Comparison

Linetrack vs.
Trello

Trello is a Kanban board on which teams organise their tasks as cards. For that job it is quick to set up and easy to understand. This comparison shows which planning level Trello works on, why a project in mechanical and plant engineering needs more than a well-kept task list, and how Linetrack connects task tracking with project and department planning.

Linetrack compared with Trello: project control with a schedule and capacities instead of a Kanban board

In short

Trello and Linetrack work on different levels. Trello organises team tasks: cards on boards, with assignees and due dates, simple and quick to introduce. A mechanical engineering project, however, is not controlled through individual tasks. It needs dependencies such as design before production before assembly, a schedule with a critical path and the load on every department across all projects. Trello does not represent that. Linetrack connects project planning, department planning and task tracking on one data basis, and every status update refreshes the plan. If you need a system for complex projects that replaces the isolated tools between these levels, Linetrack is the better fit.

400+

Excel spreadsheets and
planning tools replaced

56 %

already had a PM system
and switched anyway

59 %

named manual status chasing
as a starting problem

10 days

from kick-off
to go-live

Every figure on this page comes from a full survey of all live Linetrack implementations, as of August 2026. Multiple answers were possible for the starting problems.

Starting point

What Trello was built for

Trello is a visual Kanban board for teams. A board stands for an undertaking or an area of work, and the lists on it for work steps, such as To do, Doing and Done. Every task is a card with assignees, a due date, checklists and comments. Cards move from list to list, and everyone on the team can see who is working on what. Anything missing can be added through Power-Ups. No lengthy onboarding is needed, and costs stay low.

The planning object in Trello is the task. Its date sits on the card and not on a chain of tasks. Whether the department actually has time that week is not a question the board asks. For a team sorting its own work, it does not have to. How task management tools differ from other system categories is covered in the software comparison.

Planning levels

Which level Trello works on

Planning in mechanical and plant engineering happens on three levels. Project management sets the schedule and resource demand, department heads plan their area in detail and assign staff, and staff work through their tasks and report back. In the end, staff scheduling is nothing more than person, task and due date. That is where Trello lives, in task tracking, and it does that job well.

The problem lies between the levels. Today each one has its own tool, and those tools do not exchange data. The schedule in MS Project does not know that the engineering department's Excel sheet is already full for March. The Trello board knows about neither. A tool that covers only one level cannot close that gap, however good it is at that level. Linetrack puts all three levels on one data basis: project management plans at a high level, department heads plan in detail down to individual staff, and status updates arrive directly on the task. The wider context is described on the multi-project management page.

Sales and project management
Project planning and resource forecast
A schedule across the project duration and a forecast of which department needs how many hours, and when.
Typically used:
- MS Project
- Primavera P6
- Excel
Cost side:
- ERP project module
The forecast goes to the departments as resource demand.
Department heads
Detailed and staff scheduling
Each department plans its share in detail and assigns staff a few weeks before the work starts.
Typically used:
- Detailed scheduling system
- Excel sheets
Staff scheduling becomes the task: person, activity, due date.
Staff
Task tracking
Work through the tasks and report back. The feedback turns the planned status into an actual status.
Typically used:
- Trello (this comparison)
- Asana
- Monday.com
- Stackfield
- Microsoft To Do
The actual status goes back into project control: plan vs. actual, scenarios, rescheduling.

Linetrack connects all three levels on one data basis

The forecast lands directly in department planning
Staff scheduling creates the tasks
Feedback via the app updates the plan
Plan vs. actual and scenarios in project control

Today each level often works in its own system, reconciled by email, meetings and Excel sheets.

Breaking point

Where the board reaches its limit

Trello's limit is not task management. It is the point where many tasks turn into a project with a chain of dates and departments shared across projects.

None of this is a flaw in Trello. The tool is built for team tasks and does that job. Twenty parallel orders that all need the same designers and fitters call for a different structure: tasks with dependencies and capacity across all projects. How the two fit together is described on the scheduling and capacity planning page.

Cards know no chain of dates. That assembly can only start once production and bought-in parts are done can only be represented in Trello through third-party Power-Ups. What you usually get is a visual link. If production slips, the due dates on the follow-on cards stay where they were.
Load visibility ends at the edge of the board. Trello has no capacity or workload view across multiple boards. Whether an electrical designer is booked on three projects at once only becomes apparent when the first cards stall.
A timeline is not yet a schedule. The timeline view is available from the Premium plan and shows cards without dependencies. Without dependencies there is no critical path either, from which project management could read which delay puts the delivery date at risk.
The board collects tasks. What needs doing is on the cards. Whoever spreads the work across weeks and people and checks whether it fits with the other projects does so outside Trello, usually in Excel or in a meeting.
The project data sits in the ERP. Orders, project numbers and hour budgets are in the ERP. Trello has no native integration; the route goes through third-party middleware. The status on the board and the status in the ERP are therefore maintained separately.

Core argument

Trello collects tasks, Linetrack controls projects

Agile tools such as Trello, Asana, Monday or Stackfield are built for task management. They answer the question of who does what by when, and they do it with little effort. For a team that wants to make its work visible, that is the right approach.

A mechanical engineering project consists of tasks, but it is controlled through chains of dates and shared capacity. A task management tool does not represent that structure, because at its core it collects tasks. For managing mechanical engineering projects it is therefore not suitable.

The test: ask whether engineering is overbooked in March across all projects. A board cannot answer that, even with carefully maintained due dates. The answer only exists once every task hangs on a scheduled task with a department and all projects sit on the same data basis.

Collecting tasks happens in Linetrack too, on the lowest level. Staff report their status directly on the task, on the desktop or in the mobile app. That turns the planned status into an actual status, to which project management responds with plan-vs-actual comparison and scenarios. If you need a system for complex projects, you need this connection, and a tool for a single level does not provide it. How the pieces work together is described on the collaborative project management page.

Side by side

Trello
versus Linetrack

Seven points that show what each system is built for. Trello stands for the task level, Linetrack for connecting all three levels.

On simplicity, Trello is ahead. A board is set up quickly, and nobody needs task relationships for a plain task list. The remaining rows show what a project involving several departments needs on top. How the bar chart in Linetrack is built is shown on the Gantt planning page. Trello information as of our own research on Trello's product pages, August 2026. Trello develops its features continuously; the current state is on trello.com.

Aspect	Trello
Planning object	Card on a board, with assignees and a due date	Task with date, duration and dependencies
Planning levels covered	Task tracking within a team	Project planning, detailed department planning and task tracking on one data basis
Dependencies	Only via third-party Power-Ups, usually without automatic shifting of follow-on dates	Task relationships with critical path, shifts ripple through the chain
Capacity across projects	No native workload view across multiple boards	Capacity histogram directly below the bar chart, across projects
Cross-project view	Cross-board table and timeline from Premium, without dependencies	All projects on one shared data basis, with baselines and plan-vs-actual comparison
Status updates from staff	Card moves to the next list, a schedule outside Trello stays unchanged	Task tracking on the task itself via desktop and mobile app, the actual status lands in the project plan
ERP integration	Not native, only via third-party middleware	Integrations with SAP, proALPHA and AP+, among others

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Honest boundaries

When Trello stays the right choice

Not every team needs project control. Four cases in which Trello is enough:

Tasks without a chain of dates. If the tasks are largely independent of each other, for example in administration or internal improvement topics, scheduling logic with dependencies adds nothing. A board will do.
A team without shared staff. If a team works on its own and does not share its people with other projects, the question of load across projects does not arise. The point then is mainly that everyone can see who is working on what.
Small undertakings with a short duration. For preparing a trade fair or moving a department, with few people involved and a few weeks of duration, a board is clear enough.
Starting this week, without an implementation project. If a shared task list needs to be up and running immediately and there are no requirements for scheduling or ERP integration, Trello is introduced with little effort and at low cost.

Scheduling and resource planning in Linetrack with bar chart and capacity histogram across all projects

The case where Linetrack makes the difference: several parallel projects, departments that share staff, and dates that depend on each other. At that point a tool for one level is no longer enough, because the connection between project plan, department planning and status updates is missing. Linetrack creates that connection and replaces the isolated tools on all three levels. How that looks in mechanical and plant engineering is described on the industry page.

Migration

How tasks come about in Linetrack

A Trello board contains tasks but no schedule. The move therefore starts with the schedules that usually already exist in the company. Import from Excel, MS Project, Primavera and SAP is a standard feature, so existing plans are read in instead of being typed up again. Staff tasks then follow from the detailed planning of the departments.

Department heads plan their area in detail and assign tasks to individual people with a due date. That is the same information that sits on a Trello card today, except that it now hangs on the project plan. Staff see their tasks on the desktop or on the move and report their status there. What that looks like on a smartphone is shown on the mobile app page.

Work breakdown structure in Linetrack with work packages, tasks and responsible departments

Every status update changes the actual status in the plan. Project management sees deviations from the baseline and can simulate scenarios before rescheduling. Linetrack does not reschedule automatically; people make the decisions. It takes ten working days from kick-off to go-live. The process is described on the implementation page.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Still have questions?

Book a meeting with our team.

What is the difference between Trello and Linetrack?

Trello is a Kanban board for task management within a team: cards with assignees and due dates, sorted into lists on boards. Linetrack is a system for multi-project management in mechanical and plant engineering. It connects project planning with task relationships and a critical path, the detailed planning of the departments and the task tracking of staff on one shared data basis. The wider context is described on the multi-project management page.

Is Trello suitable for project management in mechanical and plant engineering?

For organising the tasks of individual teams, yes. For controlling mechanical engineering projects, it lacks native dependencies with date shifting, a workload view across multiple boards and ERP integration. Such projects depend on chains of dates and on departments working for many projects at once. A tool that collects tasks does not represent that.

Can Trello represent dependencies between tasks?

Not natively. Dependencies can be added through third-party Power-Ups, usually as a visual link without automatic shifting of follow-on dates. In Linetrack, task relationships are part of scheduling, with a critical path. If a task shifts, the shift ripples through the chain of successors. How the bar chart is built is shown on the Gantt planning page.

How does task tracking work in Linetrack?

Staff see the tasks assigned to them in detailed planning and report their status directly on the task, on the desktop or in the mobile app. The update changes the actual status in the project plan. Project management compares it with the baseline and simulates scenarios when deviations occur. Linetrack does not reschedule automatically; people make the decisions. What that looks like is shown in the plan-vs-actual comparison.

How does the move from Trello to Linetrack work?

A Trello board usually contains no schedule, so the move starts with the existing schedules. The standard import reads in plans from Excel, MS Project, Primavera and SAP. Staff tasks then follow from the detailed planning of the departments. It takes ten working days from kick-off to go-live. The process is described on the implementation page.

What does Linetrack cost compared with Trello?

Linetrack does not comment on Trello's pricing. For Linetrack: from 10 € per user per month, modular by number of users, roles and booked feature modules. Suppliers receive a free collaboration licence, and testing before the decision is free of charge. The data is hosted in ISO 27001 certified data centres in Germany. For a figure that fits your setup, get in contact.