shadow-planner compared with other project planning tools
How shadow-planner stacks up against Asana, monday.com, Microsoft Project, Notion, Trello, ClickUp, Smartsheet, TeamGantt and GanttProject — honest side-by-side tables, who should switch, and who should stay.
shadow-planner is a desktop planning and controlling tool: Gantt, resource utilisation, portfolio view, what-if scenarios, and an AI assistant that understands all of it. It keeps data on your machine and costs €4,99 once for unlimited use. Most tools below are cloud task trackers billed per seat per month — so the honest comparison is usually "different job, different price model", not "better or worse".
Each page has the same side-by-side table and says plainly when you should stay with the other tool.
Team task trackers
- Asana alternative — when you need timelines and workload without per-seat pricing.
- monday.com alternative — for one planner who doesn't need a minimum seat count.
- Trello alternative — when Kanban stopped being enough and you need a real Gantt.
- ClickUp alternative — a focused planner instead of an everything-app.
- Notion alternative — when your "project plan" outgrew a database with a timeline view.
Planning and scheduling tools
- Microsoft Project alternative — desktop planning you buy once, with an AI assistant.
- Smartsheet alternative — capacity and scenarios without an enterprise contract.
- TeamGantt alternative — an offline Gantt with utilisation, not a per-manager subscription.
- GanttProject alternative — a modern open-source desktop Gantt with scenarios and AI.
Not sure which applies to you?
Start from what you actually do: AI Gantt charts, resource utilisation planning, offline planning or planning with a local LLM. Or read the FAQ.
Install shadow-planner for free — the Gantt, utilisation and AI assistant are all in the free tier.