Who Owns Trello?

• Parent Company: Atlassian
• Ownership Type: Wholly owned
• Acquisition Year: 2017
• Company Type: Publicly Traded
• Stock Ticker: NASDAQ: TEAM

• Founded: 2011
• Founders: Joel Spolsky, Michael Pryor
• Acquired by Atlassian: 2017

• Founded: 2002
• Headquarters: Sydney, Australia
• Company Type: Publicly Traded
• Stock: NASDAQ: TEAM
• Revenue: approximately $4.9 billion (FY2025, ended June 2025)
• Employees: Approximately 12,000

Visit Atlassian website

• Headquarters: New York City, New York, USA
• Manufacturing / Operations: United States, Global cloud infrastructure

Trello operates under Atlassian's comprehensive sustainability framework, which encompasses environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and ethical business practices across all product lines including the visual project management platform.

Environmental Commitment: Atlassian has committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, with Trello benefiting from this corporate-wide climate initiative. The company has achieved 100% coverage of U.S. in-office electricity and work-from-home energy use through virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs), ensuring that Trello's cloud infrastructure and operations run on renewable energy sources.

Supply Chain Emissions Management: Atlassian engages with its top suppliers to establish science-based targets for emissions reduction. Out of the top 15 suppliers by emissions without science-based targets, 10 have now committed to setting these targets either through agreements with Atlassian or directly with the Science Based Targets initiative. This supplier engagement program benefits Trello by reducing the carbon footprint of its supply chain and cloud infrastructure partners.

Responsible Technology Development: Atlassian has implemented a responsible technology review process that increased usage by 2x since fiscal year 2024. This process assesses internal, external, and third-party AI products, including those integrated with Trello, ensuring compliance with Atlassian's Responsible Technology Principles. The company conducted over 100 assessments of AI products, helping fine-tune how AI technology is developed and deployed consistently with ethical standards.

Data Privacy and Security: Following the January 2024 API misuse incident where threat actors obtained public Trello user profile data, Atlassian implemented security changes to prevent unauthorized API access. The company maintains that only publicly available profile information was compromised and has strengthened API security measures to protect user privacy.

Ethical Business Practices: Atlassian operates under UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, with Trello inheriting these ethical standards. The company maintains working groups focused on human rights topics and is investing in human rights due diligence and executive oversight in governance models.

Community Impact: Through the Atlassian Foundation, Trello contributes to social impact initiatives focused on education. The foundation was in the top percentile for partner trust and approachability in the Center for Effective Philanthropy's 2025 Grantee Perception Report, reflecting ethical community engagement practices.

Trello has received significant recognition for its user satisfaction, market leadership, and innovation in project management, consistently ranking among the top collaboration and project management tools in industry assessments and user reviews.

User Satisfaction Excellence: Based on comprehensive analysis across multiple software review platforms, Trello maintains a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 89% based on 35,053 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites. This high satisfaction rating reflects strong user approval and product effectiveness in the project management category.

Market Leadership Recognition: Trello is consistently recognized as a leading visual project management tool, particularly praised for its intuitive kanban-style interface and ease of use. The application's visual approach to task management has been cited as an innovation that made project management accessible to non-technical users.

Product Innovation Awards: Trello's Power-Up marketplace and integration capabilities have been acknowledged for extending the platform's functionality through third-party applications. The ability to customize workflows and integrate with popular business tools has been recognized as a key differentiator in the project management software market.

Industry Adoption Recognition: Trello has been widely adopted across various industries, with particular recognition in software development, creative agencies, and small to medium-sized businesses. The platform's flexibility and scalability have been acknowledged through numerous case studies and industry implementations.

Design and User Experience Awards: Trello's visual design and user interface have received recognition for making complex project management concepts accessible through simple, intuitive visual representations. The platform's card-based system and drag-and-drop functionality have been cited as examples of effective user experience design.

Integration Ecosystem Recognition: The extensive Power-Up marketplace has been acknowledged for creating a robust ecosystem of integrations that extend Trello's core functionality. This approach has been recognized as a successful strategy for platform expansion and user retention.

Trello has faced several significant challenges, particularly related to data security incidents, API vulnerabilities, and integration challenges within the Atlassian ecosystem, raising concerns about user privacy and platform security.

Data Security Incident (January 2024): Trello experienced a significant data breach where threat actors obtained public user profile data through API misuse. While Atlassian clarified that only publicly available profile information was compromised and combined with email addresses from other sources, the incident affected approximately 15 million users and raised serious concerns about API security and data protection practices.

API Security Vulnerabilities: The January 2024 incident revealed vulnerabilities in Trello's REST API that allowed unauthenticated users to request public user information by email address. Atlassian implemented security changes to prevent unauthorized API access, but the incident highlighted broader concerns about API security in cloud-based collaboration tools.

User Privacy Concerns: The data breach incident raised questions about user privacy settings and the distinction between public and private information on Trello profiles. Atlassian advised users to review their privacy settings and emphasized that only public profile information was compromised, but the incident damaged user trust in the platform's security practices.

Integration Challenges with Atlassian Ecosystem: Following the 2017 acquisition by Atlassian, Trello has faced challenges balancing its independent identity with integration into the broader Atlassian product ecosystem. Some users have expressed concerns about potential changes to Trello's core functionality and pricing as it becomes more integrated with Atlassian's other products like Jira and Confluence.

Market Competition and Feature Parity: Trello faces ongoing challenges from specialized project management tools that offer more advanced features for specific use cases. While Trello's simplicity is a strength, some users have requested more sophisticated project management capabilities, creating tension between maintaining simplicity and adding advanced features.

Data Center and Service Reliability: As a cloud-based service, Trello has occasionally faced service reliability issues and downtime, particularly during high-usage periods or when implementing major updates. These incidents have raised concerns about service stability and business continuity for enterprise customers.

Pricing and Freemium Model Criticism: Some users have criticized Trello's freemium model for limitations on free tier features and the cost of premium subscriptions. The balance between providing sufficient free functionality and encouraging paid upgrades has been an ongoing challenge in the platform's monetization strategy.