ClickUp vs Jira
Learn more about your options and pick the best tool for your team.
Unsure whether to choose ClickUp or Jira? You've come to the right place.
If you are evaluating collaboration and project management tools, you may likely find ClickUp and Jira on your shortlist. They're both fairly popular and highly-rated tools, so the choice between them is far from obvious.
In this article, we will take a closer look at both ClickUp and Jira and examine their strengths and weaknesses to help you make the right decision for your company.
ClickUp and Jira compared
Jira is the industry standard when it comes to managing complex software projects. It has been around for over 20 years and has earned the trust of over 180,000 customers in 190 countries.
ClickUp, on the other hand, is a relatively new player in the market of productivity software, but it is already taking it by storm. It aims to help teams replace not only Jira and Confluence, but nearly every other app in their toolset.
If you're looking for a tool to help you manage projects, track issues, and collaborate on tasks, then ClickUp and Jira are both valid options. However, despite some similarities, there are several fundamental differences in terms of their design, feature sets, and target customers. Let's dive deeper into what Jira and ClickUp have to offer and also have a look at other alternatives you may want to consider.
ClickUp
Pricing: Free, advanced features starting from $5/user/month
Rating on Capterra: 4.6/5
ClickUp is a newcomer to the market of productivity software. It describes itself as the "one app to replace them all" and aims to help teams bring together to-do lists, docs, wikis, spreadsheets, chat, time-tracking, and much more.
ClickUp offers an exceptionally flexible platform, allowing you to create custom workflows, dashboards, and view options. Jira, on the other hand, is primarily focused on Agile software development and provides a more limited set of customizations. Some users also find the interface of ClickUp to be more modern and playful.
Another notable difference between ClickUp and Jira is pricing. ClickUp can be a much more affordable and cost-effective option than Jira, especially since it can replace multiple collaboration and productivity tools. It also offers a variety of discounts to startups and non-profits.
Why you might prefer ClickUp over Jira:
ClickUp is a more feature-rich tool than Jira.
ClickUp is more flexible and customizable.
The interface of ClickUp is more modern and user-friendly.
Compared to Jira, ClickUp is relatively easy to set up.
ClickUp releases new features at a much faster pace.
ClickUp offers a more generous free plan and very affordable premium plans, while Jira is one of the more expensive project management tools.
What users say about ClickUp:
"Jira is slow, buggy, very time-consuming to set up, limited when trying to set up good reports, and not easy to make accessible for members outside of your organization. ClickUp finally ended our search for an application which is easy enough to use, but also is flexible and powerful enough to customize to our needs."
Looking for more tools similar to ClickUp? Check out this list of ClickUp alternatives.
Jira
Pricing: Free, advanced features starting from $7.50/user/month
Rating on Capterra: 4.5/5
If you prefer to have a more structured Agile workflow, the flexible design of ClickUp can be a downside. Jira, on the other hand, shines as a tool for Agile teams. It's optimized for the needs of software developers and offers a robust feature set that enables you to plan sprints, prioritize your backlog, define epics and user stories, and more. It's exceptionally powerful, allowing you to manage the most complex and large-scale projects.
Unlike ClickUp, Jira does not try to do too many things at once and focuses solely on facilitating your project management and issue tracking workflow. While that makes Jira somewhat more straightforward, keep in mind that it's still quite a feature-heavy tool and some non-technical users may find it challenging to get started with it.
Why you might prefer Jira over Notion:
Jira is developer-friendly and offers a wide range of specialized features, including Agile reports, velocity charts, Scrum tracking, and more.
Jira is designed for teams following the Agile project management workflow.
Atlassian offers a wide range of complementary products, including Confluence and BitBucket, all of which are tightly integrated with Jira.
Jira is a more mature and reliable product with over 20 years of continuous development.
What users say about Jira:
"ClickUp did not have a very good integration with other tools. We use Jira to manage development tasks at the company I work for. I've had experience with other products, but I always found Jira to be the most complete. I really like its design, I think it is very elegant. Though there are some things that are quite complex."
Looking for more tools similar to Jira? Check out this list of Jira alternatives.
Other alternatives
It should be mentioned that your options are not limited to just ClickUp and Jira. There are many other great apps that can serve you just as well — or even better. For example, if you like the idea of replacing multiple tools with a unified solution like ClickUp, but would prefer a simple, fast, and easy-to-use tool, consider Nuclino.
Like ClickUp, Nuclino is a unified workspace that allows you to bring all your knowledge, docs, and projects together. You can visually organize your work in a nested list, a Kanban board, a table, or a mindmap-style graph.
While it can be used exclusively as a project management and issue tracking tool, it can also be a great solution for planning sprints, onboarding new employees, creating a wiki for your team, and more. Its document collaboration capabilities make Nuclino a great alternative not only to Jira, but also to Confluence.
This flexibility doesn't preclude Nuclino from being intuitive and fast. It focuses on essential features and offers a clean, minimalist interface with no clunky menus and distracting elements.
In Nuclino, every item on your list and every card on your board is its own collaborative document. This allows you to always keep your work in context, documenting the goals and decisions for every task, creating to-do lists, embedding files, and more. You can exchange feedback directly in Nuclino using comments and mentions.
Learn more about how Nuclino compares to Notion: Nuclino vs Notion.
ClickUp vs Jira: So which is better?
In conclusion, both ClickUp and Jira are powerful project management tools, but they are designed for different types of teams and offer different levels of customization. There is no objectively better option when it comes to choosing between them. ClickUp is more modern and offers a wider range of features, while Jira is primarily designed for software development teams and has a stronger focus on bug tracking.
On the other hand, if you want the best of ClickUp and Jira but in a more lightweight, fast package, consider exploring other alternatives, such as Nuclino.
We hope this article has made your decision a little easier and recommend that you take all three tools for a spin.
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