-party tools altogether, but still prefer Notion, you can also streamline and document collaborations with our agency meeting template.
Despite these differences, both tools share a similar approach to commenting and replying on projects or tasks. They also provide a feature to mention specific projects or people, which is especially convenient for larger teams.
Why Slam Uses Notion
At Slam, Notion has become an integral part of our day-to-day processes, helping us to scale to over a $2M agency in three years.
From organizing our client acquisition to collaborating on content, Notion allows us to easily manage all of our goals, deadlines, and sprints in one place.
For example, in the creation of an article alone, Notion helped us organize and streamline everything from the initial vetting of our writers to the final revisions of this comparison.
During the content creation process, we also leverage Notion’s integrations to streamline collaboration. For example, we use Slack to discuss topics, assign content, and provide feedback. We’ve also found the Loom integration helpful, providing a convenient way to share project details or content feedback with embedded videos.
Content creation is just one of the many ways our team uses Notion, and this versatility is one of the key reasons we’ve selected Notion over Asana for our team.
After using Notion for years, we’ve developed some highly-effective workspaces, streamlining everything from client acquisition to internal communication.
We’ve recently turned our favorite workspaces into templates to help other businesses kick start their journey on Notion, which you can find among our selection of products and resources.
Within our suite of resources, you’ll find a Notion feedback template, a social media planner template, and a variety of other templates we’ve used to serve over 30 clients, from non-profits to Fortune 500 companies.
As your team adjusts to the new workspace, you can customize these templates to suit your specific needs. Whether your looking to organize cases at a law firm or content for a marketing firm, Notion provides unparalleled creative freedom for any type of project.
Notion vs Asana: The Final Verdict
At this point, you’re ready to embark on your project management journey with either Notion or Asana. As you’ve seen, Notion provides a more comprehensive suite of resources, making it ideal for teams with complex projects or unique needs.
Asana, on the other hand, is often ideal for those looking for simple and traditional project management, without the need for high-level information management or integration abilities.
If you still aren’t sure which project management tool is best for your company, you can look through our Products & Resources and see which templates feel better suited for your team.
