Where you plan projects, and where work arrives as messages.
Asana is where teams plan and track the structured projects they set up on purpose: timelines, dependencies, custom fields, portfolios. this+that turns the messages your team already gets across Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Teams, and Google Chat into tracked, assignable tasks, then runs the follow-through. Different jobs. Plenty of teams run both.
Structured project management, or the inbox-to-task flow
Asana is a deep, mature work management platform, and it earns that reputation. Projects with sections, subtasks, and dependencies. List, board, timeline, calendar, and Gantt views. Custom fields, rules and automation, portfolios, goals, and reporting that scales to large organizations. If your team plans deliberate, structured projects and needs to track them with that kind of depth, Asana is hard to beat. this+that is built for a different problem: the work buried in your messages. It treats Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Teams, and Google Chat as one stream of incoming work, extracts the requests, commitments, and deadlines inside those messages, turns them into assignable team tasks in DoBox, and runs workflows that handle what comes next. DoBox is deliberately lighter than Asana on project structure: tasks are open or resolved, with no custom fields, dependencies, timelines, or portfolios. The point is not to replace Asana’s planning depth. The point is that the work nobody set up as a project, the asks that land in chat and email all day, gets captured and assigned instead of lost. If your team lives in both worlds, the two fit together: Asana for the plan, this+that for the inbox-to-task flow, and a workflow that can write to Asana over MCP when you want them connected.
Feature by feature
How the two products compare across the things that matter most.
| Topic | Asana | this+that |
|---|---|---|
| Core use case | Plan and track structured projects you set up deliberately: campaigns, launches, roadmaps, recurring processes. | Turn the messages your team already gets into tracked, assignable tasks, and automate the follow-through. |
| Where tasks come from | You create them: tasks, subtasks, and projects entered by hand, imported, or generated from forms and rules. | Auto-created from incoming messages across every channel, or added manually. The inbox is the source of the work. |
| Project structure | Deep. Projects, sections, subtasks, and dependencies, with custom fields and templates. Best-in-class for structured planning. | Lighter by design. Shared lists with priorities, due dates, labels, checklists, and comments. Status is open or resolved. |
| Views | List, board, timeline, calendar, and Gantt. Timeline and Gantt on paid plans. | Shared task lists in DoBox. No board, timeline, or Gantt views. |
| Custom fields & dependencies | Unlimited custom fields across 17 types, plus task dependencies. A core strength. | Not available. No custom fields, no dependencies, no portfolios or goals tracking. |
| Assignment | Single owner per task, with collaborators. Workload and capacity views on Advanced. | Assign teammates to any task; add, remove, or reassign. Multiple participants, due dates, and priorities, in a shared view. |
| Channels & inbox | Not a messaging client. Integrates with email and Slack to create or update tasks from them. | A universal inbox across Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Teams, and Google Chat. Telegram too; Instagram and others coming. |
| Automation | Rules and Workflow Builder: if/then triggers on field changes, due dates, form submissions, and task moves. Capable and mature. | Plain-language workflows triggered by your messages: 32 action types, conditional logic, loops, sub-agents, and AI decisions. |
| Integrations | A large integration catalog: Slack, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, and hundreds more. | Open MCP. Connect HubSpot, GitHub, Jira, Notion, or any MCP-compatible tool as a workflow step, including an Asana MCP integration. |
| Knowledge layer | Project briefs, docs, and goals live inside projects and portfolios. | The Brain: a knowledge layer with version history that grounds the AI. Auto-update from your messages is coming, not live yet. |
| Reporting | Dashboards, portfolios, goals, and advanced reporting on Advanced and above. Built for scale. | Not a reporting product. DoBox is a working task surface, not a portfolio dashboard. |
| Security | SOC 2, ISO 27001, and enterprise controls on higher tiers. | AWS Bedrock for inference (data stays in AWS, not used to train), AWS-managed encryption, SOC 2 in progress. |
| Pricing | Free Personal for up to 2 users; Starter $10.99/user/mo and Advanced $24.99/user/mo (billed annually); Enterprise custom. | Free during beta. $20/user/mo for teams at launch ($17 annual). |
- Project structure runs deep. Projects, sections, subtasks, and dependencies that this+that does not try to match.
- You can see the same work as a list, a board, a timeline, a calendar, or a Gantt chart, whichever fits the moment.
- Custom fields are unlimited across 17 types, so a task can carry stage, cost, priority, or whatever your process needs.
- Portfolios roll many projects into one view, and goals track progress against objectives over time.
- Reporting and dashboards are built to scale to large teams and complex programs.
- The rules engine and Workflow Builder handle mature if/then automation inside structured projects.
- And it is a settled product: a huge integration catalog, with SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certifications today.
- Tasks come from your messages. DoBox reads Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Teams, and Google Chat and turns requests and commitments into tracked work on its own.
- Nobody has to set up a project first. The work shows up automatically, so the ask buried in a Friday email still gets captured.
- The home base is a universal inbox, not a separate planning tool you have to switch into.
- Workflows are triggered by the messages themselves: plain-language automations with 32 action types, conditional logic, loops, and sub-agents that run on their own.
- When you do want the two connected, a workflow can create or update Asana tasks over MCP.
- It is built for a team to share: assign, reassign, and pass lists around, with priorities, due dates, labels, and checklists.
See what's hiding in your messages
Connect your inbox and get a free analysis of the tasks, follow-ups, and open commitments this+that would surface across your channels.
Free during beta · No credit card required