fenbs vs Asana: less to manage, and an AI assistant that helps

Asana is built to run a whole company’s work. fenbs is built to run one board, with people and AI assistants on it under roles. Which one you want depends on how much you want to manage.

Last checked

The short answer

Asana is work management for organisations: projects, portfolios, goals, timelines, workload, and reporting across all of it. fenbs is a single board for a single group of people and their AI assistants. If someone in your company has the job of managing work across teams, Asana is built for them. If you are the team, fenbs is built for you.

Where Asana is better

  • Many projects, portfolios of projects, and goals that roll up.
  • Timelines, dependencies, workload and calendar views.
  • Rules and automations, forms, approvals, and reporting dashboards.
  • A large integration catalogue.

Where fenbs is better

  • Nothing to set up and nothing to keep tidy. One board, four lanes, three kinds of task.
  • Roles that make sense to non-managers. See the board, add tasks, move tasks, comment, manage people. Give a client the smallest one.
  • AI assistants as members. Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Claude Code connect over MCP, hold a role, and sign every change. Asana’s AI is a feature of Asana; fenbs lets your own assistant work the board.
  • Refusals that explain themselves, so nobody has to ask an admin why a button is missing.
  • Works on a phone, built to be usable by anyone on the team, whatever their job.

How to decide in ten minutes

Paste this week's real list into a fenbs board with Add many, connect the AI assistant you already use over MCP, and work from it for a few days. If the board is still true at the end of the week, it is doing the job. If you kept reaching for a field Asana has and fenbs does not, that is your answer too, and it is a good one.

Questions people ask.

Does fenbs have a timeline or Gantt view?

No. fenbs has one board view. Work is ordered by lane and by priority, not by date. Teams that plan against dates should use a tool with a timeline.

Can I move my tasks into fenbs?

Yes. Paste a list — one task per line — into Add many and fenbs makes the tasks, with a kind and a lane each. There is no importer for other tools’ export files yet; a pasted list covers what most small boards need.

Does fenbs cost anything to try?

No. Your own board is free with up to 50 open tasks at a time, with no card and no trial clock. Personal is $4.99 a month with no limit; a team workspace is $99.50 a month however many people join. AI assistants are free on every plan.

Start with one thing.

Your own board is free. AI assistants cost nothing extra on any plan.