ClickUp vs. Monday.com - Which tool to track your project in 2023

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Disclaimer: Although we at UpSys Consulting specialize in ClickUp implementation, this review aims to provide a neutral comparison between ClickUp and Monday.com based on our extensive experience in project management.

When it comes to discussing project management software, Monday.com and ClickUp often arise due to their extensive configuration options and modern interfaces. Yet, these tools possess distinct features that distinguish them from one another. Let's delve into the specifics.

ClickUp vs. Monday.com: Platform Accessibility

Both Monday and ClickUp are accessible on various platforms, including web browsers, Windows and macOS applications, and mobile apps for Android and iOS.

Conclusion: Both tools provide comprehensive web and mobile platform support.

ClickUp vs. Monday.com: User Interface

Upon opening ClickUp and Monday.com, you'll immediately perceive that ClickUp presents a more information-dense interface, which might seem overwhelming initially. Nevertheless, from a subjective standpoint, ClickUp showcases a cleaner, less visually intense interface.

Interface de Monday
Interface de ClickUp

Both tools utilize a similar layout regarding their interface, featuring a sidebar on the left and tasks on the right. Each application provides an option to collapse the sidebar. However, once you close it in ClickUp, it disappears entirely, while Monday.com maintains a static navigation bar on the far left.

In terms of iconography, Monday.com appears slightly cleaner and more consistent. It's also more intuitive to identify interactive elements. In contrast, ClickUp harbors many hidden features. For instance, the gear icon used to modify your sidebar settings often goes unnoticed.

Conclusion: It's a tie. While Monday.com is simpler to navigate, ClickUp's minimalist interface holds its own appeal. Ultimately, the choice remains subjective.

ClickUp vs. Monday.com: User experience

On the whole, you'll likely find Monday.com to be more user-friendly. This is partly attributable to Monday.com's ample selection of predefined templates and products dedicated to specific uses such as CRM, Marketing, etc.

By default, ClickUp presents a blank view, which can perplex new users. With Monday.com, however, the creation of a new table triggers the automatic appearance of default columns, tasks, and groupings.

ClickUp user interface
By default, the ClickUp interface is quite minimalist

The minimalist nature of ClickUp's interface, however, is worth noting. Yet, the simplicity that stands as Monday.com's strength can also act as its shortcoming. As we will explore later, ClickUp offers task grouping into four hierarchical levels, unlike Monday.com, which does not present a hierarchical system.

Conclusion: The upper hand goes to Monday.com. Its speedy setup and built-in default structure make it slightly less intimidating than ClickUp when initializing a project. However, bear in mind that this structure may be restrictive for complex projects.

ClickUp vs Monday.com : Templates

Templates simplify project setup, and both ClickUp and Monday.com offer them. However, they follow different approaches.

Monday.com's templates are practical and applicable to various specific scenarios such as CRM, Marketing, and Software Development. They offer ready-to-use structures, reducing the setup time and learning curve, making them a boon for beginners or quick project setups.

In contrast, ClickUp's templates are more abstract and adaptable, acting like a blank canvas for users to tailor their workflows. They are more suitable for users with specific workflow requirements and those willing to invest time in customization. However, a notable limitation is their language availability - ClickUp's templates are only offered in English, which could be a barrier for non-English speaking users.

Templates Monday
Templates ClickUp

Conclusion: As you might have inferred, Monday.com is more user-friendly and facilitates autonomous setup through its dedicated templates. Although ClickUp provides templates, they often fall short of meeting the end user's needs and are only available in English. With ClickUp, creating your own templates tends to be more beneficial than using the provided ones.

ClickUp vs Monday.com: Key Features

It would take too long to explore all the features of ClickUp and Monday in an article that compares these solutions in their entirety. We'll do a separate article on this topic. Here, however, it may be interesting to compare the key features of each application to help you understand which one is best suited for your use.

ClickUp's Unique Features

Hierarchical System

ClickUp's hierarchical organization is a noteworthy feature. This system facilitates efficient grouping and reporting, especially beneficial for large programs that span multiple projects. ClickUp's hierarchy can aggregate tasks across different tables, a capability Monday doesn't offer.

Media versioning

ClickUp enables you to comment on and edit attachments, including images and videos. You can annotate specific files, assign edits, and add notes, making it a potent collaboration tool for various teams.

Media versions and comments in ClickUp

Video recording

With this unique feature, you can record video messages directly in the app, capturing screen and audio content. This facility is perfect for quick bug reports, feature demonstrations, or feedback sharing. While some tools offer this functionality, it's rare to find it natively integrated and free in project management software.

Notifications

ClickUp’s notification system is highly adaptable. When coupled with automation, it ensures team members and managers only receive relevant updates via their preferred channel: email, browser, or mobile app.

Notifications ClickUp

Goals

ClickUp offers a Goals feature that helps teams set and track key objectives. Goals can be broken down into smaller, manageable Targets, making it easier for teams to achieve them.

Key features of Monday.com

Advanced Subtask Management

One of Monday.com's key strengths is its superior subtask management capabilities. Unlike ClickUp, Monday.com enables users to define different custom fields for tasks and subtasks. For instance, you can assign a priority to a parent task without the necessity of displaying this field for its subtasks. This provides you the flexibility to fine-tune the level of detail you want visible in your subtasks, streamlining your workflow and enhancing readability.

Monday tasks and subtasks
As explained, the parent task can, for example, have a priority, without the need to display this field for subtasks.

Customizable Element Terminology

Monday.com also distinguishes itself with the option to modify the nomenclature of items. While ClickUp standardly refers to all items as tasks, Monday.com allows you to assign specific names to your item list in any table, including terms like 'customer,' 'campaign,' 'employee,' etc. Although this feature might not revolutionize your project management practice, it provides a valuable level of context and personalization to your project structure.

Monday Terminologies

Integrated Charts and Graphs

In terms of data visualization, Monday.com shines with its versatile dashboard creation feature. It offers the ability to design comprehensive dashboards that can aggregate multiple projects. Additionally, you can create dashboard-like views within a project itself. With a range of charts and graphs, adjustable based on parameters akin to tools like Excel, Monday.com ensures a seamless and intuitive experience in dashboard creation, reducing complexity for users.

Diagrammes Monday

Conclusion: if your operations necessitate robust subtask customization or if comprehensive graphical reporting is vital, Monday.com may be the ideal choice for you. Conversely, if your work benefits from a hierarchical project structure, and you value the wide array of additional features ClickUp provides—like video recording, advanced notifications, and in-tool emails—then ClickUp should be your go-to project management software.

ClickUp vs Monday: Automations

Automation is a crucial aspect of project management tools, and both ClickUp and Monday.com offer this feature, aiming to streamline your workflows and increase efficiency.

In Monday.com, when you set up a custom automation, you're presented with a text-based interface, which some users may find less intuitive. This layout isn't as visual as it could be, and for beginners, it could be slightly overwhelming.

Automatisation Monday

In contrast, ClickUp presents automations in a horizontal, more visually appealing format. This design makes the process of setting up automated workflows more straightforward. The interface is simple and intuitive, with the accumulation of conditions appearing more user-friendly than its counterpart in Monday.com.

It's also important to note that ClickUp's automation system is robust, going beyond just task status changes. It includes time tracking, dependencies, custom fields, and more. This allows for more intricate and complex automations, providing teams with a higher level of customization.

Automatisation ClickUp

Conclusion: While both ClickUp and Monday.com offer solid automation features, ClickUp seems to hold an edge in terms of user-friendliness and adaptability. Its more intuitive interface, extensive automation possibilities, and multilingual support make it a more flexible and user-centric choice for managing automated workflows.

ClickUp vs. Monday.com: Integrations

ClickUp and Monday.com both excel in their ability to integrate with a wide array of leading third-party tools, including but not limited to HubSpot, Trello, Jira, Asana, Slack, Wrike, Basecamp, Microsoft Teams, and Salesforce. This extensive array of integrations enables teams to streamline their work processes by allowing different tools to communicate with each other, leading to improved efficiency and productivity.

Calendar Integration: A particularly useful integration offered by both ClickUp and Monday.com is the ability to sync with your business calendars. This feature enables a seamless transition between scheduling tasks and viewing them in a calendar format. As a result, users can access and manage their schedules directly from their project management platforms, significantly improving their task tracking efficiency.

Data Importing: Interestingly, ClickUp, known for its assertive acquisition strategies (as evoked by their slogan, "One app for all replacements"), allows users to directly import their tasks from Monday.com. However, as of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, Monday.com does not offer the same facility to import tasks from ClickUp. This makes transitioning from Monday.com to ClickUp a more streamlined process.

Custom Integrations: Additionally, it's worth noting that ClickUp offers the ability to create custom integrations using ClickUp APIs. This can extend the utility of the platform beyond the available third-party integrations, providing even more flexibility for users to tailor the tool to their specific needs.

Both ClickUp and Monday.com offer robust integrations, each providing their unique strengths. Your choice would primarily depend on your specific needs, existing tools, and the software ecosystem your organization operates within. If there's a critical tool in your organization that needs to be integrated with your project management solution, we at UpSys Consulting are here to guide you towards the most suitable solution.

ClickUp vs. Monday.com: Security

In terms of advanced security features, both ClickUp and Monday have made significant strides. In their premium packages, they offer two-factor authentication and integration of Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication protocols. These features add an extra layer of protection and streamline user access, enhancing overall security.

However, when it comes to the scope of security settings incorporated into their standard offerings, Monday has a slight edge over ClickUp. Monday includes a variety of security enhancements such as audit trails of usage statistics, review of table and data usage, and a configurable password change policy, even in its lower-tier packages. This comprehensive approach to security measures ensures robust protection for your data.

Conclusion: Monday might appear to hold an advantage in terms of built-in security features at lower pricing tiers. However, it's important to note that organizations with stringent security requirements often opt for higher-tier plans, which provide advanced security options in both ClickUp and Monday. Therefore, such organizations might still gravitate towards ClickUp, considering their specific needs and preferences.

ClickUp vs. Monday.com: Pricing

In the realm of pricing, both ClickUp and Monday.com provide similar structures, with each tool offering four tiers of pricing.

ClickUp pricing

If you would like more details on the ClickUp pricing breakdown, we have a dedicated article.

In the realm of pricing, both ClickUp and Monday.com provide similar structures, with each tool offering four tiers of pricing.

ClickUp offers a compelling pricing structure. For an in-depth breakdown of ClickUp's pricing, please refer to our dedicated article. However, broadly speaking, ClickUp provides a generous feature-set even in its lower-tier plans. For instance, the 'Unlimited' plan at a mere $5 per user/month includes access to Gantt or Calendar views. These features are available only in Monday's 'Standard' plan, which costs twice as much per user.

ClickUp Pricing

Monday pricing

Monday pricing

Monday, on the other hand, offers a more fragmented approach with not one but five different products. Essentially, the core 'Monday Work Management' aligns with ClickUp's pricing. But some features are only accessible through additional dedicated modules, including marketing, agile development, and customer management. This scenario could potentially inflate the pricing structure, especially considering certain capabilities like version control or Scrum project functions are exclusively available in 'Monday Marketer' or 'Monday Dev' respectively. It's also worth noting that a minimum purchase of three packages is required with Monday.

Monday Products

Conclusion: ClickUp holds a clear advantage in this aspect. It packs more features in its lower-tier plans than Monday. The comprehensive ClickUp experience can be accessed as early as the 'Business' plan priced at $12/user/month. In comparison, Monday only offers features similar to ClickUp's 'Business' level in its 'Pro' plan, which costs approximately $5 more per user/month. Also, the need to accumulate subscriptions for each of Monday's five products could escalate costs significantly.

ClickUp vs. Monday : Conclusions

Drawing a conclusion between ClickUp and Monday.com can be a challenging task as these tools are notably similar and equally competitive across various aspects. So, which platform is the right choice for you, given all the information?

When to choose Monday.com

You're prepared to invest a substantial sum and are confident in carrying out the implementation process independently. Monday's simplicity and robustness make it a stand-out choice for those looking to deploy a project management application without external assistance.

Key highlights of Monday.com include:

  • Autonomous implementation supported by French-language documentation and ready-to-use modules (CRM, Marketing, Dev) available as paid extensions.
  • Unique ability to structure subtasks completely differently from the parent tasks.
  • Proven performance and reliability in the market.
  • Comprehensive security measures and rights and permissions management for rigorous supervision.

When to choose ClickUp

Your team is moderately sized, tech-savvy, and seeking a platform with unparalleled functionality and value for money. ClickUp, with its myriad features and complex hierarchy system, does pose a learning curve. However, it's an ideal match for a team that is fluent in English or open to external assistance.

Key benefits of ClickUp include:

  • A hierarchical system providing a unique overview of your projects.
  • Extensive range of features to be discussed in a dedicated article.
  • Scalability to accommodate growing teams, given proper configuration.
  • Pricing structure that ranks it among the most competitive project management tools available.

Why UpSys has chosen to accompany its customers on ClickUp

This section may lean more on subjectivity, but at UpSys, we've put our years of experience with project management tools to work for our customers. Their feedback, combined with our trials on numerous project management platforms, has led us to develop a deep proficiency in ClickUp.

ClickUp's unique hierarchical structure, the extensive suite of features, and the responsive support and development team give us confidence in recommending this tool. If you'd like to learn more about ClickUp and how UpSys supports its implementation, feel free to book a free call here 🗓.