Monday.com and Asana are the two project management tools that dominate small-team adoption—and they are more different than their surface similarity suggests. Asana’s AI-powered automation, clean interface, and unlimited automations on paid plans make it the productivity-first choice. Monday.com’s 15+ views, 36+ custom column types, and unmatched dashboard flexibility make it the customization-first choice. The wrong pick wastes months of onboarding investment. The right one makes your team faster within a week.
We tested both platforms with small teams across service, agency, and product environments. Here is the direct comparison—no hedging.
Already familiar with both tools and looking for a broader project management roundup? See our full guide: Best Project Management Tools for Small Teams in 2026.
In a hurry? Here’s the short version:
- Choose Asana if: You want AI-powered automation, clean task-first workflows, unlimited automations on Starter ($10.99/user/month), and your team of 2 wants a free forever plan to start.
- Choose Monday.com if: You want maximum customization, 15+ views including Map and Chart, 36+ column types, and dashboard-first project visibility for a data-heavy team.
- Budget winner: Asana — unlimited automations and AI on Starter vs. Monday’s 250 automation cap on Standard. Both start at roughly $9–12/user/month billed annually.
- Ease of use winner: Asana — cleaner learning curve; Monday’s power comes with complexity.
- Flexibility winner: Monday — it is not close.
Quick Comparison Table
| Feature | Monday.com | Asana |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | ✅ Up to 2 seats | ✅ Up to 2 users (reduced from 10 in 2025) |
| Starting price (annual) | $9/seat/month (3-seat minimum) | $10.99/user/month |
| Automations (entry paid plan) | 250 runs/month (Standard) | Unlimited (Starter) |
| Views available | 15+ (Table, Kanban, Gantt, Calendar, Map, Chart, Workload, and more) | 7 (List, Board, Timeline, Gantt, Workload, Dashboard, Calendar) |
| Custom column types | 36+ | ~12 standard field types |
| Gantt / Timeline view | ✅ Standard plan+ | ✅ Starter plan+ |
| AI features | ✅ Monday AI (Pro plan) | ✅ Asana AI — Starter plan+ |
| Direct messaging | ❌ No built-in messaging | ✅ Built-in team messaging + video |
| Portfolios | ✅ Pro plan+ | ✅ Advanced plan (unlimited) |
| Integrations | 200+ apps | 270+ apps |
| Mobile apps | ✅ iOS & Android | ✅ iOS & Android |
| Best for | Flexible, data-heavy workflows | Task-first teams; AI automation |
Pricing Comparison: Monday.com vs Asana
Both platforms use per-seat annual billing with significant discounts over monthly. Monday.com uses bucket pricing—you pay for seat ranges (3 seats, 5 seats, 10 seats), not individual seats—which means a team of 4 pays for 5 seats. Asana bills by actual seat count from 2 seats minimum.
Monday.com Pricing (2026)
| Plan | Annual Price | Monthly Price | Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | Up to 2 seats; basic boards, 200 items, limited views |
| Basic | $9/seat/month | ~$12/seat/month | Unlimited items, 5 GB storage, 1-week activity log, dashboards (1 board each) |
| Standard | $12/seat/month | ~$14/seat/month | Timeline & Gantt views, Calendar view, 250 automations/month, 250 integrations/month |
| Pro | $19/seat/month | ~$24/seat/month | 25,000 automations/month, Chart view, Time tracking, Workload view, Monday AI |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Advanced security, audit logs, tailored onboarding, multi-level permissions |
Monday.com uses bucket pricing: minimum 3 seats on paid plans. A team of 4 pays for 5 seats.
Asana Pricing (2026)
| Plan | Annual Price | Monthly Price | Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal (Free) | $0 | $0 | Up to 2 users; unlimited tasks, projects, storage; List, Board, Calendar views |
| Starter | $10.99/user/month | $13.49/user/month | Unlimited automations, Asana AI, Timeline/Gantt, Workflow Builder, custom fields, forms, dashboards |
| Advanced | $24.99/user/month | $30.49/user/month | Goals, unlimited portfolios, Workload, Salesforce/Tableau/Power BI integrations, approvals, time tracking |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | SSO/SCIM, data residency, HIPAA compliance, advanced permissions, audit log API |
Winner for pricing: Asana (Starter plan)
For small teams, Asana’s Starter plan at $10.99/user/month delivers unlimited automations—Monday.com caps Standard plan automations at 250 runs/month and does not include Gantt-level views on Basic ($9/seat/month). To get comparable automation power on Monday.com, you need the Pro plan at $19/seat/month. A 5-person team on Monday Pro pays $95/month; the same team on Asana Starter pays $54.95/month. Asana wins on value at this tier. Monday’s bucket pricing also creates an annoying tax for teams that do not fit neatly into seat ranges.
Task Management: How They Compare
Both platforms cover the fundamentals: create tasks, assign owners, set due dates, add subtasks, attach files, and leave comments. The differences emerge in depth and flexibility.
Monday.com task management treats items (tasks) as rows in a spreadsheet-like board. Each item can have 36+ column types—text, numbers, status, people, timeline, date, formula, world clock, ratings, and more. This makes Monday genuinely powerful for building custom workflows like a client tracker, content calendar, or bug tracker that does not feel like a compromise. Task dependencies, recurring tasks (automation-based), and item linking across boards are all supported. The interface is colorful and information-dense—some find it clarifying; others find it overwhelming initially.
Asana task management is more structured around the task itself: a task has a name, assignee, due date, description, subtasks, attachments, and custom fields. The interface is clean and minimalist—tasks are easy to find and act on. The 2025 update removed usage limits on Starter and Advanced plans for automations and AI actions, making Asana’s workflow automation genuinely unlimited at the Starter tier. Asana AI (Smart Goals, Smart Summaries, Smart Assignee) is available on Starter plan and above—earlier than Monday AI (Pro plan).
Winner for task management: Tie (different strengths)
Monday wins if you need complex, data-rich tasks with custom column types and formula columns. Asana wins if your team cares more about fast task entry, clean focus, and built-in AI assistance at a lower price point.
Views: Kanban, Gantt & Timeline
This is where Monday.com and Asana diverge most significantly.
Monday.com views (15+): Table (spreadsheet), Kanban board, Timeline (Gantt-style), Calendar, Workload, Map, Chart, Files gallery, Form, Dashboard, Pivot, Sales Pipeline, and more. The Map view is genuinely useful for field service businesses tracking locations. Chart view gives instant visual analytics without building a separate dashboard. Every team member can use a different view of the same data without affecting others—a major flexibility advantage for mixed-role teams.
Asana views (7): List, Board (Kanban), Timeline, Gantt, Workload, Dashboard, and Calendar. These cover the needs of 90%+ of small teams. The Timeline view provides clear, simplified scheduling. The Gantt view adds task hierarchy and dependency tracking. Dashboard builds reporting on top of your project data. The interface for each view is polished and fast—Asana prioritizes execution speed over option breadth.
Kanban: Both platforms offer solid Kanban boards. Monday’s is more customizable (drag columns, add swimlanes, filter by any column type); Asana’s is cleaner and loads faster. For pure Kanban work, both are excellent.
Gantt / Timeline: Asana’s Gantt is available on Starter ($10.99/month); Monday’s Timeline view requires Standard ($12/seat/month). Both show task dependencies and allow timeline dragging. Monday’s Timeline allows inline editing within the Gantt view; Asana requires you to open the task panel. Slight edge to Monday for Gantt power users; Asana for simplicity.
Winner for views: Monday.com
The Map, Chart, and Pivot views on Monday have genuine business utility that Asana’s 7-view set does not replicate. If your team uses multiple visual contexts regularly, Monday wins. If your team primarily uses List and Board, Asana is equally capable.
Automation: The Critical Differentiator
Automation is where the Monday.com vs Asana decision gets real for small teams.
Monday.com automation is tiered by plan:
- Basic: 0 automations
- Standard: 250 runs/month
- Pro: 25,000 runs/month
- Enterprise: 250,000 runs/month
250 runs/month (Standard) sounds reasonable until you realize a 5-person team triggering status change notifications, due date reminders, and assignment alerts can exhaust that in a week. Basic plan users get zero automation—everything is manual.
Asana automation is unlimited on Starter and Advanced plans—no monthly cap. The Workflow Builder is a no-code automation tool that handles conditional logic, time-based triggers, and multi-step sequences. Smart automation features (AI-powered rule suggestions) were introduced in 2025 and are available from Starter. For a small team doing meaningful process automation, this unlimited ceiling is a decisive advantage.
Winner for automation: Asana
Unlimited automations on Starter vs 250 runs/month on Monday Standard is not a close comparison. If automation is central to how your team works, Asana’s approach is more honest about what you are actually getting at each tier.
Integrations
Both platforms connect to the core tools small teams use:
- Both: Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, GitHub, Salesforce, Jira, Zapier, Make (Integromat)
- Asana only: Tableau, Power BI (Advanced plan), HubSpot, Adobe Creative Cloud, 270+ total apps
- Monday.com only: LinkedIn, HubSpot CRM boards, Shopify, Zendesk (native Monday apps), 200+ total apps
Asana has a broader native integration library (270+ vs 200+) and deeper BI tool connections on Advanced. Monday.com’s integrations are counted similarly but include Monday-specific app boards (like a native CRM or Monday DevOps layer) that are distinct products, not integrations.
Winner for integrations: Asana (slight edge)
More native integrations, including Tableau and Power BI on Advanced—useful if your team already lives in BI dashboards. For most small teams, both cover the bases equally well.
Templates
Monday.com templates: 200+ templates organized by use case (Marketing, Sales, Software Development, HR, Operations) and industry. Templates are highly customizable—you can add, remove, and rename columns before or after import. The template gallery is one of the best in project management software.
Asana templates: 100+ templates across team functions. Asana’s templates are more structured and workflow-oriented—they often include pre-built automation rules and section logic, not just blank task structures. The My Tasks template and the Kickoff Meeting template are genuinely useful starting points for small teams.
Winner for templates: Monday.com (quantity); Asana (quality)
Monday has more templates. Asana’s templates often include more useful pre-built logic. For small teams picking one and running with it, Monday’s volume gives more starting-point options; Asana’s templates get you to an operational workflow faster.
Collaboration Features
Monday.com collaboration: Task-based commenting, @mentions, file attachments, and real-time editing on Monday Workdocs (a built-in collaborative document editor). Workdocs embed directly in boards—useful for spec documents, meeting notes, and briefs alongside tasks. One notable gap: Monday.com has no built-in direct messaging. Team communication happens in task comments or in Workdocs, not in a chat interface—you need Slack or Teams for async messaging.
Asana collaboration: Rich-text task comments, @mentions, video messages (Loom-style), file attachments, and proofing tools for image and PDF review (Advanced plan). Built-in team messaging via inbox and activity feed—not a full chat tool, but it reduces Slack dependency for task-adjacent communication. Workload views and capacity planning help small teams avoid burnout by visualizing who is overloaded.
Winner for collaboration: Asana
Asana’s built-in messaging, video updates, and proofing tools create a more complete collaboration environment without forcing a switch to Slack for every discussion. Monday’s Workdocs are excellent for documents but do not replace real-time chat for most teams.
Mobile Apps
Both platforms offer iOS and Android apps rated above 4.0 on app stores. The practical differences:
- Monday.com mobile: Full board access, item creation, status updates, and push notifications. The interface mirrors the desktop experience closely. Creating new items and updating statuses is fast. Some advanced views (Chart, Pivot) are desktop-only.
- Asana mobile: Clean task management on mobile—create tasks, complete them, check due dates, and navigate projects. The My Tasks view is particularly well-implemented on mobile. Timeline view is available but less practical than on desktop.
User reviews consistently rate both apps positively for basic task management on mobile. Both have room for improvement in complex workflow management from a phone screen—this is the nature of data-dense PM software, not a unique flaw.
Winner for mobile: Tie
Functionally equivalent for task management on mobile. Asana’s cleaner interface translates marginally better to small screens; Monday’s information density is harder to navigate on mobile but is workable.
Security & Compliance
Both platforms take security seriously—but the specifics matter for small teams handling client data, financial information, or personal records.
Monday.com security: SOC 2 Type II certified, ISO 27001 certified, GDPR compliant. Two-factor authentication (2FA) is available on all plans including Free. Enterprise plan adds IP restriction, audit logs, single sign-on (SSO) via SAML, and advanced session management. Data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest (AES-256). Monday.com processes data in the US and EU with configurable data residency on Enterprise. For small teams, the Standard and Pro plans include adequate security controls—Enterprise-tier features are overkill unless you are in regulated industries.
Asana security: SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 certified, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018 certified, GDPR and CCPA compliant. HIPAA compliance available on Enterprise plan. 2FA is standard across all plans. Advanced plan adds SSO via SAML, custom rules for data retention, and admin controls for permission management. Enterprise adds data residency (US or EU), audit log API, and encrypted key management (EKM). Asana’s compliance certification stack is marginally more comprehensive than Monday’s at equivalent tiers—relevant for healthcare, legal, or finance-adjacent teams.
Winner for security: Asana (slight edge)
Asana’s HIPAA compliance option on Enterprise and ISO 27017/27018 certifications give it a marginal edge in regulated environments. For most small teams, both platforms are secure enough—the differences are material only if your industry requires specific compliance frameworks.
Customer Support
When something breaks or your team cannot figure out how to configure a workflow, support quality determines how much time you lose.
Monday.com support: 24/7 email and chat support on all paid plans. The support team is generally responsive—average first-response time is under 2 hours based on community reports. Monday.com’s help center is comprehensive with searchable articles, video tutorials, and a structured learning path. The community forum (monday.com community) is active with 100,000+ members—peer answers often resolve common questions faster than ticket submissions. Enterprise plans get a dedicated customer success manager and priority support queue. Phone support is not available on any plan.
Asana support: Personal (free) plan gets community support only—no direct email or chat access. Starter and Advanced plans get email support with business-hours response. Enterprise plans unlock priority support and a dedicated customer success manager. Asana’s self-service resources are excellent: Asana Academy provides structured courses (beginner through advanced) that systematically build your team’s capability on the platform. The Asana community forum is also active. One gap: live chat is not available even on paid plans—all support is asynchronous via email.
Winner for support: Monday.com
Monday.com’s 24/7 chat support on all paid plans—versus Asana’s email-only support on Starter and Advanced—is a meaningful practical difference for small teams who cannot afford to wait a business day for an answer to a blocking question.
Onboarding & Setup Experience
Project management software only works if your team actually uses it. Adoption is the implementation risk that most evaluations underweight.
Monday.com onboarding: The platform greets new users with a guided setup wizard that walks through board creation, inviting team members, and creating your first workflow. The template gallery is the most accessible entry point—find a template that resembles your use case, customize the column types, and you have a functional board in 30 minutes. Monday.com also offers live onboarding webinars for new accounts and a Webinar library for self-paced learning. The steep learning curve is in the advanced features: automation configuration, cross-board linking, and formula columns require investment to master.
Asana onboarding: Asana’s onboarding flow is cleaner—a brief questionnaire captures your role and team type, then pre-populates an initial project structure. The guided “Getting Started” task list is meta and clever: it teaches Asana by having you use Asana to manage your own onboarding. Asana Academy offers structured training paths by role (Marketing, Engineering, Operations) with certifications available. For non-technical teams, Asana’s more constrained interface means fewer decisions and faster time-to-useful-output—fewer options is a feature, not a limitation, during onboarding.
Winner for onboarding: Asana
Asana’s constrained interface and meta onboarding approach produces faster adoption for small teams with mixed technical backgrounds. Monday.com’s power requires more configuration investment—which pays off later, but creates more friction at the start.
Reporting & Analytics
For small teams, reporting answers one critical question: is your work actually moving forward, and where are the bottlenecks?
Monday.com reporting: Dashboard widgets are the reporting engine—50+ drag-and-drop widget types including numbers, charts, gantt summaries, battery (progress) indicators, countdown timers, and workload summaries. Every widget pulls data from your boards in real time. You can build a project health dashboard, a team capacity view, a revenue tracker, and a deadline overview all on one screen—pulling from multiple boards simultaneously on the Standard plan and above. Chart view provides instant bar, line, and pie chart visualizations of any board’s data without building a separate dashboard.
Asana reporting: Dashboard and reporting features are available on Starter and above. Portfolio-level reporting (seeing status across all projects) is available on Advanced. Asana’s reporting is more structured and less customizable than Monday’s—you get predefined modules (overdue tasks, task completion rate, work by assignee) rather than a blank canvas of widgets. The trade-off: Monday’s flexibility requires configuration; Asana’s prebuilt modules produce useful reports immediately without setup. Asana integrates with Tableau, Power BI, and Salesforce on Advanced—ideal for teams that want email data in their existing BI tools.
Winner for reporting: Monday.com
50+ drag-and-drop dashboard widgets versus Asana’s more structured reporting modules—Monday wins clearly on reporting flexibility. For data-driven teams that want custom analytics, Monday’s dashboard is closer to a no-code BI tool than a project summary. For teams that want fast, useful reporting without configuration, Asana’s prebuilt modules are adequate and require no setup.
Real-World Pricing Scenarios
Abstract per-seat pricing is meaningless without running the numbers for realistic team sizes. Here is what small teams actually pay in 2026:
5-Person Team (Most Common SMB Size)
| Platform + Plan | Monthly Cost (annual billing) | Annual Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday.com Basic (5 seats) | $45/month | $540/year | No automations; 1 dashboard |
| Monday.com Standard (5 seats) | $60/month | $720/year | 250 automations/month; Timeline/Gantt |
| Monday.com Pro (5 seats) | $95/month | $1,140/year | 25,000 automations; Chart view; Monday AI |
| Asana Starter (5 users) | $54.95/month | $659/year | Unlimited automations; AI; Timeline/Gantt |
| Asana Advanced (5 users) | $124.95/month | $1,499/year | Goals, portfolios, Salesforce/BI integrations |
10-Person Team
| Platform + Plan | Monthly Cost (annual billing) | Annual Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Monday.com Standard (10 seats) | $120/month | $1,440/year |
| Monday.com Pro (10 seats) | $190/month | $2,280/year |
| Asana Starter (10 users) | $109.90/month | $1,319/year |
| Asana Advanced (10 users) | $249.90/month | $2,999/year |
The cost comparison for a 5-person team seeking meaningful automation: Monday.com Pro at $95/month vs Asana Starter at $54.95/month. Asana saves $481/year while delivering unlimited automations and Asana AI—an outcome Monday.com’s Pro plan justifies only if you actively use the additional views (Map, Chart, Pivot) and the 25,000 monthly automation run limit.
Best Use Cases: When to Choose Each
Monday.com is the right choice for:
- Marketing agencies managing multiple client campaigns simultaneously—Monday’s cross-board dashboards and column flexibility handle varied client workflows without shoehorning everything into one structure.
- Sales teams that want a lightweight CRM layer inside their project management—Monday’s pipeline view, formula columns for deal values, and HubSpot integration create a functional sales tracker without a separate CRM subscription.
- Operations teams building custom internal tools—vendor tracking, onboarding checklists, procurement workflows, IT request queues—Monday’s 36+ column types make it a flexible no-code database as much as a task manager.
- Field service businesses with location-based work—the Map view visualizes job site assignments geographically, a genuinely unique capability not replicated in Asana.
- Teams that need client-facing dashboards—Monday’s visual, color-coded dashboards impress non-technical stakeholders during status reviews; Asana’s cleaner interface is less visually impactful in presentation contexts.
Asana is the right choice for:
- Software and product teams managing sprints, feature releases, and bug tracking—Asana’s task hierarchy (tasks, subtasks, sub-subtasks), dependency management, and integration with GitHub and Jira fit development workflows precisely.
- HR and People teams managing hiring pipelines, onboarding workflows, and performance review cycles—Asana’s structured forms, approval workflows, and access controls handle sensitive HR processes appropriately.
- Content and editorial teams managing publication calendars, content briefs, and review cycles—Asana’s proofing tools (Advanced plan) allow in-line feedback on images and PDFs without switching tools.
- Teams scaling from 2 to 50 people—Asana’s onboarding ease, unlimited automations from Starter, and clean permission model scale with less configuration debt than Monday’s more complex board architecture.
- Teams already in the Google/Microsoft ecosystem—Asana’s integrations with Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, and Outlook are tighter and more widely tested than Monday’s equivalents.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Monday.com or Asana better for small teams?
For most small teams (2–10 people), Asana Starter is the better starting point: unlimited automations, clean interface, lower per-seat cost, and AI tools from day one. Monday.com makes more sense if your team needs heavy customization, multiple data visualizations beyond Kanban and Gantt, or you are building internal tools (like a CRM or client tracker) on top of the project management layer.
Which has a better free plan — Monday.com or Asana?
Both free plans support 2 users. Asana’s free plan (Personal) includes unlimited tasks, projects, and storage, plus List, Board, and Calendar views. Monday’s free plan includes basic boards and 200 items. Asana’s free plan is more useful for a solo or duo getting started; Monday’s free plan feels more like a trial. Note: Asana reduced its free plan from 10 users (pre-November 2025) to 2 users for new accounts—check if your account qualifies for legacy limits if created before that date.
Is Monday.com more expensive than Asana?
For small teams needing automation, yes. Monday Standard at $12/seat/month caps automations at 250 runs/month. To get meaningful automation (25,000 runs/month), you need Monday Pro at $19/seat/month. Asana Starter at $10.99/user/month includes unlimited automations. The total cost for a 5-person team: Monday Pro = $95/month; Asana Starter = $54.95/month. Monday also uses bucket pricing (paying for 5 seats even with 4 team members), adding a hidden cost.
Does Monday.com or Asana have better Gantt charts?
Both have solid Gantt/Timeline views. Monday’s Timeline allows inline editing of task duration directly in the Gantt; Asana requires opening a task panel. Asana’s Gantt is available on Starter ($10.99/month); Monday’s requires Standard ($12/seat/month). For dependency tracking and project scheduling, they are functionally equivalent. Power users may prefer Monday’s inline editing; Asana is adequate for most small-team scheduling needs.
Which is easier to learn — Monday.com or Asana?
Asana has a notably gentler learning curve. Its interface is clean and minimalist; tasks are easy to find and act on. Monday.com’s power comes with visual density—the colorful, column-heavy interface requires time to configure meaningfully. Asana’s onboarding Academy resources are also more comprehensive. If you are onboarding a team with varying technical comfort levels, Asana will generate less resistance.
Do both platforms offer AI features?
Yes. Asana AI (Smart Goals, Smart Summaries, Smart Chat, Smart Assignee) is available from the Starter plan ($10.99/month). Monday AI is a separate add-on available from the Pro plan ($19/seat/month). Asana offers AI at a lower price point—a meaningful difference for budget-conscious small teams.
Can I use Monday.com or Asana for client project management?
Both platforms support guest access for client collaboration. Monday.com allows external guests (non-seat users) to view and comment on specific boards—ideal for client status updates. Asana supports guests on paid plans with view-only or comment access. For client-facing project management with a polished experience, Monday’s visual dashboards often make a better impression in client reviews. For internal team management with occasional client touchpoints, Asana’s simpler interface is less likely to confuse non-technical clients.
Bottom Line: Which Should Your Team Choose?
Both Monday.com and Asana are excellent. The choice comes down to your team’s primary constraint and work style.
Choose Asana if:
- Automation is central to your team’s workflow and you do not want to pay Pro-tier prices for unlimited runs
- Your team is new to project management software and values a clean, low-resistance learning curve
- AI task assistance matters—Asana AI is available at Starter; Monday AI requires Pro
- You value built-in messaging and do not want to rely entirely on Slack for team communication
- Your team is 2–10 people and budget efficiency is important ($10.99/user vs $12–19/seat)
Choose Monday.com if:
- Your team needs maximum flexibility—custom column types, 15+ views, and dashboard widgets that go beyond standard PM software
- You are building internal tools on top of project management (CRM, client tracker, content calendar) and want a no-code platform to do it
- Reporting and data visualization matter—Monday’s 50+ dashboard widgets and Chart/Pivot views are the best in class
- You need specialized views like Map view for location-based work or Sales Pipeline view for CRM-adjacent tracking
- Your team has technical comfort with configuring a more complex system in exchange for more power
For a broader view of project management options—including lighter tools like Trello and more powerful platforms like ClickUp—see our full guide: Best Project Management Tools for Small Teams in 2026.
Affiliate disclosure: SoftwareSift earns a commission when you purchase through links on this page. This does not affect our editorial independence—our ratings and recommendations are based on our own testing and research. We only recommend products we have evaluated and believe deliver genuine value.