Monday.com and Jira are both popular project management tools, but they come from completely different worlds. Monday.com started as a visual work platform for marketing and operations teams. Jira was built by and for software developers. You notice that difference in every click.
Monday.com in brief
Monday.com is a visual Work OS platform that allows you to plan and automate projects, workflows, and tasks. The interface works with colorful boards that you can customize completely. The platform targets teams without a technical background: think marketing, HR, sales, and operations departments. The power lies in the no-code automations and the flexible way you can customize columns and views. You can build almost anything with it, from a simple task list to a complete CRM system.
Jira in brief
Jira is a powerful agile project management tool specifically developed for software teams. The platform revolves around Scrum and Kanban boards, sprint planning, and detailed reports such as burndown charts and velocity tracking. Jira integrates deeply with development tools like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, allowing developers to link their code commits directly to issues. It has become the standard in software development, but that specialization makes it less suitable for non-technical teams.
Monday.com vs Jira: the differences
The biggest difference lies in the target audience and resulting complexity. Monday.com has a low barrier to entry. You open the platform and immediately see what you can do: create boards, add columns, fill in tasks. The interface is colorful and intuitive. Jira, on the other hand, immediately confronts you with concepts like ‘issue types’, ‘workflows’, and ‘schemes’. Many organizations need a dedicated Jira administrator to properly set up the platform. That complexity has a reason: Jira offers an enormous amount of configuration options for those who need them.
In the area of agile work, Jira clearly wins. The Scrum functionality is baked into the platform. Sprint planning, backlog grooming, velocity charts – it all works out-of-the-box as development teams expect. Monday.com does have Kanban boards and timeline views, but lacks the depth in agile reporting. Do you want a burndown chart, for example? In Jira you click it on. In Monday.com you have to build it yourself with formulas and widgets.
Automation works fundamentally differently. Monday.com offers a visual automation builder where you create rules with dropdowns and clicks such as “if status changes to Done, send a notification to the marketing team”. It’s accessible to everyone. Jira also has automations, but they are more focused on development processes: automatically moving issues on code merges, or adding labels based on branch names. For non-technical automations, you often have to turn to third-party tools like Zapier.
A practical difference many teams encounter: the integration with code repositories. Jira displays commits, branches, and pull requests directly in your issues. You can see at a glance which code belongs to which ticket. Monday.com does have GitHub integrations, but they remain more superficial. For marketing teams, that doesn’t matter. For developers, it’s a dealbreaker.
The interface experience differs enormously. Monday.com feels modern and responsive. Colors, emojis, drag-and-drop works smoothly. Users describe it as “nicer to look at”. Jira’s interface is functional but feels dated. With large projects with thousands of issues, the Cloud version becomes slow. Monday.com also has speed problems with huge datasets, but those have been reduced by recent infrastructure updates.
Pricing compared
Both tools have a free plan, but the terms differ significantly. Monday.com’s free version is limited to 2 users and 3 boards, without integrations or automations. Jira’s free plan offers space for 10 users with 2 GB storage and full functionality. For small teams or starters, Jira is therefore much more generous.
With paid plans it gets more interesting. Monday.com starts from € 9 per user per month (Basic plan, annual subscription). The Standard plan costs € 12 and Pro € 19. Note: you must purchase a minimum of 3 seats, then in increments of 5. Do you need 4 users? Then you pay for 5. Jira’s Standard plan starts at € 7,50 per user per month, Premium costs € 15,41. Jira charges per actual user without minimums.
Monday.com’s pricing structure frustrates many users. The tier jumps and seat minimums make it more expensive than it seems at first glance. Jira is more transparent: you pay for the number of users you have. However, Jira’s prices recently increased by 5-10%, and Monday.com also raised its rates. Both platforms become more expensive as you scale.
A hidden cost with Monday.com: important features like time tracking are only available in the Pro plan at € 19. With Jira, time tracking is already included in the free plan. For agencies or consultants who need to track hours, that makes a difference.
Conclusion
Monday.com and Jira are both excellent tools, but for completely different users. Jira is the winner for software development teams that work agile, need deeply integrated development tools, and want a free plan for up to 10 users. The learning curve and complexity are no problem for technical teams, and the price-quality ratio is better.
Monday.com wins for non-technical teams like marketing, sales, HR, and operations. The visual interface and accessible automations make it suitable for everyone. Do you have 2 users or less? Then Monday.com’s free plan is fine. For larger non-technical teams, Monday.com remains the better choice, despite the higher price.
The choice depends on your team composition. Do you work with developers on software? Choose Jira. Do you work with various departments on projects without code? Choose Monday.com. Try both free plans – you’ll feel the difference within an hour.
