Both monday.com and Jira are highly reviewed project management software platforms that offer pretty similar features. However, once you start to dig deeper into each software platform, the differences become more apparent.

To help you decide between monday.com and Jira, we break down their pricing plans, features, pros and cons in this in-depth review.

Recommended Alternative: Wrike

If you’re looking for an easy-to-learn project management software with strong customer support, Wrike has you covered. With multiple view types and an intuitive interface, your team can quickly familiarize themselves with the software and get to work. And for added functionality, Wrike integrates with more than 400 other applications.

monday.com vs. Jira: Comparison

Featuresmonday.comJira
Project views$11$6
Workload managementYesLimited
AutomationsYesYes
Security add-onNoYes
Forever free planYesYes
Starting price (billed annually)$9 per person per month$8.15 per person per month
Visit monday.comVisit Jira

monday.com vs. Jira: Pricing

Both monday.com and Jira have very similar pricing structures, including annual and monthly billing options, though the costs vary slightly between them. They both offer a free trial as well as a forever free plan for very small teams. Jira also offers volume discounts for companies with more than 100 employees. Use the calculator on the website to figure out if your company qualifies for the discount.

monday.com pricing

  • Individual: Free forever for up to two seats.
  • Basic: $9 per seat per month billed annually, or $12 per seat per month billed monthly.
  • Standard: $12 per seat per month billed annually, or $14 per seat per month billed monthly.
  • Pro: $19 per seat per month billed annually, or $24 per seat per month billed monthly.
  • Enterprise: Pricing available upon request.

Read the full monday.com review for more information.

Jira pricing

  • Free: $0 for up to 10 users.
  • Standard: $8.15 per user per month billed monthly, or $850 annually for 1–10 users.
  • Premium: $16 per user per month billed monthly, or $1,600 annually for 1–10 users.
  • Enterprise: Starts at $141,000 a year for 800+ users. Only available for companies with more than 800 employees. Annual billing only.

Read the full Jira review for more information.

Feature comparison: monday.com vs. Jira

Project views and templates

monday.com offers more than 10 project views to choose from, including table, calendar, board (kanban) and Gantt charts. Meanwhile, Jira offers six project views: list, calendar, board, timeline, summary and overviews. While monday.com offers more project views to choose from than Jira, the designs are less complex and thus more suitable for simple projects.

Both monday.com and Jira also offer template libraries so you don’t have to build new projects from scratch. The templates are sorted into easy-to-browse categories such as project management, marketing, sales and operations. Jira does offer more templates for software development than monday.com does.

The list view in Jira.
Figure A: The list view in Jira. Image: Jira

Resource management

Both monday.com and Jira provide numerous features to support resource management. On each platform, tasks can be ranked by priority by using a status column. You can also add a time estimation for each task, then later compare it to the actual time tracked to see how accurate your estimates were.

monday.com also offers a Workload view that allows managers to see each team member’s capacity at a glance so they can evenly distribute tasks. This view can also be used to allocate physical resources like meeting rooms and equipment. Jira does not offer an equivalent view, so you’ll need to seek out a third-party app on the Atlassian marketplace if you want to add this functionality to Jira.

The Workload view on monday.
Figure B: The Workload view on monday. Image: monday.com

Workflows and automations

Both monday.com and Jira come with a no-code automation builder that makes it easy to create automatic workflows in minutes. Select an event trigger, add necessary conditions and choose your action, then turn on the automation to see it in action. You can either create your own from scratch or browse either platform’s library of automation templates to get started even faster.

The automation builder on Jira.
Figure C: The automation builder on Jira. Image: Jira

Both platforms also offer a certain number of automations each month, but the limits are different for monday.com and Jira. monday.com doesn’t even support automations on the Free or Basic plans. The Standard plan gets 250 automations per month, the Pro plan gets 25,000 automations per month, and the Enterprise plan gets 250,000 automations per month.

Meanwhile, Jira offers automations on all plans, even the free one, which gets 100 automations per month. The Standard plan gets 1,700 automations per month, the Premium plan gets 1,000 automations per month per person, and the Enterprise plan gets unlimited automations.

Integrations

Both monday.com and Jira offer a very robust selection of integrations. monday.com offers more than 200 native pre-built integrations to choose from, and you can also connect monday.com to more than 1,000 apps via Zapier. As for Jira, the Atlassian Marketplace features more than 3,000 apps to choose from, almost guaranteeing that you’ll find the integrations that you need. However, it’s always worth double-checking either platform if you have a very specific or niche integration you’re looking for.

Monday.com’s app marketplace.
Figure D: Monday.com’s app marketplace. Image: monday.com

Security

monday.com and Jira are both compliant with GDPR, CCPA and other data privacy regulations, so either one will likely suffice for most companies’ needs. However, if you need more advanced security protocols than the usual offerings, then you might want to look more closely at Jira. That’s because Jira offers higher-level, enterprise-grade security solutions and provides better administration and provisioning through Atlassian Access, an optional paid add-on. monday.com doesn’t offer a similar security add-on.

monday.com pros and cons

Pros of monday.com

  • More project views to choose from than Jira.
  • Dedicated workload management view.
  • Friendly, colorful interface and lower learning curve.
  • Many customization options to choose from.

Cons of monday.com

  • Free plan limited to only two users.
  • Must upgrade to Standard plan to get automations.
  • No advanced security add-on.

Jira pros and cons

Pros of Jira

  • Free plan more generous than monday.com’s.
  • Automations available on all plans.
  • 3,000+ app integrations to choose from.
  • Optional security add-on to enhance data protection.

Cons of Jira

  • No workload management view.
  • Fewer project views than monday.com.
  • More technical to learn.

Should your organization use monday.com or Jira?

monday.com and Jira are both excellent project management platforms, but their slightly different feature sets mean they cater to slightly different use cases. Since both platforms offer forever free accounts as well as free trials, you can test them both before committing to a paid plan.

Use monday work management if:

  • You need more project views to choose from.
  • You want a dedicated workload management view.
  • You’re okay with lower limits on the number of automations per month.
  • You are a small business and need a friendly platform with a lower learning curve.

Use Jira if:

  • You need more automations.
  • You want more app integrations to choose from.
  • You want a more advanced security add-on.
  • You are already using other Atlassian products.

Review methodology

To compare monday.com vs. Jira, we consulted product documentation and user reviews. We consider factors such as pricing, user interface design, customer service and learning curve. We also consider features such as project views, project templates, resource management, workflows, automations, integrations and security protocols.

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