When we hear the word ‘Agile project management tool,’ JIRA is among the top recommendations. Being a spearhead in Agile project management, JIRA is known for its capabilities such as ticket raising, project tracking, service management, and development — making it suitable for the software development process.
JIRA’s top features include Kanban boards, flexible Scrum boards, multiple API integrations, and real-time reporting. However, the platform falls short in terms of customization and ease of use.
I’ve used JIRA for a short period and found some major gaps that some of the JIRA alternatives could fill.
- First, it has a steep learning curve. JIRA is hard to set up for beginners and may require you to know the tool inside out since various features are hidden.
- Second, the platform offers extensive customization that can be overwhelming for the users.
- Lastly, its subscription cost increases tangibly.
Here’s what one of the users says about JIRA:
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Description: JIRA G2 Reviews
These shortcomings led me to hunt for the best JIRA alternatives. Our team at Meegle has conducted deep research on these alternatives, considering factors such as ease of use, customization, pricing, and other features.
I’ll explain each alternative, including its key features and pricing so that you can choose the right one! Let’s get started.
What Should You Look for in JIRA Alternatives?
I’ve handpicked the JIRA alternatives based not just on features but also on other factors like ease of use, scalability, reporting, and more.
- Support various views: Look for tools that offer various views, such as Scrum and Kanban boards. Some project management tools also offer Tree and hierarchical views for displaying tasks.
- Task automation: Automation fuels the tasks by setting up the workflows using simple triggers, conditions, and operations. Once you’ve set up the automation with triggers, you won’t have to go back and forth for every step.
- User-friendly interface: If a tool has a steep learning curve, it would require more training during onboarding, which defeats the purpose of a project management tool. The chosen JIRA alternative should offer an intuitive interface and ability to adapt quickly and scale the operations seamlessly.
- Customization: I’d love to have flexibility in customizing the projects, tasks, and entire workflow. Additionally, some project tools offer customizable workspaces for teams of different sizes and even reporting.
- Pricing: Choose the JIRA alternative that offers a free trial or demo. Remember to check if the software's pricing does not increase drastically with the increasing demand.
- Real-time dashboards: The chosen alternative should come with a dynamic dashboard that offers precision in tracking sprint velocity, burn-up and burndown charts, lead time, and updated project progress.
10 Best JIRA Alternatives at a Glance
10 Best JIRA Alternatives and Competitors for Agile Teams
Considering the above factors, these are my top JIRA alternatives:
- Meegle
- Meegle
Meegle tops the list as it caters to different types of teams, not just software development teams. Now, while JIRA has extensive technical features, in comparison, Meegle offers deep levels of configurability and has siginioficant applicability due to its focus on cross-functional collaboration.
With this, it caters to way more industries than software development. It also has a more flexible workflow builder and uses nodes to create cohesive workflows that tie the cross-departmental teams together.
You can also tailor these workflows for different roles by adding or removing certain roles. For example, you can add the review committee in the initial review stage and remove them for the subsequent steps.
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Description: Create role-based workflow and add or remove members
Another standout feature of Meegle is its toolkit. A toolkit is a set of features that converts ideas or concepts into workflows. Agile teams have complete transparency in the project status. Admins and project members can view the ongoing node of each workflow and their respective admins.
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Description: Get a real-time view of the ongoing project node
Project managers can set deadlines and track tasks. To encourage collaboration, Meegle offers a voting system. Teams can use online voting during reviews to accelerate decision-making. Though JIRA offers a voting system, you would find it complex to navigate.
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Description: Use online votes to review projects and tasks
Meegle comes with a rich automation feature that allows Agile teams to automate tasks and reduce wastage. The automated workflows offer pre-defined triggers, filtering conditions, and the operations that need to be excluded.
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Description: Create automated workflows using triggers, conditions and operations
Meegle seeps more flexibility into projects by offering different types of views — Kanban boards, Gantt charts, Tree views and Hierarchical views. Use the Kanban board to organize and sort tasks into different status types.
Same way, you can use the Gantt chart to view project names and their timelines, including start date and end date. While JIRA might need additional plugins for this, Meegle has this in-build functionality, which even caters to different teams.
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Description: Use Gantt charts for displaying project details
Meegle Features:
- Flexible workflow: Compared to JIRA, Meegle’s visual workflow uses nodes to tie the teams together and keep up with the tiniest detail. Teams get granular access to workflows by features such as authorized access. The workflow automation also allows for quick backlog automation and task alignment through roadmaps.
- Pre-built templates: Meegle offers various pre-built project templates that cater to different departments – content marketing teams, R&D departments, HR or operation and management.
- Scrum support: Meegle provides remarkable Scrum elements for the Agile teams, including panoramic views, Kanban boards, and a range of other view options. It also includes sprint planning, automated backlogs, retrospective meetings, and visual progress tracking.
- Vast integration: Meegle offers a wide range of integration options through third-party integration, webhooks, or even APIs. Some of its most widely known third-party integrations include Github, Lark, MailChimp, and more.
Meegle Pricing
- 30-day free trial
- Standard plan: $9/user/month or $8/user/month, billed yearly
- Premium plan: $16/user/month or $12/user/month, billed yearly
- Enterprise plan: Custom pricing
- DevRev
- DevRev
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Description: DevRev project management dashboard
DevRev is an AI-powered project management tool that offers a simplified dashboard with a focus on streamlining omni-channel communication. It connects the support team with the product development teams through an integrated roadmap.
However, the initial setup might be complex, and it would require onboarding training (unlike Meegle).
DevRev Features:
- Customizable workflows: Uses AI and a pre-built library to unify development and customer support in contrast with Jira's complex and app-heavy approach.
- Airdrop: Bidirectionally syncs data from other platforms to DevRev or vice versa. This allows for seamless information exchange without hiccups.
- Comprehensive view: 360-degree view into your project, including customers, products, users, and sessions. Use rich data to discover insights and reduce friction.
DevRev Pricing
- Starter plan: $9.99 per user/month (10 users)
- Pro plan: $24.99 per user/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
- Basecamp
- Basecamp
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Description: Basecamp project management dashboard
Basecamp is an extremely simple-to-use project management tool built for small teams. Setting up your project takes less than a minute. I like that it doesn’t overwhelm the tool with complex features but sticks to the basics.
The board view isn’t Kanban, but it works suitably for someone who is adaptive to Kanban boards.
Basecamp Features:
- Doors: It lets you link Basecamp to other external services and eliminate the context switching. Basecamp integrates with various tools such as Adobe, Figma, Google Drive and more.
- Hill charts: Monitor and review tasks uphill and downhill as they progress and are completed.
- Project tracking needle: Use the needle to track the project and color codes to sort it based on whether it is on track, at risk, or concerned.
Basecamp Pricing
- 30-day free trial
- $15/user per month
- $299/user per month
- Asana
- Asana
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Description: Asana software showing status indicators for different task phases
Asana is on our list of best JIRA alternatives because it streamlines task and project workflows. Compared to JIRA, Asana is simpler to use and boasts features that help organize and manage tasks.
This comprehensive project management tool allows you to easily create tasks, add them to folders, and assign labels and deadlines. Though it doesn’t have as many features as JIRA, it is more useful for task management.
Asana Features:
- Workflow builder: Uses AI and focuses on simpler (using forms, rules, templates, and bundles, which can be customized later) and visual workflow builder that works for software dev environments and other industries. Jira's on the other hand is a bit rigid and tailored for software development spaces.
- Set goals and objectives: Use templates to set goals and objectives for your team. The template acts as a repository for your goal, consisting of deadlines, custom dates, and goal descriptions.
- Resource allocation: Asana offers capacity planning and time tracking to manage your resources efficiently and enhance productivity.
Asana Pricing:
- Free plan
- Starter plan: $8.50 per user month or $6.92 per user per month, billed annually
- Advanced plan: $19.21 per user month or $15.74 per user per month, billed annually
- Trello
- Trello
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Description: Trello dashboard for project management
Owned by Atlassian, Trello offers a Kanban-like interface for seamless project management. You can divide the projects into boards and sub-divide the tasks into smaller cards — facilitating the seamless organization.
I like Trello's simplistic drag and drop interface, which allows team members to move cards and update their status in real-time. This simple approach contrasts with JIRA’s complex workflow builder.
Trello Features:
- Views: This feature offers various angles for tracking projects, such as boards, project timelines, tables, calendars, dashboards, maps, and workspace views.
- Custom templates: Create from scratch or pick the pre-defined templates across various categories such as marketing, design, engineering, and more.
- Power-ups: Trello supports integration with various third-party tools such as mail providers, MS Teams, Slack, and Notion.
Trello Pricing:
- Free plan
- Standard plan: $6 per user month or $5 per user per month, billed annually
- Premium plan: $10 per user month or $12.50 per user per month, billed annually
- Enterprise plan: $17.50 per user month or $210 per user per month, billed annually
- Notion
- Notion
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Description: Notion project management dashboard
Notion is a black-and-white interfaced project management tool that enables teams to manage, organize, and track tasks within a project. It looks like a note-taking app that you’d use to list all your tasks and assign them with labels.
I’d recommend it for its minimalist design and the ability to add commands using “/.” For instance, you can use the command to link an external or internal page, bookmark a page, or mention a URL.
Notion is ideal for small agencies or someone who is into a creative agency.
Notion Features:
- AI insights: Notion leverages AI to parse datasets into insights, autofill documents, and brainstorm ideas from content.
- Hosting: If you own a paid license, you can publish and host a page on the web. This page can be edited and collaborated like a Google Doc.
- Create WiKi system: Ability to create information wiki pages and docs for the organization. This works as a repository for the employee and makes onboarding easier.
Notion Pricing:
- Free plan
- Plus plan: $12 per user month or $10 per user per month, billed annually
- Business plan: $18 per user month or $15 per user per month, billed annually
- Enterprise plan: Custom
- Linear
- Linear
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Description: Linear plan project management dashboard
Next on my list is Linear – a project management tool built for the software development teams. Linear’s project visualization enables teams to view milestones, tasks, and other documentation in one place.
Linear has an extensive issue-tracking dashboard, allowing teams to create, handle, track, delegate, and communicate around tickets.
Linear Features:
- Project planning: Offers robust workflow builder that leverages project roadmaps to plan visuals and map the teams.
- Sprint planning: Linear uses the sprint planning method to build a project lifecycle. It automates schedule and auto-add issues in the current cycle.
- Integration: Powerful API and third-party integration with tools such as Slack, GitHub, Descript, Zendesk, Intercom, and more.
Linear Pricing:
- Free plan
- Basic plan: $10 per user month or $8 per user per month, billed annually
- Business plan: $15 per user month or $12 per user per month, billed annually
- Enterprise plan: Custom
- GitLab
- GitLab
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Description: GitLab operations dashboard
GitLab is one of the free project management tools on my list. It is an AI-powered DevSecOps platform that leverages AI throughout the project development lifecycle.
I’d choose it as a better alternative to JIRA since it covers every element of the product lifecycle – planning, source code management, continuous integration, security, compliance, continuous delivery, and observability.
GitLab Features:
- Automation: Uses generative AI to automate processes such as suggested code reviewers, security vulnerability explanations, and value stream forecasts.
- Portfolio management: Manages complex project initiatives using epics, boards, roadmaps, and milestones in your project.
- Metrics: Provides insights into the team’s performances and uses value stream insights to optimize tasks and sprints.
GitLab Pricing:
- Free plan
- Premium plan: Custom pricing
- Ultimate plan: Custom pricing
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Description: Monday project management dashboard
Monday is a popular JIRA alternative that has made it onto my list because of its customizable project management platform. The platform caters to various departments, including sales, marketing, product development, IT, HR, and operations.
Like JIRA, Monday has a work management feature that facilitates cross-collaboration. You can use this feature to co-edit in real time, share comments, and drag and drop status.
Monday Features:
- Automation: Automates various project tasks such as sending notifications, task creation, team meetings, email follow-ups, and more.
- AI-driven workflow: Use an AI agent to create a workflow and automate tasks such as summary generation, task creation, categorization, and custom actions.
- Powerful integration: Integrates with over 200 third-party tools, such as Slack, Zoom, Drive, Mailchimp, DocuSign and more.
Monday Pricing:
- Free plan
- Basic plan: $12 per user month or $9 per user per month, billed annually
- Standard plan: $14 per user month or $12 per user per month, billed annually
- Pro plan: $19 per user month or $24 per user per month, billed annually
- Enterprise plan: Custom pricing
- ClickUp
- ClickUp
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Description: ClickUp project management dashboard
ClickUp makes it into our list because of its user-friendly and deep customizable workspace. Its design favors agile project management methodologies and is ideal for sprints, backlogs and iterative workflows.
The platform integrates task management, goal tracking and collaboration into one unified solution.
ClickUp Features:
- Sprint automations: Automate sprint cycles with recurring tasks, sprint points, and workload balancing to save time
- Agile views: Toggle between Kanban boards, Gantt charts, List views to match team preferences and track real-time progress.
- Drag-and-drop: Manage task dependencies and priorities with drag-and-drop functionality to streamline backlog grooming.
ClickUp Pricing
- Free plan
- Business plan: $12 per user per month billed annually
- Enterprise plan: Custom pricing
How Meegle Helps with Project Management?
Meegle is more than just a project management tool; it is a mix of predictability and modern technology. It uses powerful visualization and customization to create adaptive workflows for different teams.
Along with the basic project management needs, the tool provides various advanced features, such as voting, delay labels, and effective task management.
But, is it the best JIRA alternative? Well, the key difference between both tools is that while JIRA has a lot of technical featureset, Meegle is designed to promote an environment that's conducive for Agile teams - by focusing on cross-functional collaboration and flexibility (so if and when requirements shift or new tasks spring up, the team can update their processes instantly, ensuring everyone is on the same page).
Here's why we consider Meegle as the right alternative to JIRA for improving project management tasks and operational processes:
Reduces Wastage on Task Dependency
Task dependency is a cohesive connection between different elements of a project. If one task gets delayed, it can affect the multiple stages of the project.
Meegle's task dependency outclasses JIRA's task linking by linking the issues with relevant feature tickets. This provides more clarity in task management regarding issues with relevant feature tickets, which ensures that delays in the area are traceable to specific features.
Say, a software development team reports a bug in a product that may affect its core features. You can use link this bug to feature ticket and ensure that development team prioritizes the resolution.
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Description: Meegle flowchart visualizing task sequences with dependencies mapped out
View Actionable Data for Better Decision-Making
Meegle's dynamic dashboards and data visualization help make complex information clear and actionable. Meegle also uses custom formulas and templates to create real-time reports and statistical data that show key trends and performance metrics.
This comes in handy when you need to analyze team workloads or identify patterns that drive decision-making. Patterns like recurring project delays due to resource allocation problems or spots which team members meet up with deliverable expectations.
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Description: Meegle customizable graphs and visual metrics
Automates Repetitive Tasks
Repetitive tasks are time-killers in project management. What if you get someone to do these mundane tasks while you play your 'lead' role?
Meegle automates various project tasks by using custom fields tailored by department, seniority, or other relevant criteria.
It also automates the notifications that involve follow-ups and status updates, such as sending due date reminders or updating project statuses.
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Description: Meegle automated real-time notifications
Conclusion
Choosing the right project management software is crucial, especially if you’re working in an Agile environment. For most of the JIRA alternatives that I’ve listed, ease of use, pricing, and workflow creation were my key considerations.
You should also consider various factors, such as integrations, team roles, access, visualizations, and reporting. I encourage you to try each of these tools free of charge or with a demo.
Or, jump quickly to Meegle.
Meegle is one of the best JIRA alternatives because it caters to different industries with its predefined set of templates. Its node-driven workflow builder and automation capabilities make it a worthy choice. Besides this, it has a lot of advanced features, such as a Gantt chart, bug tracking tools, customized project management templates, and backlog management.
Looking to start with Meegle? Click here to start a 30-day free trial and see if it's worth it for you.
