For only "under $10" per seat/month for the basic plan, ClickUp and monday trump most project management platforms. But which of the two is the best for a product manager like you?
Or is there a better alternative?
The ClickUp vs. monday debate has sparked different responses from various product managers. And there are two strong sides to the divide, as we've found in our podcast, Process Unpacked.
- For some product managers — like Jim Welch, CEO and Founder of DevHouse Agency:
A minimalist concept with beautiful & impactful designs without a lot of busyness is the deciding factor.
Winner: monday!
- For others — like Joe Michalowski [Head of Client Services] & Jacob Brain [Director of Operations] of Marketers in Demand — with multiple agencies:
A flexible and standardized system that integrates with different platforms is desirable. The system is simple but can also manage different agencies under a unified house.
Winner: ClickUp!
But do you have to sacrifice one criterion for the other? Can't you have a project management tool that is both minimalist and flexible?
We'll answer the question shortly. But first, let's do a deeper analysis of the ClickUp vs. monday debate.
📌TL;DR:
Meegle combines the features of ClickUp and monday and focuses on Agile workflows. It is a better alternative for a product manager.
monday vs. ClickUp at a glance
At first glance, you can tell that monday focuses on functionality — simple colors, a straightforward dashboard, and zero distractions.
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monday dev dashboard (Source: monday)
ClickUp, on the other hand, has a lot of features and ornamental. The many buttons on the left tab is a quick giveaway.
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ClickUp dashboard (Source: ClickUp)
Compared to monday, the ClickUp homepage is cluttered. There are 8 tabs in the workspace —even for a new user— while there are only 2 on monday, and they are collapsible.
It's interesting to note that ClickUp positions itself as having a "Friday vibe," playfully contrasting with monday.com. However, reality can be quite different.
Is less always more? Not necessarily.
For projects that involve multiple teams with diverse tool requirements, monday.com's streamlined approach may not be sufficient. In such scenarios, ClickUp's versatile features could be a better fit.
For specifics, ClickUp integrates with 1000+ tools. You can connect it to everything:
- From your calendar — think Google Calendar,
- Cloud storage — say Dropbox,
- Through communication — like Slack,
- To time tracking — e.g., Clockify
Our business couldn't operate if it didn't have a unified project management system. We can't have everybody —strategists, developers, writers— doing different things. They all need to be in the same place for us as a business to continue growing.
Now let's see how the two project management tools stack against each other — and Meegle.
monday is better for small teams, but ClickUp suits medium to large businesses
monday, at best, is a good fit for scheduling and completing tasks. It requires the least know-how, even for non-techs — talk less product managers.
For example, say you want to set up Agile workflows for your team. You only need to edit the Sprints and set the dependencies and date for the cycle as you see fit.
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Sprints workflow (Source: monday)
Plus, you can add new columns for sections and hierarchies you would like to include. Anything aside from such basic features and automation, monday might frustrate you.
This comment of Sweet_Instruction759 is your cue:
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monday issues for large teams (Source: )
The moment you or a team member subdivide boards to accommodate more tasks, you lose:
- Time tracking
- Admin access to the new divisions
On the other hand, ClickUp suits the workflow of medium to large businesses. You can create separate spaces for each team —like developers or marketing— while also organizing tasks within those spaces. Plus, you can set privacy settings for individual members, whether for team leads or employees who need extra focus. This structure keeps work centralized and minimizes overwhelming notifications.
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Creating space on ClickUp (Source: ClickUp)
There's one issue, however: ClickUp's flexibility is broad rather than tailored.
Product managers often need several tweaks to create personalized agile workflows — like manually setting up sprints with custom fields and configuring dashboards for burndown charts.
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For Agile product managers in small and large teams, flexibility is a means to an end. And that end is being able to focus on iterative progress and integrate feedback at each step - something Meegle shines in.
Meegle’s incorporates Agile methodology to help teams break down complex projects into manageable components, ensuring clarity, ownership, and efficient tracking of progress:
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- Epics – High-level project objectives that encapsulate broad goals or large features. They help teams stay focused on the bigger picture while working on smaller, actionable items.
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Epics in Meegle
- Stories – User-centric features or functionalities that contribute to completing an Epic. Stories help define the “what” and “why” of a task, keeping development aligned with user needs.
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User stories in Meegle
- Sprints – Time-boxed iterations where teams work on a set of prioritized Stories and Tasks. Sprint planning ensures continuous progress while keeping teams agile and adaptable.
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Planning sprints in Meegle
- Tasks – The smallest unit of work assigned to team members, ensuring clear ownership and accountability. Tasks define specific actions needed to complete a story or feature.
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Task splitting in Meegle
By structuring work into these hierarchical components, teams can enhance collaboration, maintain focus, and track progress effectively in an Agile workflow.
monday is easier to use, but ClickUp is more customizable
monday's UI is intuitive, and that's why it is easy to use for small teams. Individuals can use it for routine to-do, list-and-mark needs. It requires zero coding know-how.
The setup is equally easy. You can set your use case and get a suitable template —like the Sprint Retrospective for Software Development.
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Unfortunately, the same doesn't apply when customizing monday to complex use cases — e.g., workflow customization for sprint planning and iteration tracking. The "anyone can use our tool" mantra may not fully apply in these situations. Here's an example:
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monday has rigid workflows (Source: )
monday's weakness is ClickUp's strength. The latter is fully customizable. And according to G2, its core customization features score 88%+ from 3K+ reviews.
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With a proper demo, a product manager will find value in the ClickUp ecosystem. You can create different workflows — everything from custom columns to layered dependencies. And it all comes with a filter system.
But remember the antecedent: proper demo!
ClickUp often retires styles, processes, and features. Meaning that the "already" confusing interface is ever-changing. So, you need constant re-education on the updates.
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ClickUp changes layouts (Source: )
Apocalipsehobo on Reddit has the best explanation for this hassle.
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ClickUp customization issues (Source: )
In contrast to monday and ClickUp's lack, Meegle offers balance:
- It is as easy to use as monday.
- It has several customizable features and functions beyond what ClickUp offers.
About templates, Meegle offers several for various industries, teams, and roles.
- Agile product managers, for example, get specialized templates for software and game development — from planning to management.
- Also, project managers in business operations, HR, content production, sales & marketing, and construction and manufacturing benefit from Meegle's industry-specific templates for streamlined workflows.
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Meegle project management templates
Additionally, the overall interface on Meegle is straightforward. You need no "extra" demo to use it. The only overnight changes you will see are the addition of new features.
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Meegle user-friendly interface
Lastly, Meegle allows you to set up feedback collection from loyal customers through surveys and in-app analytics.
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This ensures updates are customer-driven and that new features solve real user problems.
ClickUp has better efficiency for managing tasks
If the goal is to have one centralized platform for all your projects, ClickUp delivers. It sure lives up to its slogan — "the everything app, for work." And the reasons are clear.
- The 1000+ app integrations will come in handy to pull data from different tools.
- In turn, that will help keep your work under one roof.
Such capabilities are must-haves for product managers handling several projects. But they come with a challenge:
Users notice that ClickUp slows down, especially when multiple team members collaborate in real-time, making the experience less seamless.
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ClickUp lags (Source: )
On the other hand, monday says it is "made for work and designed to love." However, this doesn't necessarily translate to enhanced task efficiency.
Sure, monday can also do deep, knee-in management. However, you'll need technical know-how because of its templated structure. And that creates a new problem:
Outsourcing Monday technical tasks can be costly and less effective!
The complaint of bluegravity5 paints the perfect picture.
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monday user review (Source: )
Despite the investment,
- The user suffered unique bugs, losing a month's worth of data.
- The team missed deadlines because automation didn't work as it should.
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monday automation issue (Source: )
In contrast to monday and ClickUp, Meegle is designed for robust and efficient real-time collaboration.
- Even on the free plan, you get access to instant messaging (through integration with Slack and Lark), custom workspace, and views (Table, Kanban and Gantt). You can also allocate resources and tasks to team members directly within the dashboard and workflows — especially with the node-driven workflow. Lastly, reporting and analytics help track team performance and identify areas for improvement.
- With paid plans (starting from Premium), cross-enterprise collaboration creates master spaces where team members from different but interconnected companies can work together.
📌 Case in point:
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Meegle customer success
Now, Nas Daily meets deadlines and the needs of its community members worldwide.
ClickUp has more features and views
While ClickUp has several features, its strength lies in its customizable workflows. With these, you can create tasks, subtasks, and dependencies to track products from planning and development to marketing.
When it comes to task management, features like milestones help with project tracking and prioritization. This ensures that team members know what to do, what’s at stake, and when to do it.
ClickUp also includes OKRs for setting and monitoring key success metrics — such as churn rates, signups, and customer retention.
As for views, ClickUp offers it all. You can customize your workflow with options like:
- Traditional lists
- Mind maps
- New additions like Forms and Whiteboards
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ClickUp views (Source: ClickUp)
With so many features and views, friction is bound to happen — and users have noticed.
- Users have complained that ClickUp's Gantt and Timeline views are sometimes ineffective.
- User edits in the views still have to be manual.
- The feature overload results in a lag.
Consequently, ClickUp has gained a reputation for being slow.
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ClickUp's slow performance (Source: )
Unlike ClickUp, monday's strengths lie in its automation and pre-built templates. With these, you can automate repetitive tasks on tools like Slack and HubSpot.
Here's the best part: the automation comes as ready-to-use templates, making setup effortless. For example:
- Sprint deadline reminders – When a due date is in 3 days, send a Slack DM to the task owner.
- Instant task notifications – When a new task is assigned, send a Slack DM to the task owner.
You'll find many more automation options in the template center. No matter which one you use, you'll save time on manual, repetitive tasks — and even reduce human resource overhead.
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monday's automation center (Source: monday)
However, monday's automation isn't without flaws!
Only simple automation runs smoothly, and even then, users report occasional failures. When such happens (like the user in task management), tasks get missed, leading to workflow inefficiencies.
Also, monday has limited views but includes essentials like Gantt and Kanban. Interestingly, it comes with specific views for Agile workflows.
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monday views center (Source: monday)
Similar to monday and ClickUp, Meegle offers collaboration and management features. However, its automation stands out for being more robust.
While Meegle includes prebuilt templates like monday, its automation system is built on well-defined rules, triggers, conditions, and actions.
Users can easily create custom automation rules that trigger specific actions based on predefined conditions. This capability is particularly useful for tasks like updating statuses, assigning tasks when conditions are met, or sending notifications to team members, ensuring that everyone is aligned and informed.
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Meegle's automation
By automating these routine operations, teams can focus more on strategic tasks that require human insight and creativity. Meegle's interface makes setting up these automations straightforward, allowing even those with limited technical skills to optimize their workflows effectively.
Beyond automation, Meegle's strength is its visualized workflows.
As a product manager, you need real-time visibility into tasks and projects. That's exactly what Meegle's node-driven workflow provides. Instead of constant back-and-forth messaging, you get a clear visual of who's responsible for what and when.
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Meegle node-driven workflow
Each task is represented as a node, connected logically within a structured workflow. This means:
- Clear task dependencies – Easily see which tasks need to be completed before others can begin, reducing bottlenecks and improving efficiency.
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Task aggregated to one view
- Automated progress updates – Nodes update dynamically as tasks move forward, keeping everyone on the same page without unnecessary check-ins.
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Node updates in Meegle
- Customizable workflows – Adapt the node structure to match your team’s Agile process, whether it's Kanban, Scrum, or a hybrid approach.
- Table: A structured, spreadsheet-like view for easy data management and tracking
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Table View in Meegle
- Tree (List): A hierarchical list format that organizes tasks and subtasks for clear prioritization
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Tree View in Meegle
- Kanban: A drag-and-drop board that visualizes workflows and task progress in real time
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Kanban View in Meegle
- Gantt: A timeline-based view to plan, schedule, and track project dependencies effortlessly
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Gantt View
- Panorama: A high-level project overview to monitor multiple workflows in a single glance
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Panorama View in Meegle
- Chart: A visual representation of project data for quick insights and trend analysis
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Charts for reports in Meegle
- Cross-space view : A unified view to track tasks and progress across different workspaces seamlessly
📌 The best part: Meegle has a dedicated page that teaches users how to use its features and integrations. You can use it to train your team members.
Moreover, Meegle offers integration with GitHub and GitLab, connecting project management with code repositories. With this integration, developers can link commits, pull requests, and branches directly to tasks, ensuring smoother collaboration between engineering and product teams.
With real-time updates, teams can track development progress within Meegle, reducing context-switching and keeping everyone aligned. Whether managing sprints or reviewing code changes, Meegle ensures development workflows stay efficient and transparent.
monday offers more chances to learn its features for free
To avoid cases like the $14,000-$24,000 fee for PM "experts," testing a PM tool before subscribing is crucial. Else, you make the same mistakes.
Thankfully, monday's free plan allows a free account for up to 2 seats. With that, you can learn the basics and decide if it's right for you.
On the other hand, ClickUp's free plan is limited to personal use.
Either way, there are things you can't foresee with free plans. Issues of inadequate support are one of them. And unfortunately, such are the mainstays for ClickUp and monday.
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monday support complaints (Source: )
In contrast to monday and ClickUp, Meegle offers a far more generous free plan — up to 20 seats. With that, you have enough slots to onboard team members to test the tool.
When all the actors have a seat to test the tool, you can never go wrong in your decision. More importantly, they are more likely to adopt the tool since you involve them in the testing phase.
ClickUp and monday excel in various project management scenarios. However, Agile workflows require a tool designed specifically for iterative development and flexibility.
- monday — works well for structured planning and task tracking. While it can be adapted for more complex workflows, teams often transition to more specialized tools as their needs grow.
- ClickUp — works well for medium to large teams looking for a PM tool. While it supports various workflows, product managers may find its interface and feature set less tailored to Agile processes.
For product managers overseeing software or development, a tool built for Agile methodologies like Meegle, will provide a more seamless experience.
Meegle offers the best part of ClickUp and monday, and focuses on agile workflows
Functional, zero distractions, Agile views, dynamic workflows, with real-time collaboration!
Meegle ticks all the boxes. It equips product managers with an Agile-focused platform for seamless collaboration and efficiency. In turn, this makes your job easy whether overseeing a small, medium, or large team.
For specifics, Meegle streamlines projects for PMs like you with its:
- Node-driven workflows – Break complex projects into clear, interconnected tasks for better visibility and coordination.
- Customizable pathways – Define team roles and responsibilities to improve collaboration.
- Hierarchical list view – Organize goals, product features, and issues for faster decision-making.
Moreover, Meegle’s pricing is also designed to scale with your ambitions. Whether you're a small team dipping your toes into Agile workflows or a large enterprise orchestrating complex projects, there’s a perfect plan waiting for you: (billed monthly)
- Standard plan ($9 per user/month) – Ideal for small-sized teams, offering tools to optimize collaboration and manage projects efficiently.
- Premium plan ($16 per user/month) – Best suited for mid-sized organizations, providing advanced features to scale project management and enhance team collaboration.
- Enterprise plan (Custom pricing) – Designed for large organizations, offering flexible billing and features for managing multiple complex projects with cross-functional collaboration.
The best part? You can explore Meegle for free—experience its seamless project management firsthand.
Try Meegle for FREE now!
ClickUp vs. monday.com: FAQs
Who is monday.com's biggest competitor?
monday.com's biggest competitor is ClickUp since they're direct opposites in features and design. monday is simple, while ClickUp is robust. When monday has only 70+ integrations, ClickUp has 1000+.
Which one is better, monday or ClickUp?
Unfortunately, there's no one-fit-all answer to the ClickUp vs. monday debate. It depends on your needs for a project management tool.
monday is better if you only want a simple tool for planning and scheduling tasks. For more complex tasks, ClickUp is a better project management software.
Why is ClickUp so popular?
ClickUp is popular for several reasons. For starters, it integrates with up to 1000 tools. Also, it is widely known for its affordable pricing. However, it can be slow when several team members work in real-time.
What is better than ClickUp?
Short answer: Meegle!
Meegle has all the good parts of ClickUp (robust features & views and affordable pricing) and none of the faults. Besides, Meegle handles Agile workflows smoothly.
