Asana vs. Jira – Which is Better for Project Management?

Asana and Jira are both project management software programs made for small teams. Asana runs on cloud-based technology and offers simple and reliable solutions for organizations and businesses that need a hand in project and task management. It’s easy to integrate with other software like Google Workspace, Office 365, Salesforce, and others.

Jira, on the other hand, is mainly designed for software teams and has helpful features for Agile Software Development models. The tool supports ongoing product releases and has a highly intuitive customer interaction. The hard focus on Agile Development makes this software ideal for small teams in need of advanced project management tools for software development.

Businesses and project managers alike often have difficulty deciding which of the two tools is better suited to their needs. In this article, we share what you need to know about the two platforms so you can pick the best one for your team.

Asana Overview

Asana is a popular Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application that lets businesses track activities and projects completed by their teams. The main goal of Asana is to help teams of various sizes work on different plans and programs. The software has an innovative UI and is generally very comfortable to work on. Users can prioritize apps and navigate the platform with ease.

There are two versions of Asana; a free one, and a paid one. The software can be accessed from either a mobile app or a web browser.

Asana Highlights

• Flexible Dashboards. Asana offers a separate dashboard for each project, with plenty of customization options to make progress tracking more intuitive and straightforward. You can see the status of individual projects and support group chats.
• Task Management. One feature Asana certainly excels in is task management. Its user interface is super versatile and intuitive, so it’s simple to work in groups of just about any size. Task assignment, workload management, and app connectors are some of the best features of the platform.
• High Security. Asana uses high-security protocols to secure your storage on the app.
• Special Views. There’s hardly a better app when it comes to Views than Asana. You can choose priority lists, receive automatic notifications, and use filters for project browsing. If you’re working on an extremely time-sensitive project, you can use the Asana Calendar for task prioritization.
• Feature-dense platform. Asana is a highly valuable platform regardless of the type of plan you’re using. The free version comes with enough features to make task management a breeze. The Premium version lets you use forms, custom fields, add rules, manage task dependencies, and much more.

Asana Pros

• Feature-packed free version
• Workload tool for task balancing for managers
• Modern design
• Task display has an archiving function
• Timeline view with Gantt charts

Asana Cons

• Not the best for graphics-intensive work
• Many features need app integration
• Slightly higher price than competitors
• Initial setup is a bit more difficult due to the open-ended design

Who Is Asana For?

• Teams that work on small products and wish to boost their accountability and collaboration
• Users who are after simple project management tools
• Marketing or sales teams, or other non-IT teams that don’t work with software development

Jira Overview

Jira is a popular cloud-based tool for Agile Methodology team management in software development. This subscription-based program helps teams achieve goals by allowing them to backlog, plan, and deliver products using tools that boost overall project progress. With Jira, it’s easier to monitor new software products as well.

In fact, the advanced Jira features let users monitor projects between versions and create detailed performance reports. There’s also a built-in bug-tracking suite to make software development less challenging.

Jira Highlights

• Reports. Jira has a special feature for providing information called Reports. Reports allows users thorough insights into their project’s progress, including detailed statistics from the start to the delivery of the product.
• Security. Specific features, like the Bug Tracking tool, are only available to certain teams that have permission to work on a particular bug.
• Project Management. Users can keep track of their projects with the help of the Jira Tracking Software. The tool uses JQL (a customized SQL version) for filtering and browsing issues with the use of different criteria.

Jira Pros

• Excellent for Agile
• Free trial
• Plenty of integration options
• Super customizable

Jira Cons

• Longer learning curve
• Lacks advanced collaboration tools
• Complex migration and integration
• Mobile app lacks advanced features
• Lacks timeline views

Who Is Jira For?

• Companies that focus on Software Development with the Agile Model, since the software works on Scrum methodologies
• Software developers who work in small teams (up to 10 people)

Asana vs. Jira – Cost

Asana

Asana has four different plans—Basic, Premium, Business, and Enterprise—to suit different team needs. The Basic plan is free forever, and it’s suited for small teams who are just starting to use project management tools. The price for these plans ranges from $0 for the Basic to $24.99 per user, per month, for the Business plan. The subscriptions can be billed monthly or annually, with a considerable discount when choosing the latter option.

As far as the Enterprise plan is concerned, the cost differs depending on the services you want to use. The pricing is available upon request.

Jira

Much like Asana, Jira also has four pricing plans: Free, Standard, Premium, and Enterprise. However, the subscription fees for this tool are a bit lower. The price ranges from $0 to $14.50 per user, per month, for the Premium version. The free version supports up to 10 users on a team, while other plans have a 20,000-user limit per site. A great benefit for small teams is that they can use most of the key features for free.

The Enterprise plan pricing is available upon request, and is only billed annually. Also, the Enterprise plan is the only one that doesn’t have a site limit. Other plans have a site limit set to one.

The Standard and Premium plans come with a free trial so you can test the system before committing to a purchase.

Asana vs. Jira – Features

Asana

Asana is an excellent app for project management in general. There are plenty of valuable features like schedule creation tools, project templates, production status, and more. The software can handle CRMs and conventional tasks as well, and it’s perfect for traditional software development methodologies thanks to its Agile functionality. What sets the platform apart is its flexibility to keep track of ongoing tasks and long-term projects, coordinate teams, and assign duties.

The primary purpose of Asana is to help managers delegate projects and keep everyone on track around work deadlines.

The user can view tasks as a list or on a Kanban board. The attachments, subtasks, team members, and due dates are easy to add to each task. Each task has comment threads that make communication simple at all times.

Once the task is finished, all of its components (including the comments) are archived. You can then view the work history for that project and use it for billing or reviews.

Asana still doesn’t have some of the more advanced tracking features for managing long-term projects, but some of the most popular ones include the Timeline view, the Portfolios view, and the drag-and-drop interface.

Some important features Asana lacks include live chat, document editing, and time tracking.

Asana has a relatively simple interface that doesn’t overwhelm the user with drop-down menus. However, the fact that the platform starts with a blank slate may be intimidating for some. Managers will usually need to spend some time getting to know widgets and menu items that can be used by their teams. Luckily, you can always try the platform’s free plan and test it with your group to make sure you choose the right structure before purchasing.

Jira

Jira is an excellent project management app for software developers. It comes with a straightforward and intuitive interface that makes it suitable even for non-tech-savvy teams. Some of the essential Jira features include Roadmaps, bug tracking, Agile tools like reports, Scrum boards, and much more.

As far as the Views are concerned, it offers Board, List, Issue Detail, and others. To get the most out of this project management tool, users should slightly modify Jira’s configuration. Developers have a natural talent for configuration tweaking, which is why they are the biggest fans of Jira.

Jira’s most advanced features include Bug Tracking and Issue Management to help software developers track bugs in their projects. This is still the core feature of the project management software today. The system finds, tracks, and records bugs that users can view in a backlog.

The platform also has exceptional reporting features, with more than a dozen available reports. Thanks to this feature, managers have an easy time gaining insights into real-time performance of their teams. There are velocity charts, sprint reports, burndown charts, burnup charts, and more.

The system at Jira is highly customizable. Custom workflows let teams organize their projects visually to boost transparency and accountability throughout the process. Reports and Scrum boards can be customized as well.

Overall, both Asana and Jira offer excellent features. However, Asana wins the race thanks to a higher number of tools. Marketing and sales teams will benefit more from Asana, while IT and development teams will prefer Jira.

Asana vs. Jira – Privacy

Asana

Asana is known for its robust security certificates and encryption of data uploaded on the platform. You can export all your personal information, tweak passwords, and change your account settings using two-factor authentication.

Jira

Much like Asana, Jira also has strong security certificates for data import and export. It features a two-factor authentication for an added level of security.

The data you store on both Asana and Jira uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) for in-transit data and AES256 encryption for at-rest data. Both tools rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for data hosting. However, privacy can’t be guaranteed because both platforms distribute data to third-party applications.

Asana vs. Jira – Integrations

Asana

Asana is a relatively integration-friendly project management tool with over 160 integrations, including Salesforce, Adobe, Slack, Office 365, and others. Most of the commonly used integrations can be found in Asana. If you still can’t access the integration you want, you can build a custom script and link it to Asana using third-party tools.

Since Asana lacks proper communication features like live chat, it’s a good idea to integrate it with Slack or Microsoft Teams. You can always rely on Zapier for all types of advanced connections.

Jira

Jira supports a bit more integrations compared to Asana. With more than 250 add-ons, it has the upper hand against Asana and most other similar platforms. Some of the most popular integrations include:

• Adobe XD
• Miro
• Draw.io
• GitHub
• Slack
• Zendesk
• Trello
• Microsoft Teams
• Gmail

Overall, Jira is the clear winner in terms of the number of possible integrations. However, both of these platforms feature handy add-ons to help you meet most of your needs.

Asana vs. Jira – Customer Service

Asana

Asana’s customer service is ticket-based, and the documentation is relatively simple to use. They also have customer support included in all plans, even the free one. You can contact their support team via email. At the moment, they don’t offer telephone service.

Jira

Jira has ticket-based customer support just like Asana, but only paid plan users can access this feature. Users unfamiliar with the Agile methodology vocabulary may have a hard time going over the documentation. Jira also doesn’t have telephonic customer service.

Asana vs. Jira – Which One Is Better?

Both Asana and Jira offer high-end project management features that make them some of the best platforms of their kind. Overall, Asana is better for non-IT teams or those who are after general project management tools. Jira is better suited for software development teams that want to keep track of their projects from start to delivery.

What kinds of projects do you plan on using these tools for? After reading the review, which of the two platforms do you think will work better for your team? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.