TODO for AI
vs 
Trello
By Marcell Havlik, founder of TODO for AI · Updated
The simplest kanban board, with AI that summarises and organises cards rather than working them. Here is where each one wins, with numbers, and who should pick which.
| Fact | Trello | TODO for AI |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | Web, desktop, mobile | Web, desktop, mobile, CLI, IDE (Zed, JetBrains, VS Code), voice |
| Models | Vendor managed | Any provider: Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, Ollama |
| Source | Closed | Edge + CLI public |
| Starts at | Free | Free |
Key takeaways
- Models. Trello model choice: Vendor managed. TODO for AI runs any provider, Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok or a local Ollama model, on one plan, and one model can review another's work.
- Benchmark. TODO for AI scored 95.1% on Terminal-Bench 2.1 with Opus 5.5 (own harness, 77/81 tasks, refused tasks excluded, 2026-09-30; not an official leaderboard submission).
- Price. Trello pricing: Free, Standard $5, Premium $10, Enterprise $17.50 per user per month billed annually ($6 and $12.50 billed monthly). TODO for AI has a free plan (Claude Sonnet only), then Starter $20, Pro $100 or Ultra $200 a month with any provider included.
- Where the work happens. Trello gets one task done on the card. TODO for AI is one board your team and agents work through together, on your own PC, a cloud VM and your logged-in Chrome.
- Who should pick which. Pick Trello if you want the simplest possible shared board. Pick TODO for AI if you want items executed, not just summarised.
Trello
TODO for AI
Any providerWe are not competing for the same job
Trello gets the task done.
TODO for AI organises the whole company’s work.
Trello answers one question: how do I get this task done, on the card? So do the others — Cursor inside the editor, Claude Code in one person's session, Lindy by asking its assistant.
We answer a different one: where does the work live? One board per project, and a project for each part of the company — engineering, marketing, ops, finance, one per client. Your colleagues work on it. So do your agents, as many as you want to run, each with its own model, tools and permissions. Items carry the people who worked them and the agent that ran them, and the board filters by person, so what the company has in flight is one screen instead of a Slack thread.
That is not a team plan bolted onto an AI tool. It is the product. The agents are how items get closed; the board is what the company runs on.
What Trello is, and where it stops
Trello is the board people adopt without a rollout. Lists, cards, drag and drop, and a free plan that works, which is why it is still everywhere years after heavier tools arrived. Its AI stays in character: summarise a long card, turn a description into a checklist, suggest due dates, schedule a focus block.
That is the whole ceiling. Trello AI helps you read and organise the board faster; nothing on it gets done without a person. A card saying "write the launch email" gets a tidier checklist and then waits for a human. There are no agents, no machine and no browser session behind any card.
Small teams who want a simple shared board and nothing more.
Three reasons Trello users look elsewhere
Summaries, checklists and due dates make the board easier to read. Every card is still executed by a person.
There is nothing to assign work to. Trello has assistive AI features, not agents that take an item and return it finished.
Once work needs reporting, permissions or execution, Trello runs out and the team starts shopping for a second tool.
Six dimensions that decide it
Trello 12/30TODO for AI 29/30How does Trello compare to TODO for AI, feature by feature?
| Feature | Trello | TODO for AI |
|---|---|---|
Persistent cloud VM An always-on machine. Files, logins and sessions survive between runs. | No | Yes |
Model choice | Vendor managed | Any provider |
Cross-vendor review Review GPT output with Claude, or the other way around. | No | Yes |
Drives your real browser Chrome extension plus cloud browsers. | No | Yes |
Business tasks, not only code SEO, email, ads, social, CRM via CLI tools. | Cards and Power-Ups | Yes |
Any CLI as an integration | Power-Ups + API | Any binary |
Voice control | No | Yes |
People and agents on one board Colleagues and agents work the same list. Items show who contributed and which agent ran them; filter the board by person. | People only | Yes |
Many agents, each configured Each agent gets its own model, prompt, tools and permissions. Pick which one takes an item. | Assistive AI, no agents | Unlimited, per task |
Projects for the whole company Engineering, marketing, ops, finance: separate projects and agents, one team and one bill. | Boards and workspaces | Unlimited, shared |
Team roles, pooled usage | Per seat | Roles + pooled |
Tool permissions | Board-level | Allow, approve, block |
Open runtime | No | Edge + CLI public |
Same ladder, different meter
Flat per seat with AI included from Standard and small request caps. The cheapest board in this comparison, because the AI does the least.
One pool priced in dollars of model cost, spendable on any vendor. Session and weekly windows pace it, and a 1.3-1.5x plan multiplier applies, so a $20 plan is about $15 of list-price API. Team seat prices go into one shared pool.