Asana vs Jira: two of the most popular project management tools today.
What is Asana?
Asana is a project management tool that was founded by Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook, and Justin Rosenstein, an ex-Facebook engineer.
They got the idea for Asana while they work at Facebook. As they worked for the company, they observed and discovered that everyone was “spending over half the day sitting in meetings, responding to email, and searching for info.”
With this in mind, Moskovits and Rosenstein decided to build a tool that not only makes it easier for teams to collaborate but they created a tool that helps teams have clarity on the what and why of their work. Eventually, Asana was born.
Ultimately, Asana is all about organizing work: constructing meaningful workflows, improving work collaboration, and ensuring that teams see both the little details and the big picture of the work.
What is Jira?
Jira is a project management tool that was developed by Atlassian. Atlassian originally developed Jira with an agile project management system in mind.
Also, the software is designed mainly for software and software-related teams.
That being said, Jira is agile-centered. If your team follows the agile project management system, Jira would probably be a better fit for it.
Asana vs. Jira: Key Features
Asana
One of Asana’s key features is its ease of use, simplicity, and minimalism. Because of its simplistic nature, Asana is pretty much fitting for any kind of team or company.
Some even compare Asana to Facebook – they say that Asana is the Facebook version of project management software.
Just as Facebook offers a simplistic but smart interface and platform for its users, Asana offers a simplistic but smart and goal-oriented program for teams and companies.
Also, as mentioned earlier, Asana is not only a tool made to help collaborate with people in teams.
Its primary focus is ensuring that teams can achieve their goals by plotting the small details while not losing sight of the big picture or goal.
Jira
Jira’s main feature is its orientation to the agile project management methodology. In other words, any team that adopts the Agile system would generally benefit from Jira.
Also, Jira offers more powerful and advanced functions than Asana. For instance, Asana does not have time-tracking features, unlike Jira.
Overall, Jira’s key features are that it is Agile-oriented and offers more advanced project management features than Asana.
Asana vs. Jira: Integration
Best for Integration: Asana
Asana
Asana offers more integration compared to Jira.
Some of its popular integrations include:
- Slack
- Excel
- Jira Cloud
- GitHub.
However, despite offering more integrations, Asana does not offer a more comprehensive integration than Jira.
Jira
Jira is pretty much the opposite of Asana regarding integrations: they offer fewer integrations than Asana, but they offer more comprehensive and thorough integrations than the former.
The main reason why Jira has fewer integrations is that it is primarily made for software developers. Its integration is focused on software development.
Some of its integrations are:
- ZenDesk
- Google Drive
- Microsoft Teams
- Figma
Asana vs. Jira: Pricing
Best for value for money: Jira
Asana
Asana offers a free plan for individuals or teams that are made up of 15 members or less.
This includes unlimited projects, unlimited storage as well as access to its mobile apps.
Asana also offers the following plans:
- premium plan ($10.99 per user per month) – which allows teams to have access to its dashboards, forms, and the ability to invite free guests.
- business plan ($24.99 per user per month) – where it offers additional customizing options as well as advanced integrations.
Finally, Asana offers an Enterprise plan, but the price is not disclosed.
Jira
Like Asana, Jira also offers a free plan, although only for teams that are made up of 10 members or less.
Also, its free version only offers up to 2GB of storage space.
For priced plans, Jira offers the following:
- The standard plan ($7 per user per month) includes customer support during local business hours.
- The premium plan ($14 per user per month) includes unlimited file storage and 24/7 customer support.
Like Asana, Jira offers an Enterprise plan, but the price is not disclosed.
Asana vs. Jira: Which Project Management Tool is Better?
Now that we’ve compared both Asana and Jira, you may wonder: which project management tool is better for your team?
The answer really depends on you and on your team or company’s needs, preferences and budget.
As a general rule, Asana is the better choice if you are looking for a simplistic and minimalistic project management tool.
If you want a project management tool that’s work- and goal-oriented, Asana could fit well with your needs.
On the other hand, if your company is Agile-oriented or you’re a software development team (or software-related team), Jira would better suit your needs as this project management tool is designed with those in mind.