Cascade vs Asana

Asana

Is best for

Managing day-to-day tasks, projects, and operational workflows across teams
Marketing, product, and engineering teams coordinating project-level work
Organizations automating repetitive processes with AI-assisted workflows

Cascade

Is best for

Translating strategic plans into cascading goals and initiatives
Aligning the entire organization to strategy and priorities
Tracking organizational performance against strategic objectives
Executive visibility into strategy execution and progress

We firmly believe in the 'the right tool for the right job'. Sometimes Cascade won't be the best solution for you - we'll be straight-forward and clear about that on our website, and when you talk with our team. Information on this page is from public data sources only.

Cascade

Asana

Strategic Planning

Supports corporate, functional and team plans

No multi-tier strategic planning model

Business Objects

Supports objectives, portfolios, projects, KPIs & custom types

Suports only tasks, projects and goals

Strategy Frameworks

Supports all frameworks including OKRs, Balanced Scorecards & custom

OKR-style Goals only

Metrics Library

Centralized metric library with real-time integrations for all common data sources

No centralized metrics library; data tracked per project or goal, not unified

Reports

Build reports for strategy, projects, portfolios, KPIs and risks

Reporting limited to projects and portfolios

AI Powered Strategy Insights

Tapestry AI: strategy summaries, risk analysis & action plans based on your company data

AI Studio automates workflows; not designed for strategic decision intelligence

Intended Users

All leaders in the organization involved with strategy

Project managers, team leads, and operational teams

Task Management

Simple with support for owners, due dates etc

Detailed task management with dependencies, subtasks, and automation rules

Alignment & Relationships

Visual alignment across plans and objectives — horizontal and vertical

No cross-functional strategic alignment mapping; dependencies at project level only

Highly Customizable Strategy Cadences

Automated cadences with team notifications and scheduled reports

No strategy cadence tooling

Workflows

Simple workflows around statuses of objects

Advanced workflow automation

Likely Cost

Medium

FAQs & More Resources

Can I use Cascade instead of PPM software?

Yes you can - Cascade is used by many organizations as a 'light-weight' PPM solution that integrates strategy and portfolio management.

What are the main features of traditional PPM that I might miss in Cascade?

Cascade's time tracking and budgeting features are not as extensive as a dedicated PPM. Other parts of the platform are comparable or in many cases significantly better.

What are the main benefits of Cascade vs PPM software?

PPM software tends to be complex, unintuitive and disconnected from the rest of the business. Cascade deeply integrates the concepts of PPM into the entire business.

What are the cost differences between Cascade and PPM software?

Cascade tends to be much more affordable than PPM software, and provide a lot more licenses for similar investment - due to the Cascade's focus on broad business alignment and adoption.

Differences: Strategy vs PPM Software

Take a deeper dive into the differences between these two types of software and how they're used for strategy execution

Aligning PMO to the Goals of the C-Suite

A detailed guide on how the best PMOs work to drive strategic alignment and execution and become the right-hand of the leadership team

7 Best Portfolio Management Tools

In depth guide to the 7 most popular PMO tools, comparing the pros and cons of each in detail.

PMO Strategic Planning Template

A prebuilt PMO portfolio template that you can use to test out Cascade - free of charge and instantly.

Product Comparison

Cascade vs Asana

Asana

Is best for

Cascade

Is best for

Your toolkit for strategy success