Whether you want to start your own venture or doing an international project for the Denmark government, a well-built project Management tool makes all the difference. Trello and Wekan are two players rocking the same boat and offer Kanban style boards.
Both Trello and Wekan are best for small to medium level projects and are quite similar in features, yet different in other ways. For instance, Trello is available for pretty much every platform, while Wekan is opensource and the main support is through a web-based application. Wekan can also be self-hosted on a local server while Trello runs on propriety code. In this article, we’ll compare these two project management tool and help you decided which one to choose.
Read: 10 Best Project Management Tools for Small Business
Trello v Wekan
1. The User Interface
Trello has a well-built user interface and the window has a kanban style structure. The page has space for lists which contains cards.
Wekan, on the other hand, takes the direct implementation of a Kanban board which has generally three lists: to-do, doing, and done. Although that’s not a limitation but a default setting. You can add, change, and remove the lists as per your requirements.
Both have the drag and drop feature which essentially is an easy way to move cards across lists.
Both have the option to add labels, checklists, and due dates to the individual cards. You can add members to the card and assign responsibility but Trello has a neatly placed and well-built interface with all the functionalities right in front of you. Wekan although being robust but Trello takes the cake in UI as looks cleaner.
Trello also lets you share the card directly with a link while Wekan lets you hide system messages on the cards.
2. Cross Platform
Trello has a larger user base and a diverse audience which calls for cross-platform support. Trello has dedicated apps for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Web. 
Wekan is an open source community developed tool and you can use it with most web browsers. It also has a Windows and Mac app, but you’ll have to compile it from GitHub. To access Wekaan from your smartphone, you have no option than using a smartphone’s browser.
One thing which Wekan offers is the self-hosting on a local server (caddy). This means your Wekan board would run independently of an internal network that is not connected to the Internet. You can keep all your data to yourself. It is particularly useful if you have an important project and you don’t want the details to be compromised outside your office premise.
3. Layout
Wekan has a simple grey whereas Trello has a more of a pleasing appeal as you can change the background board to fit the theme of the project you’re working on.
Trello has the top bar which shows a search bar, a create button, notifications, and a home button. Wekan can be customized and the web version running on sandstorm has delete, filter, search, and swimlane as the primary buttons on top.
Both Trello and Wekan have implemented watchboard, which essentially sends a notification reminder of every activity that takes place on the board. It is best when you have to monitor the progress away from the team.
Swimlane is another very thoughtful feature implemented by Wekan, which Trello lacks. It lets you create exact copies of a list on the board. Useful when you have a few instances of the same project but with different variables. Now if you want to achieve this in Trello you would have to create a separate board.
4. Workflow
Using Wekan is easy and you need to create an account to get started. The first thing you need to do is create a board which stores all the lists on the home screen. You can add as many lists to the board and assign members to the board. You can add labels, checklists, and subtasks to every card. As the tasks are done you can drag and drop it into the next list. This keeps the workflow clean and streamlined.
Trello follows the same workflow and you can create multiple boards on the application and assign different teams to each board. The list can be used to show the progress stage of a project and the cards have options like labels members, checklist due date and attachment. The workflow is simple to follow as the card is completed you can move it to the next stage either by dragging and dropping or selecting the move action from the actions list.
Both applications have the same workflow and most features are the same but Wekan is best for people working on different projects following the same process with the use of swimlane workflow tables. Trello while lacking this feature compensates for it with 3rd party integrations.
5. 3rd party integrations
Wekan doesn’t support many 3rd party integrations mainly due to its small scale implementation but there are a few integrations which are useful. You can integrate Wekan with webhooks to implement Rocket chat, Slack, and other webhook supporting services/ PostgreSQL lets you share a read-only mirror with this integration.
Trello, on the other hand, has many integrations implemented with its service. Twoodo, Zapier, Slack, Hipchat, Google Drive are a few from the long list of supported integrations with Trello.
Trello clearly takes the lead when it comes to 3rd party integrations category.
6. Export
Wekan and Trello both have a similar layout and you can export your board from Trello to Wekan. However, Trello does not import boards from Wekan.
Although when I tried to import a board from Trello to Wekan, it gave a warning that all the previous boards will be deleted and data would be lost. That was true and my previous board was deleted from Wekan and the imported board showed.
7. Team members collaboration
You can add team members to Wekan by sending invites through a shareable link. You can set permissions to the link which gives you a control over the members’ activities. As the members are added you can assign them to different cards and distribute the task.
Trello also has a similar structure to add members to the boards and you can search for them if they’re already on Trello or using a unique link. Moreover, you can set your boards private or public. It means that public boards can be seen by anyone and appear in Google search but only with the access to the shareable link can edit.
8. Price
Wekan is absolutely free and open source. There is no monthly fee for using Wekan. However, if you plan to use it for your organization and need a Commercial Support and major bug fixed, you have the option to pay for that.
Trello, on the other hand, has most of its features free and you get unlimited boards and cards, and one powerup per board, there is, however, a limit of 10MB on the attachments on the cards. If you have a small team and wish to integrate third-party apps then you can choose the paid plan which starts at $9.99 per user/month billed annually. You get unlimited powerups and a 250MB attachment limit per user.
Trello vs Wekan: What to Choose?
Trello is for people who need a simple project management tool which is easy to implement. It has many additional integrations offered against a paid plan which is fair considering the number of features you get with it. Wekan is more suitable for personal use and small projects. Due to its hosting capabilities, you can use it securely on a local network to work on projects. Both the applications have their own appeal and we let you decide what’s best for you. Tell us in the comment section which application do you prefer?
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