Does Trello Work in China?

Does Trello work in China without a VPN?

Yes, according to GreatFire’s latest tests: Trello’s website and the network that delivers its files load from mainland China. GreatFire, which runs automated checks from mainland China, found trello.com reachable on October 18, 2026, and the www address reachable on October 4, 2026.

Both pages used to read partly disrupted. GreatFire revised them when it began setting aside connections refused outright, a pattern it has seen on otherwise clean routes since late August 2026. With those set aside, it has recorded no interference with the main address since 2016, and none at all with the www address. Its summary for the whole trello.com domain still reads mixed, but several Trello pages, including a public board and the CDN test page, answered “Yes” in their own latest tests.

User reports are older. A team with staff in Hong Kong and Shenzhen wrote on the Atlassian Community forum in December 2023 that the website opened in both cities, including in Edge and Firefox in Shenzhen. A Korean tech blog’s March 2025 guide to blocked services in China listed Trello as unstable. It put Trello among business tools that aren’t fully blocked but can be hard to use, and said cloud services that move files tend to slow down sharply. We found no report from 2026 by a Trello user in China. With recent tests clean and Atlassian saying it doesn’t restrict Trello, we list Trello as working.

Trello’s apps in China

You can get the iPhone app in China, but the Android app has caused trouble. Trello is listed in Apple’s China App Store, under a Chinese name that translates as “Trello: daily task tracker”.

The Shenzhen team found no official way to install the Android app. Trello’s website sent them to Google Play, which they said can’t be reached in China; Yale’s IT team also lists Google Play among sites that aren’t available there. A copy they installed from an APK file shut down straight after launch, before the login page appeared. Whether today’s Android app does the same is not confirmed.

What Atlassian says about Trello in China

Atlassian’s position, as of 2023, is that it doesn’t limit Trello use in China. Replying to the Shenzhen team that December, a member of the Trello team at Atlassian wrote: “We don’t currently have any restrictions on using Trello within China.” The reply suggested checking whether Trello’s files were being blocked at the network level.

Trello’s list of sanctioned places, where it says U.S. law stops it serving users, names Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Venezuela. China isn’t on it.

Trello’s help center explains what happens when its files can’t load. Trello uses a content delivery network (CDN) to load faster, and its firewall guide lists Amazon S3 storage for attachments, avatars and backgrounds. If a firewall blocks the CDN, Trello won’t work, and it may show “Your browser was unable to load all of Trello’s resources”. To check a network, open Trello’s CDN test page, which should read “This is a test of the Trello CDN.” GreatFire’s most recent check of that page from mainland China, on September 27, 2026, got through.

How to use Trello in China

GreatFire’s results suggest Trello needs no workaround in China, but a backup helps if a network blocks its files. Our guide on whether you need a VPN if you have an eSIM helps you pick one.

Trello on a roaming eSIM

Airalo’s help center says its China, Asia and global eSIMs all use international roaming routes that exit outside mainland China, so your phone appears to the Great Firewall as an international roaming user. The catch, it says, is that this covers the eSIM’s own data, not hotel Wi-Fi. Not every plan works this way: UNSW cybersecurity expert Salil Kanhere warned in the Bega District News in July 2026 that a China-specific eSIM typically stays subject to local filtering, like a local SIM. Check where a plan’s data exits before you pay; our eSIM pages note how each plan routes traffic.

Trello over a VPN

A VPN covers what an eSIM can’t, such as a laptop on hotel Wi-Fi. MyChinaGuide, which promotes its own China travel app, recommends one for laptops without a SIM slot. It also warns that “many now get cut within days or hours”, and tells readers to treat a VPN as a useful backup, not their main plan. Yale’s IT team warns that a VPN won’t unlock every site, and that the service itself can be patchy. See which VPNs users say work in China now.

The University of Reading tells staff and students working from China that the government strongly discourages VPN use and that networks may block VPNs. Our guide to VPN rules for visitors to China covers what the law says.

Chinese alternatives to Trello

Chinese teams have Trello-style board tools of their own.

• Teambition: TechCrunch described it as similar to Trello and Asana when Alibaba bought it in 2019. Back in 2015, sspai, a Chinese tech site, said Trello was too slow in China to use every day and singled out Teambition among the Chinese apps that followed Trello’s model.
• Worktile: its China App Store listing pairs board-style task management with a company file drive, team chat and approval workflows.

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