Project & Task Management Reviews
Can you export your tasks from a free project tool?
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The Short Answer
- Asana — Asana's comparison table checks "CSV and PDF export" for all five tiers including free Personal, which is separately capped at "Up to 2 users can collaborate for free".
- Trello — Trello's pricing table marks "Simple data export" as unavailable on Free and on Standard, and includes it only from Premium up — paying once is not enough to get your boards out.
- ClickUp — ClickUp's "Custom Exporting" row is blank for Free Forever and reads "Trial" for Unlimited, becoming a real feature only from Business up; the free plan card never mentions export at all.
- Plane — Plane Cloud marks "Advanced Exports" unavailable on Free and available from Pro; the free tier's own CSV row is import-only, and free Cloud is capped at 12 users.
| Product | Best for | From | Free plan | Free-plan export |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asana | Export on every tier, two collaborators | $10.99/mo (annual) | Yes | Exports, tight caps |
| Trello | Export is not in the first paid tier either | $5/mo (annual) | Yes | Payment to export |
| ClickUp | A blank cell on Free, "Trial" on Unlimited | $7/mo (annual) | Yes | Payment to export |
| Plane | Open source, and export is a Pro feature on Cloud | $6/mo (annual) | Yes | Payment to export |
The category where the open-source contrast failed
Three times before this, the same thing decided a category. The product that answered best was the one whose architecture removed the place where the answer gets decided. The upscaler with no watermark never uploaded your file. The whiteboard with no board cap saved to local files. The note app with nothing to export kept its notes as files already.
We expected Plane to be the fourth. It is open source, it is self-hostable, and it is the obvious candidate.
It is not. On Plane Cloud, the feature table marks “Advanced Exports” as unavailable on Free and available from Pro. Plane describes that feature as “Export filtered work items, cycles, views, or modules directly from your project in CSV, Excel, or JSON”. The free plan does have a CSV row. Read it carefully and that row is for import — “Import work items from CSV files with column mapping” — not export. Free Cloud is separately capped at 12 users.
Nothing about that is dishonest. Plane’s licence is real and self-hosting is a genuine route. But it breaks a rule we had started to trust, so it is worth stating plainly. Open source describes what you may do with code you run. It does not describe what a vendor’s hosted free tier includes. The two get conflated constantly, including by us until this page.
Trello puts export behind the second paid tier
Most vendors here gate export at the first upgrade. Trello gates it at the second.
“Simple data export” is marked unavailable on Free and on Standard. It appears only from Premium, at $10 a user a month billed annually — twice Standard’s $5. So a Trello customer who has paid for a year may still have no supported way to bulk-export their boards. Of everything in this batch, that is the fact most likely to surprise someone who assumes paying solves it.
ClickUp is the least legible. Its “Custom Exporting” row is simply blank for Free Forever, and reads “Trial” for Unlimited. That is not a yes or a no, and the pricing page never defines it. The linked help article would presumably settle it. It returned a Cloudflare 403 to us twice, so the honest position is that we read the table and could not read the article.
Export on every tier, two collaborators
1. Asana — Export on every tier, two collaborators
The only free plan here that includes export — for a workspace of two.
Best for Small teams or individuals tracking personal/team projects
From $10.99/mo (annual). Free plan: Personal plan, "Free forever." "Up to 2 users can collaborate for free." Includes "Unlimited tasks and projects," list/board/calendar views, and "Unlimited storage, 100MB max per file.".
- Starter — $13.49/mo, or $10.99/mo billed annually (Per user, per month billed annually ($10.99); $13.49 if billed monthly)
- Advanced — $30.49/mo, or $24.99/mo billed annually (Per user, per month billed annually ($24.99); $30.49 if billed monthly)
- Enterprise — price not shown on the page we opened (Custom pricing, contact sales)
- Enterprise+ — price not shown on the page we opened (Custom pricing, contact sales)
Asana's pricing-page feature-comparison table lists "CSV and PDF export" — described as "Export your project data and reports in CSV or PDF format to share with stakeholders or analyze in other tools" — as checked (included) for all five tiers including the free Personal plan. However, the free Personal plan is hard-capped at "Up to 2 users can collaborate for free," so while CSV export itself is not paywalled, the underlying workspace it exports from is limited to 2 collaborators. A separate JSON "Organization exports" feature ("Create a complete JSON backup of your entire Asana organization, including all projects, tasks, comments, and custom fields") is restricted to the Enterprise+ tier only.
Pros
- CSV and PDF export is checked as included on every plan, including the free Personal tier, per Asana's own comparison table
- Free plan states unlimited tasks and projects, with unlimited storage (100MB max per file)
- Clear, stated per-user cap (2 users) rather than a vague "small teams" description
Skip it if
- Free (Personal) plan is hard-capped at 2 collaborators, which limits the practical value of exporting a "team" workspace
- Full JSON organization backup export is restricted to the Enterprise+ plan only — not available on Free, Starter, or Advanced
- The pricing page never states a task or project count limit for Free beyond the 2-user cap
Export is not in the first paid tier either
2. Trello — Export is not in the first paid tier either
The most generous free collaborator count, and export two tiers away.
Best for Simple kanban-style boards for small teams
From $5/mo (annual). Free plan: "Free for up to 10 collaborators per Workspace." Included in Free: Unlimited cards, up to 10 boards per Workspace, unlimited Power-Ups per board, unlimited storage (10MB/file), 250 Workspace command runs per month..
- Standard — $6/mo, or $5/mo billed annually (Per user/month; $5 if billed annually, $6 if billed monthly)
- Premium — $12.50/mo, or $10/mo billed annually (Per user/month; $10 if billed annually, $12.50 if billed monthly)
- Enterprise — $17.50/mo billed annually (Billed annually only; starts at $17.50/user/month ($210/user/year) for organizations up to 250 users, tiered pricing decreases at higher user counts)
Trello's own pricing-comparison table marks the "Simple data export" row as False (not included) for both Free and Standard, and Check (included) only for Premium and Enterprise. The Free plan page separately caps Free at "Free for up to 10 collaborators per Workspace" and "Up to 10 boards per Workspace." This means the free tier has no bulk export tool at all — CSV/JSON export is gated behind the Premium plan (or above).
Pros
- Free plan explicitly states unlimited cards and unlimited storage (with a 10MB/file cap)
- Low-cost Standard tier at $5/user/month (annual) for teams that outgrow the 10-board cap
- Board and card limits are stated plainly rather than left vague
Skip it if
- "Simple data export" is unavailable on both Free and Standard per Trello's own comparison table — export requires Premium ($10/user/month annual) or higher
- Free plan is capped at 10 boards per Workspace and 10 collaborators per Workspace
- The pricing page never states export file formats (CSV vs JSON) for the Premium "Simple data export" feature
A blank cell on Free, "Trial" on Unlimited
3. ClickUp — A blank cell on Free, "Trial" on Unlimited
The least answerable of the four, and not by accident of our reading.
Best for Teams wanting many built-in feature toggles in one free tier
From $7/mo (annual). Free plan: Free Forever plan. Key Features listed: "60MB Storage," "Unlimited Tasks," "Unlimited Free Plan Members," "Two-Factor Authentication." Free plan is capped at 5 Spaces (per the full feature-comparison table)..
- Unlimited — $10/mo, or $7/mo billed annually (Per user/month; $7 billed yearly, $10 billed monthly)
- Business — $19/mo, or $12/mo billed annually (Per user/month; $12 billed yearly, $19 billed monthly)
- Enterprise — price not shown on the page we opened (Contact sales for pricing)
ClickUp's pricing-page full feature-comparison table has a "Custom Exporting" row (linking to ClickUp's own help article "Data Portability: Exporting Your Workspace's Data") whose value cell is blank for the Free Forever plan, reads "Trial" for the Unlimited plan, and is fully checked only from Business upward. The Free plan card itself only lists "60MB Storage," "Unlimited Tasks," and "Unlimited Free Plan Members" — export is not among the listed Free features. The linked help-center article itself (help.clickup.com) returned an HTTP 403 Cloudflare bot-challenge page on both WebFetch and curl attempts, so the exact export file formats (CSV/Excel/etc.) could not be confirmed from that source.
Pros
- Free plan states unlimited tasks and unlimited free plan members with no seat cap
- Storage cap is explicitly quantified: "60MB Storage"
- Export access is tiered transparently in the comparison table (blank on Free, "Trial" on Unlimited, full on Business+) rather than left ambiguous
Skip it if
- "Custom Exporting" is blank (not available) on the Free Forever plan per the pricing table — full export access starts at Business ($12/user/month annual)
- The help-center article that would specify export formats (CSV/Excel/JSON) is blocked behind a Cloudflare bot challenge, so the exact free-tier export mechanism (if any beyond "Trial" on Unlimited) is null
- The pricing page never states a total task-count or automation-run cap number distinct from the listed feature toggles
Open source, and export is a Pro feature on Cloud
4. Plane — Open source, and export is a Pro feature on Cloud
Open source, and the hosted free tier still gates the exit.
Best for Open-source teams wanting cloud or self-hosted deployment options
From $6/mo (annual). Free plan: Plane Cloud Free plan: "No-frills project management for startups, passion projects and more." Capped at "12 users" ("Maximum users allowed in your workspace or instance based on your plan": Free = "12 users"). Includes 500 AI credits per seat, shared workspace-wide, no rollover..
- Pro — $6/mo billed annually ($6 per seat per month, billed annually (per vendor JSON-LD structured data on the pricing page); a separate monthly-billing rate could not be confirmed from the static page content)
- Business — $13/mo billed annually ($13 per seat per month, billed annually (per vendor JSON-LD structured data on the pricing page); a separate monthly-billing rate could not be confirmed from the static page content)
- Enterprise Grid — price not shown on the page we opened (Custom quote)
This applies to Plane CLOUD, not self-hosted. Plane's pricing-page feature table lists "Advanced Exports" — described as "Export filtered work items, cycles, views, or modules directly from your project in CSV, Excel, or JSON" — with value "unavailable" for Free and "available" starting at Pro. The Free plan's own "CSV" row on that same table is for import only ("Import work items from CSV files with column mapping"), not export. Free Cloud is separately capped at "12 users" per workspace. For self-hosting: the page metadata states Plane is "Available for cloud, self-hosted and air-gapped" and its FAQ states "Plane is open-source and can be self-hosted on your own infrastructure for complete control and privacy," but neither the pricing page nor developers.plane.so/self-hosting/overview (checked separately) states whether self-hosted/Community Edition export capability differs from Cloud Free — that specific fact is null.
Pros
- Free Cloud plan states a clear, specific seat cap: "12 users" per workspace
- Open-source with a documented self-hosted deployment path, per the pricing page's own FAQ and metadata
- Export feature scope (CSV/Excel/JSON, filtered by work items/cycles/views/modules) is spelled out precisely for paid tiers rather than left vague
Skip it if
- "Advanced Exports" (CSV/Excel/JSON) is marked "unavailable" on the Free Cloud plan per Plane's own comparison table — export requires Pro ($6/seat/month annual) or above
- Free plan's only CSV-related feature is import, not export
- Neither the pricing page nor the self-hosting docs page fetched states whether self-hosted/Community Edition has the same export restriction as Cloud Free, or whether it is unrestricted — this remains null pending a documentation page that addresses it directly
What this means if you are choosing today
For one or two people who want the option of leaving, Asana’s free Personal plan is the only one here that includes export. Two collaborators is either exactly enough or immediately disqualifying.
For a larger free team, Trello’s ten collaborators per Workspace is the most generous number here. Accept that getting the boards out later means Premium, not Standard.
If you are choosing Plane because it is open source, choose the self-hosted build deliberately. The Cloud free tier is priced like everyone else’s, and on this question it behaves like everyone else’s.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which free project tool lets you export your tasks?
Asana, on its own comparison table, which checks "CSV and PDF export" for every tier including the free Personal plan. The catch is not the export, it is the workspace it exports from: free Personal states "Up to 2 users can collaborate for free." Trello, ClickUp and Plane Cloud all place export behind payment.
Can you export a Trello board on the free plan?
Not with Trello's own export tool. Its pricing comparison marks "Simple data export" as unavailable for Free and also for Standard, the first paid tier at $5 a user a month billed annually. It appears only from Premium. That makes Trello the one product here where upgrading once still does not get your data out.
Does being open source mean you can export for free?
Not automatically, and Plane is the case that proves it. Plane is genuinely open source and self-hostable, but on Plane Cloud the feature table marks "Advanced Exports" unavailable on the free plan and available from Pro. Open source describes what you may do with the code if you run it yourself; it says nothing about what the vendor's hosted free tier includes.
Why does task export matter if the tool works fine?
Because a project tool accumulates the record of what a team decided and when, and that record outlives the subscription. Export is the difference between switching tools and starting over. It is also the row vendors put furthest from the price, which is a reasonable signal about how they expect it to be weighed.
Did you test these exports yourselves?
No. Every verdict was read on the vendor's own pricing comparison table on 6 August 2026 and is labelled as read, not run. ClickUp's own help article on data portability returned a Cloudflare 403 to us on two separate attempts, so the ClickUp verdict rests on the pricing table's blank cell alone, and we say so rather than filling the gap.
How We Keep This Updated
Prices move and vendors rewrite their plan tables, so every value on this page carries the date we read it. When a page changes, the change lands here rather than being edited away quietly. The procedure is on the methodology page. tell us and we will re-check it.
- 2026-08-06 — First published. Export rows read on each vendor's own pricing comparison table. ClickUp's linked help-centre article could not be opened (HTTP 403 on two attempts) and the verdict rests on the pricing table alone.