Trello Vs Slack — Which is the best tool to Manage My Team?
By: Laurie Watson
Tags: Review, Slack, Software, Trello, Project Management

Slack and Trello are two of the most popular software management tools used for managing projects, but there are a few major differences between them. Depending on the nature of your project, either one (or both) of these platforms could help make things flow more smoothly.

Slack vs Trello: which is better? To help you decide on which tool to use for your projects, I’ve laid out all the key information you need to know.

What is Trello?

The makers of the Trello app software describe the platform as a “collaboration tool”. It lets you know what is currently being worked on and who is working on it. The interface is fairly simple and consists of a large board with various cards and lists that let you see the progress of your project. Its primary use case is as a project management software and this is where it focuses its features.

What is Slack?

The Slack app is an instant-messaging tool for your company that serves as a hub for all your work-related communication. It consists of workspaces and channels that let you share files and talk to all members of your team, and vice versa. As well as group discussions, Slack can also be used for private discussions with one or more specific users.

Both tools are useful software for managing projects. Trello allows you to view the progress of your projects in one glance, whereas Slack focuses more on the communication between you and your colleagues.

If you’re looking for a quick way to track your project’s progress on their work, then Trello is your best option. However, if you want to be able to share important updates and files with your colleagues and create a place for discussion, then use Slack as a better alternative.

Trello Primary Uses, Organization, and Features

Trello is primarily used for project management and task management software, such as booking a group holiday or creating a new website. The default lists are ‘Things to Do’, ‘Doing, and ‘Done’, but you can rename the titles of these lists or add more if you want.

Each list allows you to add tasks in the form of cards, as well as appoint certain members to undergo that task. For example, if you’re booking a holiday and need to book flights, then you can assign that task to a specific person. Once that person is in the process of completing that task, they can move the card to another list to show they are working on it or have finished working on it.

You can also add a due date to the card so your team knows when a task needs to be completed by. This is extremely helpful for time tracking and deadlines.

The board can be viewed publicly, by certain members of your organization, or by all members. You can change your board’s visibility settings at any time. If you want to add new members to your board, then you will need to make your board public before inviting them.

Slack Primary Uses, Organization, and Features

Slack is primarily used as a software tool for communicating and sharing important files with your organization. The main use of the product is essentially a chat room and is designed to be used instead of email. This is useful as you can have access to all your project’s files and messages rather than having them spread across multiple platforms.

You can organize your communication into individual channels for specific members. Alternatively, you can have channels that are accessible to all members of your organization. If you need to have a private discussion with one or more of your colleagues, then you can do so using the Direct Message function.

Slack isn’t just limited to text-based discussions. It also offers video calls for you to speak to your colleagues face-to-face. You have the ability to share your screen during a video conference call for when you need to explain important information more clearly and directly. However, this function is only available for users of Slack’s Standard paid plan and above.

Although you can use slack as a great collaboration tool for communication it is not a project management app. It doesn’t have any features to track time or follow tasks for the project.

How They Handle Communication

Trello can be used for communication, but it isn’t as developed as other messaging software. Its primary focus is project management, so all communication happens around a specific topic, task or card. You can’t message another user privately, so you would need to use email or another platform for this.

Members of your organization can add messages to cards, which can then be viewed by all team members who have access to that board. As Trello isn’t best used for communicating with your team, I’d recommend using a different software like Slack.

Slack allows you to communicate with your entire team or individual members. Channels serve as chat-rooms for you to engage and speak to your team, and vice versa. You can also create channels for specific team members that only they have access to.

If you’d prefer to talk to your team in person, then there’s a video call option too. If you want a platform to engage with and talk to your entire team, then use Slack as a better option.

Overall Slack can be a huge time saver for communication, especially in remote teams.

Trello Cost

Trello has a free plan, as well as three paid ones. Since its a project management app pricing is usually set on the number of users registered in the team. The Gold plan costs $5 each month, the Business Class plan is $12.50 for each user per month, and the Enterprise plan begins at $20.83 per user every month. Discounts are applied if you pay annually.

Most tools in this space operate under the ‘Software as a Service’ model and will price on a ‘per user per month’ basis.

There are a few differences with each of these plans. As you’d expect, the higher-priced tiers give you access to more advanced features. The Standard version only lets you have ten team boards, one Power-up per board, and upload a maximum of 10MB per file.

The Gold plan provides you with three Power-Ups on your boards, larger file uploads (250 MB max file size), a custom emoji, extra stickers, and board backgrounds.

The Business Class and Enterprise versions boast a huge range of features. which are useful for managing especially big teams and projects.

Trello Business Class

Grants Gold Plan to all users in your team

Unlimited Team Boards

Unlimited Power-Ups

Collections (allows you to make groups of boards)

Priority email support (all emails to support team are answered within one business day)

Admin controls (Admins can control who can make boards, as well as see public and private boards in their team)

Bulk-add members through Google Apps (lets you add members to your board all at once)

Domain-restricted invites (allows you to restrict invites to just addresses at your business domain)

Deactivate members (team members can have their account deactivated without erasing their work)

Create outside observers (allows you to have board observers who can view board content but can’t edit it)

Bulk data export (allows you to export all of your team’s data in JSON or CSV for extra peace of mind)

Trello Enterprise

All features included with Business Class

Per-user licensing (lets you pay per user)

Pay via invoice

Single Sign On (for added security, the Enterprise plan supports SAML 2.0 SSO)

Slack Cost

Slack comes with four price options. There’s a free plan, as well as Standard, Plus, and Enterprise Grid.

Slack also operates as a ‘Software as a Service’ so you’ll see the familiar ‘per user per month’ pricing style here too.

The Standard plan costs $8 per month, whereas the Plus plan costs $15. If you choose to pay annually, then the monthly fee is reduced. Enterprise Grid’s pricing isn’t currently public, so you’d need to contact Slack directly if you’re interested in using this plan.

The free plan of Slack only allows you to view “10,000 of your team’s most recent messages” and also limits you to “10 third-party or custom integrations”. However, in the standard plan, you can do unlimited message searches and use as many integrations as you like.

The Plus plan gives you the same features as in Standard and also gives you features like compliance reporting, guaranteed uptime, and single sign-on.

Enterprise Grid grants you even more advanced features, like being able to send a message to anyone on the team who uses Slack, search through all workspaces, and use multi-workspace channels.

In terms of cost, Trello’s premium plans are less expensive. Their Gold and Business Class tiers are $5 and $12.50 per month compared to $8 and $15 each month for Slack’s Standard and Plus plans.

The cost of Trello’s Enterprise plan is $20.83 per user, whereas the price of Slack’s Enterprise Grid tier isn’t known unless you get in touch with them. As Slack’s other plans are costlier than Trello’s, it’s fair to presume that their most premium tier is also more expensive.

Trello Ease of Use and Interface

Trello is easy to use and doesn’t take much time to set up. The product designers have really put a lot of thought into the usability of the tool. You only need your email, name, and password to create an account. Once you’ve entered this information, you’re presented with your dashboard to create a new board or work on an existing one.

The interface is straightforward to navigate task management software. It doesn’t take too long to get to grips with. Lists and cards can be added, moved, and edited with ease.

In the upper right-hand corner of your dashboard where your initials are, you can access your settings, profile, cards, activity, keyboard shortcuts, and more. Additionally, you can change the initials icon to a photo, as well as tweak your notification settings. There’s also a ‘Color Blind Friendly Mode’ for color blind users.

As an easy to use task management and project collaboration tool, it really excels.

Slack Ease of Use and Interface

Slack is fairly simple to set-up and easy to use. Again it’s another product that has a lot of love and care put into the user experience design. To join a workspace, all you need to do is enter the name of the workspace you were invited to and you are set up in no time. After that, you have access to all of your team’s channels.

Creating a workspace is also easy. You signup using your email and then enter the verification code sent to you. Next, you enter in the name of your company and the project your team is working on. You can then add some of your team members to the channel using their email addresses. That’s all there is to it.

Once you have access to your workspace, you can create various channels for your team or use the premade ones. You can also send private messages to members of your team by clicking on the ‘+’ icon next to Direct Message.

Pressing on your name at the top of the left-hand side of the page opens up a plethora of options, like your Profile & account and Preferences. You can change your name, bio, photo, and contact information in Profile & account. Additionally, you can set a status to let members of your team know your current availability.

Using the channels is simple. You can pin messages which places them at the top of the channel to make them more visible to your team members. This is useful when you have an important update for your team. You can also look at the highlights of the channel, such as the most popular posts or latest file uploads.

Slack’s interface is a little more complicated than Trello as the product has more options and features, but it shouldn’t take too long before you get the hang of how things work.

Despite being a little less straightforward to use than Trello, Slack is definitely the better platform for communicating with your team.

Trello Reliability

Trello is an extremely secure software product. Its primarily a task management software so downtime will likely have big consequences to productivity. They are SOC2 Type 2, PCI-DSS, Privacy Shield, and ISO/IEC 27001 certified. They run automated vulnerability scans every 7 days and penetrations tests annually. In addition to this, the system undergoes a full encrypted backup every 24 hours.

The platform “uses Transport Layer Security to create a secure connection using 128-bit Advanced Encryption encryption. This includes all data sent between the web, desktop, iOS, and Android apps and the Trello servers”. The list for the company’s security operations is huge, and there are many practices they undergo to ensure the safety of their software.

For users of Enterprise and Access, SAML 2.0 SSO is used for added security. With an uptime of 99.93%, the platform is very reliable and doesn’t suffer from much downtime, except for scheduled maintenance. This means you don’t need to worry about the platform being unavailable for extended periods of time.

Slack Reliability

Slack is also a very secure product. They are SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 3, ISO/IEC 27001 (and 27017), and Privacy Shield certified, among others. Slack uses reputable security firms to run frequent audits of their tools to check for any vulnerabilities. They run constant automated scans of their web platform too and all employees of Slack are background checked.

Slack uses the latest most reliable cipher suites and protocols to encrypt all traffic in transit. Their Customer Data is encrypted at rest. Users of Slack’s premium plans have access to more advanced security measures, but even the free tier of the platform is very secure.

For the last quarter, Slack has an uptime of 99.99% and rarely have any issues with their servers.

Both software are both equally secure, so you don’t need to be concerned about the safety of your data and files on each platform. Slack’s reliability is slightly better with an uptime of 99.99% as opposed to Trello’s 99.93%. However, the difference is so marginal that I don’t think it’s a point to use one platform over the other.

Integrations with Other Tools

You can integrate Trello with various other software tools to maximize its efficiency and productivity. Some of these software tools are Zapier, IfThisThenThat, Asana, and Slack.

Slack can also be integrated with various software tools, including Zapier, IfThisThenThat, Giphy, and Marker. Both Trello and Slack have free APIs for you to integrate your own custom apps with the tool.

Currently, Trello only allows integrations with apps for members of their paid tiers. Slack, on the other hand, offers 10 integrations with apps for users of their free plan. Premium tiers have access to over 100 app integrations.

Using Slack and Trello together is extremely beneficial as they both bring advantageous software tools to your team and project. Trello can be used to help you track and check the progress of your project, while Slack can be used to communicate with and update your team. Instead of using one tool over the other for managing your team, I’d recommend using the both of them.

Platforms Available

Trello is currently via the company’s website, as well as an app for Windows, macOS users, Android, and iPhone users.

Slack is also available on all of these platforms. This means they’re both very accessible for teams. The Android and iPhone apps for Slack and Trello are very handy as don’t need to be in front of a computer to track your project’s progress or update your team about important matters.

Customer Support

Trello’s customer support work fairly quickly to help your concerns and queries, but priority is given to users with premium plans. To speak to an advisor, you need to fill in a form on the ‘Contact Support’ page.

The form asks for your name, email, the topic, and the subject of your question. You can then write a brief description of your query, as well as include any relevant files. There’s also an option to grant the customer advisor temporary access to your account.

If you want a quicker response to your problem, you can use the Community Support forum. There you can post your query for other members of the community to assist you with.

In contrast, Slack’s customer support is limited to just advisors of the company. They don’t currently have a community forum. To contact a Slack advisor, you fill in a form on their ‘Contact Us’ page. You enter in the subject of your query, as well as the description and any relevant files.

Users of Slack’s Plus and Enterprise Grid tiers get 24/7 support, as well as a swift response time (within 4 hours).

Trello has better customer support overall as you can use the Community Support forum to get a quicker response to your enquiry. However, with more advanced tiers, you can expect a response from an advisor within 1 business day, which is slightly longer than Slack.

Conclusion

Slack vs Trello is not really the question you should be asking, both are useful collaboration tools for managing your team and your projects. Trello shines with helping you track your progress with a project, while Slack is better used for communicating with your team.

Trello’s interface is easier to navigate, so if you’re not tech-savvy, this might be ideal. Although Slack is a little more complicated to use, it shouldn’t take you long to get to grips with the tool.

In terms of cost, Trello and Slack both have free plans that work well for small companies. For larger teams and projects, I’d recommend using one of the paid tiers they offer. Trello is slightly cheaper overall, but is a little less reliable with its uptime.

Security wise, there isn’t much difference between the two services as they are both use advanced safety practices to protect you and your data. Trello does have better customer support as you can access a community forum to help you get a response to your query quicker. Slack doesn’t currently have this feature.

The two platforms have a free API for custom apps and can be integrated with a plethora of tools for maximum efficiency. They are both available for Windows, macOS, Android, and iPhone.

So, which platform do I recommended for managing your team? Overall, I think Slack is the better choice as you communicate with all of your team and share important documents. While Trello is excellent for tracking your project, you would need to use another tool for communication.

As Trello and Slack can be integrated with one another, I’d advise you to use both of the platforms instead of substituting one over the other. They work excellently in unison and allow you to speak to your entire team in one place and manage the development of your project.

This post first appeared on medium.com/best-software