Jira Alternatives & Competitors

📖 12 min. read

Are you tired of Jira Software and want to spice things up by introducing a new platform to your business? If so, we guarantee you will be surprised by the number of options you currently have. What was once a market dominated by Jira is now a pool of numerous platforms just waiting to be picked.

With upgraded features, pricing, and more, you may want to look at Jira alternatives and competitors. Luckily, below you will find plenty of tools like Jira you can switch to immediately.

Best Jira Competitors & Alternatives in 2024

Jira alternatives are supposed to offer similar project management and issue-tracking capabilities to Jira. These software solutions should include agile project management, task tracking, project collaboration, and reporting. 

If you’re not a big Jira fan but still need a tool that provides similar features, you should check out some of the Jira competitors and alternatives. Here are our top 22 picks for 2024.

1. Ayanza: Best for collaborative work.

2. GitHub: Best for version control and collaboration.

3. Bugzilla: Best for project planning.

4. Trello: Best for organizing projects, tasks, and to-do lists.

5. Rally: Best for agile software development.

6. Basecamp: Best for centralized project organization.

7. Confluence: Best for project managers.

8. Shortcut: Best for managing your team’s work.

9. Pivotal Tracker: Best for project development.

10. ServiceNow: Best for custom teams who prefer a personalized approach.

11. Asana: Best for teams that want to stay on top of their work.

12. Azure DevOps: Best for projects that require a set of modern dev services.

13. Wrike: Best for removing project barriers and achieving goals.

14. Redmine: Best for documenting projects.

15. Gitlab: Best for individual use.

16. Monday: Best for project management and tracking.

17. Smartsheet: Best for intuitive project management.

18. Notion: Best for remote teams.

19. VersionOne: Best for software development teams.

20. ClickUp: Best for a cross-functional team.

21. Microsoft Project: Best for unlimited projects.

22. Aha!: Best for cross-functional teams.

22 Top Atlassian Competitors & Alternatives

1. Ayanza

🥇 Best for team success and health

💸 Free trial: All Ayanza functionalities are free to use for up to 25 users

🚀 Popular features: Remote work is all fun and games until Collaborative Tasks start rolling in. Collaborative work is challenging as it is, let alone when it needs to be done remotely. Fortunately, Team Journaling can make all your teamwork-related problems disappear in the blink of an eye, allowing you to communicate efficiently with your teammates.

Ayanza Daily Prep isn’t your typical boring daily prep tool. It’s a unique tool that contains your yesterday’s victories and highlights your key intentions for the day. You can say goodbye to monotonous daily updates and replace them with these engaging messages.

Even if you’re experiencing writer’s block or could simply use some assistance during your brainstorming sessions, the AY Writer could be your new best friend. From creating outlines and coming with ideas to writing full articles, AI for writers will save you tons of time.

Starting price: $6 per user per month for more than 25 users

Integrations: No one wants to work with slow or impractical tools today. As Benjamin Franklin said, “time is money”, which is why third-party integrations are an essential part of every modern solution.

Ayanza boasts numerous integrations, including Asana, Notion, Trello, GitHub, Google Calendar

Benefits of Ayanza compared to Jira: A user-friendly but customizable design is definitely one of Ayanza’s main benefits. You get a knowledge base that’s integrated with your tasks. The Daily Standup feature as well as the Task Overview for each individual team member stand out. Apart from that, users can access countless project management features at a fraction of the price compared to Jira. With a better design, lower price, and more features, it’s pretty clear why Ayanza is a serious Jira competitor.

Who should use Ayanza: Even though Ayanza is primarily designed for professional entrepreneurs, small business owners, and freelancers, who says you can’t use it if you don’t fit into one of these categories? This tool can help you manage your business regardless of your position or industry. It is for leaders who want a clear path towards their goals.

Favorable review:

“I used to write my tasks down to single player Todoist, now we’re all moving to collaboration in Ayanza.” – CEO SuperScale, B2B SaaS

2. GitHub

🥇 Best for version control and collaboration

💸 Starting price: Free with 500MB storage, unlimited data transfer out within Actions, and 1GB data transfer out outside of Actions per month.

Benefits of GitHub compared to Jira: Unlike Jira, GitHub is free. Even though GitHub has paid plans, too, knowing you can use this type of platform for free definitely sounds appealing. Accessibility is another feature you might want to focus on since you can access GitHub from anywhere. When using Jira, you’re limited to a particular server.

Favorable review: “Best code hosting & git version control I have used till now” – Eapen Z.

3. Bugzilla

🥇 Best for project planning.

💸 Starting price: Bugzilla is free software licensed under the Mozilla Public License.

Benefits of Bugzilla compared to Jira: First and foremost, we can’t look over the cost factor. Since Bugzilla is free and open-source bug-tracking software, it automatically beats Jira when talking about the price. You might be concerned about how Bugzilla performs in terms of security, but it’s safe to say it beats Jira in this aspect too. With more built-in security features, Bugzilla keeps its users safe at all times.

Favorable review: “Ease of use, all the features are available for the dev and testing team to track bugs. Mail notification, mail notification customization. Searching and preset search. I literally like all the features in this product.” – Ruban D.

4. Trello

🥇 Best for organizing projects, tasks, and to-do lists.

💸 Starting price: Free for individuals and teams looking to organize a project.

Benefits of Trello compared to Jira: It seems like we’re on a streak regarding free platforms because Trello is another high-quality service that comes at no cost for your team, unlike Jira. Trello is also visually appealing, so if you’re a sucker for aesthetics, you’ve got your winner right here.

Favorable review: “A great app where you plan your work quickly and easily. It provides an opportunity to easily carry your content thanks to both mobile and computer access. Thanks to the checklists added to the tasks and tasks, you can determine the scope of your work very quickly. Being able to quickly create a board with the ideas in your mind and include your teammates increases your motivation. Don’t worry when you start managing a lot of projects and content. It has a great search ability.” – Hüseyin Cihad G.

5. Rally

🥇 Best for agile software development.

💸 Starting price: Plans start at $9.80 per user per month.

Benefits of Rally compared to Jira: Rally does precisely what you would think it would do. It secures agile project management and helps teams manage software development projects. With that said, the name Rally is truly befitting. Compared to Jira, Rally provides better tools for teams to plan and track the progress of development projects, enabling them to collaborate on projects in real time. It also offers features for managing product roadmaps and release management.

Favorable review: “Rally Software is used by agile development teams to track sprint development work. We also use it to track informal defects and as a requirements repository. It is flexible and powerful to use while also providing export tools for linkage and traceability. Project management, developers, testers, and other stakeholders all use Rally as a comprehensive tool to track, log and assign work.” – Kathy D.

6. Basecamp

🥇 Best for centralized project organization.

💸 Starting price: All features are included at $11 per user per month.

Benefits of Basecamp compared to Jira: With a universal pricing plan, all Basecamp users can count on unlimited projects, integrations, customer support, and time-tested reliability. Inclusivity is probably the main benefit of Basecamp simply because all users receive the same service. Therefore, Basecamp is easily a Jira competitor.

Favorable review: “Our company likes the ability to share content with the entire team no matter where anyone is in the world. Simple secure login from any computer and poof instant content for all to read & share.” – Patrick C.

7. Confluence

🥇 Best for project managers.

💸 Starting price: Free forever for up to 10 users.

Benefits of Confluence compared to Jira: Confluence and Jira are both products of Atlassian, so you might wonder how they’re different. Well, Confluence is a better fit if you’re aiming at collaborative content creation, knowledge sharing, and document management. It helps teams organize their ideas, documents, and conversations in one secure place, making it easier to find information and stay connected.

Favorable review: “It is easy to use, and it comes with a plethora of templates and integrations. You can create well-organized documents in seconds and collaborate with teammates to improve them and publish a finalized version so the entire team can have access to it.” – Pedro D.

8. Shortcut

🥇 Best for managing your team’s work.

💸 Starting price: Free for small software teams who want to organize, document, and plan quickly.

Benefits of Shortcut compared to Jira: Shortcut is significantly better when it comes to organization and pricing. Namely, organizing and planning with Jira isn’t nearly as simple as with Shortcut. In addition, Jira costs a lot more.

Favorable review: “We use Shortcut to take us from the start of building a new functionality through to QA and launch. The dynamic capabilities and plugins to platforms like Slack and Gmail are fantastic.” – Alexus G.

9. Pivotal Tracker

🥇 Best for project development.

💸 Starting price: Always free for 1 to 5 collaborators.

Benefits of Pivotal Tracker compared to Jira: Pivotal tracker includes some great features, such as calculating your team’s velocity and encouraging consistency to maintain a healthy rhythm. While Jira has some handy features, too, Pivotal Tracker scores a point here.

Favorable review: “It is a very reliable program with great backing (customer service support) and detailed processes that are easy to follow.” – Stacey S.

10. ServiceNow 

🥇 Best for custom teams who prefer a personalized approach.

💸 Starting price: Custom pricing plans for all customers.

Benefits of ServiceNow compared to Jira: First things first, ServiceNow provides automated workflows to streamline processes, while Jira does not. ServiceNow is also better in data modeling, a feature you might find particularly helpful when creating custom applications.

Favorable review: “Service Automation in its best form.” – Sukumar M.

11. Asana

🥇 Best for teams that want to stay on top of their work.

💸 Starting price: Free forever for individuals or teams dipping their toes in project management.

Benefits of Asana compared to Jira: Asana is more geared towards project management than Jira. As an incredibly agile project management tool, Asana takes the lead without a second thought.

Favorable review: “The one Project Management Software you will ever need.” – Yoan B.

12. Azure DevOps

🥇 Best for projects that require a set of modern dev services.

💸 Starting price: The Basic Plan is free for the first 5 users.

Benefits of Azure DevOps compared to Jira: Scalability, automation, and cost-efficiency are just some of the key differences between Azure DevOps and Jira. They’re also the main reasons why Azure DevOps could be a better option.

Favorable review: “One tool for all your DevOps” – Rahul A.

13. Wrike

🥇 Best for removing project barriers and achieving goals.

💸 Starting price: Free for teams that are just getting started.

Benefits of Wrike compared to Jira: Wrike is yet another tool that offers its services for free. What makes this platform special is its unique approach to different teams, including marketing, design, and project management.

Favorable review: “A good project management platform with a long way to go” – Pietro P.

14. Redmine

🥇 Best for documenting projects.

💸 Starting price: A free platform with some paid plugins.

Benefits of Redmine compared to Jira: Redmine is software like Jira, but it’s free and open-source. Redmine also allows its users to manage multiple projects and subprojects simultaneously with its handy features.

Favorable review: “Basic lightweight project management and issue tracking tool for non-agile projects” – Richard D.

15. Gitlab

🥇 Best for individual use.

💸 Starting price: Free for individual users who need essential features.

Benefits of Gitlab compared to Jira: Whether you’re aiming at digital transformation, cloud transformation, or security and governance, Gitlab can do it better than Jira. With all that in mind, Gitlab is another great alternative to Atlassian.

Favorable review: “Simply the best git repository.” – Prateek A.

16. Monday

🥇 Best for project management and tracking.

💸 Starting price: Free forever for individuals.

Benefits of Monday compared to Jira: Besides the visual aspect, Monday has other advantages compared to Jira, including more features and overall a better user experience.

Favorable review: “With neat color coding, you can customize many aspects of the boards, like due dates, files, briefs, categories, and more. You can also set up specific notifications for status changes. It’s excellent for simultaneously managing a diverse group of projects, campaigns, and tasks.” – Annabel B.

17. Smartsheet

🥇 Best for intuitive project management.

💸 Starting price: Starting at $7 per user per month, billed annually.

Benefits of Smartsheet compared to Jira: Smartsheet is the winning solution for anyone who wants to empower teams and move with agility. It’s the ultimate alternative to Jira.

Favorable review: “SmartSheet is a life, time, and sanity saver!” – Emily T.

18. Notion

🥇 Best for remote teams.

💸 Starting price: Forever free and unlimited for individual users.

Benefits of Notion compared to Jira: Moving on with our list of agile tools like Jira, Notion is another excellent example. The main upside of Notion is its wide range of use. Whether you need a tool for tracking your work or private tasks, Notion will do it for you.

Favorable review: “Notion, an excellent platform that implements agile methodologies in projects.” – Jose P.

19. VersionOne

🥇 Best for software development teams.

💸 Starting price: Starting from $29 per month per feature.

Benefits of VersionOne compared to Jira: Thanks to enhanced collaboration, improved visibility, and streamlined planning, individual users and teams can easily make the most out of VersionOne and enjoy features Jira doesn’t include.

Favorable review: “It does a great job of showing daily/weekly progress of all team members. It tracks a backlog of what needs to be done and pertinent information in an organized way.” – Jessica Y.

20. ClickUp

🥇 Best for a cross-functional team.

💸 Starting price: Forever free for personal use. Paid plans start at $5 per month per user.

Benefits of ClickUp compared to Jira: As one of the main competitors to Jira, ClickUp has some pretty handsome features to offer. Between individual users and enterprises, ClickUp has a plan for every purpose.

Favorable review: “Wonderful tool with a million features!” – Sandra D.

21. Microsoft Project

🥇 Best for unlimited projects.

💸 Starting price: Starting at $10 per user per month with a 1-month free trial.

Benefits of Microsoft Project compared to Jira: Microsoft is a creator of some excellent tools, and Microsoft Project isn’t an exception. This Jira alternative is perfect for any software team looking for a cloud-based or on-premises solution that will equip them with some powerful features.

Favorable review: “The best software for managing large projects” – Fernanda M.

22. Aha!

🥇 Best for cross-functional teams.

💸 Starting price: Starts at $9 per user per month.

Benefits of Aha! compared to Jira: Aha! is the last online project management software on our list, but that doesn’t mean it’s less significant than any other previously-mentioned applications. Compared to Jira, Aha! has some robust features that can transform your entire projects and turn them into seamless experiences.

Favorable review: “Aha! delivers on the promise of product roadmapping in agile software product management” – Benjamin B.

How to choose the best Jira service desk alternative

If you’re looking for a Jira replacement, you might want to focus on several aspects of each solution to get the best possible application or collaboration tool. We completely understand choosing between so many options can be intimidating, which is precisely why this quick guide can help you find the best tool for the entire team.

• Features

First things first – the features. They’re the most important thing you need to examine before making the final call on which platform you will use. The availability of features ultimately decides what a software team can do with the tool they’re using.

If you want to accomplish something with the project management solution, but the tool doesn’t have such a feature, you can immediately forget about it because it’s not happening. To prevent that, analyze the available features carefully. Some key features you should look for are custom dashboards, pre-built templates, and simple user interfaces.

• Integrations

In addition to features, third-party integrations also affect how easily and quickly you can do your job. With integrations, you can easily access and manage boards, plans, emails, lists, or any other file native to some other platforms. Nevertheless, integrations are created to cut time spent on task management, which is precisely what they do.

• Ease of use

Every platform for planning projects should be easy to use and navigate. Considering that teams use these solutions to manage entire projects – a complex platform will only make the job more difficult and hardly bring something good to either the project progress or the team.

• Price

Each Jira alternative comes with a unique pricing plan. Since most solutions operate on a monthly subscription basis, the price you pay for the tool can quickly add up to a hefty sum. Budgeting is essential regardless of how much money your company has, so consider the pricing. If you decide to go with custom workflows, compare the prices before you commit.

• Customer support

Even the most agile users need technical assistance from time to time, which is where customer support comes into play. While you probably won’t rely on customer support daily, it’s good to know customer representatives are here to help you when you need them.

A friendly, helpful, and available customer support is worth a lot, and you shouldn’t forget to include it as part of your checkpoint list when choosing the best Jira alternative.

Why teams choose Ayanza as their Jira alternative 

Based on the information from the table above, it’s safe to say Ayanza is a much better choice than Jira. Although the price you will have to pay for Ayanza will ultimately depend on your team size, you will still pay much less than Jira. Apart from that, Ayanza comes with some great features to ensure team progress.

What is Jira?

Jira is an issue and project-tracking software organizations use to manage and track work. It’s a cloud-based platform that allows teams to create, assign, and track tasks based on agile or traditional project management methods. Jira also enables teams to customize their workflows and access real-time reports to monitor progress.

What is Jira used for?

People use Jira to track bugs and issues, and for project management. With Jira, teams can create and assign tasks, set due dates, prioritize issues, track progress, and report on project performance. It is also used to track bugs and defects, allowing teams to identify and resolve problems quickly.

How does Jira work?

Jira allows teams to create, assign, and track tasks via its special software platform. It also provides a team with the ability to collaborate and communicate effectively, allowing them to stay on top of their projects.

What makes Jira unique compared to other alternatives?

Jira offers a comprehensive tool for agile, traditional, and hybrid project management methods. It also integrates with a wide range of third-party tools and services, allowing teams to extend its functionality.

What are the drawbacks of using Jira?

The main drawbacks of using Jira are its complexity and its cost. Jira can be difficult to learn and use, and it is not suitable for all projects. Additionally, Jira can be expensive for small teams, as it requires a subscription for its services.

Jira customers:

Some of Jira’s famous customers include Audi, Amadeus, Bloomberg, Canva, Carrefour, HubSpot, IBM, InVision, Klarna, NASA, Nextiva.

Jira integrations and apps:

Most notable apps you can use with Asana are Slack, Google Drive, GitHub, Microsoft Teams, Asana, Figma, Miro, Zendesk.

Jira cost:

Jira is free for teams of up to 10 members. The Standard Plan is $7.50 per month per user, and the Premium Plan is $14.50 per month per user. The Enterprise Plan comes with custom pricing.

Jira reviews:

“Not precisely an easy-to-adopt software, but quite useful for the Scrum or Kanban approach.” – Aaron P.

“Atlassian Jira - A go-to tool for Project Management.” – Chirag T.

“Userful in managing tickets and tracking performance in our project.” – Ardhiya C.

When to choose an alternative over Jira?

 If Jira is too pricey for your team or you’re searching for a tool with more advanced features, you might want to take a look at some of the Jira alternatives.

Conclusion

Jira is an incredibly popular project management solution. Nevertheless, many other similar solutions have been launched since Jira’s golden era, including Ayanza. From a simple user interface to customizable templates and custom fields, newer platforms might be better equipped for horizontal teams and what they’re looking for.

FAQ

Is Jira still the best agile tool?

While Jira remains to be one of the most popular agile tools, there are plenty of Jira alternatives on the market that might offer the same, if not better, features.

Is Jira being discontinued?

No, Jira isn’t being discontinued.

Who can create teams in Jira?

Any user with the Administrator or System Administrator role can create teams in Jira.

Does Microsoft have a Jira alternative?

Microsoft Project is the best Microsoft Jira alternative that supports unlimited users, custom reports, custom views, and action templates.

Is there a free version of Jira?

Jira is currently free for all teams of up to 10 members.

Why should you look for Jira alternatives?

Some Jira alternatives have a Basic Plan or a Business Plan in place that provides better services than Jira.

What features to look out for in Jira software competitors?

Some basic features you want to look out for are dashboard structure, portfolio of projects, resolution time, and accurate pricing card.

What is the best Jira project management alternative for small businesses?

Ayanza is the best Jira alternative for smaller teams. Besides being free to use, additional users are charged a minimal amount, making Ayanza a cost-effective option. With the authentication feature and custom dashboard, user stories can get a whole new look.

What is the best Jira alternative for large organizations?

Microsoft Project is often considered the best Jira alternative for higher-than-average team velocity. It integrates with other Microsoft products, which is its key feature. Additionally, it provides real-time reporting and project analytics to help organizations quickly identify areas of improvement through a time-tracking facility.