Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Jira VS GitHub

Compare Jira VS GitHub and see what are their differences

Jira logo Jira

The #1 software development tool used by agile teams. Jira Software is built for every member of your software team to plan, track, and release great software.

GitHub logo GitHub

Originally founded as a project to simplify sharing code, GitHub has grown into an application used by over a million people to store over two million code repositories, making GitHub the largest code host in the world.
  • Jira Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-09
  • GitHub Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-05

Jira

$ Details
paid Free Trial $7.0 / Monthly (Above 10 Users)
Release Date
-

GitHub

Website
github.com
$ Details
Release Date
2008 January
Startup details
Country
United States
State
California
Founder(s)
Chris Wanstrath
Employees
500 - 999

Jira features and specs

  • Robust Feature Set
    Jira offers a comprehensive suite of tools for project management, including issue tracking, agile reporting, and workflow automation, which can handle both small and large projects effectively.
  • Customizability
    Organizations can customize Jira extensively, tailoring workflows, fields, and issues to meet their specific requirements, which enhances productivity and alignment with business processes.
  • Integration Capabilities
    Jira integrates seamlessly with other Atlassian products like Confluence, Bitbucket, and more, as well as third-party tools such as GitHub and Slack, ensuring a connected and efficient workflow.
  • Agile Methodologies Support
    With built-in support for Scrum, Kanban, and other agile frameworks, Jira helps teams to manage their agile processes efficiently, offering features like sprint planning, backlog grooming, and burndown charts.
  • Strong Community and Support
    Jira has a large, active user community and extensive documentation, along with professional support options, which can be invaluable in troubleshooting and optimizing its use.
  • Comprehensive Task Management
    Jira Core provides a robust set of features for managing tasks and projects, including customizable workflows, forms, and dashboards, which are beneficial for tracking progress and enhancing productivity.
  • Integration with Other Atlassian Products
    It integrates seamlessly with other Atlassian tools like Confluence, Bitbucket, and Trello, enabling streamlined collaboration and improved visibility across teams.
  • Customizable and Flexible
    Jira Core allows a high degree of customization for workflows, task types, and notifications, making it adaptable to various business processes and team needs.
  • Scalability
    It supports scalability, which makes it suitable for both small-scale teams and large enterprises, evolving as the organization grows.
  • Strong Reporting Capabilities
    The software offers comprehensive reporting tools to gain insights into project progress and team performance, helping in making informed decisions.

Possible disadvantages of Jira

  • Complexity
    Due to its extensive feature set and customizability, Jira can be overly complex for new users or small teams, requiring a steep learning curve and potentially making simple tasks time-consuming.
  • Cost
    While Jira provides robust features, it comes at a cost. Subscription fees can be high, especially for larger teams or organizations requiring advanced capabilities.
  • Performance Issues
    On occasion, users might experience performance issues, particularly with large datasets, causing slowness and reduced efficiency in managing tasks.
  • Overhead
    Maintaining and configuring Jira can require significant administrative overhead, needing dedicated resources to manage its setup, customization, and updates.
  • User Interface Complexity
    While powerful, Jira's user interface can be overwhelming and cluttered, which may hinder usability and speed for those not already familiar with the platform.
  • Complexity for New Users
    Jira Core's wide range of features and customization options can be overwhelming for new users, leading to a steep learning curve.
  • High Configuration Overheads
    Setting up and configuring the software to fit specific project needs can be time-consuming, especially for teams without dedicated administrative resources.
  • Cost Considerations
    For smaller teams or organizations with limited budgets, the costs associated with Jira Core licenses and potential add-ons might be a constraint.
  • Limited by Internet Connectivity
    As a primarily cloud-based solution, its functionality can suffer in environments with poor or inconsistent internet connectivity.

GitHub features and specs

  • collaboration
    GitHub provides a platform for multiple developers to work on the same project concurrently, facilitating collaboration through features like pull requests, code reviews, and issues tracking.
  • integration
    GitHub integrates seamlessly with various third-party tools and services, such as CI/CD pipelines, project management tools, and many development environments, enhancing productivity and workflow efficiency.
  • version_control
    Utilizes Git for version control, allowing users to track changes, revert to previous versions if necessary, and manage different branches of development, ensuring code stability and history tracking.
  • community
    With millions of developers and a vast repository of open-source projects, GitHub fosters a robust community where users can contribute to projects, seek help, share knowledge, and collaborate broadly.
  • availability
    GitHub is a cloud-based platform, which means that projects are accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, providing flexibility and convenience to developers globally.
  • documentation
    GitHub allows for comprehensive project documentation through README files, wikis, and GitHub Pages, making it easier for users to understand project context and contribute effectively.

Possible disadvantages of GitHub

  • cost
    While GitHub offers free plans, more advanced features and private repositories come at a cost, which might be a barrier for some individuals or small teams.
  • steep_learning_curve
    For newcomers, especially those unfamiliar with Git, the learning curve can be quite steep, making it challenging to utilize all of GitHub's features effectively.
  • privacy_concerns
    Given its expansive, open nature, users must be cautious with sensitive or proprietary information. Even with private repositories, there is a latent concern over data privacy and security.
  • interface_complexity
    The user interface, while powerful, can be overwhelming and complex for beginners or those not deeply familiar with version control concepts.
  • performance_issues
    Occasionally, GitHub may experience downtime or performance issues, which can disrupt workflow and prevent access to repositories temporarily.
  • limited_storage
    GitHub imposes limitations on storage space and file size within repositories, which can be restrictive for projects requiring large datasets or binaries.

Jira videos

Jira Core Walkthrough and Review

More videos:

  • Review - (2018) The NEW Jira Begins Now - Modern Software Development
  • Review - JIRA Core: Business Team Use Cases
  • Demo - JIRA in a Nutshell demo video
  • Review - (Re)Discover JIRA Core: Tricks That Make a BIG Difference - Atlassian Summit 2016

GitHub videos

How to do coding peer reviews with Github

More videos:

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Jira and GitHub)
Project Management
100 100%
0% 0
Software Development
0 0%
100% 100
Task Management
100 100%
0% 0
Code Collaboration
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Jira and GitHub. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Jira and GitHub

Jira Reviews

  1. Luminous Valentine
    my experience

    Jira may be extremely sluggish and require a large amount of memory on the client side.

    👍 Pros:    Affordable price|Affordable
    👎 Cons:    Super simple|Scalable

10 Best Canny Alternatives and Competitors in 2025
Jira is an issue-tracking tool that flags and tracks bugs, creates product roadmaps, and collects user insights. Beloved by SaaS companies and startups, it’s a great tool for gathering and analyzing what your customers say about your products. Plus, it highlights areas for improvement to target pressing issues instantly. ✍️
Source: clickup.com
25 Best Asana Alternatives & Competitors for Project Management in 2024
Jira is a bug-tracking and project software. Compared to Asana, it’s geared towards agile teams and technical power users. With advanced reporting options, including user workload, average issue age, and recently created issues, project managers can make informed decisions to plan smarter sprints.
Source: clickup.com
The 10 best Asana alternatives in 2024
Unlike Asana, Jira was built specifically for teams that use Scrum and Agile workflows. When you sign up, you'll answer a few questions about your preferred methodologies, project types, and deadlines. Then, Jira will suggest a project template and methodology to fit your team's needs.
Source: zapier.com
16 Best Asana Alternatives of 2024 (Free + Paid)
Jira is a software product of Atlassian and is often used for tracking issues in software development. But Jira has grown to be used outside of the IT segment for tracking a range of issues, tasks and work items. What it might lack in features is made up on the Atlassian Marketplace where many plugins can be purchased to extend the tool’s features.
The Ultimate List of 20 Best AI Work Management Tools
Atlassian Intelligence (preregistration): Jira leverages artificial intelligence to automate various tasks, including summarizing meeting minutes, answering questions, converting natural language queries into JQL or SQL, and offering instant assistance through virtual agents in Slack and Microsoft Teams, accelerating work and enhancing user experience.
Source: ppm.express

GitHub Reviews

  1. Reinhard
    · Boss at CLOUD Meister ·
    perfect 4 open Source

Best Forums for Developers to Join in 2025
GitHub Discussions is a communication forum for the community around an open source or internal project. Discussions enable fluid, open conversation in a public forum. Discussions are transparent and accessible, but they are not related to code.
Source: www.notchup.com
The Top 10 GitHub Alternatives
However, like any (human) product, the platform has its limits, downsides, and critics. GitHub has been barred by certain governments, and even if that isn’t exactly the company’s fault, the users are the ones limited from pushing their code. Another criticism concerns the price tag: some users have pointed out that GitHub’s pricing model is too inflexible. Moreover, some...
Top 10 Developer Communities You Should Explore
GitHub also has an extensive API that allows it to integrate workflows seamlessly. Continuous integration, code review tools, and project management features make GitHub an essential tool for any developer, and the community aspect adds a layer of connectivity that enriches the overall experience.
Source: www.qodo.ai
Top 7 GitHub Alternatives You Should Know (2024)
FAQs: Are there any cloud source repositories similar to GitHub?Is there a free alternative to GitHub?
Source: snappify.com
Best GitHub Alternatives for Developers in 2023
We may earn from vendors via affiliate links or sponsorships. This might affect product placement on our site, but not the content of our reviews. See our Terms of Use for details. Looking for an alternative to GitHub? Check out our in-depth list of the best GitHub competitors, covering their features, pricing, pros, cons, and more.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, GitHub seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 2249 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Jira mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Jira yet. Tracking of Jira recommendations started around Mar 2021.

GitHub mentions (2249)

  • 🔐How to Fix GitHub Authentication Failed: Switch from Password to Token or SSH
    Fatal: HttpRequestException encountered. An error occurred while sending the request. Username for 'https://github.com': abcd Remote: Support for password authentication was removed on August 13, 2021. Fatal: Authentication failed for 'https://github.com/test/cr/. - Source: dev.to / about 8 hours ago
  • How to Create Your Free Landing Page
    Step 1. Go to GitHub and create an account if you don’t have one. - Source: dev.to / about 10 hours ago
  • Uploading to GitHub Pages: A Step-by-Step Guide
    A GitHub account (create one at https://github.com/ if you don't have one). - Source: dev.to / 1 day ago
  • Day 2 Advance git commands
    Create a repository on GitHub Go to https://github.com. - Source: dev.to / 3 days ago
  • Most Effective Approaches for Debugging Applications
    When a bug disrupts a production environment, reverting to a known working state can minimize user impact and provide a stable baseline for investigation. Version control systems like Git or GitHub enable precise rollbacks, preserving the ability to analyze faulty code. A 2022 JetBrains survey found that 92% of developers use Git, with 65% citing rollbacks as a key benefit for debugging. - Source: dev.to / 4 days ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Jira and GitHub, you can also consider the following products

Asana - Asana project management is an effort to re-imagine how we work together, through modern productivity software. Fast and versatile, Asana helps individuals and groups get more done.

GitLab - Create, review and deploy code together with GitLab open source git repo management software | GitLab

Trello - Infinitely flexible. Incredibly easy to use. Great mobile apps. It's free. Trello keeps track of everything, from the big picture to the minute details.

BitBucket - Bitbucket is a free code hosting site for Mercurial and Git. Manage your development with a hosted wiki, issue tracker and source code.

Basecamp - A simple and elegant project management system.

VS Code - Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft