Jira suits software and technical teams that want the established tool for agile work, and its free plan covers up to 10 users. monday dev, monday.com's product for development teams, suits companies that want product, marketing and tech teams on one friendly platform, with sprints, roadmaps and bug tracking alongside everyone else's boards. If your developers already know Jira, stay; if your wider business runs on monday.com, monday dev keeps everyone together.
When people search for monday vs Jira, they usually mean monday dev, the part of monday.com built for software teams. Jira, from Atlassian, has been the default for agile teams for years. I read Atlassian's Jira and plans pages and monday.com's monday dev and plans pages.
monday dev and Jira compared
| monday dev | Jira | |
|---|---|---|
| Made by | monday.com | Atlassian |
| Free plan | monday.com Free plan, up to 2 seats | Free forever for up to 10 users |
| Free storage | Not stated on the pages I read | 2 GB |
| Agile tools | Scrum and Kanban boards, sprint automations | Agile project management and planning |
| Assistants | AI features from the Basic plan | Rovo in Jira |
| Dev integrations | GitHub, GitLab and CircleCI | Templates across engineering and IT |
The free plan gap
For a small technical team this is the biggest practical difference. Atlassian's plans page lists Jira Free as free forever for up to 10 users with 2 GB of storage, and the Standard plan adds 250 GB and up to 100,000 users per site. monday.com's free plan covers up to 2 seats and 3 boards. So a startup with a handful of developers can run Jira free for a long time, while monday dev is something you'll usually trial and then upgrade.
What Jira does well
Jira is built for agile project management, with templates for engineering, IT, marketing, design and operations teams. Atlassian has added Rovo AI to Jira and talks about turning plans into agent-ready tasks, so AI helpers and people can work on the same backlog. Most developers have used it before, which removes training time.
What monday dev does well
monday dev covers the whole product cycle: feature requests, product roadmaps, sprint management, bug tracking, incident management, retrospectives and release management. It offers Scrum and Kanban boards, sprint automations and integrations with GitHub, GitLab and CircleCI, plus capacity planning and customer feedback for prioritising your roadmap. Because it sits on monday.com, marketing and operations can follow the same work in the same tool.
Questions to settle first
- Do your developers already know Jira well?
- Do non-technical teams need to follow product work closely?
- How many people need access on a free plan?
- Do you need GitHub, GitLab or CircleCI connected from day one?
If you're choosing a way of working before a tool, read my explainer on Scrum vs SAFe and this piece on why kanban boards work.
How to run a fair trial
- Choose one real sprint's worth of work, with a few bugs and a feature.
- Set it up in Jira's free plan and in a monday dev trial.
- Connect your code repository in each so commits link to tasks.
- Invite one person from marketing or support to follow progress.
- At the end, ask developers which sprint board they preferred and ask the outsider which tool told them more.
That last question matters more than people expect. Product work affects launches, support and marketing, so a tool that keeps the rest of the business informed can save as much time as a faster sprint board.
My advice on monday dev or Jira
If your team is technical first and small, start on Jira's free plan, since 10 users goes a long way. If product work has to stay visible to marketing, support and leadership, trial monday dev and run one full sprint in it. Ask your developers to judge the sprint tools, and your managers to judge the visibility.
Do you make project management or developer software? Tool makers can ask to be considered for a featured place in comparisons like this one.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Jira free?
Yes. Atlassian lists Jira Free as free forever for up to 10 users with 2 GB of storage.
What is monday dev?
It's monday.com's product for development teams, with roadmaps, sprints, bug tracking, Scrum and Kanban boards and GitHub, GitLab and CircleCI integrations.
Does monday.com have a free plan?
Yes. monday.com's free plan covers up to 2 seats and 3 boards.
Does Jira have AI features?
Yes. Atlassian offers Rovo in Jira.
How many users can use Jira for free?
Atlassian's plans page lists Jira Free for up to 10 users, with 2 GB of storage.
Can monday dev connect to GitHub?
Yes. monday dev lists integrations with GitHub, GitLab and CircleCI.
Which is better for non-technical teams?
monday dev, usually, because the rest of the business can follow product work on the same monday.com platform.
