ClickUp vs. Jira: At a Glance

Both Jira and ClickUp are used for project management. ClickUp is a project management software with collaboration, time tracking, reporting, project planning and budget management tools, among others. While Jira offers many of these standard features, it excels at issue management and it is often primarily used by product engineers for this purpose. As such, it lacks some standard project management features such as collaboration and budgeting tools.

However, both ClickUp and Jira can be used for project management purposes quite successfully. While ClickUp offers an all-in-one project management tool, Jira’s software can be built to create a custom project management solution. With over 3,000 integration options, any project management features it lacks — such as document collaboration tools — can be added to the solution. In the end, however, this means a larger learning curve for teams.

Let’s take a closer look at both options.

How ClickUp and Jira Stack Up

Feature Highlights and Comparisons

In this section, we take a closer look at each software’s pricing, integrations, automations, reporting, time-tracking and collaboration tools. As we do, we compare their differences and note any standout capabilities each software offers. In the end, we believe their differences make Jira a better fit for large, agile teams needing a highly customized and complex solution and ClickUp better for small companies needing an out-of-the-box solution.

Pricing

Both ClickUp and Jira offer free versions. While Jira offers the ability to add up to 10 users to its free plan, ClickUp allows unlimited users in its free plan. Both include tools to manage a project, such as whiteboards, basic reporting and project boards. ClickUp’s free plan is more robust than Jira’s, with tools such as in-app video recording, 24/7 team support and real-time chat. However, Jira’s free plan offers 2GB of storage while ClickUp’s only offers 100MB.

In terms of paid plans, ClickUp offers plans ranging from INR 413.41 ($5) to INR 1570.96 ($19) per person per month (paid annually). Jira’s paid plans are within the same price range; its two plans are INR 640.79 ($7.75) and INR 1260.90 ($15.25) per month per person. For both software, enterprise-level companies must request a custom quote to learn pricing.

Still, ClickUp does offer slightly more robust paid plans in terms of feature limits. Its starting plan, for example, offers unlimited users and storage, whereas Jira’s first-tier plan puts limitations on both users and storage. However, Jira offers far more integrations even in its first-tier plan.

Integrations

Jira is the winner in terms of integrations with 3,000 integrations compared to ClickUp’s 100 integrations. This difference is a result of each software’s use cases. ClickUp’s software is made for companies needing a turnkey solution with no additional features required for full project management capabilities. In contrast, Jira offers a highly customizable solution. Its ample integrations allow companies to add any features needed or wanted.

However, despite the large difference in the number of integrations offered by Jira and ClickUp, both offer Zapier as an integration option. It allows the ability to integrate over 5,000 apps, then automate tasks between the project management platform and the chosen apps. Example apps that can be integrated via Zapier include Calendly, Slack and HubSpot. This means far more integration capabilities for each software than if Zapier was not compatible.

Automations

In addition to Zapier integrations for automations, both Jira and ClickUp offer native automation capabilities. Automations allow project managers to let the software handle repetitive tasks so project practitioners can focus on the tasks only humans can best complete.

Jira offers rules based on if-this, then-that scenarios. It also offers a template library with pre-built rules so you can create automations between different apps. For example, you can set a rule that if a task is overdue, the software will send a reminder via Slack to the person or people assigned to the task. You can also choose when those rules are applied. For example, rules can be assigned to only specific projects or across all projects.

ClickUp’s automation structure is similar, offering “when this happens, then do this” rule structures. However, you can also define a condition that must be met for an automation Trigger to kick in. For example, you can set the following rule: “when a task is late, then reassign the task.” You then put a condition on the Trigger. For example, you can say that the task should only be reassigned if it was assigned to a particular team member.

Reporting

Jira’s reporting centers on Agile project management insights. For example, it tracks sprint goal achievements, individual sprint’s scope creep, progress toward goals, whether work is completed on time or is behind schedule and trends across sprints. Jira reporting also tracks issues by analyzing their occurrence trends over time, tracking their resolution times and more. Its customizable dashboard helps your team focus on what’s important in real time.

In contrast, ClickUp’s reports focus more on individual and team performance. For example, you can track time spent against time estimated, who is working on what tasks, who is behind and who is ahead. You can also look at your team performance from a high view, such as how many tasks were completed in a given day, month or year. Reports also track team points by how well they are performing, making it easy to celebrate high-performing teams.

Time Tracking

ClickUp offers a timer that you can start when initiating a task, then stop upon task completion. You can even designate time-tracked tasks as “billable.” Further, you can estimate how long a task should take, then compare the data against time spent. Estimates can be split between team members assigned to the task. Timesheets are also available so team members can track their own time. Finally, you can sync time-tracking apps to ClickUp.

Unlike ClickUp, Jira’s time tracking capabilities are limited. Instead of tracking time via timer, users must manually log the time they spent and track that time themselves. The system allows users who have permission to track time to input the estimated time a task or project will take and the actual time spent completing the task. If you want to track time via a timer, you will have to find an integration that offers this capability in Jira, such as Clockify.

Collaboration Tools

For collaboration purposes, ClickUp offers whiteboards, comment assignment capabilities, collaborative documents and collaborative templates. You can brainstorm ideas using its whiteboards. Comments can be created within tasks, then assigned to a team member as a new task. Team members can also create and collaborate on one document together. Finally, team members can collaborate on templates to create plans, designs and more.

Jira software has fewer collaboration tools than ClickUp and its collaboration capabilities are primarily restricted to issue management. You can, for example, comment on a created issue and assign that issue to team members. However, for project management within Jira, the best option is to integrate software that offer collaboration tools. For example, Confluence is a Jira software integration option and it offers document collaboration and team chat tools.

Bottom Line

ClickUp offers a turnkey solution for small business project management. In contrast, Jira lacks some standard tools — such as budgeting and collaboration tools. As such, it requires customizations, integrations and technical knowledge to create an ideal solution for small businesses. For this reason, small businesses looking for a turnkey project management solution may prefer ClickUp based on its low learning curve and inclusive toolset.