Which one should you use?
Trello is the better tool if you want a shared board that anyone can understand in thirty seconds. Inkwell is the better tool once the board stops being the whole job — when the same work also needs tracked hours, an invoice, a client who wants an update, and somewhere for the notes to go.
What Trello is better at
Trello's simplicity is a real feature, not a limitation. You can hand a board to someone who has never seen it and they will understand it immediately, which is not true of most project tools including this one. Its free tier is generous, it is fast, and for a small shared workflow — a content calendar, a launch checklist, a team of two moving cards — it is genuinely hard to beat.
Pick Trello if…
- You want a shared board and nothing more complicated
- Other people need to pick it up with no explanation
- A simple kanban is genuinely the whole workflow
- You are collaborating casually rather than billing
Pick Inkwell if…
- Cards keep needing things a card can't hold — hours, costs, a client
- You bill for the work on the board
- You want documents, a journal and habits in the same place
- You are running several kinds of work, not one board
Feature by feature
Capabilities only — we deliberately don't quote Trello's prices, because they change and a stale figure here would be worse than none. Last checked 30 July 2026.
| Feature | Inkwell | Trello |
|---|---|---|
| Kanban boards | Yes | Yes |
| Simple to hand to someone else | Partly | Yes |
| Projects, tasks and sub-tasks | Yes | Partly |
| Built-in time tracking | Yes | No |
| Invoices and expenses | Yes | No |
| Client portals | Yes | No |
| Documents and boards | Yes | Partly |
| Journal, habits and mood | Yes | No |
| Mind-map / graph view | Yes | No |
| Built-in AI assistant | Yes | Partly |
| AI that creates and updates your work, not just text | Yes | Partly |
✓ yes · ~ partly · — no
Common questions
Does Inkwell have boards like Trello?
Yes — boards are one of the ways to look at a project, alongside lists, documents and the mind-map. The difference is that a card in Inkwell belongs to a project that also carries time, costs and a client, so moving it to Done means something beyond the column it sits in.
Can Trello track time or invoice a client?
Not natively. Trello is a board tool, and time tracking or billing usually comes from a Power-Up or a separate app. That is fine until the hours and the invoice need to agree with each other.
Try it
The whole personal notebook is free forever for one person, with no card — see what's free and what's paid. If you want the reasoning behind the one-notebook idea rather than the feature list, we did the arithmetic of tool sprawl.
Other comparisons
- Inkwell vs Notion — Notion is a better wiki. Inkwell is a better week — it tracks the hours and raises the invoice.
- Inkwell vs Toggl — Toggl tracks time beautifully. Inkwell tracks it inside the project you're billing for.
- Inkwell vs Linear — Linear is built for software teams shipping product. Inkwell is built for one person with a mixed week.
- For freelancers — Projects, tracked hours, invoices and a portal per client — in one place instead of five.