Joel Spolsky, a figure lot of us look up to, made a very interesting post about Trello and how it is different.
Note – Before reading any further, you should know I am the creator of Review19, a tool quite similar to Trello.
I loved Spolsky’s post, except the title. Trello didn’t seem different at all. Going by a lot of Spolsky’s parameters, Review19 and Trello are very similar.
Here’s trying to shed more light on my claim:
Hosted Only
Review19 – Yes
Trello – Yes
Both Review19 and Trello are hosted only solutions, at least as of now. You cannot buy a license and install privately on your servers.
Continuous Delivery
Review19 – Yes
Trello – Yes
Just like Google Chrome — which still maintains versions — but is released / delivered continuously for all intents and purposes both Review19 and Trello share this development / delivery model.
Inexhaustive Testing
Review19 – Yes
Trello – Yes
Joel’s team at Fog Creek, by choice, don’t exhaustively test Trello before each release. Review19 is being development and maintained by a single individual, i.e. me, it’s not really possible to exhaustively test Review19 either. Sorry about that!
Work in public
Review19 – Yes
Trello – Yes
Trello works in public by offering a public status board. Review19 puts itself out their through a public mailing list and roadmap. Volunteers are added to a private status board.
Get big fast
Review19 – Yes
Trello – Yes
Trello aims to get 100 million users. I’d be an idiot if I didn’t want that for Review19 either. ;-)
Free
Review19 – Yes
Trello – Yes
Plugin architecture
Review19 – Yes
Trello – Yes
The merits of such an architecture are obvious. Review19 uses client and server side JavaScript modules for achieving such an architecture. I’m not sure how Trello does it but we have no reason to doubt Joel’s remark.
Node.js
Review19 – Yes
Trello – Yes
MongoDB
Review19 – Yes
Trello – Yes
Web Sockets
Review19 – Yes
Trello – Yes
How Review19 is different
Horizontal
Review19 – No
Trello – Yes
Trello is for everybody. Review19 is for distributed or colocated web, creative and software teams. Spolsky notes the benefits of being vertical, I agree.
Spolsky wants Trello to be horizontal, I can understand. I did consider making Review19 horizontal but chose against it.
Video conferencing
Review19 – Yes
Trello – No
Review19′s target audience — web, creative and software teams — are often distributed around the world. Offering an in-browser, video conferencing option is a critical feature for Review19.
CoffeeScript
Review19 – No
Trello – Yes
No thanks, I see far too many benefits of staying with JavaScript at least as of now.
APIs top priority?
Review19 – I wish!
Trello – Yes
I wish! I’m only a single guy working full-time on multiple projects to earn my living. Review19 will have APIs, at some point of time!
Though I’m not discounting your effort, Review19 is missing both the jazzy UI and functionality Trello offers.
@Deepak, Could you develop that statement a bit more?
Review19 allows you to manage your project projects, their tickets with a ticket details view (the flip card on Trello) and a status board (the Trello lists).
It also allows you to manage your project’s team and conduct video conferencing sessions.
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I agree with Deepak that Trello is Snappy.
I like that you allow filters by category, view by assignment, subcases and video conferencing.
We currently use fogbugz and I’ve been looking at Trello. Review 19 seems to bridge lots of my concerns with going Trello. That being said, a certain level of integration between fogbugz and a ui like trello could be my best option.
I personally like fogbugz, but due to less than technical users and executives I’m considering a change. I like the detail, and flexibility of fogbugz, but for communicating with all roles of an organization it’s a real requirement that those users feel comfortable and embrace the platform as well.
Hey, I found your blogpost via a websearch (I tend to be a todo-list nerd, sorry bout that). The thing with trello is that it’s not just a jazzy UI, it’s a responsive UI that provides immediate feedback about what you’re working on. A Pointy-Haired-Boss can figure it out in seconds and look good telling all his employees to use it. More importantly, it’s quick enough to be *pervasive*. The online todo list’s biggest competition is paper.
I’ve tried nearly every todo-list application (gtasks, outlook, onenote, evernote, rtm, org-mode, wunderlist, etc.), trello’s been winning me over so far for having a ui that let’s me organize, delegate, and record completed tasks quickly.
I currently work at a gig where it’s hard enough to convince highly educated engineers to use a bug tracking system over sending email, so making the process as painless is possible is key in order to make them use it.
I highly encourage doing some usability tests watching someone use trello vs. review19 vs. other todo lists. Watch how long it takes them to setup an account, how long it takes them to make a task.