Monday vs Jira: which tool should you choose to manage your team projects better?
Project management is no longer just about schedules and post-its, it's become a real science of workflow, boosted by the right tools. And when it comes to management tools for steering a development team, structuring an agile project or visualizing a dashboard in real time, two names keep coming up: monday.com and Jira.
But which is best suited to your needs? Your way of collaborating? To your business?
On the one hand, monday.com seduces with its intuitive platform, flexibility and automation features that transform day-to-day management. On the other, Jira remains a reference in software development, particularly for tracking sprints, managing backlogs or optimizing an agile workflow.
👉 In this comprehensive comparison, we help you choose the management tool best suited to your teamwork. Interface, features, pricing, integrations, collaboration, performance tracking... We go through it all.
What is Monday?
Monday overview
monday.com is an online work management tool that is transforming the way teams organize, plan and manage their projects. Originally conceived as a visual alternative to Excel, the software has rapidly evolved into a complete project management platform, prized by marketing, sales and HR teams... as well as software development teams.
Its DNA? An ultra-visual, modular approach to task management. Indeed, we work in tables, which can be customized ad infinitum to track project status, manage deadlines, allocate resources or automate repetitive processes.
🎯 With more than 180,000 customers worldwide (including Uber, Carrefour and Renault), monday.com has established itself as an accessible, powerful cloud solution, and above all one that' s suited to all levels of digital maturity, from agile SMEs to large, structured enterprises.
Monday's key features
At the heart of monday.com are a series of powerful, intuitive features designed to simplify project management while offering a high level of customization, such as :
- customizable dashboards to visualize the progress of your projects at a glance, thanks to multiple views (Kanban, Gantt, calendar, timeline, classic chart...) ;
- task management: assign, schedule, track... every task is traceable, commentable and integrated into a clear workflow;
- code-free automation: create automation rules to save time;
- time and performance tracking: analyze your workloads, deadlines and budgets, and generate reports in just a few clicks;
- collaboration tools: comments, mentions, shared files, notifications... everything you need to facilitate teamwork;
- a rich integration center: over 200 integrations with tools such as Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, GitHub and Jira;
- ready-to-use templates: manage your projects faster thanks to pre-designed templates for agile management, sprints, marketing campaigns, product roadmaps and more.
monday.com
Advantages and disadvantages of Monday
monday.com is seductive in its simplicity, but will not suit all situations. Like any management tool, it has its strengths... and limitations, depending on the expectations of each project team.
✅ The tool shines through :
- its modern, intuitive interface, ideal for non-technical teams who want to get to grips with the tool without extensive training ;
- its great flexibility and adaptability to a marketing campaign, an agile project or a product roadmap;
- its powerful, accessible automations, which save considerable time on repetitive tasks;
- fluid collaboration with comments, notifications, file sharing, etc. ;
- extensive customization of views and workflows, enabling each team to structure its workspace as it sees fit;
- its highly responsive customer support (chat, email, clear knowledge base).
❌ Some teams, especially developers, may quickly reach the limits of monday.com in a more technical or structured context because of :
- the absence of advanced functionalities such as fine-tuned sprint or ticket management ;
- costs can escalate rapidly for large teams;
- few offline functionalities ;
- limited automation depending on the chosen plan, which sometimes means you have to scale up faster than expected;
- an overabundance of functionalities for small projects.
What is Jira?
Jira overview
Developed by Atlassian, Jira is project management software historically designed for software development teams. Today, it is one of the most widely used tools in the world for orchestrating agile projects, planning sprints, tracking tickets or supervising an entire technical workflow.
🎯 Its strength? An ultra-structured, development-oriented approach, with a high degree of workflow customization and native integration with Confluence, Bitbucket, GitHub or Slack. Whether Scrum, Kanban or SAFe, Jira adapts to all agile frameworks. More than 100,000 companies worldwide use it (Airbnb, eBay, Cisco...), often as the backbone of their development platform.
While its interface may seem a little dense at first glance, it hides a formidable project management and technical collaboration engine, capable of tracking every single ticket, from idea to production deployment.
Jira's key features
Designed with software development in mind, Jira offers an arsenal of robust functionalities for planning, tracking and delivering complex projects in an agile environment, including :
- comprehensiveticket management: every task, bug or enhancement becomes a traceable, assignable and prioritizable ticket;
- customized workflows to model your business workflows, with statuses, transitions and rules adapted to each project;
- agile sprints and backlogs;
- time and performance tracking with burndown, velocity or cumulative reports to measure development team efficiency;
- dynamic dashboards and visualization of project activity using customized widgets (tasks in progress, blocked tickets, estimated vs. real time, etc.);
- the creation of rules to automate actions (automatic ticket closure, notifications, cross-updates, etc.);
- a powerful search engine (JQL): filter data precisely using the Jira Query Language, highly prized by technical project managers;
- deep integration with the Atlassian ecosystem, including Confluence (documentation), Bitbucket (code), Trello and Slack.
Jira
Advantages and disadvantages of Jira
Jira is a benchmark in agile project management, but this high level of performance sometimes implies a more technical approach. Here's what you can really expect.
✅ It's a strategic choice for technical teams who want total control over their workflows and advanced visibility over the entire development cycle, thanks to :
- its excellence in agile management: sprints, backlogs, epics, user stories... Jira is designed for the agile project in its purest form;
- its fully customizable workflows, making it ideal for complex or multi-team environments;
- ultra-detailed performance monitoring with burndown charts, velocity, SLAs, blocked tickets... data-driven management becomes a reality;
- advanced search with JQL, a powerful engine for extracting exactly what you need;
- its solid Atlassian ecosystem;
- its cloud or self-hosted model: more flexibility according to your company's constraints (security, data sovereignty, etc.).
❌ But be warned, Jira isn't a "plug & play" tool: without a bit of parameterization, you may quickly become overwhelmed by its complexity. Here are its limitations:
- a steep learning curve, and new users can quickly feel lost, especially without agile management experience;
- a dense and initially unintuitive interface, especially for non-developers;
- unsuitable for non-technical teams, as marketers, HR or sales people may find it too rigid;
- potentially high enterprise cost, especially if you add other Atlassian tools to complete the ecosystem;
- too much customization kills simplicity, and misconfigured, Jira becomes a maze of statuses and tickets.
Monday vs Jira: compare features
| Functionality | monday.com | Jira |
| Task management | Simple, visual, accessible | Highly detailed, ticket-centric |
| Customizable workflows | Yes, via code-free interface | Yes, very advanced, but more technical |
| Views available | Charts, Kanban, Gantt, calendar, timeline | Scrum, Kanban, roadmap, calendar |
| Automations | Integrated, easy to configure | Powerful but more technical to set up |
| Agile management (sprints, backlog, etc.) | Basic, via templates | Advanced, adapted to agile development teams |
| Dashboards and reporting | Visual, customizable | Comprehensive, performance-oriented |
| Team collaboration | Comments, notifications, sharing | Notifications, mentions, comments in tickets |
| Time tracking | Included according to plan | Yes, with real-time and historical reports |
| Advanced search engine | Basic | Advanced (JQL) |
| Integrations | +200 (Slack, Teams, GitHub, Google...) | Very rich, especially in the Atlassian ecosystem |
Focus on task and workflow management
👉 monday.com is perfect for visualizing, assigning and tracking tasks in board or Kanban mode. Its approach is more intuitive, even for non-tech teams. On the other hand, management of complex workflows remains limited.
👉 Jira, on the other hand, shines in modeling complex business processes. If you're managing dependencies, multiple statuses or business rules, it offers unrivalled granularity... at the price of more extensive configuration.
Focus on project visualization
👉 monday.com is the winner on the visual side: colorful timeline, multiple views, dynamic tables... everything is designed for quick reading. Perfect for decision-makers.
👉 Jira also offers powerful views, but focused on agility (backlog, sprint, epic). Less "wow effect", but more structure for complex projects.
Focus on task management
👉 For simple to moderately complex tasks, monday.com is a treat: quick creation, one-click assignment, clear tracking.
👉 Jira, on the other hand, excels on technical tasks with multiple statuses, subtasks, links between issues... but at the price of a denser interface.
Focus on collaboration and communication
👉 monday.com encourages fast, natural collaboration: comments, mentions, file sharing... all in a fluid interface.
👉 Jira is more formal: comments are attached to each ticket, with a technical documentation-oriented logic.
Focus on performance monitoring
👉 With monday.com, you get visual dashboards and customizable reports to track progress and efficiency.
👉 Jira, on the other hand, goes a step further with agile indicators (burndown, velocity, SLA...), perfect for teams who want to measure each sprint in fine detail.
Monday vs Jira: compare prices
Here's a summary comparison to help you anticipate the real costs based on your project team's needs.
| Plan / Tool | monday.com | Jira |
| Free version |
|
|
| Entry plan (Basic / Standard) | Basic: €9 / user / month
|
|
| Intermediate plan | Standard: €12 / user / month
|
Standard: €7.75 / user / month
|
| Advanced plan | Pro: €19 / user / month
|
Premium: €14.63 / user / month
|
| Enterprise plan | Enterprise: on quotation
|
Enterprise: on quotation
|
monday.com vs. Jira: which interface is more intuitive?
| Comparison | monday.com | Jira |
| Overall ergonomics | Modern, intuitive, colorful interface | More dense, technical, designed for developers |
| Learning curve | Very fast, even without training | Rather steep, needs time to master workflows |
| Navigation | Tabbed views, fluid navigation | Complex, sometimes confusing tree structure |
| Mobile accessibility | Excellent mobile app (iOS/Android) | Functional but less fluid app |
| Visual experience | Very graphic (timeline, Kanban, Gantt...) | More functional than visual |
| User onboarding | Guided, with integrated templates and tutorials | Less assisted, often requiring training or a dedicated admin |
💡 In summary:
- monday.com wins hands down in terms of intuitiveness. It's a visual, accessible tool, designed for a variety of teams (marketing, HR, IT...).
- Jira is more technical, designed for software development teams who like rigor... and aren't afraid of a little complexity.
Monday vs Jira: compare integrations
The better a tool integrates with your stack, the more strategic it becomes . Whether it's linking your marketing apps, your development tools or your CRM databases, a software's ability to "talk" well with others is a real deciding factor.
👉 Number of available integrations:
- monday.com: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Around 200 native integrations, via the marketplace or Zapier. Slack, Microsoft Teams, Gmail, HubSpot, Salesforce, GitHub, Google Sheets, Zoom... The base is solid, even if some advanced integrations require a higher plan. - Jira: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Over 1,000 integrations available via the Atlassian Marketplace. Advanced connections with Bitbucket, Confluence, GitLab, Jenkins, GitHub, Figma, Sentry, Notion, etc. Jira is a real hub for DevOps or product teams.
👉 Ease of configuration:
- monday.com: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
A very "plug & play" logic: the interface lets you connect apps without code, in just a few clicks. The experience is fluid, even for non-technical users. Perfect for SMEs or agile product teams. - Jira: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Some integrations are powerful, but more technical to configure, especially when they need to dialogue with customized workflows. This often requires an admin or a real configuration phase.
👉 Customization and automation:
- monday.com: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Integrations can be linked to simple automations (via "if this, then that" logic), very effective for managing notifications, field synchronizations or conditional actions. - Jira: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The possibilities are very advanced: you can create complex rules, scripts, or link integrations to tickets, transitions, or even SLAs. Jira is designed for structured technical environments.
💡 The verdict:
Jira takes the lead on the quantity and depth of integrations, especially in a complex DevOps or agile context.
monday.com, on the other hand, seduces with its ease of implementation and a logic accessible to all, perfect for rapid integration into multi-disciplinary teams.
When to choose Monday or Jira?
monday.com and Jira are not in the same league, and that's precisely what makes them complementary. The right choice depends on the way you manage projects, the composition of your team and your organization's level of agile maturity.
Examples of Monday use cases
monday.com is designed for teams looking for a tool that's simple, flexible and quick to deploy. You don't need to be a developer to get the most out of it: it's all based on "no-code" logic.
👉 Choose monday.com if you need to :
- centralize the work of a non-technical team: marketing, HR, finance or support ;
- manage several types of project with different processes (campaigns, onboarding, events...);
- easily visualize activity via Kanban, Gantt or timeline charts, without complex parameterization;
- collaborate seamlessly with internal and external stakeholders (customers, partners, etc.);
- automate repetitive tasks without writing a single line of code;
- move forward quickly with a ready-to-use tool that can be customized in just a few clicks.
🗣️ Customer testimonial :
Examples of Jira use cases
Jira is designed for technical teams, complex products and organizations adopting a true agile culture. It's the tool for teams who like to measure, structure and iterate.
👉 Choose Jira if you need to:
- manage structured agile projects, with sprints, backlogs, user stories, bugs, tickets ;
- manage a software development team or a tech product with a real need for traceability;
- configure complex workflows, with multiple stages, statuses and conditional transitions;
- measure team performance with detailed reports (burndown, velocity, etc.);
- integrate the tool into an advanced technical ecosystem (CI/CD, Git, Jira Service Management...);
- maintain methodological rigor, even on complex, multi-team or high-load projects.
🗣️ Customer testimonial :
Monday or Jira: the right tool depends on how you manage projects
There's no absolute winner in this duel between monday.com and Jira. There are two complementary visions of project management:
- monday.com focuses on flexibility, readability and visual efficiency. It's the ally of hybrid marketing, product or support teams who want to move fast, collaborate without friction, and automate without coding.
- Jira embodies agile rigor, technical power and granular control. It is the standard for software development teams and technically complex projects.
Here's our advice according to your needs:
| Business need | The right tool |
| Manage marketing campaigns, events or CRM | ✅ monday.com |
| Monitor software development projects with sprints | ✅ Jira |
| Collaborate with a non-tech multidisciplinary team | ✅ monday.com |
| Implement a structured agile methodology (Scrum, Kanban) | ✅ Jira |
| Easily visualize tasks in a dynamic dashboard | ✅ monday.com |
| Track technical tickets, bugs or customer requests | ✅ Jira |
| Create automations without coding | ✅ monday.com |
| Set up complex workflows with conditional rules | ✅ Jira |
| Obtain simple, visual activity reports | ✅ monday.com |
| Extract precise data with an advanced search engine | ✅ Jira |
☝️ In any case, it's best to test: both offer a free version to get a concrete idea before switching over your entire organization.
FAQ
Can I use Monday or Jira without being a developer?
Yes, and that's one of the great strengths of monday.com: it was designed for non-technical teams (marketing, HR, sales...). Its intuitive interface, visual tables and no-code automation system make it a project management solution accessible to all.
Jira, on the other hand, is primarily aimed at software development teams. It's perfectly possible to use it without being a developer... but you'll need more time to understand its logic.
Do Monday and Jira offer a free version?
Yes, both platforms offer a free plan:
- monday.com: free for up to 2 users, with basic views (board, Kanban), but without automation or advanced integrations.
- Jira: free for up to 10 users, with solid features for launching an agile project (backlog, board, sprint, tickets...).
It's a good way to test each management tool before committing.
Can I migrate easily from Monday to Jira (or vice versa)?
Migration is possible, but not always straightforward. monday.com and Jira use different data structures (tables vs. tickets). Import/export tools are available (CSV, API, Zapier), but it 's best to plan the transition and test beforehand with a pilot project.
For complex migrations, we recommend calling in an integrator or technical support.
Monday or Jira: which is best suited to bug management?
Without hesitation: Jira. That's what it's designed for. Bug tracking, prioritization, assignment, history, SLA, ticket lifecycle automation... It's the tool of choice for IT and QA teams.
monday.com can be used to report bugs or classify them, but that's not its primary vocation.
Monday or Jira: which is more customizable?
It all depends on how you define "customizable":
- monday.com: highly customizable visually (views, fields, statuses, colors...), with no coding. It's ideal for teams who want a tailor-made project management interface, fast.
- Jira: highly customizable in terms of workflows, permissions, transitions and business rules. But it requires a little more expertise (or even a dedicated administrator).
Article translated from French