Oknola vs Asana.
Pick Asana if you manage work across people: tasks, timelines, rules and guests, on web, desktop and mobile.
Pick Oknola if you run the business alone and want a company brain where notes come first and Oknola files them for you.
Where Asana is better
Rules, forms and timelines come built in.
Starter adds unlimited automations, intake forms, custom fields, timeline and Gantt views and dashboards, and Advanced adds approvals, portfolios, goals and time tracking [2].
Where Oknola differs
The structure keeps itself true.
Oknola lays down one structure and keeps it. The pass, the built-in AI tidy-up, types, links and files each capture, and asks you about any it cannot place. A wrong file is refused or fixed, whether you wrote it or an agent did.
Oknola's agents see only the tags you give them.
With the optional agent layer, the assistant you message hands each job to a sub-agent. That sub-agent sees only the files carrying its tags, and a locked note is invisible to every Oknola agent. Agents you run yourself read whatever their machine lets them.
Notes come first, tasks live inside them.
Oknola is a markdown notetaker, Actions shows the tasks you write inline anywhere, and the Execution Canvas lets you drag one onto an hour beside your Google Calendar.
Priced for one operator, never per seat.
One plan covers the whole Core at $30 a month or $270 a year, with a storage counter, attachments up to 50 MB each and 5 GB of attachments in all, and a year of version history.
Export any time, or keep the laptop folder.
Your notes are plain markdown in the Open Knowledge Format, the open standard, and if you stop paying the app turns read-only with nothing deleted.
The trade-offs, plainly: Oknola is for one operator, with no guests, seats or shared workspaces. It has no plugin ecosystem, one fixed structure, a cloud copy as the source of truth, and a solo founder behind it.
Side by side
| Point | Asana | Oknola |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Teams: “Where your teams and AI work together” [1] | A solo operator running a business. One operator only: no guests, seats or shared workspaces. |
| Where your notes live | Asana's cloud, encrypted at rest. No local-file mode on its pages [3, 5] | Oknola's cloud copy, encrypted at rest, never trained on. All note text on every device. Optional laptop folder. |
| Structure | Projects and tasks with templates and custom fields. Its knowledge template is tasks with attached files [2, 10] | One fixed structure, the Indexed Brain, from first open. Oknola types and tags each note: enforced, not suggested. |
| Who does the filing | You set up projects and rules, which need a paid plan. Dash turns meetings and email into tasks [2, 6] | Oknola does. The pass types, links and files each capture. What it cannot place comes to you. |
| AI inside | AI Studio and Asana Dash, listed on Starter and above. Starter gives 5 AI requests per user monthly [2, 6] | The pass, the built-in AI tidy-up, in the plan. The agent layer is an optional add-on. |
| Outside AI (Claude Code, ChatGPT) | An official MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT and other clients, plus a REST API [7, 14] | The laptop folder is plain markdown: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or any agent that reads files opens it. On your own server, a headless mirror keeps the same files for your agent. |
| What an agent can reach | Claude can check portfolios and create tasks. Team Claude accounts need org-wide approval in Asana [8, 9] | An Oknola agent: only the files carrying the tags you gave it, never a locked note. Your own agents read what their machine lets them. |
| Price for one person | $0 on Personal. Paid plans start at two seats: Starter is $21.98 a month billed annually [2, 4] | $30 a month or $270 a year, one plan. One operator, never per seat. |
| Trial or free tier | Free Personal plan for one or two people, without rules, forms, timeline, dashboards or Asana AI [2, 3] | No free tier. 15 days free, no card, extends to 30 days, then 45. Read-only after, never deleted. |
| Leaving | No markdown export. Each project exports to CSV or JSON, one at a time [11] | Export any time, or keep the laptop folder. Plain markdown opens anywhere. |
Asana facts checked 29 September 2026, re-checked 14 October 2026, on its own pages and public reviews. Tell us if one is out of date
Use both
Keep Asana for the work you share: a client project with guests, an intake form, a contractor's checklist. Keep Oknola as the company brain: the notes, meetings and decisions behind that work. They stay separate tools, so give each thing one home.
Moving from Asana
Export each project. Asana exports each project as CSV or JSON, one at a time, plus My Tasks and Search Views [11]. There is no markdown export. Asana's 2014 export guide lists each task's name, dates, assignee, tags and notes in the CSV [12].
Write down what your rules and forms do. Forms and rules cannot be moved through Asana's API [13]. Note what each one did before you cancel.
Bring your notes in as markdown. Any markdown you keep comes in on day one, with nothing converted. The pass types and files each note at a steady pace, keeping every original word for word. You can write your own script over Asana's API or MCP server to turn tasks into markdown [7, 14].
Keep the task exports as files. Tasks, boards and timelines do not travel as notes, so keep those exports as files. Write the open tasks you still need inline in a note, and Actions shows them.
What ships, and in what order: the Roadmap
Questions
Waitlist
Let Oknola do the filing.
Hear first when the founding pre-sale opens. 15 days free, no card, your notes in on day one.
Sources
Oknola is not affiliated with Asana. Asana's name and product image belong to its owner.
Asana facts checked 29 September 2026, re-checked 14 October 2026. We re-check them every quarter. Tell us if one is out of date
- [1] asana.com/small-business: small-business framing.
- [2] asana.com/pricing: plans, monthly and annual prices, AI limits and rates, seat increments, guests, add-ons.
- [3] help.asana.com/s/article/asana-personal-plan-details?language=en_US: Personal limits, exclusions, legacy plan, apps.
- [4] help.asana.com/s/article/asana-subscriptions-and-pricing?language=en_US: 2-seat minimum, guests not billed.
- [5] asana.com/terms/security-standards: encryption, audits.
- [6] asana.com/press/releases/pr/asana-unveils-operating-system-for-human-agent-teams/f12f477a-7c35-4365-9771-578a294abc0d: 2026-06-04 launch.
- [7] developers.asana.com/docs/using-asanas-mcp-server: MCP v2.
- [8] help.asana.com/s/article/asana-app-in-claude?language=en_US: plan badges, approval note.
- [9] asana.com/resources/claude-asana-integration: Claude app, 2026-01-26.
- [10] asana.com/templates/knowledge-management: knowledge via tasks and attachments.
- [11] help.asana.com/s/article/project-importing-and-exporting?language=en_US: JSON/CSV export, CSV import.
- [12] asana.com/inside-asana/export-to-csv: CSV columns (2014 post).
- [13] forum.asana.com/t/export-entire-org/1082349: forms and rules not via API.
- [14] developers.asana.com/reference/organization-exports: the organization-wide JSON export (Enterprise+); the same site documents the REST API.