Octoboard vs Asana
Asana works for marketing teams. Octoboard is built for engineers who ship on GitHub.
Side-by-side comparison
| Feature | Octoboard | Asana |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free forever | $10.99/user/month (Starter) |
| Setup time | 5 minutes | Hours (projects, custom fields, rules) |
| GitHub native | Yes — reads Issues, PRs, Actions | Basic GitHub integration only |
| Context switching | None — works with GitHub | Separate tool from code |
| DORA metrics | Built in | Not available |
| AI insights | Built in (BYO key) | Asana Intelligence (paid plans) |
| Kanban boards | GitHub-synced | Manual boards |
Why engineering teams switch from Asana
Built for marketing, not engineering
Asana is designed for cross-functional teams managing campaigns, launches, and operations. It has no concept of pull requests, code reviews, CI/CD pipelines, or deployment cycles. Engineering teams need purpose-built tooling.
Expensive at scale
Asana's Starter plan is $10.99/user/month. Advanced is $24.99. A 20-person engineering team pays $2,640-$6,000/year for a tool that doesn't understand their workflow. Octoboard is free for unlimited users.
No GitHub-native metrics
Asana tracks tasks and deadlines but can't tell you about PR cycle time, deployment frequency, stale issues, or unassigned work. Octoboard surfaces these metrics automatically from your GitHub data.
GitHub integration is shallow
Asana's GitHub integration creates tasks from PRs or links PRs to tasks, but it doesn't sync issue status, show Actions runs, or provide a unified view of your GitHub projects. Octoboard reads everything natively.
Get started in 3 steps
Connect GitHub — Sign in with GitHub OAuth and select your organization.
Auto-sync your data — Octoboard pulls Issues, PRs, Actions, and milestones automatically.
See everything — Dashboards, DORA metrics, AI summaries, risk detection, and kanban boards are ready instantly.