Chassis vs Asana: the cockpit-native PM vs the broad-spectrum PM platform.
Asana is the broad-spectrum project management platform — every department, every workflow, deep customization, hundreds of integrations. Chassis is the project layer inside an operating cockpit — fewer knobs, more built-in workflows, AI in the box. Below: where each one is the right call, and a feature-by-feature table.
Where Asana is better.
Asana has been doing this for over a decade and it shows.
- Massive integration ecosystem. 270+ apps in the Asana app gallery — every adjacent SaaS product has a polished Asana integration. Chassis integrates through the Merkava platform layer (~17 apps today).
- Custom-field depth. Asana's custom-field system models arbitrary structured data on tasks: dropdowns, numbers, dates, formulas, dependencies. Chassis ships built-in fields and tags but does not match this.
- Free-tier reach. Asana's free tier supports up to 10 users with unlimited projects and tasks. Real teams build real workflows on it without paying. Chassis has a 7-day trial; the cockpit is free but Drives are paid after.
- Portfolios + Goals + workload views. Asana's portfolio rollup, goal tracking, and workload-balancing views are mature and polished. Chassis has project-level health rollup but not the full portfolio product.
- Forms + intake workflows. Asana Forms turn external requests into tasks with custom fields. Chassis does not have a native form builder yet (use Webster + a webhook for now).
- Enterprise admin + SSO + audit logs. Asana Enterprise has more mature admin tooling — SAML SSO, SCIM provisioning, granular audit logs, data residency. Chassis ships with SSO and per-action audit logs in every tenant, but the enterprise admin surface is less developed.
Where Chassis is better.
Where the cockpit-native posture matters.
- Forge AI workflows in the box. Subtask suggestions, auto-written end-of-sprint retros, weekly digests, project scaffolding from your venture profile. Asana's AI features are newer and require their higher tiers; Chassis ships them at every tier.
- GitHub bidirectional sync without an add-on. Set github_repo on a project and engineering work syncs both ways — import, reconcile, export, close. Asana has a GitHub integration but it is more limited and one-directional in practice.
- Native to Centerline cadence. Quarterly bearings (what EOS calls rocks) promote into Chassis projects without re-keying. Asana doesn't model an operating cadence.
- Owners are real Crew records. Task owners are the same person record HR, payroll, performance reviews, and onboarding all reference. One canonical employee across the cockpit.
- You hire the department, not the tool. The cockpit is free; you pay for the department you run. Chassis comes included in the Operations department ($199/mo, run by the COO) alongside Centerline + Crew + Gauge, or as the engineering view in the Engineering department ($99/mo, run by the CTO). Asana's per-seat pricing buys the task tracker and scales linearly with team size; here you're buying the labor that runs it — Forge operating the tools on one shared data layer. The tools are the cheapest part of what you're getting.
- Lower cognitive overhead. Asana's customization is a feature — and a tax. New team members spend a week learning your custom workflows. Chassis is opinionated; the surface is smaller; setup is faster.
Feature-by-feature.
Snapshot as of May 2026. If a row reads wrong, email hi@withmerkava.com and we'll fix.
| Feature | Chassis | Asana |
|---|---|---|
| Kanban + list view | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cycles / sprints + burndown | ✓ | partial |
| Custom fields | partial | ✓ deep |
| Integrations count | ~17 cockpit integrations | ✓ 270+ |
| AI assist | ✓ in the box, every tier | partial — paid tiers only |
| GitHub bidirectional sync | ✓ | partial |
| Public roadmap | via Webster (manual) | partial |
| Forms / intake | ✗ (use Webster + webhook) | ✓ Asana Forms |
| Portfolios + Goals | partial | ✓ first-class |
| Free tier | 7-day trial; cockpit free | ✓ free up to 10 users |
| Pricing model | Included in a department ($99–$199/mo · flat per tenant) | $10.99–$24.99/seat/mo |
| Centerline bearing integration | ✓ | ✗ |
| People records (HR + payroll) | ✓ Crew | ✗ |
| Enterprise admin (SSO/SCIM/audit) | partial | ✓ deep |
| Learning curve | low | medium — customization tax |
Who should use Chassis instead.
Solo operators and small teams who want an opinionated PM tool with AI workflows already wired in. You don't want to spend a week building a custom Asana template — you want a kanban that already understands what a quarterly bearing is (what EOS calls a rock), who owns it (a Crew employee), where the docs are (Atlas), and what the github_repo is. Chassis fits that shape.
If you're already paying for Centerline, Crew, or Gauge separately as standalone services, the Operations department ($199/mo, run by the COO) replaces the headcount that runs all of them and includes Chassis on one shared data layer.
Who should stay on Asana.
Don't migrate if your team's value is in the customization. If you've built a marketing-ops workflow with twelve custom fields, three forms, and a portfolio rollup that drives weekly leadership reviews — that doesn't port. Asana's depth is a real moat.
Also stay if you need 50–500 user free-tier reach for casual collaborators (clients, contractors, cross-functional reviewers). Chassis bills per tenant, not per seat, but the free tier doesn't go that far.
Try the cockpit-native PM Drive.
7-day free trial. The cockpit itself is free.