Trello vs Jira
Learn more about your options and pick the best tool for your team.
If you are evaluating project management and Kanban tools, you will likely find Trello and Jira on your shortlist. Unsure which one of them is right for your team? You've come to the right place.
Even though both Trello and Jira are owned by the same company Atlassian, these are two very different tools. In this article, we'll take a closer look at both tools and examine their strengths and weaknesses to help you make the right decision.
Trello and Jira compared
Even though Atlassian, the company behind Jira, acquired Trello in 2017, it opted to keep them as separate products. They are both project management tools, but have vastly different feature sets and target audiences.
Let's dive deeper into what Trello and Asana have to offer and also have a look at other alternatives you may want to consider.
Trello
Pricing: Free, advanced features starting from $5/user/month
Rating on Capterra: 4.5/5
Trello is a simple yet flexible Kanban tool. It's credited with bringing the Kanban approach to project management into the mainstream.
Trello's main appeal is its simplicity. It's not nearly as feature-packed as Jira, but it makes up for it by being much more user-friendly. Trello is designed for a broad audience and can be used for anything, from roadmap planning and issue tracking to personal task management and wedding planning.
Trello also offers a very generous free pan, making it a great option for personal projects and small teams with limited budgets. Advanced features are available with a subscription to one of Trello's paid plans, that are also fairly affordable.
Why you might prefer Trello over Jira:
Trello is easier to get started with, the initial set up requires minimal configuration and can be completed in minutes.
Trello offers fewer features and options, making it easier for the entire team to get the hang of it.
Trello is a general-purpose tool and can be used for a wider range of use cases.
Trello offers a more generous free plan with unlimited users.
What users say about Trello:
"At the time we were starting to use Trello, we didn't need any advanced functionality of Jira. It is very simple to set up and use. I had our first Kanban board up and running in a few minutes! For some larger projects we switched over to more advanced solutions, but we still use Trello."
Looking for more tools similar to Trello? Check out this list of Trello alternatives.
Jira
Pricing: Free, advanced features starting from $7.75/user/month
Rating on Capterra: 4.5/5
Unlike Trello, Jira is a more specialized project management tool, designed, first and foremost, for Agile software development teams. It allows you to plan sprints, define user stories, prioritize your backlog, and more.
It's an exceptionally powerful tool that can handle even the most complex software development projects. It's also highly customizable and can be configured to fit your team's unique workflow. On the other hand, smaller, non-technical teams may find Jira to be too over-engineered for their needs.
Why you might prefer Jira over Trello:
Jira is developer-friendly and offers a wide range of specialized features, including velocity charts, Scrum tracking, and more.
Jira can be customized in a more granular way than Trello.
Jira has a more extensive feature set than Trello.
What users say about Jira:
"Jira is very powerful, but only if your team is techy enough to use it. It's the gold standard in project and process management, especially in the number of options, features, automations, integrations and workflows that the software is capable of handling. The biggest con really is that it is not the most user-friendly software. Unlike Trello or Asana where you can just go fire it up and it's good to go. This one takes a lot of set-up to do and a deep familiarity with how it works under the hood."
Looking for more tools similar to Jira? Check out this list of Jira alternatives.
Other alternatives
It should be mentioned that your options are not limited to just Trello and Jira, and there are many other great project management and issue tracking tools.
For example, if you are looking for a more lightweight and fast alternative to Trello and Jira, consider Nuclino. The interface of Nuclino is clean and distraction-free, without any clunky menus and rarely-used options. It works right out of the box and requires almost no configuration, so your team can be productive from day one.
Nuclino stands out thanks to how it brings structured data and long-form content together — like Jira and Confluence in one. Every Nuclino item is real-time collaborative document where you can add notes, create to-do lists, embed files, and more, managing and simultaneously documenting your projects in one place.
You can use comments to exchange feedback directly in Nuclino and preserve the context of every decision.
But project management is just one of the many things you can do with Nuclino. It's a unified workspace where you can build your internal knowledge base or team wiki, collaborate on internal documentation, take meeting minutes, onboard employees, and more. Nuclino works like a collective brain, allowing you to bring all your team's work together in one place and collaborate without the chaos of files and folders, context switching, or silos.
Trello vs Jira: So which is better?
The short answer is "it depends". Trello can be a great project management tool for freelancers or small teams. Jira may be a better fit for software developers, engineers, and product managers working on complex projects in large organizations. Both tools have their own strengths and weaknesses.
On the other hand, if you like the idea of bringing your projects and documentation together in one simple and fast tool, Nuclino may be a great option for you.
We hope this article has made your decision a little easier. At the end of the day, the only way to be sure you are making the right choice is to thoroughly evaluate each tool together with your team.
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