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Asana vs Lucidchart comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Asana
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Project Management Software (4th)
Lucidchart
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Mind Mapping Software (2nd), Visual Collaboration Platforms (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Asana and Lucidchart aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Asana is designed for Project Management Software and holds a mindshare of 6.0%, down 11.8% compared to last year.
Lucidchart, on the other hand, focuses on Mind Mapping Software, holds 24.3% mindshare, up 18.2% since last year.
Project Management Software
Mind Mapping Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ian Herzing - PeerSpot reviewer
Stands out with portfolios, easy setup, and real-time information, but needs big improvement when it comes to workflows, automation, and dashboards
Their workflows and automation could use a big improvement. I don't even know if they have anything in that regard right now. I would really love to see a way where you can send custom alerts based on a task's completion or status change or an approval coming through. I would love to see a way to get some low-code functionality into Asana because right now, that is a big miss. On top of that, their dashboards are incredibly lacking. The way the widgets connect to the projects, they don't pull the data in the way that I really want them to. When I build a dashboard in Asana versus Smartsheet, I can't pull in data via a custom text field in Asana, but in Smartsheet, I can. That's a huge advantage because sometimes, you just want to report on really niche tasks or a launch date in a specific project or a collection of projects, and Smartsheet's dashboard features will let you do that, but Asana won't. So, their dashboards are lacking, and the workflows are pretty below where the market is right now. I would love to see a complete revamp of how they do dashboards right now. Dashboards are really poor. They don't display information well, and they don't look good. They don't pull in data in an advanced search kind of way. They are very simplistic. If you're a traditional project manager and you're PMP certified and you understand project management, you're going to be very frustrated with Asana's dashboards because they do not speak the language of project management. That's because of the way they are set up. So, I would like to see that completely revamped. It's just not an industry standard.
MichaelChirinian - PeerSpot reviewer
Intuitive, integrates well, and is a great way to change text into visual ideas
I'm not a super user, and there might be a way of doing it that I haven't explored, but I was looking for some specific icons that are just standard icons, and I found the icon library to be very focused on architecture icons. It didn't have as many standard or generic icons. Another thing that somewhat irritated me is the fact that there is a paste function in the menu, but when you right-click and select paste, it tells you that you can't use paste. You must press Command-V or Apple-V to paste. They give you a menu option to paste, but every time you use that, they say, "We don't accept it." On top of that, normally, you'd have an option for paste or paste values, but when you use the paste function, you don't have that capability. So, to copy text from one place, I have to use Command-V to paste it, but if I don't like the format, I've got to go back and do copy style and then paste style on top of that. It is a small detail, but when you're doing diagrams, it is annoying that they don't support paste values. It is a small irk. I'm not penalizing it, and I still think it is a five-star product. In terms of other bigger things, I don't really have any comments or criticism so far.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Asana allows you to create your own project with sub sections with subtasks that can be assigned. The feature I really love is that you can tag people to notify them that there has been progress on a project as well as add attachments."
"The dashboards are really insightful and easy to use."
"This solution is easier and faster to use compared to Jira. It's not very structured and you can add sub-tasks and issues easily."
"The ability to share projects and tasks among team members appears to be the most valuable feature."
"Asana is a very simple interface for project managers to figure out, providing all the functions they need."
"It's an easy way to communicate."
"It’s a great way to communicate plans and progress across the business and is flexible about how much detail I include and how I present it."
"Asana has a wonderful user experience that is very easy to interact with and has tons of integrations with other products and tools."
"One of the features that I really like is the collaboration aspect of it. During the pandemic, it's very important that we're able to collaborate virtually."
"Documenting things such as processes, systems, and new teams has been my primary use case. Lucidchart is really, really valuable for its ability to create a process chart from start to end. The web app makes it easy because everything is similar to other tools like Visio but Lucidchart feels a little bit more intuitive. It has been easy to use the web app. I definitely have learned a lot about how to bring in my own graphics or images in place of some of the shapes and I'm able to create and use the arrows within the processes, so it definitely has been useful for me."
"The ability for Lucidchart to create database schemas or modify existing data structures is strong. That's what I initially introduced it for in our organization. The script that Lucidchart provides works with other systems like Oracle, SQL Server, and Postgres that I can copy-paste, and get a quick dump of metadata and import into has saved me a ton of steps that I didn't have to manually create these tables. I had a lot of things where I still had to put in the linkages between tables, but I didn't have to type in every field name, every data type, and everything else that came in. That saved me tons of time."
"There is no alternative to Lucidchart if you want to describe a five-step process with bullet points. I believe every person who ever worked with PowerPoint on any type of documentation and then thought about which tool would actually help to describe what they're trying to do but without the words, would come up with Lucidchart."
"The organizational charts for visualizing and understanding team hierarchies and relationships are the reason why we purchased the package that would allow me to do more with it. I tried to find all the cheap ways to do things but the ease of access and the already preset structure that Lucidchart had in place made it easier. Out of all the choices that I saw come across my desk, Lucidchart was the best and easiest choice."
"The ability to have more than one person editing at the same time is the most valuable feature. You can have one diagram and have multiple users on it at the same time. We haven't been able to do that on other software. So that's the main reason we moved to Lucidchart."
"Lucidchart's ability to create a visualization that people prefer to look at, over reading written documents, has definitely saved me a lot of time. Moreover, it has helped to make my code bug-free because I no longer have broken endpoints."
"The collaboration, hands-down, is the top feature. It is valuable because our company doesn't believe in working in silos... While I may be the one leading the efforts, it's very important that my team gets buy-in on decisions being made when we're designing. It's critical, especially in this virtual environment, when we're not in an office to have a team meeting and able to whiteboard something. Lucidchart is an extremely useful tool for our team."
 

Cons

"We'd like the capability to be able to set up weekly reminders."
"The solution could have a bigger pop-up when someone assigns a task or have a notification similar to Facebook, where you see a number indicating the notifications you receive."
"The main dashboard, where there is a list, needs improvement."
"We have not used Asana on our private server. We have been using the cloud solution. We need an on premise solution for government agencies."
"The product's page is not user-friendly."
"In Asana, there's no way to add a custom date field."
"There is room for improvement in integrating Asana with different technology vendors."
"This solution has a learning curve, where it is initially difficult to use."
"Although it comes with a lot of pre-existing tools, it would help if it had some more design templates. By now, they must know what kinds of things people are trying out, and that should help them create more templates. I would also like to see a little more automation."
"In terms of improvement, they should make it very clear, whether it's a single A4 page or two A4 pages, it should be mapped out. Either I don't know how to use it, or it's not there, but having to stick to margins so I can see what's going to be on different pages when I print it or move it to a PDF has been my only challenge so far."
"I don't know if I will be able to add some animations if I want to. I believe the problem may be the program's process flows but if I want to transfer it into a PPP or any other document, I can only do image transfer."
"What I do find extremely frustrating is that when I've sent the sheet to non-license holders, you have to create an account. You create a username and password. The path taken to create that account is so confusing that everyone thinks that they have to give their credit card number, and then they're reluctant. They don't want to go through the sheet."
"There is a basic function that I struggle with, in the interface, which is having to switch between the editing and navigation modes. A lot of clicks are required when switching between edit and navigation modes and I think that many could potentially be avoided by handling the tasks at the same time."
"It might already exist and I haven't used it, but in terms of improvement, I would like a hot-key system for some of the diagrams to auto-generate things a bit quicker to be able to produce charts a lot faster, or have more standard templates that you can just go to if you're trying to generate something quickly."
"I would like to have more text boxes to write more comments so I can write a small note below a picture. I would like some flexibility."
"Lucid should create some proper documentation and video tutorials to demonstrate the capabilities of the product to new users. It should explain everything that it offers and everything that it can be used for."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We're on the business tier, which is $25 a month if you're on an annual contract. It's $31 if you're on a month-to-month contract. In my experience, there are no hidden costs with Asana. I know Smartsheet has these add-ons that you can buy, which is an additional cost, but Asana doesn't have any add-ons that I know of. When you're trying to scale the product and want to add users, you have to do it in buckets of five. This is also something to consider."
"Price-wise, I think it's an affordable option for mid to large-sized companies."
"The solution's free version can be used for basic functions."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"This solution is reasonably priced."
"I can describe Asana's pricing as a sweet spot since it is neither very high nor very low, especially regarding the value Asana adds to its products...In our company, we use 50 percent of the features provided by Asana, because of which we only pay 50 percent of Asana's total cost."
"Its price is fair. Its licensing cost is cheaper than Microsoft Project. I would rate it a two out of five in terms of pricing."
"The cost is $25 US per unit per month."
"One of the reasons we were able to get approval within two hours from our management was that it was cheap enough. We have a 3% or 10% collaboration package, which comes out to be 70 bucks a year. It was very cheap, and we had no issues actually getting the full version. It was very affordable for a business."
"I'm happy with the pricing of Lucidchart but I can't say I'm completely happy with it. It could be cheaper for what it offers, about $5 cheaper, or Lucid could charge $5 more and add more features, like automation. Right now, it's $15 per user per month... On the other hand, they have made their billing super-easy for users, such as for people who have to do expense reports. It is probably the easiest platform I'm using when it comes to billing for software as a service."
"I have a subscription as an individual user for one year, and it is not expensive."
"We chose Lucid based on the price comparison between it and draw.io... Lucidchart was about 15 percent cheaper per user... I was surprised to learn that it came with a separate subscription model and was not included in my existing Lucidchart subscription."
"The price and licensing are good."
"The pricing and licensing are fine, though I wish they didn't require you to buy the licenses in batches of five."
"Pricing comes in at about $100 for a year's subscription, which is very reasonable if this is a tool that you will use more than once."
"The price of this product is a little bit high. It is probably 20% higher than what I expected to pay for such a solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
56%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Asana?
The solution's user interface is very good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Asana?
The pricing of Asana is slightly high. To add one user is expensive, which makes me cautious about upgrading or adding more users.
What needs improvement with Asana?
The integration with email should be more seamless. When I'm writing an email and want to tag someone in Asana for a task, the process should be smoother. It would be easier if I could assign tasks...
LucidChart vs LucidSpark for brainstorming sessions over Zoom
Hi @Krista Thompson ​ - Yes, LucidSpark is a much more nimble and, in some ways, user-friendly tool than LucidChart. LucidSpark is designed to do a better job managing multiple users participating ...
Do you recommend Lucidchart?
I definitely recommend Lucidchart. I feel it is one of the top visual collaboration platforms that’s available on the market. Out of all the solutions I have tried, it is by far the best for diagra...
 

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