Shiplist vs Trello
Boards show you where things are. Checklists tell you how close you are to done.
Trello pioneered visual Kanban boards and millions of teams use it every day. It's genuinely great for workflows with defined stages. But if you want to know how close your project is to finished — not just where each card lives — it starts to fall short.
Trello is worth it if…
- your team works in defined stages — Design → Dev → QA → Done
- you want a visual board that everyone gets immediately
- you're solo and the free tier covers what you need
- tracking status matters more to you than measuring completion
Shiplist makes more sense if…
- you want to see how done your project actually is, not just where each card sits
- you want a public project page to build in public
- you're tired of paying per-user as your team grows
- you want to start in seconds without setting up columns first
See the difference
A side-by-side comparison of what you get
Shiplist
Trello
Core model
Checklist with real % progress
Kanban board
Completable projects
Projects have a finish line
Boards just accumulate cards
Progress tracking
Real % completion
Manual — you count the cards
Public project pages
Built-in
Needs a Power-Up
Pricing (team of 5)
$12/mo flat
$25/mo ($5/user)
Setup time
Seconds
10-30 min
Extra add-ons needed
No
Yes — most features cost extra
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