ClickUp puts everything in one workspace: tasks, docs, whiteboards, chat, goals, dashboards, and AI. Some teams love that. Many others find the setup takes weeks, the workspace slows down as it grows, and the bill climbs once AI is added.

This guide covers 11 alternatives: Plane, monday.com, Asana, Notion, Wrike, Jira, Linear, Zoho Projects, Trello, OpenProject, and Airtable. Each profile covers what the tool does, who it suits, what it costs as of September 2026, and what its AI can do. It also compares the tool with ClickUp and explains what moving your ClickUp data over involves.

To go straight to the verdict, start with the comparison table, which puts all eleven tools side by side.

Why teams are moving away from ClickUp

ClickUp stacks six levels of structure (Workspace, Space, Folder, List, Task, Subtask) and puts docs, whiteboards, chat, goals, and dashboards on top. Each layer needs configuring and upkeep, and most reasons teams leave trace back to that.

1. The setup needs ongoing maintenance - Each Space has its own statuses, fields, and automations. As more teams join, someone needs to keep those settings consistent and update them when processes change.
2. Big workspaces get slow and hard to learn - Users report lag when loading views and searching in large workspaces. New hires face a sidebar full of features, and most settle into a small corner of the product.
3. AI is a second bill - Brain adds $9 per user to the plan, and Everything AI adds $28. On the $12 Business plan, a 20-person team goes from $240 a month to $420, or $800 with Everything AI. And the free plan holds just 60 MB of storage for the whole workspace.
4. Engineering work needs extra setup - Sprints run through a ClickUp app and their own folders, so engineering teams often keep their backlog in a separate tool.
5. Docs drift away from the work - A ClickUp wiki is a doc marked as a wiki and filed under a Space, Folder, or List. As the workspace grows, specs and runbooks get harder to find next to the tasks they describe.
6. Reporting across teams takes cleanup - With every Space set up differently, a cross-team report means reconciling different statuses and fields first.
7. Some data has to stay on your servers - ClickUp runs only in its own cloud. Teams in defense, government, healthcare, or finance whose policies require self-hosting can't use it.

If several of these sound familiar, keep them together as you compare the alternatives below.

What to look for in a ClickUp alternative

Start with the problems you want to solve in ClickUp, then see how each alternative supports your team’s day-to-day work. These eight factors help distinguish a useful replacement from another platform that needs the same setup and upkeep.

• Total cost - Include seat minimums, bundles, AI charges, and the plans needed for features such as SSO and reporting.
• AI capabilities - Check whether AI can answer questions, draft content, and carry out tasks, and how its usage limits work.
• Fit across teams - Look for support for engineering, product, and design workflows, alongside the requests and projects other departments manage.
• Docs and knowledge - Check whether specs, decisions, and playbooks stay connected to the work they support.
• Planning and reporting - Assess sprint planning, dependencies, timelines, and visibility across projects.
• Setup and upkeep - Consider both the initial configuration and who will maintain workflows as the team grows.
• Deployment and security - Confirm where your data lives, which access controls are included, and whether self-hosted or air-gapped deployment is available.
• Migration from ClickUp - Check what transfers, what needs rebuilding, and what migration support is available.

11 ClickUp alternatives at a glance

Here’s how all eleven tools compare. Use the profiles below for plan limits, AI details, and migration steps.

1. Plane

Website - plane.so

Deployment - Plane Cloud, self-hosted, and air-gapped options with the same features in every option.

What Plane does

Plane is a project and work management platform where structured execution, documentation, AI, and agents run in the same workspace. connect company priorities to the projects that deliver them, while each project breaks down into work items. You can view work items as a List, Board, Calendar, Table, or Timeline. Each kind of work, like a campaign, a hiring request, or a bug, gets its own fields and steps. Requests come in through a form or an email address and wait in one queue until someone picks them up.

Along with all of this, you can maintain your org-wide knowledge base in Wiki. Policies, specs, playbooks, guides, and any type of documentation can be created and stored. Agents and Plane AI use this as the source of truth as well.

What it's good at and who it's best for

Plane brings engineering, product, and design work into one workspace. Product teams can define priorities and document requirements, designers can track deliverables and feedback, and engineers can plan work in Cycles. Marketing and operations teams can manage launch activities and incoming requests alongside those projects, with dashboards showing progress across teams.

It suits:

• Engineering, product, and design teams that need to manage product plans, specs, design work, and delivery together.
• Operations, marketing and HR teams running campaigns, requests and recurring processes.
• Agencies and service teams managing client work, with five free guests per paid seat.
• Growing companies that want every department in one workspace, including engineering teams running sprints.
• Organisations in defense, government, healthcare and finance that need project data on their own infrastructure.
• Teams leaving ClickUp, Jira, Asana, Linear, Notion or Confluence, all of which have a Plane importer.

Pricing

As of September 2026, from plane.so/pricing:

You pay for the exact number of people on the team, so 20 people cost $120 a month on Pro or $260 on Business. Each paid seat includes five free guests; the trial runs for 14 days with no credit card.

AI capabilities

Plane AI is built into every part of Plane, and each feature can be switched off.

AI agents - Assign or @mention a Plane Agent on a work item, and it picks up the task. Start from templates for standups, delivery risk, specs, triage, and customer feedback, or build your own with a playbook, a model, and a trigger. Every agent action goes into your audit trail.

AI assistant - Drafts, summarises, rewrites, and translates text in work items and Wiki pages. It also flags duplicate work items before you create them and triages Intake requests automatically.

Chat - Ask "what's blocking the mobile release?" and get an answer from live project data, in Plane or through @Plane in Slack. Describe a project, and Plane AI sets it up, work items and cycle included.

MCP server - Plane's open-source MCP server connects Claude, Cursor, VS Code, or any MCP client to your workspace, within your existing permissions.

Models and data - Bring your own OpenAI or Anthropic keys. On self-hosted and air-gapped Plane, AI runs on your infrastructure, and Plane never sees a token; per Plane's privacy policy, no customer data trains general-purpose models.

Plane vs. ClickUp

Plane Business costs $13 per person per month with AI credits included. ClickUp Business starts at $12, but adding Brain AI brings it to $21, a difference of $1,920 a year for 20 people on annual base plans. Plane also includes SAML SSO on Business; ClickUp requires an Enterprise upgrade. Requests in Plane go through intake before becoming committed work, while ClickUp forms create tasks straight away. And with Plane, you can use the cloud, host it yourself, or run it air-gapped. ClickUp is cloud only.

For the full feature-by-feature breakdown, see Plane vs ClickUp.

Moving from ClickUp

The ClickUp importer brings over Spaces, Folders, Lists, tasks, users, and comments, and maps custom fields to Plane properties. Plane's switch program covers the rest of your ClickUp contract, and the Plane vs ClickUp page walks through the differences. More than 50,000 teams already use Plane.

2. monday.com

Website - monday.com
Deployment - Cloud only. No self-hosted or air-gapped version.

What monday.com does

monday.com is a work management platform built on boards. Each board is a table of items with columns you choose, like status, owner, date, or formula. You can view it as a table, Kanban, Gantt, calendar, or dashboard, and automations move items along when a column changes. monday sells separate products on the same platform for work management, CRM, service, and software teams.

What it's good at and who it's best for

monday is a visual and quick-to-set-up platform. It suits marketing, operations, HR, and agency teams running repeatable business processes, and companies that want CRM and project boards from one vendor.

Pricing

As of September 2026, for monday Work Management:

Paid plans start at 3 seats and are sold in fixed bundles. Automations and integrations are capped at 250 actions a month on Standard and 25,000 on Pro.

AI capabilities

monday AI includes Sidekick (an assistant across your boards), AI agents, AI blocks inside columns and automations, an AI Notetaker, and monday Vibe for building small apps from a prompt. All of it draws on one monthly credit pool for the whole account. An agent run uses 10 to 250 or more credits, and the notetaker uses 120 credits per meeting hour. On Standard, 2,000 credits covers about 16 hours of meetings for the entire company before anyone runs an agent.

Where monday.com falls short

Cross-board reporting: When teams use different status labels and columns, someone has to reconcile them before building a company-wide dashboard.

Automation caps - 250 actions a month on Standard can run out within a week for a busy team.

Weak for engineering - Sprints live in monday dev, a separate product with its own pricing.

Cloud-only - Teams that must keep project data on their own servers can't use it.

monday.com vs ClickUp

monday.com is easier to pick up than ClickUp. Boards are simpler to set up than Spaces, Folders and Lists, and business teams get working faster. But it trades ClickUp's configuration work for board sprawl, capped automations and seat bundles, and it's weaker for engineering, since sprints sit in a separate product. Both are cloud-only, and both charge extra for AI in some form. monday fixes ClickUp's learning curve but not its cost or engineering gaps.

Moving from ClickUp

monday.com has no ClickUp importer. You export each List to a spreadsheet, import it as a board, then rebuild subtasks, dependencies, and automations by hand. Comments and attachments don't carry across.

3. Asana

Website - asana.com
Deployment - Cloud only. No self-hosted or air-gapped version.

What Asana does

Asana is a work tracker for teams that run projects as lists, boards, and timelines. Tasks get one owner and a due date, and each person's "My Tasks" list pulls in their work from every project. Portfolios and Goals roll many projects into one status view for managers.

What it's good at and who it's best for

Asana is easy to pick up. A marketing lead can set up a campaign project in the morning and have the team using it by lunch. It suits marketing, operations, and agency teams doing deadline-driven work, especially where leadership wants a portfolio view, and nobody needs sprints, a wiki or self-hosting.

Pricing

As of September 2026:

Seats are sold in blocks of five after the first four, so a 12-person team pays for 15. Goals and Portfolios need Advanced.

AI capabilities

Asana combines AI Studio, AI Teammates, and Asana Dash. AI Studio lets teams build workflows that check, classify, and route requests based on their content. AI Teammates take on delegated tasks and can be configured for specific responsibilities. Dash helps users identify priorities, surface issues, and take action on work that needs attention. Together, these features support both individual tasks and repeatable team workflows.

Where Asana falls short

One assignee per task - It's a deliberate design choice and one of the most requested changes from Asana users for years.

No wiki - Project briefs are the closest thing, so documentation lives in another tool.

Not built for engineering - There are no native sprints and no burndown charts, so engineering usually moves to Jira or Linear.

Noise and buried subtasks - Inboxes fill with updates, and subtasks hide inside their parent task.

Cloud only - Teams that need project data on their own infrastructure can't use it.

Asana vs ClickUp

Asana is cleaner and easier to learn than ClickUp, which is why teams tired of ClickUp's setup look at it. The trade is coverage. Asana has no wiki whereas ClickUp has Docs, no sprints, and only one assignee per task. It also costs more: Starter is $10.99 against ClickUp Unlimited at $7. It suits business teams that want simpler projects, but engineering and documentation would need other tools.

Moving from ClickUp

Asana has no direct ClickUp importer. Its help center points to CSV import: you export from ClickUp, upload to Asana, and map the columns one project at a time. Comments, attachments and task relationships have to be recreated.

4. Notion

Website - notion.com
Deployment - Cloud only. No self-hosted or air-gapped version.

What Notion does

Notion is a document editor with a database built in. Pages are made of blocks, and databases can be viewed as tables, boards, calendars, timelines or charts. Teams use it for wikis, meeting notes and specs, and many build their own task tracker from a database.

What it's good at and who it's best for

Notion's editor is its strength. Pages nest cleanly, writing is pleasant, and the template gallery is large. It suits teams whose main output is documents: handbooks, onboarding, editorial calendars, specs, with a light task list alongside.

Pricing

As of September 2026:

Since May 2025, full Notion AI comes only with Business. Custom Agents cost extra, at $10 per 1,000 credits.

AI capabilities

On Business and Enterprise, Notion AI can chat about your workspace, write and rewrite pages, autofill database properties, take meeting notes, and search connected apps. Custom Agents run recurring jobs on a schedule. Their credits come from one pool for the whole workspace, and when it runs dry, agents "pause automatically until credits reset or an admin adds more credits."

Where Notion falls short

A document-first workspace - Notion supports tasks and sprints, but teams still need to configure the databases, properties, and views that connect their work. More complex setups need ongoing maintenance and can become difficult to change when their original builder leaves.

Database upkeep: Task databases and sprints are built in, but someone still needs to maintain the properties, relations, and views as the team’s process changes.

Light on execution - There's no time tracking, no workload view, and no built-in burndown.

Limited reporting on Free: Notion’s Free plan allows one database chart. Teams that need charts across several projects need a paid plan.

Cloud-only - Teams that need docs and project data on their own servers can't use it.

Notion vs ClickUp

Notion writes better docs than ClickUp, and ClickUp manages tasks better than Notion out of the box. Teams that leave ClickUp for Notion swap a tracker that's hard to configure for one they have to build from scratch. On price, getting AI costs about the same: Notion Business at $20 a seat, against ClickUp Business Plus Brain at $21. Neither can be self-hosted. Notion fits when docs matter more than delivery.

Moving from ClickUp

Notion has no ClickUp importer. Tasks come over as a CSV that becomes a database, and ClickUp Docs are exported and imported separately as files. After that, you rebuild statuses, views, relations, and automations.

5. Wrike

Website - wrike.com
Deployment - Cloud only. No self-hosted or air-gapped version.

What Wrike does

Wrike is work management software for large organisations running many projects at once. Work sits in spaces, folders and projects, and a task can live in several folders. Wrike adds Gantt charts, request forms, proofing for creative files, resource planning and cross-project reports.

What it's good at and who it's best for

Wrike is built for PMOs and big marketing departments. A creative team can take a request, route it to a designer, get the draft proofed and approved, and report on turnaround across every campaign. It suits organisations of 50 or more people that need proofing and resource planning and have someone to administer the tool.

Pricing

As of September 2026:

Plans are billed annually, and purchases are final. Seats come in blocks of five, so a 16-person team outgrows Team and pays for 20 Business seats, which is $500 a month.

AI capabilities

AI Essentials covers writing help, comment summaries, and form generation. AI Elite adds Copilot, AI dashboard widgets, and agents, and it runs on "actions" pooled across the account. For a 100-user account, Wrike's help center lists 300 actions a month on Business, about three per person. A weekly status-report agent across 10 projects uses 160 of them, and failed actions count too.

Where Wrike falls short

Hard to learn - The learning curve is the complaint Wrike users raise most.

Busy interface - Screens feel crowded, and finding older tasks is a regular frustration.

Costly to grow - Between the 15-user cap, seat blocks, and annual-only contracts, few teams pay the price on the website.

Rationed AI - One busy agent can use most of a Business account's monthly actions.

Weak for engineering - There are no native sprints and no link to code.

Wrike vs ClickUp

Wrike goes deeper than ClickUp on proofing and resource planning, and it's just as heavy to set up and learn. It also costs a lot more: Business is $25 a user against ClickUp's $12, with stricter seat rules. Teams leaving ClickUp because it's too complex won't find relief in Wrike, but large creative operations that live in approval rounds may find it a better fit.

Moving from ClickUp

Wrike has no ClickUp importer. ClickUp Lists get exported to Excel, reshaped to Wrike's format, and imported folder by folder. Hierarchy, comments, and automations need rebuilding.

6. Jira

Website - atlassian.com/software/jira
Deployment - Cloud. Data Center closed to new customers in March 2026 and reaches end of life on 28 March 2029. The server is already retired.

What Jira does

Jira is Atlassian's issue tracker. Work is split into epics, stories, tasks, and bugs, moved through configurable workflows, and planned in Scrum sprints or on Kanban boards. JQL, Jira's query language, turns any of it into filters, boards, and dashboards.

What it's good at and who it's best for

Jira handles heavy, process-driven engineering. Teams can require fields before a ticket closes, enforce approvals and audit every change, with sprints, velocity and burndown built in. It suits large software organisations with a dedicated admin and strict process requirements.

Pricing

As of September 2026:

The per-user rate drops as seat count grows. Confluence is a separate subscription, and most teams add paid Marketplace apps.

AI capabilities

Rovo is included in every paid plan. It can chat, search, summarise issues, draft descriptions and run agents. Credits are pooled across the organisation, at 25 per user a month on Standard, 70 on Premium and 150 on Enterprise. An agent run costs 10 credits, so Standard allows two or three runs per person. Usage past the allowance is billed from 3 December 2026.

Where Jira falls short

Slow and heavy - Large projects load slowly, and people outside engineering avoid it.

Needs a dedicated admin - Workflows, schemes and permissions take real expertise to maintain.

Reporting takes JQL - Anything past the stock dashboards means learning a query language.

Docs cost extra - Confluence is a second product with its own bill.

Self-hosting is ending - Data Center reaches end of life in 2029.

Jira vs ClickUp

Jira offers deeper sprint planning and more configurable issue workflows than ClickUp, but switching to it can preserve the configuration burden teams wanted to escape. Workflows, permission schemes, and shared settings need ongoing administration, while advanced searches and filters can require JQL. A dedicated knowledge base typically means adding Confluence. Teams outside engineering may also need tailored workflows and training, so Jira can leave a company managing several tools rather than simplifying how everyone works.

Moving from ClickUp

Jira Cloud has a native ClickUp importer. It brings over tasks, subtasks, statuses, custom fields and, optionally, comments and attachments. Each run handles up to 10 Lists into a new space, and users must be invited to Jira before the import.

7. Linear

Website - linear.app
Deployment - Cloud only. No self-hosted or air-gapped version.

What Linear does

Linear is an issue tracker for software teams. Issues are grouped into cycles and projects, with a roadmap on top and a keyboard shortcut for almost everything. The workflow is opinionated: Linear sets the defaults and expects you to follow them.

What it's good at and who it's best for

Linear is quick to use day to day. Creating, assigning, and moving issues takes a few keystrokes, and GitHub and GitLab close issues when code merges. It suits startup and scale-up product teams that want little setup.

Pricing

As of September 2026:

Guests are billed as full members, and heavier AI runs on prepaid credits on top of the seat price.

AI capabilities

Linear Agent works on every plan. It creates and updates issues from chat or an @mention, and it answers questions about the workspace. Business adds Triage Intelligence, Code Intelligence and Loops for scheduled agent runs. Extra features need credits you buy separately.

Where Linear falls short

Limited fit beyond software delivery - Teams with workflows that differ from engineering work and product development may find Linear’s structure too rigid.

Hard to reshape - Workflows and fields barely bend for compliance steps or approvals.

Light docs - There are project docs, but no full wiki.

No time tracking - Reporting past cycle progress is weak. thin.

Cloud only - Teams that need self-hosting can't use it.

Linear vs ClickUp

Linear is faster and simpler than ClickUp for engineers, with far less to configure. It gives up most of what ClickUp covers for the rest of the company: no wiki, no time tracking, and little room for non-engineering workflows. It has no ClickUp importer either. It works when engineering is the only team moving.

Moving from ClickUp

Linear has no ClickUp importer. The usual route is a CSV export plus a script against Linear's API or a migration service, and some custom field data gets dropped or folded into labels.

8. Zoho Projects

Website - zoho.com/projects
Deployment - Cloud only, in Zoho's own data centres. No self-hosted or air-gapped version.

What Zoho Projects does

Zoho Projects is a traditional project tool from the Zoho suite. You plan with task lists, milestones and dependencies on a Gantt chart, log time against tasks and track bugs. It connects to Zoho CRM, Books and Desk, so a won deal can become a project and logged hours can become an invoice.

What it's good at and who it's best for

It bundles Gantt, timesheets, budgets and a bug tracker at a low per-seat price. It suits small and mid-sized businesses already on Zoho, and consulting firms that bill by the hour.

Pricing

As of September 2026:

Some customers report large increases at renewal and auto-renewals that are hard to cancel.

AI capabilities

Zia, on Premium and above, summarises tasks and issues, translates, creates tasks from a description and answers questions through Ask Zia. The Free plan gets Zoho's MCP server. Zoho also offers a separate Zia Agents platform; its capabilities should not be assumed to be included in Zoho Projects.

Where Zoho Projects falls short

Dated interface - Dense screens take new users a while to learn.

Best inside Zoho - Integrations outside the Zoho suite are thinner.

Light for software teams - Sprints and code links are basic.

Renewal friction - Customers report price jumps and slow support.

Cloud only - Teams that need self-hosting are out.

Limited built-in agent capabilities - Zia’s documented features in Zoho Projects focus on assistance such as summarising work, creating tasks, and answering questions. Teams looking for agents to manage multi-step project workflows should check what is supported within Projects and what requires additional Zoho tools.

Zoho Projects vs ClickUp

Zoho Projects costs less than ClickUp, at $4 against $7, and its time tracking and billing are stronger if you already run on Zoho. ClickUp has the more modern interface and wider integrations outside Zoho's suite. Both are cloud-only, and neither is strong for engineering. Zoho has no ClickUp importer, so the move means spreadsheets.

Moving from ClickUp

ClickUp isn't on Zoho's list of migration sources. The workable path is a spreadsheet export imported as XLSX, and Zoho's team can help with larger moves.

9. Trello

Website - trello.com
Deployment - Cloud only. No self-hosted or air-gapped version.

What Trello does

Trello is Atlassian's Kanban board tool. Cards sit in lists on a board, and you drag them across columns and add checklists, dates, and attachments. Power-Ups add integrations and other functionality. Butler, Trello’s built-in automation tool, uses rules, buttons, and scheduled commands to handle actions such as moving cards and setting due dates.

What it's good at and who it's best for

Trello suits small teams and freelancers managing straightforward workflows, such as a content queue or a hiring board. Its card-and-list structure works for basic task tracking, but projects with dependencies, detailed reporting, or coordination across teams need additional tools or workarounds.

Pricing

As of September 2026:

Free allows 10 boards per workspace and 250 automation runs a month. Timeline, Table and Dashboard views need Premium.

AI capabilities

From Standard up, Trello's AI summarises cards, suggests checklists and due dates, merges duplicate cards, and generates boards from a description. It works one card or board at a time, and it has no agents and no questions across boards.

Where Trello falls short

Outgrown quickly - Subtasks, dependencies, sprints, and reporting all need workarounds.

Board-only on cheaper plans - Other views need Premium.

Weak reporting - Workload and progress are hard to see.

No docs - Card descriptions are the only place for written context.

Cloud only - There's no self-hosted option.

Trello vs ClickUp

Trello can suit teams leaving ClickUp because they only need a basic Kanban board. The trade-off is less support for complex projects: documentation, sprint planning, dependencies, and detailed reporting require other tools or workarounds. It is a narrower replacement for teams reducing their requirements, rather than a direct substitute for ClickUp’s broader feature set.

Moving from ClickUp

Trello has no ClickUp importer. Data comes in through a CSV Power-Up or a migration service, and custom fields, subtasks, and dependencies flatten or get left behind.

10. OpenProject

Website - openproject.org
Deployment - Cloud or on-premises. The Community Edition is open source and free to self-host.

What OpenProject does

OpenProject is an open-source project tool from Germany. Work packages are planned on Gantt charts and agile boards, with time and cost tracking, a wiki, meeting minutes, and budgets included. You can run it on your own servers or in OpenProject's cloud.

What it's good at and who it's best for

It covers classic, schedule-driven project management on your own infrastructure. It suits European public-sector bodies, universities and firms that self-host for data-sovereignty reasons.

Pricing

As of September 2026, prices in euros:

Basic and Professional start at 25 users, Premium at 100, and Corporate at 250. A ten-person team on Basic would pay for 25 seats, or €148.75 per month at the listed rate.

AI capabilities

OpenProject has no built-in AI assistant. An MCP server, an Enterprise add-on on Professional and above, lets your own AI assistant read and, since version 17.8 in September 2026, create and update work packages. Summaries, drafting and agents all happen in your own AI tool.

Where OpenProject falls short

Dated interface - Simple actions take more clicks than expected.

Paywalled features - Much of what larger teams need sits in paid add-ons with a 25-user minimum.

Self-hosting is on you - Installs, upgrades, and backups take admin time.

AI costs twice - You pay for Professional, then for your own AI assistant.

Waterfall first - Sprints and developer workflows are lighter than the Gantt side.

OpenProject vs ClickUp

OpenProject does what ClickUp can't: it runs on your own servers, and its code is open. It gives up a lot to do so. There's no built-in AI, the interface is older and denser, paid editions start at 25 users, and there's no ClickUp importer. It fits teams whose main reason for leaving ClickUp is data control, and who can live without built-in AI.

Moving from ClickUp

OpenProject has no ClickUp importer. Work comes over through a spreadsheet import, the API or a migration partner, and on self-hosted installs, your own team runs it.

11. Airtable

Website - airtable.com
Deployment - Cloud only. No self-hosted or air-gapped version.

What Airtable does

Airtable is a spreadsheet-database hybrid. Bases hold tables with typed fields and links between them, viewed as grids, boards, calendars, galleries, or timelines. Interfaces turn a base into a simple app, and automations act when records change.

What it's good at and who it's best for

Airtable is flexible. An ops team can link inventory, vendors, and orders, build an interface for the warehouse, and trigger an email when stock runs low. It suits operations, content, and marketing-ops teams that need a structured database more than a project tracker.

Pricing

As of September 2026:

Every user who can edit a base is a billable seat, and portals for external users start at $120 a month.

AI capabilities

Airtable AI works in AI fields, record by record: it summarises, categorises, translates or drafts. Omni builds bases and interfaces from a prompt, and AI steps can run inside automations. Credits come per seat, at 15,000 on Team and 20,000 on Business, and AI fields across thousands of records use them quickly.

Where Airtable falls short

Expensive per seat - $20 to $45 per editor adds up fast.

Record limits - Bases cap at 50,000 records on Team and 125,000 on Business.

Cloud-only - It's ruled out wherever data must stay on company servers.

Limited history: Team keeps one year of record revisions, and that history cannot be exported.

Airtable vs ClickUp

Airtable is a better database than ClickUp, and ClickUp is a better project tool than Airtable. Airtable also costs more, at $20 a seat against ClickUp Unlimited at $7, and it caps records per base. Teams leaving ClickUp for Airtable usually do it because their "projects" are really structured records like inventory or vendors, not because they want better project management.

Moving from ClickUp

Airtable has no ClickUp importer, but it takes CSV files natively, so each List becomes a table in minutes. The hierarchy flattens, and subtasks, comments, and automations need rebuilding.

Everything you need to ask when evaluating alternatives

Pick two or three tools and put real projects into each one. An engineering project and a business project will expose different gaps. Give the people who own those projects two weeks to work in the tools, then compare what happened.

Can we work the way we need to?

• Recreate your statuses, custom fields, dependencies, recurring tasks, and approval steps. Which parts need a workaround?
• Build the views and reports your team uses now. Check whether a project lead can see work across several projects without maintaining a separate spreadsheet.
• Test permissions with an employee and an external collaborator. Can each person see and change only what they should?
• Open your largest imported project, search for an old task, and load a cross-project report. See how the tool performs with your data.

What survives the migration?

• Import a project that has comments, attachments, custom fields, assignees, dates, and task relationships. Check each one after the import finishes.
• Ask what must be rebuilt by hand and whether links to old work will still be useful.
• Try exporting the project again. If you rely on custom reports or integrations, check that the API gives you access to the fields behind them.

Is it compatible with our tools stack?

• Connect the code host, chat tool, identity provider, and reporting tools your team uses. Test an everyday action in each integration.
• Set up one automation using your own fields and statuses. Check its triggers, available actions, and what you see when it fails.
• If your team builds integrations, review API authentication, webhooks, and rate limits. Have someone build a small working example.

What happens when we use the AI?

• Give it work from the pilot: answer a question about a project, draft a spec, or complete a task assigned to an agent. Review the result as you would a teammate’s work.
• Check which data it can access and whether it respects project permissions.
• Look at usage after the test. Find out whether credits belong to each seat or come from a shared pool, what happens when they run out, and what extra usage costs.
• If you plan to self-host, confirm which AI features are available in that setup.

Can we get it approved and pay for it?

• Bring security in during the first week. Have them check SSO, SCIM, audit logs, data location, retention, certifications, and contract terms.
• Confirm whether the tool can run on your own servers or in an air-gapped network if your policy requires it. Ask which features differ by deployment.
• Price a three-year term using your current headcount and hiring plan. Include seat blocks, minimums, AI charges, and any higher plan needed for the features you tested.
• Ask how adding or removing seats works during a contract and what could change at renewal.

When the pilot ends, ask the people who used each tool which one they would open for their next project. Get specific about why: a view they could build, a report they could trust, or a routine task that took too much effort.

Try Plane with your own ClickUp data

You can see the difference faster than you can read about it. Sign up for Plane's Free plan, which covers up to 12 users with AI included and needs no credit card, then run the ClickUp importer on one active project. Plane says most teams finish a first dry run in under three hours, so your team can compare the two tools on real work the same week.

If a ClickUp contract is the only thing holding you back, the switch program covers what's left on it. If your data has to stay on your own servers, talk to Plane's team about self-hosted or air-gapped deployment.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the best ClickUp alternative in 2026?

The best fit depends on why you’re leaving ClickUp. Plane is worth considering if you want engineering, product, design, and business teams to share projects and documentation, or if you need self-hosted deployment. Linear suits software teams that prefer a focused issue tracker, while Jira suits teams that need detailed workflow configuration and established agile reporting. For simpler business project tracking, Asana or monday.com may be a better fit.

Is Plane cheaper than ClickUp?

Yes, once you add AI. ClickUp Business with Brain costs $21 per seat per month. Plane Business costs $13 with AI credits included, and Plane Pro costs $6.

Is there a free ClickUp alternative?

Plane's Free plan covers up to 12 users and includes 500 AI credits per seat. Trello, Jira and Zoho Projects also have free plans, capped at 10 collaborators, 10 users, and 5 users with 3 projects. OpenProject's Community Edition is free if you host it yourself.

Which ClickUp alternative can I self-host?

Plane and OpenProject. Plane runs self-hosted, air-gapped or as open source, with the same AI as Plane Cloud. OpenProject self-hosts without built-in AI. Jira Data Center is closed to new customers and reaches end of life in 2029.

Which ClickUp alternative is best for engineering teams?

Plane, Linear, and Jira suit different engineering needs. Plane is a strong option when engineers need to coordinate delivery with product and design while keeping project documentation in the same workspace. Linear suits teams that prefer a focused issue tracker with minimal setup. Jira suits teams that need extensively configurable workflows and detailed agile reporting.

Does Plane have AI agents?

Yes. Plane Agents are generally available on the cloud. Assign or @mention an agent on a work item, and it picks up the task. You can start from templates or build your own. Plane also has an AI assistant, a chat that answers questions from live project data, and an open-source MCP server.

Can I bring my ClickUp data into Plane?

Yes. The ClickUp importer brings over Spaces, Folders, Lists, tasks, users, and comments, and maps custom fields to Plane properties.