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Why Is ClickUp So Slow Lately? Faster 2026 Alternatives Teams Are Exploring
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Why Is ClickUp So Slow Lately? Faster 2026 Alternatives Teams Are Exploring

Jan 11, 2026

-

C

Clive

Every 7 seconds your team waits for a task to load, organizational momentum dies.

If you're leading a fast-moving engineering or operations team, those seconds add up to stalled sprints, lost focus, and rising frustration. 

What was once marketed as an “all-in-one” productivity platform has now become a bottleneck—one that mid-market CTOs and Ops leaders can no longer afford in 2026.

Over the last two years, ClickUp’s growing technical debt, inconsistent mobile performance, and increasingly heavy interface have hindered team productivity.

Load times that stretch 7–10 seconds per task break flow state and introduce micro-delays that compound across the organization. 

As companies scale, this latency transforms from a minor annoyance into an operational risk.

This blog breaks down why ClickUp has slowed, what that means for productivity-driven teams, and why AI-native platforms like Kroolo are emerging as the faster, consolidated alternative powering the next decade of work.

 

Why Is ClickUp So Slow Lately?

Over the last year, many teams have been asking the same question: “Why does ClickUp feel slower than it used to?”

While ClickUp remains a popular all-in-one work management tool, recurring user feedback highlights performance, usability, and scalability issues that are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore—especially for fast-moving teams in 2026.

This article breaks down why users are experiencing slowdowns and what faster, modern alternatives are gaining attention.

1. Performance Issues That Disrupt Daily Work

One of the most consistent complaints is slow loading times.

Users report:

  • Tasks are taking longer to open
     
  • Dashboards lag when data increases
     
  • Delays when switching views or workspaces

For teams working in real time—client calls, standups, or deadline-heavy sprints—these delays interrupt flow and reduce productivity. As projects scale, performance degradation becomes more noticeable, especially in complex workspaces.

Action

Average Wait Time

Daily Impact Across 50 Users

Task load

7–10 seconds

1.5–2 hours lost/day

Dashboard refresh

4–8 seconds

1 hour lost/day

Mobile sync

5–9 seconds

45 minutes lost/day

This is the hidden Toggle Tax—the friction created by switching between slow screens, stale data, and scattered tools.

Why this matters in 2026: Teams expect tools to keep up with growth, not slow down as usage increases.

2. Complexity Creates a Steep Learning Curve

ClickUp’s flexibility is often cited as both a strength and a weakness.

Many users say:

  • The platform feels overwhelming for new team members
     
  • Too many settings, views, and configurations create confusion
     
  • Lack of clear onboarding makes adoption slower

Instead of accelerating collaboration, teams often spend weeks just learning how to use the system effectively.

Modern expectation: Work tools should feel intuitive within hours—not require internal training sessions.

3. “All-in-One” Doesn’t Always Mean Complete

Despite its broad feature set, users frequently report missing or limited functionalities in areas they rely on daily.

Common frustrations include:

  • Gaps in workflow automation
     
  • Limitations in task organization at scale
     
  • Needing external tools to fill functional gaps

This leads to workarounds, added integrations, and fragmented workflows—the opposite of what an all-in-one platform promises.

4. Organization Challenges at Scale

As teams grow, structure matters more than flexibility.

Users mention:

  • Difficulty maintaining clean, organized workspaces
     
  • Too many layers (Spaces, Folders, Lists) are becoming hard to manage
     
  • Increased cognitive load when tracking priorities

What works for small teams can feel cluttered and inefficient for larger or cross-functional organizations.

5. User Interface Feels Overwhelming

Another recurring theme is UI fatigue.

Many users feel:

  • The interface is not intuitive
     
  • Navigation requires too many clicks
     
  • Desktop experience is preferred because mobile and web feel harder to manage

In 2026, teams expect clarity, speed, and visual simplicity—not tool fatigue.

 

Why Is ClickUp So Slow Lately? Faster 2026 Alternatives Teams Are Exploring

 

What Teams Want Instead in 2026 (and Why Some Are Choosing Kroolo)

By 2026, teams will no longer be looking for just another “all-in-one” tool. They want intelligent systems that reduce effort, think ahead, and move fast. Based on how teams describe their ideal workflows today, a few expectations are becoming clear.

1. AI-Native, Not AI-Added

Modern teams don’t want AI as a button—they want AI as a teammate.

That means:

This is where platforms like Kroolo stand apart—built as AI-native from the ground up, rather than retrofitting AI onto an existing system.

2. Chat With Anything, Not Just Tasks

chat with image

Teams are tired of jumping between tools to find answers.

In 2026, they expect to:

Kroolo’s Chat with Anything approach reflects this shift toward conversational workspaces where information is accessible, not buried.

3. Instant Project & Board Creation

chat with boards

Manual setup is becoming unacceptable. Teams now expect:

With AI-powered project generation, Kroolo removes the friction that many users experience during initial setup in traditional tools.

4. Smarter Structure, Suggested Automatically

Instead of guessing how to organize work, teams want the system to help.

That includes:

  • AI-suggested columns based on project type
     
  • Auto-generated subtasks and checklists
     
  • Intelligent prioritization without manual effort

This directly addresses complaints around poor organization and missing structure that teams report in older platforms.

5. AI-Powered Forms, Dashboards & Feedback

forms using AI

Data should work for teams—not the other way around.

In 2026, teams expect:

Kroolo’s AI-generated dashboards and insights reflect this move toward decision-ready data.

6. Collaboration That Feels Natural

manage channels

Finally, collaboration shouldn’t feel fragmented.

Modern teams prefer:

  • Built-in channels and project chats
     
  • Contextual conversations tied directly to work
     
  • Fewer notifications, clearer discussions

Instead of overwhelming users with complexity, platforms like Kroolo focus on clarity, speed, and contextual collaboration.

 

Case Study: From ClickUp Lag to AI-Native Velocity

For many teams, ClickUp starts as a productivity upgrade—but over time, it becomes another layer of friction. Boards grow heavy. Setup takes longer. Performance slows exactly when velocity matters most.

One 75-person operations team learned this the hard way—and decided to move to Kroolo.

The Challenge: Too Many Projects, Too Much Overhead

The team was managing dozens of active projects inside ClickUp, spread across multiple spaces and folders. Sprint setup, board maintenance, and task re-organization had become a recurring time sink. Every new initiative meant hours of manual configuration before real work could begin.

They didn’t want another long migration or weeks of re-training. They needed speed—without disruption.

 

Step 1: Importing ClickUp Projects in Minutes

Instead of rebuilding everything from scratch, the team used an Integration tool.

Inside Kroolo, they simply:

  • Selected the workspace where the projects should live

  • Navigated to the Projects section

  • Choose Import Projects and connect their ClickUp workspace

  • Selected the required teams, spaces, and project boards

  • Imported everything into Kroolo with a single click

All ClickUp boards, tasks, and structures were organized into existing or new folders—consolidating multiple projects into one centralized workspace.

What usually takes days of manual recreation happened in minutes.

 

Step 2: Letting AI Rebuild the Project Intelligently

Once the projects were imported, the real transformation began.

The team uploaded a 40-page project brief PDF and used Kroolo’s AI to rebuild the work intelligently—not just copy it.

Using AI Task Planning and Prompt-to-Project, Kroolo automatically generated:

  • A complete, structured project board

  • Tasks with clear priority levels

  • Dependencies and milestones

  • Owner assignments

  • Clean documentation summaries

What previously required 6–8 hours of manual setup in ClickUp was completed in 35 seconds.

No configuration fatigue. No ticket grooming. No guesswork.

 

Step 3: Instant Adoption, Zero Drag

Because Kroolo is fast, clean, and AI-native by design, adoption was immediate.

The entire 75-person team was fully operational within a day:

  • No re-training sessions

  • No complex workflows to learn

  • No performance lag when boards are loaded

Sprint execution started almost immediately after migration.

 

The Outcome: Measurable Gains, Immediate Relief

By switching from ClickUp to Kroolo, the team experienced:

  • Faster project setup with zero manual planning overhead

  • Immediate performance improvements—no lag, no load delays

  • Automated task creation instead of manual breakdowns

  • Faster onboarding for new team members

Most importantly, senior team members stopped spending time maintaining tools and started focusing on execution.

The takeaway:

Migration doesn’t have to slow teams down. With Kroolo, moving off legacy tools like ClickUp becomes the starting point for AI-native velocity—not another operational burden.

Conclusion

2026 Belongs to AI-Native, Not AI-Enabled

ClickUp’s slowdown is a symptom of legacy architecture hitting its limits. The future belongs to AI-native systems that automate execution—not tools that require endless configuration and slow load times.

The big takeaway:

👉 ClickUp = feature-heavy, slow, overly complex

👉 Kroolo = fast, intelligent, unified

Teams don’t need another “all-in-one tool.”
They need a WorkOS that does the work with them, not against them.

It’s time to stop managing the tool and start automating the work.

Sign up with Kroolo to escape ClickUp lag and experience Kroolo — the high-speed, AI-native WorkOS.