Trello Vs. Jira Software: How to Pick the Right Option for Work Management

Does Trello seem cool to you? But you also find Jira Software intuitive, simple, and feature-rich. Feeling baffled? Not anymore if you read this ultimate guide on Trello vs. Jira Software for work management until the end!

Trello and Jira Software are highly popular task and request management software in many industries. However, you can not just pick any of these without digging into the market. Don’t have enough time for market research? 

No worries, I have done enough research on these two PM tools and sharing my views on these apps below. According to my experience, Jira Software beats Trello, but you may still want to see them side by side.    

Jira Software Overview

Jira Software’s Work Management tool is a native task and work management software for Jira ecosystem apps. Previously, Atlassian would offer the Jira Core server to Jira Software users for automated task management. However, the old application required extensive knowledge of project management tools, PM processes, workflow automation, and server management. 

The rebranded Jira Software version is a modern and no-code approach to work management. You can sign up for free using a Google account and instantly start using its templates for PM tasks.

With its real-time collaboration features, you can seamlessly collaborate with team members, effortlessly adding tasks, adjusting priorities, and managing task dependencies.

Role of Jira Software as a Project Management Tool

Atlassian faced a gap in its product lineup when it came to a project and task management tool that seamlessly integrates with all of its offerings. Because you can run DevOps and Agile projects using Jira Software and Confluence, but you can not efficiently manage those projects. 

If you still use Jira Software itself for project management, you would need to assign an experienced Agile, Scrum, or DevOps professional to it. This would be expensive for the project. 

Fortunately, the introduction of Jira Software has completely transformed this situation. Now you can assign the project management part to any business manager, senior developer, or analyst with a clear understanding of the ongoing project.

Trello Overview

Trello is an online tool for managing projects and tasks. It uses boards, lists, and cards to help you organize your work visually. Each board represents a project, and lists represent different stages or categories. Cards represent individual tasks or items; you can move them across lists to show progress. 

You can customize boards, lists, and cards to match your specific needs and preferences. Trello also allows collaboration, task assignment, and communication among team members. It can integrate with other popular apps like Slack and Google Drive.

Overall, Trello helps you stay organized, track progress, and work together effectively.

Role of Trello as a Project Management Tool

Trello started off as an effortless tool for Kanban-based project management. For those who love to shift sticky notes on a whiteboard, Kanban quickly started opting for Trello. This was also among the top tools of very few digital Kanban boards.

The tool does not offer the means and features to create a sophisticated DevOps or Agile project management board. It is more like a casual PM tool where you get a minimalistic view of things for better focus.

Thus, you can quickly move the task cards from one column to another, make a few comments, review feedback, and get back to your own work, like managing the business or pitching products to clients.

You can feel its role in your PM processes if you are a small business, startup, or group of like-minded gig workers. Soon, you will find that you are spending less money and time managing small-sized projects. You can also scale up if needed. Trello as a PM tool will not let you down even if you push to use it for large projects.     

How Does Jira Software’s Work Management Tool Work?

You can start using the tool as an admin by creating Company-managed projects. These projects are parent projects. For example, Product Development is a parent project where you could create small teams for market research, engineering, designing, marketing, sales, operations, etc. For these sub-projects, you can create Team-managed projects.

Team members can also create Team-managed projects within an individual group to further streamline and organize their tasks, reporting, and monitoring. Once you and your teams are all set, you start off by creating Issues. Issues are simply tasks if you compare the tool with Trello.

You can add the following tags to the Issues: 

• Bug: a problem in the code or app
• Story: features of products or services that users need
• Asset: the physical or digital items you need to monitor
• Task: small sprints that individual team members must complete
• Epic: a large work like developing a mobile app

For visualization of tasks and other components, you can use Cards. Cards are a collection of a Kanban-style board. Users can easily change the position of the Issue or Task cards to mark the status. 

For example, moving the Technical Document Card from To Do to Done indicates that the assignee has completed the task. If you need to see all things about the task on one screen, you could switch to List View or Detail View.  

Now, if you need to implement a standard process on how to move a task, subtask, or asset within a project, you can use Workflows. For example, you want a task of featured image production to move in this pathway:

To-Do of Asignee > Review by design specialist > Approved by content manager > Approved by project manager > Shared with the content team.

You can do the above by creating an automated workflow on Jira Software’s Work Management tool.    

Benefits of Jira Software’s Work Management

• Plan, track, and organize any work of any business efficiently and affordably
• Collaborate with your internal and external team members in real time, comment, add attachments, and provide feedback from remote locations
• Create tasks, assign those to anyone within the team, invite new members for more tasks, and set due dates
• Get the tool for free with Jira Software
• Manage projects and tasks in familiar software since the UI elements match most Atlassian business tools 

How Does Trello Work?

Trello works by using a system of boards, lists, and cards, and more information is outlined below:

#1. Boards

On Trello, you create Boards that are similar to projects. To get started quickly, you can try project management templates like Design, Engineering, HR, Marketing, etc., on the Trello Solutions portal. 

#2. Lists

Lists are columns of the Trello Kanban board app. You can create Lists like To-Do, Assigned, Pending, Done, etc.

#3. Task Details

Cards contain detailed information about each task. You need to add descriptions, due dates, labels, attachments, and checklists to provide additional instructions to the team members.

Benefits of Trello

• Virtually zero learning curvy, you can start using the tool if you know how does Kanban board work
• Creating, moving, commenting, and disposing of task cards work with drag-and-drop actions
• Attachment limit of 10 MB per file for basic users and 250 MB per file for premium users
• No restriction on the number of files you can attach

Trello Vs. Jira Software

Use Cases of Jira Software

Web Design Process

The web development and designing workflow of Jira Software helps you keep the developers and graphic designers on the same page. You could use the List view as the default view to visualize many tasks on one screen. Then, categorize the tasks by assigning custom fields like Status, Assignee, Due Date, Priority, etc.  

Lead Tracking

If your business relies heavily on tracking, interviewing, and closing deals with new prospects, then the Jira Software’s PM tool is the right choice. You can create a Kanban board on Jira Software and assign each lead a card with their profile picture or initials. 

In the beginning, each card should be under the Beginning column but will gradually move to other columns like Contacted, In Negotiation, Win, Lost, etc. You can also use the same process for your sales team.

Other notable use cases of the Jira Software’s PM tool are Human Resources, Finance, Operations, Legal, Sales, Design, etc. 

Use Cases of Trello

Remote Teams

Using Trello, remote teams can stay connected throughout the process of brainstorming, project planning, and meeting. Its Remote Team Hub template is perfect for organizing resources and tracking the team’s progress. 

Its open meeting structure can be used for discussing agendas, successes, and roadblocks. Teams can use the Remote Team Bonding template to stay together virtually by sharing their experience.

Design

Design teams can also use Trello during brainstorming, collaboration, and design delivery.  It has templates that help creative teams to handle requests, drafts, revisions, and cross-functional projects.

Design Sprint template enables teams to ideate and test their ideas before working on them. Design Huddle helps with better design decisions through feedback, while the Research Project is ideal for analyzing the project.

Trello Vs. Jira Software: The Verdict

For the comparison of features, functions, and usability, Jira Software is the clear winner in this Trello Vs. Jira Software comparison. Since the tools are priced almost in the same slab, it is beneficial for you to move your projects to Jira Software now for the following reasons:

• Implement Agile, Scrum, and DevOps now or in the future
• Jira Software as a PM tool is future-proof, and it already contains next-generation features
• Creates a native work management environment for other Jira Software apps

Author’s Note

Trello feels a little bit more cluttered than the Jira Software application. Also, switching to other tasks or work progress views like Table, Calendar, Timeline, Dashboard, Map, etc., requires previous experience. Trello hides the views inside its default view, which is the Board view.

Contrarily, Jira Software is the cleanest application you can get when talking about PM tools. Its task cards are also large enough for easy movements. The best thing is you can quickly swap between various project timeline views like Pages, Forms, calendars, Boards, Lists, Gantt charts (Timeline), etc., by clicking the options just above the task card.

Interestingly, the Standard subscription for both the PM tools are same, $5 per user per month at the time of writing. However, if you scale up, you need to opt-in to higher Trello packages, like $10 to $17.50 per user per month. If you move to Jira Software, you could scale up as much as you want the price stays the same.       

So, now you know which project, tasks, and work management tool you must choose between the Trello and Jira Software apps. The thumb rule is to go for Jira if your project is complex or you are a large team. Stick to Trello if you are a small team and do not need Agile or DevOps.

Next, find the best open-source project management software if you are looking for custom-developed PM tools.