Asana vs. Jira: How do they compare? (2023)

Do you ever get that feeling, when going into a store, of being overwhelmed by the choices?

Whether it’s shopping for clothes, groceries, or washing machines, it’s easy to see different products listing similar properties and not knowing which one you need right now.

And then you decide to leave the store and return tomorrow — not like it’s an emergency to buy *insert product*. Honestly, I’ve personally had this issue way too many times.

However, we don’t have that commodity when it comes to projects. We can’t sit around and deliberate forever when choosing a project management tool for the upcoming project. The project needs to start, so a tool must be set.

Today, we’ll be looking at Asana and Jira — 2 very well-known PM tools — and seeing which one would be the best fit for you in the following criteria:

• Pricing,
• User interface,
• Task management,
• Team collaboration,
• Progress tracking,
• Administration,
• Integrations,
• Support, and 
• Security.

From one indecisive person to another — here’s a guide on how to decide between the two tools.

Asana vs. Jira overview

Before we begin, it’s customary to take a look at our contenders.

Asana, founded in 2008, is an easy-to-learn tool that helps you automate, collaborate, and streamline tasks in your project. 

It’s available for the web, Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android in 13 different languages.

Jira — also referred to as Atlassian Jira or Jira Software — was created primarily for software development projects. However, over the years, it has branched out, and now it’s used for many different kinds of projects.

It is also available for the web, Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android in 19 different languages.

Here’s an overview of the features we’ll be inspecting today: 

Features	Asana	Jira
Pricing	Free plan Paid plans start from $10.99 per user per month	Free plan Paid plans start from $7.75 per user per month
User interface	Clean, intuitive	Complex, difficult to master but useful
Task management	Comprehensive, great for simpler projects	Comprehensive, great for complex projects
Team collaboration	Private, team, and project messages Comments and mentions	Comments and mentions
Progress tracking	Project, private, and organizational goals Robust report system	Project and sprint goals Robust report system
Administration	Admin console Permissions Guest access	Admin options Permissions
Integrations	200+	3,000+
Support	Asana help Asana guides Community forum Use cases24/7 support for enterprise plan users	Self-help guides Community support 24/7 support for enterprise and premium plan users
Security	10+ certifications Data encryption	10+ certifications Data encryption

Asana vs. Jira pricing 1:1

Asana offers a free plan with plenty of possibilities and several premium plans for more serious endeavors. 

The free plan offers you the following:

• Up to 15 users,
• List, Board, and Calendar views,
• Unlimited projects, tasks, storage, comments, and activity log,
• Status updates and project export options, and
• More than 100 integrations.

On top of that, there are 3 paid plan options:

• Premium — ($10.99 per user per month), which lets you get rid of the user limit and gain access to more features, like the Calendar view or milestones.
• Business — ($24.99 per user per month) introducing more features such as portfolio views, time tracking, and more integrations with Tableau, Power BI, etc.
• Enterprise — (contact sales) adding guest management, custom branding, extra data security, and more.

Asana also offers a discount, as well as some special benefits, for nonprofit organizations. There’s also a 30-day free trial for a premium account.

Jira is similar regarding pricing, also opting for a limited free plan and 3 paid plans.

The free plan includes:

• Up to 10 users, 
• 2GB storage,
• Unlimited boards,
• Backlog and basic roadmaps, 
• Reporting and insights, and 
• Community support.

As far as premium plans go, Jira offers: 

• Standard — ($7.75 per user per month) adding roles and permissions, audit logs, much more storage, etc.
• Premium — ($15.25 per user per month) with unlimited storage, premium support, advanced roadmaps, and more.
• Enterprise — (contact sales) adding unlimited sites, centralization, and enterprise support.

Like Asana, Jira offers a 30-day free trial for both Standard and Premium plans.

Asana vs. Jira pricing verdict

Asana’s and Jira’s pricing plans are very similar. 

Asana’s free plan does offer more capabilities than Jira’s, so if you’re looking for a no-investment deal, Asana is the way to go. However, Jira’s paid plans are more affordable, so if you’re looking to get a premium plan, Jira might seem more appealing.

All in all, due to this back and forth between the two, as well as their plans being so similar, this round is a tie.

Asana vs. Jira user interface 1:0

The user interface is the first thing you interact with in a PM tool, so it has to be fluid and understandable. The ease with which your team can start using a tool determines the ease with which they can start on the project itself.

Asana’s interface is easy to navigate and get used to. With intuitive task organization and plenty of templates to choose from, starting off with Asana is a piece of cake.

It offers a simple process to create subtasks and follow-up tasks, as well as task dependencies. Dependencies can be created to make one task block another or get blocked by another.

For example, if you’re waiting on a poster for an event, you can set that as a “blocked by” dependency for the “event marketing” task. Now, marketing cannot be marked as completed before poster creation is finished.

This kind of dependency is great for reducing unnecessary back-and-forth communication, as well as reducing confusion during work. 

Asana also offers plenty of customization options, followed by a light, dark, and even colorblind-friendly theme.

Jira’s interface has an immediate drawback — it can be difficult to learn. This is due to its complexity and various PM software features, which, on the other hand, make it great for experienced users. However, to a new user, it can be quite intimidating.

If you get past the immediate learning curve, you’ll be met with a bunch of customization options. These options make the software quite flexible, even though it was created primarily for planning software development projects.

Anything from dashboards to workflows and statuses can be created and edited to your liking. And, if you’re having trouble creating a dashboard yourself, you can choose a template, like:

• Scrum, 
• Kanban, or 
• Bug tracking.

For paid accounts, there are up to 42 templates to choose from in Jira.

Asana vs. Jira user interface verdict

Jira’s visual style might be more appealing to some. With the ability to change the background into soothing colors, you can quickly make your board more fun and pleasing to the eye.

However, the interface is made up of much more than aesthetics. With its easy-to-learn interface and a larger number of templates, Asana scores this point.

Asana vs. Jira task management 0:1

Tasks are something your project team will deal with on a daily basis. You want to make sure that you have plenty of options to help you and your team organize them.

In Asana, you can use 4 views:

• Board,
• List,
• Calendar, and 
• Timeline.

In the free plan, tasks are restricted to only the basic fields (assignee, due date, and priority), albeit the most necessary ones. Paid plan users can create custom fields. 

Asana also helps you bring automation to your tasks with Rules. In Asana, you can create rules for certain things to happen when a rule is triggered. Say you’re running a handmade jewelry business, and every time a new piece is created, you need to promote it on social media.

Here’s how the process would look in Asana’s Rules:

• Trigger — a piece creation task has been marked as completed.
• Rule — when a piece is completed, create a “create a social media post” subtask.
• Action — a “create a social media post” subtask has been created for that piece.

In Jira, tasks are part of a larger group called issues. Issues consist of types of work that need to be completed and by default are sorted into:

• Tasks — the basic issue type you get by default, while every other needs to be enabled in the “manage types” tab,
• Epics — large issues that will usually take up much more time,
• Stories — issues expressed as user goals,
• Bugs — issues for tracking errors and problems, and
• Subtasks — tasks that are parts of larger tasks.

Jira also offers automation options, using rules, just like Asana. Just like everything else so far in Jira, rules are a bit more complex, but that also means they have more to offer. With the right mastery, they can prove to be much more valuable.

Jira’s rules also come in plenty of templates, so if you’re not sure how to create a rule, you can always check if a rule like that already exists in a template.

Or, if a similar rule exists, you can always try to change it slightly. Here, we took a “create 4 subtasks on issue creation” and changed it to “create 4 subtasks on issue status value change” to better fit our previous example.

Asana vs. Jira task management verdict

Asana’s custom fields and easy-to-navigate tasks are great, but Jira’s plethora of options makes it worthwhile to learn. Jira’s better rule options and rule templates help it take the cake in this round.

Asana vs. Jira team collaboration 1:0

Your PM tool of choice has to allow your team to collaborate effectively. If your team cannot use the tool itself to communicate, you’ll have to opt for a separate communication tool, which can stall the project further.

Asana has plenty of spaces for communication:

• Team conversations — in Asana, you can create and customize teams, which have their own message threads within.
• Private messages — you can send direct messages to team members.
• Project messages — every project has its own message thread.
• Task comments — every task has comments which can be used to communicate.

Every communication type, apart from private messages, can be used to @mention other team members in that thread.

Jira, on the other hand, only offers communication in the form of comments on issues. As expected, you can use the comment field to mention team members.

A novelty in Jira is the Watch issue option, which allows you to be notified of any changes to the issue.

However, the comment field in Jira feels a bit wonky and, as with much else in the software, takes a bit of getting used to.

Asana vs. Jira team collaboration verdict

With so many more options for teams to communicate, Asana takes this one by a landslide.

Asana vs. Jira progress tracking 1:1

When you have a dashboard with 100+ tasks, it’s difficult to check manually how many of them have been completed — or, perhaps, to check how many have been completed on time.

This is why you want your PM tool of choice to be able to automate this process for you. Let’s see how Asana and Jira deal with this issue.

Asana offers 2 types of progress tracking — goals and reports.

Goals in Asana are separated into 3 categories:

• Company goals,
• Team goals, and
• Personal goals.

You can track the progress of every goal in real-time. You can also add an owner and collaborators to your goal.

And finally, goals can have subgoals. For example, a sales team goal is to increase monthly revenue by 15%, and a subgoal to that is to have a 10% increase in client retention.

The other progress tracking option in Asana is creating reports. Asana’s reports have too many individual options to list. For example, you can see a team’s completion status on tasks represented in the number of tasks with that status.  

The main chart selection is divided into:

• Resourcing,
• Work health, and 
• Progress.

Jira is similar in this regard, also offering both goals and reports.

In Jira, goals work in a similar fashion, but in different categories — sprint goals and project goals. In Jira goals, you can:

• Set and track project OKRs, 
• Plan goals for the future,
• Get visibility of your progress on previous goals, and 
• Display goals on your dashboard.

Jira also has plenty of reports to choose from, such as the created vs solved issues report or the resolution time report.

They are sorted into:

• Issue analysis,
• Forecast and management, and
• Other — a more customizable report.

Asana vs. Jira progress tracking verdict

As the two tools offer similar options, both with goal and report creation, they both take a point in this category.

Asana vs. Jira administration 1:0

This category is geared more toward project managers and team leads. As you’ll be the ones with admin controls, most often, you’d want those controls to be easily accessible and run smoothly.

Asana introduces an admin console, a tool that you can use to better manage your team, project, and organization. You can use it to:

• Manage teams and members,
• Manage privacy settings,
• Change security contact mail or billing information,
• Gain access to admin controls for AI features, and much more.

Another administrative feature in Asana is project permissions. A project can be:

• Public — anyone in the team, or the organization, can access it.
• Private — only invited members gain access. This also means you can be the only member, so it becomes a personal private project.
• Comment-only — invited members can only view and leave comments.

It’s important to mention that in paid plans, you can invite an unlimited number of guests.

Jira has an immediate disadvantage in their free plan — every member is considered an admin. This means that any member of a project has full access to it, being able to change whatever they want.

Only after you upgrade to the Standard plan do you get access to roles and permissions. But, for the full experience of Jira’s administrative abilities, you need the Premium or Enterprise plan. They offer:

• Sandbox — where you can see how a feature will look when fully released, and
• Release tracks — where you can control when and how changes are released to end users.

There are 4 types of project permissions in Jira: 

• Administer permissions — the ability to edit project roles, components, versions, etc, 
• Browse projects — permission to use the issue navigator and view individual issues,
• Manage sprints — permission to perform sprint-related actions, and
• View workflow — only offers access to the “read-only” workflow of an issue.

There are also global and issue permissions, so you can really get into the details of how a person can access your project. 

Asana vs. Jira administration verdict

While Jira offers a bit more as far as individual team member permissions go, Asana still snags the point in this round thanks to its more robust free plan offering. 

Asana vs. Jira integrations 0:1

The greatest appeal of PM tools is being able to keep all your work in one place. And how can you do that without integrations?

Asana and Jira both offer plenty in this regard, but who will come out on top?

Asana has over 200 integrations, allowing you plenty of choices for third-party apps you want to connect to. Outlook, Teams, Figma, Instagantt, and many more are available.

The free plan also offers 100+ integrations, excluding software such as Power Bi and Tableau.

Jira, on the other hand, has over 3,000 integrations. In Jira’s integration guide, they are neatly sorted into tools recommended for:

• Design teams,
• IT teams,
• Business teams, and 
• Software engineering teams.

Asana vs. Jira integrations verdict

With a resounding 2,800 integrations lead, Jira snatches a point in this round.

Asana vs. Jira support 1:0

Getting accustomed to new software is always a rocky road, so it feels great to have support along the way.

For such an already easy-to-learn platform, Asana offers many tools to help you learn your way around it:

• Asana guide,
• Asana academy,
• Video guides,
• Community forum, and more.

If you want to get in touch with the support team, you can contact them through the support page. Only enterprise plan users have access to 24/7 support.

Jira offers a detailed product guide to help you learn how to use it. However, the free plan relies on community support.

Though, unlike Asana, both Premium and Enterprise plans get access to 24/7 support. The Standard plan gets you 9/5 support.

Asana vs. Jira support verdict

Ironically enough, although it’s more difficult to learn, Jira offers a lot less in terms of learning materials. Therefore, the point goes to Asana.

Asana vs. Jira security 1:1

Cybersecurity is one of the most important aspects of the online world. Just getting your personal information messed with is enough of an issue, without even mentioning project information.

Let’s see how Asana and Jira help your projects stay safe.

Asana has acquired over 10 security certifications, including:

• GDPR,
• ISO/IEC certifications,
• HIPAA,
• FERPA,
• CCPA, and more.

You can further secure your organization with 2-factor authentication, SSO, SAML 2.0, and data controls for your mobile app. Asana also provides daily back-ups and recovery procedures in case of failures.

Jira encrypts all user data in transit using TLS 1.2+, then holds the data in servers using AES 256 encryption.

It also allows 2-factor authentication, SSA, and SAML.

Jira also complies with:

• ISO/IEC 27001,
• SOC 2,
• FedRAMP,
• PCI DSS,
• VPAT, and more.

Asana vs. Jira security verdict

Both Asana and Jira have accumulated plenty of security certifications, as well as ways to keep your data safe. They have both gained the trust of their customers and, for that reason, they both get a point.

Security	Asana	Jira
2-factor authentication	✔️	✔️
Google Single Sign On	✔️	✔️
Data encryption	✔️	✔️
Relevant certifications	✔️	✔️
Overall impression	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Asana vs. Jira: verdict

It was a constant back-and-forth, but the one standing in the end is none other than Asana!

Feature	Asana	Jira
Pricing	1	1
User interface	1	0
Task management	0	1
Team collaboration	1	0
Progress tracking	1	1
Administration	1	0
Integrations	0	1
Support	1	0
Security	1	1
Total score	7	5

Asana took the lead and the title, but that doesn’t necessarily make it better. 

Do the aspects in which Jira won matter more to your project than the ones Asana won? If that’s the case, maybe Jira is the right choice for you.

Take a look at your project’s needs and consult your team. We hope this guide will help you choose once you have the right criteria in mind.

Looking for an Asana or Jira alternative? Try Plaky

If you’re staring at your screen right now, thinking “Well, neither of these is really perfect for me”, you should try Plaky.

It’s a great Asana alternative since its free plan offers:

• Unlimited users and workspaces,
• 24/7 support, and
• Multiple assignees.

And, as a Jira alternative, it has:

• Project roles,
• Unlimited storage, and 
• Unlimited workspaces.

If this sounds more appealing to you, you can sign up for a Plaky account and end your PM tool search right now.

✉️ Has this guide helped you decide which tool you need for your project? Have you tried out Asana and Jira, and do you agree with our points? Let us know at blogfeedback@plaky.com, and we may include your answers in this or future posts. If you liked this blog post and found it useful, share it with someone you think would also benefit from it.