I tested over 10 Monday alternatives in 2025. Here are the 7 best for different workflows.

Let’s be honest, Monday.com is a fantastic tool for getting work organized. It’s colorful, flexible, and can feel like you’re building with digital LEGOs. But then your team grows. Suddenly, that feature you can’t live without, like Chart View, is locked behind a pricey "Pro" plan. Adding a new person starts to feel like a tax on growth, and you find yourself staring at an annual bill that’s spiraled out of control.

If you’re here, your first instinct was probably to search for a direct, cheaper clone of Monday.com. I’ve been there. But here’s the thing: often, the reason you’re struggling with Monday.com isn’t just the price. It’s that you’re trying to use it for jobs it was never really built for, like managing a company wiki or handling the same internal support questions over and over again.

This guide will look at the best Monday alternatives for all sorts of needs, from real-deal project management to specialized workflow automation. The goal is to help you find the right tool for the job, not just another expensive spreadsheet.

What is Monday.com really used for?

While Monday.com markets itself as a "Work OS," most teams I’ve seen use it for a few core things. Figuring out which bucket you fall into is the first step to finding a better alternative.

• Project and portfolio management: This is its bread and butter. You’re tracking complex projects with deadlines, dependencies, and resources. Think Gantt charts, long-term timelines, and big-picture planning.

• Task and workflow tracking: This is the most common use case for smaller teams. You’re using boards to manage daily tasks, like a screen printing shop tracking a job from "new request" to "completed." It’s visual, simple, and keeps everyone on the same page.

• Makeshift CRM and data management: You’ve bent and twisted your boards into a system for tracking customer data, sales leads, or huge datasets. This often pushes the limits of Monday.com’s spreadsheet-like structure, and things can get messy, fast.

• Internal help desk and knowledge base: This is the sneaky one. Teams create boards to track common internal questions, manage IT tickets, or build a company FAQ. This approach creates knowledge silos that are a nightmare to keep updated manually, which is where tools built for automation really shine.

How I picked these Monday alternatives

To build this list, I didn’t just look for cheap knock-offs. I tested each tool against a set of criteria to see if it really solves a core problem better than Monday.com. Here’s what I was looking for:

• Core functionality: How well does it solve one specific problem, whether that’s project management, data management, or workflow automation?

• Ease of use: How quickly can a team get up and running without needing a week of training videos? Is the interface actually intuitive?

• Pricing and value: Is the price fair for the features you get? Are essential tools locked behind the most expensive tiers? How good is the free plan?

• Scalability: Can this tool grow with you, or will you be searching for another alternative in a year?

Monday alternatives comparison table

Here’s a quick look at how the top alternatives stack up. It should give you a good idea of where to start before you dive into the full reviews.

Feature	eesel AI	ClickUp	Asana	Airtable	Wrike	Smartsheet	Plaky
Best For	Knowledge & Support Automation	All-in-One Customization	Task Management	Data-Heavy Workflows	Enterprise-Scale Projects	Spreadsheet Fans	Free Collaboration
Starting Price	$239/mo	$7/user/mo	$10.99/user/mo	$20/user/mo	$10/user/mo	$7/user/mo	Free
Free Plan	Yes (Free trial)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
AI Features	Core Product	Add-on	Add-on	Add-on	Add-on	Add-on	No
Primary Use Case	Automating Q&A	Project Management	Task Management	Database Management	Portfolio Management	Project Management	Task Management

The 7 best Monday alternatives in 2025

1. eesel AI

A lot of teams use Monday.com as a glorified FAQ board or a clumsy way to track repetitive internal requests. If your "projects" are really just your team answering the same questions over and over, then a dedicated AI platform like eesel AI isn’t just an alternative, it’s a complete upgrade. It’s built to automate the work you shouldn’t be tracking by hand in the first place.

Why it’s a great alternative:

• It unifies your scattered knowledge. Instead of forcing someone to manually update a Monday board with the latest info, eesel AI connects directly to all your existing knowledge sources like Google Docs, Confluence, past Zendesk tickets, and Slack conversations. It learns from everything instantly to provide accurate, up-to-date answers on its own.

• It goes live in minutes, not months. You can set up an AI agent and connect your help desk or Slack in a few clicks. It’s a genuinely self-serve platform, so you don’t need to build complex boards, dashboards, and automations from scratch.

• It automates workflows, not just tasks. eesel AI can do more than just change a status from "To Do" to "Done." It can fully resolve a support ticket, answer a question in Slack, or triage an IT request without any human help. This frees up your team to focus on real projects that actually move the business forward.

An infographic showing how eesel AI, one of the top Monday alternatives, unifies knowledge from various sources to automate support.

Pros:

• Truly self-serve setup you can launch yourself without a sales call.

• Learns from your existing tickets and docs automatically.

• Powerful simulation mode lets you test its performance on past tickets before going live.

Cons:

• It’s not a traditional project management tool for tracking Gantt charts.

• Pricing is based on AI interactions, not per-user seats.

Pricing:

eesel AI offers a 7-day free trial. The Team plan starts at $239/month (billed annually) and includes up to 1,000 AI interactions. The Business plan is $639/month (billed annually) and unlocks key features like training on past tickets and AI actions.

2. ClickUp

ClickUp is the closest you’ll get to a "do-everything" replacement for Monday.com. It is absolutely packed with features, is incredibly customizable, and offers amazing value, especially on its lower-priced plans.

It comes with over 15 different project views (including Table, Gantt, and Mind Maps), built-in docs, whiteboards, and even a chat feature. The level of customization can be a bit much at first, but for power users who want to build their perfect system from the ground up, ClickUp is hard to beat.

Pros:

• Extremely feature-rich, with a very generous free plan.

• More affordable than Monday.com at every single tier.

Cons:

• The sheer number of features can lead to a steep learning curve.

• The app can feel slow or cluttered if you have a lot of projects.

Pricing:

ClickUp has a Free Forever plan with unlimited tasks and members. The Unlimited plan, for small teams, starts at $7/user/month (billed annually) and adds unlimited storage and Gantt charts. The Business plan, for mid-sized teams, is $12/user/month (billed annually) and includes advanced features like workload management.

3. Asana

If you find the visual clutter of Monday.com a bit chaotic, Asana offers a cleaner, more focused approach to managing tasks and projects. It’s really designed to bring clarity to who is doing what, by when.

Asana’s strength is in its simplicity and sleek design. The Timeline view is a fantastic alternative to traditional Gantt charts for visualizing project schedules, and its workload management tools are great for preventing team burnout.

Pros:

• Clean, intuitive, and easy-to-navigate interface.

• Strong focus on collaboration and task clarity.

Cons:

• Less customizable than Monday.com or ClickUp.

• Key features like the Timeline view are not available on the free plan.

Pricing:

Asana offers a Personal plan that’s free for up to 10 teammates. The Starter plan is $10.99/user/month (billed annually) and adds the Workflow Builder and Timeline view. The Advanced plan costs $24.99/user/month (billed annually) and includes features like portfolios and workload management.

4. Airtable

If you’re using Monday.com more like a database than a project manager, Airtable is a much more powerful and flexible solution. Think of it as a spreadsheet-database hybrid that’s perfect for managing large, structured sets of information.

Airtable lets you build relational databases with a super user-friendly interface. You can link records between different tables (like linking clients to their projects), create custom views, and build powerful automations. It’s ideal for building a custom CRM, a complex content calendar, or an inventory tracking system.

Pros:

• Incredibly flexible for managing structured data.

• Combines the ease of a spreadsheet with the power of a database.

Cons:

• It’s not a dedicated project management tool out of the box; you have to build your system.

• Can become complicated to manage without a clear initial structure.

Pricing:

Airtable has a Free plan with up to 5 editors and 1,000 records per base. The Team plan starts at $20/seat/month (billed annually) and increases limits to 50,000 records per base and 20GB of attachments. The Business plan is $45/seat/month (billed annually) for teams needing advanced features and admin controls.

5. Wrike

For large organizations that need granular control, advanced reporting, and rock-solid security, Wrike is a powerful, enterprise-grade alternative to Monday.com.

Wrike offers detailed project planning with custom workflows, time tracking, and powerful analytics dashboards. Its proofing and approval tools are particularly excellent for creative and marketing teams that need to review assets directly within the platform.

Pros:

• Excellent for managing complex, cross-functional projects at scale.

• Strong security features and user permission controls.

Cons:

• The interface can feel a bit dated and complex for new users.

• Many of the best features, like resource planning, are locked in the more expensive plans.

Pricing:

Wrike has a Free plan for basic task management. The Team plan is $10/user/month for 2-15 users and adds Gantt charts and custom fields. The Business plan is $25/user/month and unlocks resource management, time tracking, and approvals. Enterprise and Pinnacle plans are available with custom pricing.

6. Smartsheet

If your team lives in Excel or Google Sheets but needs more project management muscle, Smartsheet is the perfect bridge. It keeps the familiar spreadsheet interface but adds powerful features for tracking and automation.

Smartsheet offers grid, Gantt, and card views, along with robust automation, cell linking, and reporting capabilities. It’s highly scalable and is particularly good at handling projects that are heavy on data and formulas.

Pros:

• Familiar interface for anyone who is comfortable with spreadsheets.

• Powerful automation and formula capabilities that go beyond standard spreadsheets.

Cons:

• Can feel clunky and less visually appealing than more modern alternatives.

• The learning curve for its more advanced features can be pretty steep.

Pricing:

Smartsheet offers a Pro plan starting at $7/user/month (billed annually) for 1-10 users, which includes unlimited sheets and 250 automations per month. The Business plan costs $19/user/month (billed annually) for a minimum of 3 users and adds unlimited automations and team workload tracking.

7. Plaky

For teams on a tight budget, Plaky offers a seriously compelling free alternative that doesn’t hit you with the strict limits of Monday.com’s free plan.

Plaky’s free-forever plan includes unlimited users, boards, tasks, and files. It provides a clean, Kanban-style interface for visual task management and is designed to be simple and accessible for teams that don’t need a ton of complex features.

Pros:

• A truly generous free plan with no user limits.

• Simple and very easy to get started with.

Cons:

• Lacks the advanced features, automations, and integrations of its paid competitors.

• It’s a newer tool, so it may not be as polished or feature-complete.

Pricing:

Plaky’s core offering is its Free Forever plan. For teams that need more, paid plans with features like private boards and Gantt charts start at just $3.99/user/month.

How do you choose the right Monday alternatives?

The goal isn’t just to find a replacement; it’s to find the right tool for your specific workflow. Before you commit, ask yourself a few questions:

• Are you managing complex projects with clear start and end dates? If so, you need a true project management tool. Consider ClickUp, Asana, or Wrike.

• Are you primarily tracking large amounts of data or information? If you’re building a CRM or an inventory list, look at Airtable or Smartsheet.

• Are you trying to answer repetitive questions or automate support tasks? If your boards are just a list of FAQs, then eesel AI is purpose-built for this and will save you far more time and money in the long run.

• Do you just need a simple, visual task board for free? If your needs are basic and your budget is zero, Plaky is your best bet.

Thinking about the main job you need the tool to do will save you a lot of headaches. Using a project management tool for knowledge management is like using a screwdriver to hammer a nail. It might work, but it’s messy and inefficient.

This video provides a helpful overview of some of the best Monday alternatives available for project management.

Final thoughts on Monday alternatives: Stop managing knowledge, start automating it

Monday.com is a powerful tool, but its one-size-fits-all approach and rising costs mean it’s not always the best solution. As we’ve seen, there are fantastic alternatives built for specific needs, whether that’s traditional project management, data handling, or simple task tracking.

But if you suspect that a big chunk of your team’s "work" is just managing and sharing information, it might be time for a new approach. Stop manually tracking questions in a spreadsheet-like tool and start automating the answers.

If your team is drowning in repetitive questions and manual ticket handling, the smartest move you can make is to adopt a tool designed to eliminate that work entirely. Try eesel AI for free and see how much time you can reclaim for the projects that truly matter.