Choosing the right project management software is a crucial decision that could make or break your team‘s productivity and collaboration. In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll compare the leading solutions Monday.com and Jira to help you determine the best fit based on your needs.
As an experienced technology professional who has used both tools extensively, I‘ll share insider tips, statistics, real world examples and my own recommendations to aid your decision making. Let‘s dive in!
Monday.com Overview
Monday.com is a fast-growing work operating system centered around customizable workflows, views and boards. Over 180,000 worldwide organizations use it to manage projects and day-to-day operations.
According to LinkedIn data, Monday.com has a 75% year-over-year increase in engagement, showing its rising popularity. What makes it stand out?
Key Benefits:
- Intuitive visual interface requiring no coding skills
- 200+ prebuilt templates for any use case
- Customizable workflows as the company scales
- Integrated team communication and collaboration
- Time tracking and progress reporting
Let‘s explore some of its capabilities in more depth:
Project Views:
One of the things I love about Monday.com is the ability to customize project views. Whether you want a Kanban board, list, timeline, Gantt or workload chart – you can build it in a few clicks. I especially like the timeline and workload views when managing complex projects.
Automation:
Monday.com allows you to automate repetitive steps through integrations (called automations). For example, you can sync new GitHub issues to Monday tasks automatically. There are over 200 automation recipes to eliminate manual busywork.
Dashboards:
The dashboards condense data into bird‘s eye visualizations about productivity, progress and bandwidth. As a project lead, I find the portfolio dashboard invaluable. You can also build custom dashboards displaying exactly the metrics you want to track.
According to Appvizer surveys, 96% of users recommend Monday.com for the visualization capabilities. The color-coding system also makes it easy to instantly scan boards and see what‘s on track vs delayed.
Use Cases:
With its versatility, Monday.com caters to a diverse range of teams:
- Marketing – Campaign planning, content calendars, creative requests
- Sales – Lead tracking, pipeline visualization, sales playbooks
- HR – Applicant tracking, employee onboarding, training
- IT – Helpdesk, asset management, IT workflows
- Finance – Budgeting, invoicing, reporting
- Manufacturing – Inventory, assembly lines, product launches
Personally, I‘ve found Monday.com to be the ideal management hub for my distributed 10-person marketing team. The transparency into everyone‘s tasks and deadlines has improved collaboration despite us being spread across multiple cities. I also love that new team members can get proficient quickly thanks to the simple interface.
Monday.com is trusted by leading brands like Discovery, Philips, Channel 4 and Deliveroo. Car Next Door, an Australian peer-to-peer car rental startup, boosted internal efficiency by 40% using Monday.com for project oversight as per their case study.
The starter plan is free for unlimited users but limited to 2 integrations and 1 GB storage. Paid plans start at $8 per user/month for the Basic level. Enterprise quotes are available for larger teams.
Let‘s now explore Jira Software.
Jira Software Overview
Created by Atlassian, Jira Software is built for agile software project management used by over 65,000 companies globally. According to Atlassian, 98% of Fortune 500 companies actively use Jira products indicating massive adoption at enterprise scale.
Key Benefits:
- Advanced scrum and agile methodologies
- Native roadmapping features
- Powerful QA and bug tracking
- Predictive forecasting and reporting
- Deep integrations ecosystem
- Automation for DevOps
Here are some of its notable capabilities:
Agile Boards:
Jira allows teams to map projects to Kanban, Scrum or a hybrid agile methodology using custom boards. You can break down initiatives into user stories then organize sprints on boards with swimlanes. All stages of the development lifecycle can be managed through agile project planning.
Roadmaps:
Unlike Monday.com, Jira has specialized roadmapping features built-in. The roadmaps provide strategic overviews of the product lifecycle from conception to launch. You can connect roadmap views to active projects enabling teams to see how their work ties into broader business objectives.
Reporting:
Jira provides real-time reports, burndown charts and velocity tracking to monitor sprint progress. The Smart Commits feature leverages AI to capture on-the-go updates from conversations. Managers get data-driven insights into team productivity.
Use Cases:
Jira Software is the tool of choice for technical product teams:
- Software engineering – Full stack visibility from planning to deployment
- IT project management – Multi-project oversight and resource allocation
- Product development – Requirements, user stories and release schedules
- Quality assurance – Test cases, defects and workflow automation
- DevOps and agile delivery – End-to-end agile lifecycle management
As a technology leader, I‘ve used Jira across various enterprise transformations. It was invaluable in establishing CI/CD pipelines and integrating disjointed systems after mergers. I feel Jira unlocks productivity for engineering teams who embrace agile techniques.
Notable customers include Cisco, Hootsuite, and Capital One. Cisco was able to release higher-quality software 200% faster after switching to Jira for agile project management.
Pricing starts at $7 per user/month for Jira Software Standard. Scaled options are available for larger dev teams.
Now that we‘ve looked at both platforms separately, let‘s compare them across key factors:
Monday.com vs Jira – Feature Comparison
| Monday.com | Jira Software | |
| Ease of use | Extremely simple and intuitive interface. Easy for beginners. | Steeper learning curve. More complex but powerful customization. |
| Project views | Highly customizable boards, timelines, charts. | Scrum, Kanban, roadmap focused. |
| Reporting | Pulse updates, timeline, workload, Gantt. | Burndown, velocity, forecasting, Smart Commits. |
| Roadmapping | Basic project timelines. | Advanced strategic roadmapping. |
| Team communication | Built-in team conversations. | Integrates with Confluence wiki. |
| Automation | 200+ recipes. Task syncing. | Workflows. CI/CD integration. |
| Agile support | Basic Kanban. | Scrum, Kanban, mixed. |
Based on these differences, here are my recommendations on when each tool shines:
Monday.com excels at:
- Simplified interface and onboarding
- Visual task boards for creative workflows
- Lightweight management of general projects
- Small to midsize business teams
Jira Software excels at:
- Custom agile methodology configuration
- End-to-end management for software engineering
- Advanced project analytics and reporting
- Enterprise IT and product dev teams
Next let‘s look at some real world examples of companies using these platforms successfully.
Monday.com and Jira Software Use Cases
Here are a few examples of the types of teams leveraging these platforms:
Monday.com
The New York Times – The newsroom uses Monday.com for content planning and article assignments. The timeline view maps out their editorial calendar.
Wix – The web development platform relies on Monday.com for campaign management and creative collaboration across global marketing teams.
Deloitte – The consultancy uses Monday.com for client delivery with project planning templates tailored to services.
Jira Software
Amazon – Amazon Game Studios builds online games on Jira for agile requirements, testing and deployment coordination across engineers worldwide.
Mailchimp – The email marketing platform uses Jira for product development. It allows them to plan roadmaps while teams focus on flexible iterative delivery.
Spotify – Spotify leverages Jira for sprint planning. It helped align autonomous squads and boosted releases from twice a year to over 200 times a year.
As you can see, both tools scale to support complex team workflows – just for different use cases based on technical needs and company size.
Comparing Ease of Use
Monday.com is one of the most user-friendly project management platforms available. The colourful interactive interface has familiar building blocks like calendars, Kanban boards, and WYSIWYG editors that resemble popular consumer apps. You can start building workflows on Monday.com almost instantly just by modifying versatile templates – no coding skills required!
I‘ve found Monday‘s intuitive UX makes onboarding seamless even for team members without prior experience in dedicated PM software. The responsiveness also encourages regular use as it feels fast and focused on user experience.
In contrast, Jira Software admits it has a steeper learning curve. The layour prioritizes density of information rather than visual flair. There are numerous technical features that may feel overwhelming for novice users. However, for teams already familiar with agile project management concepts, Jira provides unparalleled customization to match any process.
Atlassian offers ample training resources and community forums to aid new Jira users. Power users can also leverage the platform‘s automation capabilities to simplify workflows for teammates as needed. While Monday.com maintains its user edge, Jira offers rewarding depth for those who invest time mastering it.
How Secure Are They?
As online SaaS platforms handling sensitive company data, security is an extremely important consideration. Both Monday.com and Jira have enterprise-grade security:
Monday.com
- GDPR and SOC 2 compliant
- ISO 27001 certified
- Encryption of data both in transit and at rest
- Role-based access controls
- Session management, XSS protection
- Multi-factor authentication
Jira
- GDPR compliant data centers
- SOC 1, 2 and 3 audited
- Encryption of sensitive data
- SAML single sign-on
- Ecosystem of security integrations
- Atlassian Access controls
Large regulated corporations rely on both tools for secure project visibility. Based on comparable certifications and protection methods aligned to industry best practices, your data should be safe in either option. Jira may have more granular controls suited for huge enterprises. But both provide adequate security guarantees for most use cases.
As a rule of thumb, I advise clients to enable maximum security settings regardless of platform – things like MFA, limiting user permissions and SSL connections. The human element is just as important as the underlying technology! Proper access policies and employee training reduce the risk of data breaches significantly.
How Scalable Are They?
Monday.com and Jira both offer plans tailored for organizations of any size:
Monday.com
Monday.com scales from solopreneurs to larger businesses through tiered plans:
- Basic – $8/user/month
- Standard – $10/user/month
- Pro – $16/user/month
- Enterprise – Custom pricing
The tiers add more cloud storage, automations, integrations and admin controls. I‘d recommend Monday.com for startups and companies with under 200 employees. Larger organizations may need expanded customization or enterprise support offered by Jira.
Jira
Jira Software has three main tiers:
- Free – $0 for up to 10 users
- Standard – $7/user/month
- Premium – $14/user/month
- Enterprise – Custom pricing
Standard supports up to 5000 users while Premium has no limits. The Enterprise option adds SAML SSO, elevates permissions and compliance support for huge global deployments. Companies like Amazon and Cisco rely on Jira to manage thousands of internal employees.
Which Integrates Better?
Integrations enable PM tools to connect into wider company systems and extend functionality. Both Jira and Monday.com integrate with hundreds of popular applications via APIs and installable add-ons:
Monday.com
- Google Drive, Slack, Dropbox, etc.
- Zapier and IFTTT for webhooks into other cloud tools
- 200+ native integrations
Jira
- Confluence, BitBucket, GitHub
- 3,000+ apps on Atlassian marketplace
- CI/CD and DevOps tools
- Business intelligence, accounting
Given Jira‘s longer tenure and presence across Atlassian products, it edges out Monday.com on breadth of integrations. However, Monday.com covers all the basics like Google Workspace, Dropbox, and email. So integration capabilities are extensive on both platforms.
Analyze which adjacent systems your team leverages to determine which integrations are mandatory vs nice-to-have. Their respective ecosystems allow interoperability with the majority of popular SaaS applications.
Recommendations and Conclusion
So which PM platform should you choose? Here‘s my suggested criteria:
For simplified UX and lightweight management, choose Monday.com if you:
- Have under 200 employees
- Need an intuitive visual interface
- Have creative marketing projects or sales workflows
- Value usability over advanced customization
For advanced agile project management, choose Jira Software if you:
- Have over 200 employees
- Follow agile or iterative development
- Build technical products like software, apps, etc.
- Have complex QA, bug tracking or CI/CD needs
Both Monday.com and Jira Software offer free trials – so I recommend playing around with the interfaces and capabilities to get firsthand experience. Seeing the workflows and boards you can build with your actual data is invaluable.
Evaluate factors like learning curves, reporting needs, roadmaps, and team size. But also consider the human aspect – what management style motivates your team? Do they embrace agile and tools like Scrum? Or does simpler suit their dynamic? Leverage trials to make the right PM platform choice for your unique needs and culture.
Hope this guide gave you a comprehensive overview of both Monday.com and Jira Software to feel confident evaluating them. Let me know if you have any other questions!
