Trello vs Jira: 8 Major Differences You Should Know

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Atlassian has two popular project management software, Trello and Jira. Both software are exceptional and have great functionality.

Trello and Jira help teams collaborate and communicate with each other to complete tasks and maintain organization.

Since both of these software are fantastic, it may cause confusion to pick between one or the other for your business. But that’s where this article can help. It focuses on the differences and similarities between Trello vs Jira programs according to important factors that you should consider when getting one of these project management software.

• Simplicity and User-Friendliness
• Pricing
• Task Management Features
• Collaboration
• Customization and Add-Ons
• Versatility
• Security and Privacy
• Service and Support

8 Important Differences Between Trello vs Jira

1. Simplicity and User-Friendliness

Trello is a safer choice for most businesses because it’s straightforward to use and has little to no learning curve. It has a very versatile and straightforward design that uses a Kanban board to help your team maintain organization over the projects. 

A Kanban board is a project management tool that helps teams visualize work. It helps you quickly identify and troubleshoot problems in your workflow that are causing delays to progress. 

Trello takes this concept and adds a drag-and-drop feature to it. You can customize the titles of each column to represent the stages of your workflow. You can add as many columns as you want so you can add specificity to your processes.

A teammate only needs to drag cards that contain features about tasks or projects from one column to another. This shows other team members the progress of the project. 

If you upgrade to the premium version of Trello, you can further customize the cards that contain information about your tasks or projects. You can include checklists, comments, and tags to easily identify them. You can also add due dates to keep everyone in the loop.

Jira, on the other hand, offers more functionality. It offers more board types like scrum, agile, and Kanban boards. Scrum focuses on small increments of work to complete in short time frames that it calls “sprints.” It tends to follow particular and rigid methodologies. 

This is why Jira focuses more on software development companies.

When it comes to simplicity and user-friendliness, Trello takes the lead on this one. This is because it’s easier to understand, navigate, and perform work on. However, Jira offers more specificity and intricacy and offers more personalization and customization according to your needs. 

2. Pricing

Trello

Trello has four pricing tiers. 

Free

You can use the program for free and it doesn’t limit the number of cards that your team can create. 

You also have an unlimited activity log so you can track your team’s progress for every task or project. You can assign due dates to your cards and all of this is supported by the Trello app that is available on iOS and Android.

Your limits lie in the number of boards you can make and in the size of your files. This pricing option offers a limit of only 10 boards and your files cannot exceed 10MB despite the unlimited storage. This option is ideal for small businesses.

Standard

The standard rate includes all the features of the free tier and more. For this tier, you have unlimited boards and advanced checklists. You can also customize fields and the unlimited storage increases to 250MB per file. 

This tier is best for small teams that need to manage work. Pricing starts at $5 USD per month if you choose the annual option of $60 per year or the monthly option of $6 USD per month.

Premium

This tier includes everything in standard plus a few more notable features. This includes a wide selection of views like calendar, timeline, table, dashboard, and map views. For workspace views, you have table and calendar views.

It now also includes admin and security features. Since the premium is for considerably large teams, it’s now more important to keep data safe and secure so you also get simple data export and classification as a priority for support.

The premium tier costs $10 USD per month for the annual plan, totaling to $120 per year, and $12.5 per month for the monthly plan. 

Enterprise

The enterprise tier has all the available features on Trello. It has unlimited workspaces, organization-wide permissions, organization-visible boards, and public board management. You’ll also get attachment permissions, power-up administration, and free SSO and user provisioning with Atlassian Access.

The pricing of this tier is relative to the number of users so it is best to contact Trello directly to get a quotation.

Jira

Jira also has four pricing tiers.

Free

The free version of Jira comes with its scrum and kanban boards. You will also get Agile reporting, customizable workflows, apps, and integrations. For automation, you can use it on a single project. For roadmaps and dependency management, you’ll get the basic package.

For admin controls, you get domain verification and account capture. It also includes session duration management. You also get decent security and compliance features like password policies, encryption, business continuity, disaster recovery, mobile device management, and 2GB of file storage.

The limitation lies in the number of users who can access the site, and the limit is ten and you get one site limit. Finally, you only have Jira’s community support if ever you run into any trouble. 

Standard

The standard tier has everything the free tier has and more. It now has project roles and advanced permissions in the admin controls. It adds data residency for security, audit logs, anonymous access, and data residency.

Your storage will increase to 250GB of file storage. You’ll also get customer support during local business hours. 

Your users will increase to 35,000 users, but you will still only get one website.

The pricing for the standard tier is $7.50 per user or around $75 per month.

Premium

Premium has all the features of the standard tier and more. For automation, you now have the freedom to apply it globally and on multiple projects. You’ll also get advanced roadmaps and dependency management. 

For admin controls, you’ll get admin insights, sandbox, and release tracks. For security, you’ll also get IP allowlisting. Finally, you will now have unlimited storage, 24/7 premium support, and a 99.9% guaranteed uptime SLA. 

The price of the premium tier is around $14.5 per user or around $145 per month.

Enterprise

For this tier, you’ll get all the features of Jira and unlimited sites, analytics, and 24/7 Enterprise Support. 

When it comes to pricing, the Trello vs Jira debate is complex. When you consider their free versions, Trello definitely has the upper hand because of its free options. But if you consider the paid versions, and that Jira is more complex than Trello, then Jira is the better choice because it has more features. 

The best way to decide is to determine what you need as a business or organization. If you’re not that focused on technology and software, then Trello is a better option for you. 

3. Task Management Features

With task management features in mind, Jira wins the Trello vs Jira debate.

Jira is one of the best scrum software solutions in the market. Aside from that, it also has Kanban boards and a roadmap for long-term planning.

Trello only has a Kanban board. It focuses more on helping teams, businesses, and organizations in visualizing the work process to organize and streamline tasks.

4. Collaboration

When looking for the perfect project management software, features that promote collaboration and communication are extremely important. Your team members should communicate easily and efficiently through the software. 

Both Trello and Jira excel in this category as they have the following features:

• You can leave comments on cards to keep the team in the loop with the development of tasks or projects.
• You can directly mention members of the team using the @ symbol on a card.
• You can add file attachments for more information.

Both Trello and Jira are ideal for communication and collaboration, making them equal in this category. 

5. Customization and Add-Ons

Both Trello and Jira have options to provide extra features for support and customization. You can even integrate Trello and Jira together to take advantage of both of their features. 

For Trello, you can integrate it with the following programs and solutions:

• Slack
• Dropbox
• Google Drive
• MailChimp
• OneDrive
• Salesforce
• Zendesk

As for Jira, you can integrate it with the following:

• Slack
• Dropbox
• Google Drive
• MailChimp
• OneDrive
• Salesforce

As for adding third-party apps, both Trello and Jira are capable of integrating more apps for further workflow optimization. You can go to the Atlassian Marketplace and get apps there.

Jira wins this category because Jira can integrate more apps from the Atlassian Marketplace than Trello.

6. Versatility

Businesses looking for project management software that can handle almost any project should select Trello because it has an interface that is easy to use and the Kanban boards work perfectly.

If you’re looking for a program that focuses on software development and other complex projects, then Jira is the better choice. It’s important to note though that Jira can have too much complexity for users who are handling simple projects.

The winner of this category will be Trello because more businesses can use it and it is more accessible. 

7. Security and Privacy

As for security and privacy, both programs are not the best with security but they’re passable at protecting your data from hackers. 

Both of them use TLS or Transport Layer Security, and it is a more secure version of Secure Sockets Layer or SSL. This offers good security but if an experienced hacker tries to get into your system, they can enter without issue.

For this category, the Trello vs Jira debate ends with a tie. 

8. Service and Support

It’s important to know that you have someone to turn to when you’re in trouble. That’s why it’s essential to know the service and support categories of both software.

When it comes to support, both Trello and Jira have communities that can help you with troubleshooting common problems. They also have numerous and extensive tutorials online to help users and companies begin with their software.

Trello is the better choice because it has a support system for its users even if you’re just using the free version. Jira only has a support ticket system if you pick the first paid tier which is the Standard tier.

However, Trello’s support system isn’t the best as the staff will likely give you a link to a relevant forum post or how-to articles to help you with your problem rather than help you solve it. 

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Trello vs Jira: What Should You Get?

Both of these programs are very good at what they do. They are both extremely useful in their own regard. Ultimately, the best project management software is the one that caters to your needs the best.

If your business just needs a program that will help you visualize your workflow and organize tasks, then Trello is best for you as it’s easy to navigate and it’s extremely user-friendly. 

If your business focuses on software development, then Jira is the better option for you. It will provide you with effective and efficient scrum, agile, and Kanban boards. You can also integrate third-party programs to fully customize your program.

Frequently Asked Questions

Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!