Which project management software suits a team of three to twenty people? Seven questions help you choose. For each question you see how Kanbalino, Trello, monday, Asana and MeisterTask answer it, with information from the providers’ own pages.
One place for all projects: tasks, dates, responsibilities, files and agreements. For small teams, the number of features matters less than whether the tool gets used day to day without training.
The well-known project management tools come from large companies and bring a lot with them: portfolios, sprints, marketplaces with hundreds of extensions. A trades business, an agency of five or a property management firm needs little of that. What matters more is that customers can collaborate at no extra cost, that calendar and time tracking are included in the price, and that costs stay predictable as the team grows.
Five tools are set side by side here, and Kanbalino is one of them. We looked up the information on Trello, monday, Asana and MeisterTask on their own pages. What the big ones do better is further down.
In small businesses, more people often work on a project than are in the team: customers, clients, suppliers, freelancers. Many tools charge each of these people as a paid seat as soon as they do more than read. So ask first how many external people should collaborate and whether they may comment or upload files.
| Tool | External people |
|---|---|
| Kanbalino | free in every plan, read and comment |
| Trello | free on one board, a seat from two boards |
| monday | viewers free, read-only; collaborating guests from Standard (3 free, each further one a seat), unlimited from Pro |
| Asana | unlimited free guests from Starter |
| MeisterTask | readers free, read-only; sharing with external people from Pro, guests with comments from Business |
The Kanban board shows what is in progress right now. For dates and dependencies you also need a calendar and a timeline (Gantt). With some project management tools, these views are only included in more expensive plans. Check from which plan the tool has the views you use every day.
| Tool | Calendar and timeline | Dependencies between tasks |
|---|---|---|
| Kanbalino | in every plan, including free | in every plan |
| Trello | from Premium, 10 USD | not built in; via Power-Ups |
| monday | from Standard, €12 | from Pro, €19 |
| Asana | calendar free, timeline from Starter, €10.99 | from Starter, €10.99 |
| MeisterTask | timeline from Business, €24; calendar via sync with calendar apps | in every plan |
If you bill by effort, you need the time where the work is. Built-in time tracking saves a second program and copying by hand. Check whether it is built in or only comes via another provider’s extension, which usually costs extra.
| Tool | Time tracking |
|---|---|
| Kanbalino | built in, in every plan |
| Trello | not built in; via Power-Ups from other providers |
| monday | from Pro, €19 |
| Asana | built in from Advanced, €24.99; from Starter as the add-on “Time tracking and budgets” |
| MeisterTask | built in, in every plan |
For many businesses in Germany, the data location is a selection criterion, for example because customers ask about it. The providers differ clearly here: from their own server in Germany to data centres in the USA with no choice.
| Tool | Data location |
|---|---|
| Kanbalino | own server in Nuremberg |
| Trello | data centres in the USA, not selectable |
| monday | EU region in Germany for Standard, Pro and Enterprise; sign-in and usage data in the USA |
| Asana | EU (Frankfurt) only in Enterprise, at extra cost |
| MeisterTask | data centre in Frankfurt |
The price per person says little as long as it is unclear which plan contains the features you need. Calculate with the number of people who actually need a seat, and with the cheapest plan that contains everything. Also check whether prices are shown with or without VAT and in which currency you are billed.
| Tool | Free | Paid from, per person and month |
|---|---|---|
| Kanbalino | 5 team seats, 3 boards, unlimited external people | €4.95 incl. VAT (€4.16 net) |
| Trello | 10 collaborators including guests, 10 boards | Standard 5 USD plus taxes |
| monday | 2 users, 3 boards | Basic €9 plus taxes, fixed team sizes from 3 |
| Asana | 2 people (Personal) | Starter €10.99, VAT is added depending on the country |
| MeisterTask | 3 projects | Pro €13.50 plus VAT |
Small businesses rarely separate projects, sales and customer service. If quotes, contacts and customer requests land in the same tool, there is no need to reconcile several programs. Some providers solve this with separate products that are paid for individually.
| Tool | Sales (CRM) | Customer requests via form and email |
|---|---|---|
| Kanbalino | extension, included in the free plan, €2.50 with Premium | with a number and status page, at no extra cost with Premium |
| Trello | board can be set up as a CRM; CRM features via Power-Ups | forms via Power-Ups from other providers |
| monday | separate product monday CRM, from €12 per user | forms in every plan; ticket intake by email in the separate product monday service, from €31 |
| Asana | pipeline as a project from a template; add-on product Asana Client Management | forms from Starter; emails from senders without an account from Enterprise |
| MeisterTask | template “Customer tracker”; third-party CRMs via Zapier | forms via Paperform or Zapier; tasks by email in every plan |
Finally, the practical questions: can you pay by direct debit or by invoice, and are there apps for the smartphone?
| Tool | Payment | Apps |
|---|---|---|
| Kanbalino | card or SEPA direct debit, invoice on request | iOS and Android to follow; until then in the browser, can be added to the home screen |
| Trello | credit card | iOS, Android, desktop |
| monday | credit card or PayPal; invoice only in Enterprise | iOS and Android |
| Asana | credit card or PayPal; invoice for annual contracts from 20 members | iOS and Android |
| MeisterTask | credit card or PayPal; invoice only in Enterprise | mobile and desktop |
Choose a tool and what you need. The calculator takes the cheapest plan that includes it.
Cost per year, net
What Kanbalino includes at no extra cost, but the selected plan of the other tool lacks:
Checked on 16 October 2026. All information on Trello, monday, Asana and MeisterTask comes from the providers’ websites, help pages and forums. The calculator and the tables show prices per person and month when paying for one year, as listed on the providers’ German pricing pages. Dollar prices are converted at the ECB reference rate of 15 October 2026 (€1 = 1.1208 USD). The five tools cannot all do the same things.
Do you need any of this so urgently that it is worth more than €4.95 per seat at Kanbalino?
A program in which a team keeps the tasks, dates, responsibilities, files and agreements for its projects in one place. Most tools run in the browser and show the same tasks in several views, for example as a Kanban board, list, calendar or timeline.
All five tools on this page have a free plan, with different limits: Kanbalino 5 team seats and 3 boards, unlimited external people; Trello 10 collaborators including guests and 10 boards; monday 2 users and 3 boards; Asana 2 people; MeisterTask 3 projects.
The Kanban board suits ongoing work with many small tasks, the timeline suits projects with fixed dates and dependencies. In Kanbalino both are views of the same cards, so you do not have to choose.
That depends on the tool. At Kanbalino only your own team; customers and other external people collaborate for free in every plan. How the other providers count external people is shown above in the first question.
The prices were checked on the providers’ pages on 16 October 2026, the features on 4 October 2026. Providers change their plans regularly; their own pages are authoritative. The sources are listed below the comparison on the page Kanban tools compared.
The complete comparison with sources, the comparison with Trello, and Kanbalino’s features in detail.
Create your first project, bring in your team and customers, and see whether it fits. The free plan does not expire and needs no payment method.
