Monday.com scores 78/100 in our rubric -- a solid tool, but six alternatives now outrank it on AI depth, customization, or value. Here is what to consider if you are shopping for something different.
| Rank | Tool | Score | Starting Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ClickUp | 94 | Free / $7/user/mo | All-in-one PM with autonomous AI |
| 2 | Taskade | 89 | Free / $4/user/mo | AI-native teams on a budget |
| 3 | Wrike | 87 | Free / $10/user/mo | Enterprise risk prediction |
| 4 | Airtable | 79 | Free / $20/user/mo | Custom database workflows |
| 5 | Notion Projects | 76 | Free / $10/user/mo | Docs + tasks unified |
| 6 | Zoho Projects | 76 | Free / $5/user/mo | Budget-friendly with Zia AI |
| 7 | Jira Software | 75 | Free / $8.15/user/mo | Engineering and agile teams |
| 8 | Linear | 74 | Free / $8/user/mo | Speed-first dev teams |
| Ref | monday.com | 78 | Free / $9/seat/mo | Visual cross-functional PM |
Scores based on our 100-point rubric evaluating AI capabilities, ecosystem quality, UX, governance, and value.
Monday.com built its reputation on colorful boards and accessibility. Non-technical teams could spin up workflows in minutes without reading documentation. That strength remains, but the competitive landscape has shifted substantially in 2026, and several friction points now drive teams to explore alternatives.
Monday.com's AI Sidekick handles content generation, summaries, and automation suggestions, but it does not operate autonomously. Compare that with ClickUp's Super Agents, which break down goals, choose tools, and execute multi-step work without human prompting. Or Taskade's multi-agent orchestration where AI agents reason through problems and invoke other agents. Monday's AI is helpful; the competition's AI is transformative.
Monday.com requires the Standard plan ($12/seat/month) to access AI features, timeline views, and Gantt charts. For a 30-person team, that is $4,320/year before you even reach Pro-tier features like time tracking and formula columns. ClickUp includes AI in all paid plans starting at $7/user/month, and Taskade delivers multi-agent AI from $4/user/month. The gap widens at scale.
Everything in Monday.com lives on boards. That is clean for simple workflows, but teams managing complex, interconnected projects often need relational data models (Airtable), unified docs-and-tasks workspaces (Notion), or deep agile structures (Jira). Monday.com's flat board architecture forces workarounds for these use cases.
Before exploring alternatives, here is where monday.com (78/100) continues to deliver:
If visual simplicity and broad team adoption are your primary requirements, Monday.com may still be the right choice. The alternatives below are for teams whose needs have outgrown what Monday.com delivers on AI, customization, or cost.
Key differentiator: Where Monday.com's AI Sidekick suggests actions, ClickUp's Super Agents execute them. The AI Knowledge Manager indexes all workspace data for context-aware answers, and AI-powered standups eliminate manual status reporting entirely.
Pricing: Free tier (unlimited tasks, unlimited members). Unlimited at $7/user/month with AI. Business at $12/user/month.
Best for: Teams wanting the deepest AI capabilities combined with maximum view flexibility and lower per-seat costs than Monday.com.
Key differentiator: Multi-agent orchestration where agents reason through problems, invoke other agents, and execute multi-step workflows. MCP support and multi-model access (Claude, Gemini) put it ahead on AI integration. Genesis generated 130K apps in its first 90 days.
Pricing: Free tier with limited AI credits. Pro at $4/user/month with unlimited AI agents. Teams at $8/user/month.
Best for: Small to mid-size teams that want AI to handle execution, not just assist with it, and need to keep per-user costs low.
Key differentiator: Predictive AI that flags at-risk deliverables before deadlines slip, combined with Wrike Copilot as a real-time AI teammate. Three consecutive years as a Gartner Leader in Collaborative Work Management with a 60% competitive win rate.
Pricing: Free tier available. Team at $10/user/month. Business at $24.80/user/month. AI included in all paid plans.
Best for: Mid-to-large enterprise teams running complex, multi-department portfolios who need predictive analytics and enterprise-grade governance (SOC2, ISO 27001/27017/27018/27701, HIPAA).
Key differentiator: Relational databases that link records across tables, combined with AI-powered app generation. Where Monday.com gives you boards, Airtable gives you a platform to build exactly the PM system your team needs.
Pricing: Free tier (1,000 records/base). Team at $20/user/month with AI. Business at $45/user/month.
Best for: Operations, PMO, and product teams that need to model complex data relationships and want to build custom applications on top of their project data.
Key differentiator: AI Q&A across your entire workspace, AI Autofill for project properties, and a block-based architecture that adapts to any workflow from sprint boards to product specs to team wikis.
Pricing: Free for individuals. Plus at $10/user/month with AI included. Business at $18/user/month.
Best for: Knowledge workers, product teams, and content organizations that want tasks and documentation in one AI-searchable workspace. See our ClickUp vs Asana vs Notion comparison for context.
Key differentiator: Zia AI with NLP search, predictive insights, and content generation, combined with auto-translation across 70+ languages for global teams. The Zoho ecosystem means you can manage sales, support, and finances alongside projects without third-party integrations.
Pricing: Free for up to 3 users. Premium at $5/user/month with Zia AI. Enterprise at $10/user/month.
Best for: Cost-conscious teams, especially those already using other Zoho products or managing globally distributed teams that benefit from built-in multilingual support.
Key differentiator: The deepest agile methodology support in the market (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe), combined with the Atlassian ecosystem (Confluence, Bitbucket, Statuspage). Jira is purpose-built for software teams, while Monday.com is a generalist.
Pricing: Free for up to 10 users. Standard at $8.15/user/month with Atlassian Intelligence. Premium at $16/user/month.
Best for: Software engineering teams running Scrum or SAFe at scale, especially those already invested in the Atlassian ecosystem.
Key differentiator: Sub-50ms interactions, keyboard-driven workflow, AI issue descriptions from brief titles, and smart triage that auto-prioritizes incoming issues. It is opinionated software that makes fast teams faster.
Pricing: Free for small teams (250 active issues). Standard at $8/user/month. Plus at $14/user/month.
Best for: Small-to-mid-size engineering teams (5-100 engineers) that prioritize velocity and want a tool that matches their pace. Not suited for cross-functional teams that include marketing or operations.
This table maps Monday.com's core features to each alternative. A check indicates the feature exists natively; a cross means it is missing or requires third-party workarounds.
| Monday.com Feature | ClickUp | Taskade | Wrike | Airtable | Notion | Zoho | Jira | Linear |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kanban Boards | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Gantt / Timeline | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Workload View | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Automation Recipes | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI Content Generation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI Autonomous Agents | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Time Tracking | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Built-in Docs | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | Via Confluence | ✗ |
| Dashboards / Reporting | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CRM Integration | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Key insight: ClickUp is the only alternative that matches Monday.com feature-for-feature across all dimensions while adding deeper AI. Taskade trades feature completeness for AI depth. Wrike and Zoho offer strong parity for enterprise and budget use cases, respectively.
ClickUp (94/100) is the highest-rated Monday.com alternative in our 100-point rubric. Its autonomous Super Agents, multi-model Brain, and 15+ views deliver more AI depth and customization than Monday.com (78/100) at a lower price point. Taskade (89) and Wrike (87) are strong alternatives for AI-native and enterprise use cases.
Yes. ClickUp Unlimited starts at $7/user/month with AI included. Monday.com requires the Standard plan ($12/seat/month) for AI features. For a 20-person team, that difference is $1,200/year. ClickUp's free tier also supports unlimited tasks and members, while Monday.com's free tier is limited to 2 seats.
ClickUp leads with autonomous Super Agents and multi-model AI. Taskade offers the most AI-native architecture with multi-agent orchestration. Wrike excels at predictive AI with ML-based risk forecasting. All three significantly exceed Monday.com's AI Sidekick capabilities.
Reasonably. Most alternatives support CSV import, and Monday.com exports boards to CSV. ClickUp offers a direct Monday.com importer. Automations and formula columns require manual recreation. Plan 2-4 weeks for a full migration, starting with a single-team pilot to validate the workflow before organization-wide rollout.
Monday.com handles basic dev workflows, but engineering teams are better served by Jira Software (75/100) for deep agile methodology support, Linear (74/100) for keyboard-first speed, or ClickUp (94/100) for balanced dev-plus-cross-functional collaboration. Monday.com excels at visual, cross-functional work management rather than software-specific workflows.