Trello

Trello is the original kanban board for everyone, launched in 2011 by Joel Spolsky and Michael Pryor at Fog Creek Software (later spun out and acquired by Atlassian in 2017 for $425M). It's the tool that taught the world what a kanban board is — cards, columns, drag-and-drop, the simplicity that you instantly understand within 30 seconds of seeing it. Twelve years later, Trello is still the most-recommended starter project management tool for individuals and small teams. The genius of Trello is the constraint. While ClickUp and Notion bury you in features, Trello stayed focused: boards, lists, cards. That simplicity is also the criticism — past a certain team size and complexity, Trello hits a ceiling. But for the 80% of teams and use cases where you just need 'visible work-in-progress', it's still the best in the category. The core feature set: • **Boards + lists + cards** — the kanban primitive. Drag cards between lists to move work through stages • **Card details** — descriptions, checklists, attachments, due dates, labels, members, comments • **Power-Ups** — integrations + extensions (Slack, GitHub, Google Drive, custom fields, calendar view, dashboard view). Free tier gets 1 Power-Up per board, paid gets unlimited • **Automation (Butler)** — trigger-based rules: 'when card is moved to Done, archive it and notify Slack'. Surprisingly capable • **Multiple views** — Timeline, Calendar, Dashboard, Map, Workspace table (paid tiers) • **Workspaces + teams** — group related boards for organisations • **Templates** — 200+ templates for common use cases (sprint planning, content calendars, onboarding, OKRs) • **Mobile + desktop apps** — best-in-class mobile experience in the category For founders the use cases: • **Personal task tracker** — solo founders use Trello as a To-do/Doing/Done board for their week • **Content calendar** — track posts from idea → draft → scheduled → published • **Sprint board for small dev teams (2-5 people)** — backlog, in-progress, review, done • **Hiring pipeline** — candidates flow through Applied → Screen → Interview → Offer → Hired • **Customer onboarding tracker** — each customer is a card moving through onboarding stages • **Editorial workflow for newsletters/blogs** — visual queue of content production The pricing is fair. Free tier is generous: unlimited cards, up to 10 boards per workspace, 1 Power-Up per board, basic automation. Standard at $5/user/month removes board limits + unlimited Power-Ups + advanced checklists. Premium at $10/user/month adds Timeline/Calendar/Dashboard/Map views + unlimited automation. Enterprise at $17.50/user/month adds SAML SSO + advanced admin controls. Where Trello wins clearly: simplicity (zero learning curve), reliability (Atlassian-backed, never goes down), mobile experience, generous free tier, the visual kanban paradigm just works. Where it loses: ceiling hit fast for complex projects (no proper dependencies, no Gantt without paid Power-Ups, weak reporting), Notion + ClickUp + Linear all offer richer feature sets at similar price points, Atlassian acquisition has slowed innovation noticeably. My take: Trello is the right call for individuals and teams of 2-5 who just need 'a kanban board' without enterprise complexity. It's the safe starter and you can always migrate later. For solo founders organising personal work, small teams running content/hiring/sprint boards, and any use case that fits naturally onto a kanban — Trello is still the right tool. For complex multi-team project management, dependencies, or roadmap planning, you'll outgrow Trello fast — switch to Linear (engineering), Asana (cross-functional), or ClickUp (all-in-one) when that day comes.