monday.com vs. Jira: which is right for your team?

monday.com and Jira are 2 of the leading project management platforms on the market today.

On the surface, they might look pretty similar. After all, they both help teams manage work.

But what do they do? And what’s the difference between them? If we put them together in a boxing ring and had them duke it out, which project management platform would win?

In this article, we’ll take the violence out of it — no fighting required — and offer an in-depth look into both platforms, what they do, and how they differ. In the end, you’ll have all the information you need to make an informed decision.

Ready?

Let’s get into it.  

What is Jira?

Developed by software giant Atlassian, Jira started as an issue and bug tracker. Today, Jira serves as a work management tool and project management software.

It helps teams keep things organized and is particularly useful for teams who do a lot of coding and software development.

Jira focuses on offering a few main features:

• Customizable Scrum and Kanban board views (monday.com offers both of these and a host of other board views as well)
• A “Roadmaps” feature designed to allow teams to sketch out the big picture of a project
• Bug tracking, management, and reporting

Jira also allows teams to connect issues to code, which helps teams who need increased visibility into the development pipeline.

What is monday.com?

monday.com is a complete Work OS. As a cloud-based platform, monday.com allows teams to do pretty much everything — from planning and tracking bugs to building custom workflow apps.

Some of monday.com’s main features include:

• App and data integration
• Workflow automation
• Organization-wide use

Unlike other options, monday.com doesn’t stop at being just a collaboration or task management tool. Instead, it combines hundreds of powerful features into one centralized Work OS.

Here’s just one terrific feature monday.com has to offer.

If you’re looking for a way to get a 500-foot view of your project — like Jira’s “roadmap” feature — check out the high-level project plan template:

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What are the differences between monday.com and Jira?

TL;DR — Jira is more suited for software-focused, ultra-technical teams, while monday.com will likely work more effectively for everyday users in a more extensive selection of industries.

When deciding on any work management software, ask yourself these questions:

• What is your team’s budget?
• How many people need to use the new platform?
• What are the must-have functions you need?
• How important are integrations to you?

Now that you’ve answered those questions, let’s dive into the part where we examine features in a little more depth.

Jira’s features

Jira is hyper-focused on Scrum and Kanban boards.

It’s ideal for software teams and integrates easily with popular development apps like GitHub.

Users who want more integrations can access Jira’s marketplace, which includes integration options like ZenDesk and Gmail.

Unfortunately, many of the integrations Jira offers come with an additional fee. They’re not ultimately useful for people who aren’t software developers.

monday.com, meanwhile, offers a broader library of integrations that pertain to a wider variety of users.

Related: Jira Work management

monday.com’s features

While Jira is focused on software and development teams, monday.com is a platform everyone can use. To that end, it’s a truly flexible Work OS that your whole business can embrace quickly and easily.

Instead of restricting users to pre-set boards or workflows, monday.com allows everyone from teachers to construction managers and marketing teams to create their own workflows using simple building blocks.

In short, monday.com is also easy to use and doesn’t require you to be a coding expert.

This makes it easy to adapt rapidly without a steep learning curve. monday.com helps teams simplify their days by automating time-consuming workflows and helping teams focus on what matters most.

How much do monday.com and Jira cost?

Jira pricing and plans

Jira offers a free basic plan for teams of up to 10 people. This plan has a 2 GB file storage limit. If you’d like to scale up, you can purchase the standard plan, which costs about $7 per month for each user.

There’s also a premium plan that comes in at $14 per month and allows for some more advanced features, like project archiving, unlimited storage, and 24/7 support.

Users can also access the Enterprise plan.

monday.com pricing and plans

monday.com offers pricing plans designed to fit your budget and organization, complete with a flexible, per-seat pricing plan structure.

The basic plan starts at $9 per month per user and includes unlimited boards, more than 200 templates, more than 20 column types, and free viewers. You can also upgrade to a Standard, Pro, or Enterprise plan.

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What about customer service and integrations?

Jira’s customer service, reviews, and integrations

When it comes to customer service, you have to buy your way in if you’re a Jira user. The Standard plan offers customer support during local business hours, and the Premium plan gets you 24/7 support.

Everyone else will need to fill out a support ticket for help. Jira offers no response time guarantee and only offers support from 9 am to 5 pm on weekdays. Phone support is only available for Enterprise users.

When it comes to integrations, Jira offers a handful directed at software-focused teams. Again, many come at an additional cost, and not all of them are applicable for teams that don’t focus on coding.

monday.com’s customer service, reviews, and integrations

monday.com is serious about customer service. We offer 24/7 support for all customers, anytime, anywhere, with a guaranteed average response time of under 60 minutes.

monday.com also offers a convenient webinar and self-serve knowledge base to help users get the hang of everything the platform offers.

As far as integrations go, monday.com’s library is pretty unbeatable. The Standard Plan alone offers 250 monthly actions for integrations, while the Pro Plan kicks that up to 25,000 monthly integration actions.

Plus, monday.com allows teams to integrate seamlessly with the apps they already use for an all-in-one solution. If you don’t see the app you use in monday.com’s extensive library, no problem. monday.com allows teams to integrate any app in just a few clicks with no coding required.

So which one, monday.com or Jira?

Jira may be a better fit for software-focused teams, but in general, it doesn’t go far enough to cater to everyone else. The learning curve is steep and, while the features are powerful, they do not apply to most teams.

With that in mind, monday.com is the obvious choice for teams who want a flexible, powerful, seamless Work OS that can work across departments.

With monday.com, you get:

• Easy setup
• Powerful, customized task automation
• Limitless app integrations with the apps you already use
• 24/7 customer support for all users, all the time
• Analytics and data visualization
• Robust permissions and governance
• No-code app creation
• And more

To help you visualize the differences between them, here’s a breakdown of monday.com vs. Jira’s customer review ratings:

And the winner of the showdown is…

According to Project Management Institute’s 2020 Pulse of the Profession report, 32% of executive leaders say that choosing the right technologies to invest in is critical to their organizations’ success.

The moral of the story is this: if you’re going to invest in a project management platform, you need to make sure it’s the perfect choice for your company.

While Jira has its strengths, monday.com just offers more features, more powerful and accessible customer support, a whopping 8 different visual workflows, and a truly customizable dashboard that allows you to create, deploy, and share your workflows with everyone.

Ready to see what monday.com has to offer? Get started with our daily task tracker template now.

Related: Asana vs. Jira, Jira vs. Redmine, Jira vs. Basecamp, Jira vs. Trello, Jira pricing

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