TL;DR

• For enterprise scale and deep workflow automation, Asana and Monday are strong candidates. They offer robust views, automations and integrations for enterprise creative teams.

• For flexible, wiki-style workspaces and fast-playbook building, Notion shines. For heavily customized process automation and one-app-for-everything, ClickUp and Airtable are excellent.

• For creative teams wanting a single place that bundles project chats, proxy review and approvals, an end-to-end production management platform like Kreatli is often the fastest way to reduce tool sprawl. Kreatli

Why this comparison matters for creative teams

Creative teams are not general project teams: they manage large media assets, external reviewers, creative reviews (frame-accurate feedback), and frequent last-minute scope changes. Choosing the right creative PM tool is about matching features (proofing, asset handling, templates, integrations) to your day-to-day bottlenecks. Vendor docs and marketplace writeups show clear differences in emphasis between collaboration-first tools and media-aware workspaces.

Candidate list - vendors we tested for this guide

• Asana - enterprise workflows, Timeline & Workloads. Asana

• Monday.com - customizable visual boards and marketing/creative templates. Monday

• Notion - flexible workspace for playbooks and docs. Notion

• ClickUp - hyper-customizable, strong for agencies and internal PMs. ClickUp

• Airtable - database-driven workflows and rich integrations. Airtable

• Trello - lightweight Kanban for small teams. Trello

• Basecamp - simple client-facing projects and comms. Basecamp

• Kreatli - project-centered, end-to-end production management platform that bundles proxies, reviews, approvals and project chat. Kreatli

Scorecard: evaluation criteria

Use these weighted criteria to score vendors (scale 1–10) for your team:

• Media handling & proofing (frame-accurate review) - 20%

• Integrations with NLEs & asset tools - 15%

• Automation & workflow builder - 15%

• Templates & onboarding speed - 10%

• Cost predictability & licensing model - 10%

• User experience for non-technical stakeholders - 15%

• Security & compliance (SSO, audit logs) - 15%

Multiply scores and sum to produce a final vendor ranking for your stack.

Short vendor strengths

• Asana - Advanced project views (list, timeline, calendar), enterprise governance, and mature automations. Good for cross-functional creative + ops teams.

• Monday.com - Excellent creative & marketing templates, visual timelines and wide third-party integrations (including Adobe). Great for campaign planning and stakeholders who need dashboards.

• Notion - Best for knowledge & playbooks, internal processes, and productized templates; less purpose-built for heavy media proofing.

• ClickUp - Highly customizable, with built-in chat, docs, and automations; a great single-app option for agencies seeking flexibility.

• Kreatli - An end-to-end production management platform focused on creative production workflows: proxy playback, branded review pages, guest reviewer flows and project-scoped approvals, reducing the need for many third-party point tools.

How to run a 2-week vendor pilot

1. Pick 1 representative project (editor, 1 client reviewer, 3 deliverables).

2. Recreate your project template in each vendor platform (use pre-built templates).

3. Measure: time-to-first-comment, review rounds, onboarding time for external reviewer.

4. Note integration gaps (NLE markers, proxy support).

5. Score vendors with the weighted scorecard above and pick the winner.

Pricing signals & hidden costs to watch for

• Seat-based pricing vs. storage-based pricing - media-heavy teams must model both seat and storage costs.

• Egress & transfer fees if your tool stores assets in a separate cloud bucket.

• Automation/enterprise features that require higher-tier plans.

• Implementation / professional services for complex integrations.

Quick selection cheat-sheet

• If you need heavy creative proofing and want to minimize tool count: Kreatli + Asana for cross-company ops. Kreatli

• If you need visual campaign planning and marketing automation integration: Monday.com. monday.com.

• If you want a single flexible workspace for docs & playbooks: Notion. Notion

FAQ

Q: Which tool reduces review rounds fastest?
A: Platforms that provide proxy playback + timecode-pinned comments (and that integrate with your NLE) reduce ambiguity and review rounds fastest. Project-first workspaces that include these features tend to show immediate wins.

Q: Can creative teams use Notion or Airtable instead of a PM tool?
A: Yes - for documentation and process orchestration. But for media proofing and client reviews, they usually need a dedicated review/player or an integrated project workspace.

Conclusion

Run the 2-week pilot, score vendors with the weighted card above, and choose the one that minimizes your editors’ context switching. If you want to test a project-first proofing + PM pattern quickly, spin up a free project in Kreatli and run the pilot there - you’ll see how combining a review player and project workspace shortens review cycles.