Asana and Jira are two of the most widely used project management tools available today, with both having specific reasons and times to use each. Both have strong reviews online and both are used by small teams, scaling startups and large corporations. In this article, we’ll dissect which one might be right for you based on your specific needs.
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Asana vs. Jira: At a Glance
Both Asana and Jira can be very helpful to the right audience, and both work as fully functional project management software. Jira is very popular with the development and engineering communities while Asana is popular with small and scaling teams looking to manage a variety of project types in a single place. The right one for you will depend on your budget, the number of people on your team and what you plan on using the product for.
Asana
Free Version Available
Yes
Starting Price
$10.99
per month
Amount of Storage Space
Unlimited
Yes
$10.99
per month
Unlimited
Asana is a full-featured project management software that is used by a large variety of teams for many different purposes. With Asana, you can choose your favorite view—from the traditional Kanban view to a basic list view. You also get the ability to label each group of tasks and break up different subprojects or functions within the project.
Asana creates a lot of value through the simplicity it offers in managing your projects across teams. It makes it extremely easy to coordinate an engineering team with a marketing team, for example. Each task can be easily assigned and subtasks can be broken out and assigned to different individuals, regardless of their team or job.
Asana is best for teams looking to coordinate on a variety of projects or with other teams to complete complex projects that might require several subtasks.
- The superior task management solution
- Several view options
- Great for managing projects across multiple teams
- Does not offer a native Scrum environment
- More expensive than Jira
Jira
Free Version Available
Yes
Starting Price
Free for up to 10 users; then $8.15 per user per month
Amount of Storage Space
From 2 GB to unlimited
Yes
Free for up to 10 users; then $8.15 per user per month
From 2 GB to unlimited
Jira is an Agile project management tool that is best used by teams for a single and specific purpose, which is to build software products. The software offers strong Kanban and Scrum boards to streamline your workflow and help keep accountability across your team. It comes with product-related features that make it easier to track sprints and manage individual Scrums.
Jira is popular among engineering teams as it is extremely affordable, even being free for small development teams of ten people or less. The software also comes with another Atlassian product, Confluence, for free if you have ten users or less, where your team can keep track of all documentation and have a source of truth.
Jira is best for small product or development teams looking to coordinate their sprints and find accountability amongst their project planning and execution.
- Most affordable option
- Includes native Scrum management
- Easy to use
- Comes with Confluence, a central place to keep track of all documents
- Built for product-related projects and sprints only
- Limited in project management features
- Does not include a list or calendar view of your projects
How Asana and Jira Stack Up
| Asana | Jira | |
|---|---|---|
| Color Coding | Yes, you assign each column a different color and assign stages with colors to each task | Comes with default issue coloring, such as “bug” and “new feature” coloring. You can set one color per priority. |
| Pricing | Free to start, also has plans of $10.99 and $24.99 per user per month (if billed annually). Enterprise pricing is not disclosed. | Free for up to 10 users; starts at $8.15 per user per month for Standard; $16 per user per month for Premium; Enterprise pricing custom-quoted |
| Popular Integrations | Jira, Zoom, Salesforce, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams | Asana, Figma, Miro, Slack, GitHub, Zendesk, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive |
| Storage Capability | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Sharing | Entire team and individual projects can be shared externally | Internal teams and external partners |
| Assigning Due Dates | You can assign due dates to each individual task and subtask | Each individual product feature or task can have its own due date |
As you can see, both Jira and Asana have a number of similar features while Jira is designed more specifically with a product management team in mind. Asana will fit the bill for most other types of projects and businesses.
Product Integrations
Both Asana and Jira integrate with a number of leading apps and products across the web. They both will meet your demand with basic needs like integrations with Google Drive or Microsoft Teams. Asana has done a nice job of integrating with most apps of any substantial size that you might want to connect with, and it is easily the best option if you’re looking to integrate pretty widely.
Jira, however, has focused a lot of its integrations on things that product teams will need, like Miro or GitHub. This will exponentially speed up your project management if your purpose is to manage and push out new product features.
One of the interesting things to consider is that Asana and Jira integrate with each other. Your business could, potentially, use both products and let them work together. This could be the right choice if you have large projects that involve more than just a product team but that team wants to use Jira to streamline their own internal processes.
Bottom Line
Asana and Jira are good project management solutions, but each has its own specific market fit. Jira is most widely used by engineering and product teams because it is designed specifically for their needs. Asana is used by companies of all sizes to manage projects and specific tasks across functions and teams. Asana will be a better fit for most businesses and teams but Jira should be a strong candidate if it meets your specific use case.
Further reading: Explore more Asana alternatives and Jira alternatives.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is Asana good for small businesses?
Asana is a good tool for small businesses as it offers a free plan for teams of up to 15 people. Asana also has a wide range of features and integrations that can be helpful for small businesses, such as project management, task management and file sharing.
Are there different types of project management methods?
There are many different kinds of project management methodologies, each with its own advantages and disadvantages depending on the specific types of businesses and projects. Take a closer look at some of these popular project management methodologies.
Are there any free project management solutions?
Is project management software secure?
As with most types of software, the best project management software programs offer many levels of security. When choosing this type of software, you want to look for security features, such as two-factor authentication (2FA) or multifactor authentication (MFA), documentation that shows frequent security updates and patches, intrusion detection, the monitoring of user activities, data encryption and privacy protection.
