At the heart of the comparison between Monday Dev and Jira lies a fundamental question: How do development teams want to work? Jira, established by Atlassian in the early 2000s, was born as a solution for bug and backlog management for Agile teams. It provides advanced capabilities for managing sprints, tracking tasks and documenting long‑term backlogs, but it requires administrative knowledge to design the workflows. Monday Dev, on the other hand, was built as part of the Work OS of Monday.com and is aimed at users who want to set up a management infrastructure without getting entangled in complex configurations. The system lets you set up boards within minutes and add Kanban views, charts, dashboards, Workdocs and capacity planning as built‑in features. This is the first difference: Jira focuses on Agile development teams and delivers deep power to those who are willing to invest time and money in learning and customization, while Monday Dev offers an intuitive interface that can be used immediately by product managers, QA and managers across the organization. According to G2 data for 2025, Monday Dev is rated 4.7 out of 5 based on more than twelve thousand reviews, whereas Jira is rated 4.3 – a figure that illustrates how users experience friendliness versus complexity.
Built‑in functionality vs plugin ecosystem
In terms of functionality, Monday Dev offers a complete toolkit “out of the box”: management of hierarchies, roadmaps, customized dashboards, built‑in automations, Workdocs for documentation and capacity planning for future sprints. It includes more than two hundred integrations with common systems like GitHub, GitLab, Slack and Azure DevOps. Jira takes a different approach. Its core focuses on backlog and sprint management, but additional tools such as Advanced Roadmaps, Confluence (for documentation) or Jira Align (for portfolio management) are available only as paid add‑ons through the Atlassian Marketplace. On one hand this creates unlimited flexibility with more than three thousand extensions; on the other hand it increases the total cost of ownership and adds layers of management complexity. A 2025 study by TechRepublic found that medium‑sized organizations using Jira spend on average twenty to thirty percent more per year on add‑ons and support than comparable organizations that chose Monday Dev. This gap is significant when considering not only the monthly license price but the overall investment over time; Monday Dev offers an advantage to those seeking simplicity and uniformity, while Jira serves large organizations that need modularity and deep control.
Work methods and knowledge sharing: flexibility vs Agile specialization
One of the important differences between Monday Dev and Jira is support for different work methodologies. Jira excels at Agile management, particularly Scrum and Kanban, and is a standard for thousands of development teams worldwide. It provides advanced tools for managing a complex backlog, tracking velocity and generating performance reports. However, when organizations want to expand beyond pure development — for example to incorporate marketing, sales or human resources — Jira is not suitable without purchasing dedicated add‑ons or moving to complementary platforms. Monday Dev is designed to serve not only developers but also product, marketing and operations managers. It allows you to combine projects and functional areas in one interface while maintaining complete transparency. Workdocs allow writing specifications and documentation directly on the board without switching to an external system like Confluence. Another advantage is support for hybrid models: a team can choose to manage part of the project in Agile sprints and another part in a waterfall structure. For start‑ups or medium‑sized organizations this flexibility is a real implementation benefit; for large and established technology companies that already operate deeply in Agile, Jira remains the preferred solution due to the depth of control in backlog management.
Costs, support and ease of use: the hidden numbers
At first glance, Jira seems cheaper: the standard plan costs $7.53 per user, while Monday Dev starts at $9. Yet when examining the full picture, the gap disappears and even reverses. Monday Dev’s implementation includes free viewers, Workdocs, dashboards and automations in the same package — add‑ons that Jira requires purchasing separately. In addition, all Monday Dev plans include 24/7 support via chat, phone and email, whereas Jira offers full support only in premium and Enterprise tiers. Data from Cloudwards in 2025 show that organizations choosing Monday reported an average savings of eighteen percent in annual expenses on complementary tools and support. Monday Dev also stands out with an intuitive interface that can be learned quickly — a significant advantage when product and QA teams join project management. Jira, by contrast, requires a steep learning curve and sometimes formal training. Nonetheless, Jira’s broad market approach gives it an advantage in large organizations that are willing to invest in maintenance and training to enjoy the wide flexibility it offers. The choice is not purely numerical but strategic: does the organization want a system that is quick to implement and transparent, or a powerful yet complex tool for managing software at a large scale?
Concise comparison table — Monday Dev vs Jira
Criterion:
– Ease of use: Monday Dev has an intuitive interface that can be set up within minutes and is suitable for product and marketing managers, whereas Jira has a high learning curve and requires a dedicated administrator for complex configurations.
– Functionality: Monday Dev includes built‑in dashboards, Workdocs, hierarchies, capacity planning and automations. Jira’s core is limited; expansions are obtained through the Atlassian Marketplace for additional cost.
– Methodologies: Monday Dev supports Agile, waterfall and hybrid models and is suitable for cross‑organization processes. Jira focuses mainly on Agile — Scrum and Kanban — and is less suitable for additional functional areas.
– Pricing: Monday Dev costs $9 to $20 per user and includes free viewers and 24/7 support. Jira costs $7.53 to $13.53 per user, with expansions and advanced support at extra cost.
– Integrations: Monday Dev offers more than two hundred built‑in integrations and includes AI Blocks for documentation and prioritization. Jira has a market of more than three thousand extensions, many of which are paid and require maintenance.
– Customer ratings: Monday Dev is rated 4.7 out of 5 on G2 and 4.6 out of 5 on Capterra, while Jira is rated 4.3 out of 5 on G2 and 4.4 out of 5 on Capterra.
Integrations and artificial intelligence: Built‑in versus add‑on market
Integration is at the heart of a modern development environment. Jira boasts more than three thousand extensions through the Atlassian Marketplace, including connections to DevOps tools, automation, analytics and dashboards. The advantage is clear: almost any specific need can be covered with an add‑on. The drawback is cumulative costs and dependency on third‑party vendors. Monday Dev offers a different approach: more than two hundred integrations are built in by default, including GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Slack and Azure DevOps, along with “AI Blocks” — modules of artificial intelligence that create requirement summaries, prioritize bugs and plan sprints. This means the capabilities are available from the very beginning, with no additional installations. For small and medium teams, this provides a smooth experience that allows them to focus on the product rather than on tool maintenance. Large and complex development teams may prefer Jira’s market flexibility, especially when deep customization or integration with unique DevOps tools is required.
Migration and scaling: migrating to Monday Dev and adapting to enterprise organizations
A major question for product managers and CTOs considering a move from Jira to Monday Dev is not only what the theoretical advantages of the platform are, but what the practical implications of the transition are. Jira is a veteran system that has accompanied organizations for more than two decades, meaning it often contains vast amounts of data: historical tasks, complex backlogs, users with various permissions and customized integrations. The main fear is losing information or disrupting the workflow. Monday Dev offers dedicated solutions for migration: full CSV imports, direct API connections to Jira that allow real‑time data synchronization, and third‑party tools such as ZigiOps or Workato that allow projects to be transferred without interrupting the daily work of the team. Monday also provides close support in the migration process, with Customer Success teams accompanying the transition of medium and large companies.
Beyond this, the issue of scalability must be considered. Jira is regarded as a clear enterprise tool and is used by teams of hundreds or even thousands of developers simultaneously. Monday Dev, launched later, has invested heavily in recent years to expand its capabilities for large‑scale use. These include advanced field‑level permissions, compliance with international standards such as SOC 2 and GDPR, and a cloud infrastructure that allows thousands of users to be managed simultaneously across departments. Nonetheless, Jira still enjoys an established reputation in this area, mainly due to its long experience with large enterprise customers. Monday Dev, for its part, highlights examples of Fortune 500 companies that have already migrated to it and emphasizes that the platform was built not only for start‑ups but also for organizations with complex structures and strict regulatory requirements. Ultimately, for those considering migration, the recommendation is to view it as a project in itself: define in advance which data must be transferred, which integrations cannot be broken and which organizational benefits are expected to be achieved. Monday Dev offers a clear advantage in transparency and simplicity even in large organizations, but it is important to understand that the transition requires organized planning and coordination between IT, development and operations teams. For companies that are willing to invest in preparation, it can make daily management more effective, with a proven return on investment over time.
Community and ecosystem: experience versus accessibility
Moving to technological tools is not only about features but also about the ecosystem around them. Jira benefits from almost two decades in the market with a huge global community that includes thousands of forums, video tutorials, technical blogs and add‑ons created by third parties. This means that almost any problem has a ready‑made solution, whether it is a script for managing complex sprints, a reporting plug‑in or a detailed guide on how to implement a new methodology. This advantage is significant especially for large organizations, as there is a huge repository of accumulated knowledge that shortens learning and support processes. Monday Dev, being a younger platform, does not yet enjoy the same wide global community. Instead of relying on a community to provide solutions, it offers a structured knowledge center, user‑friendly documentation, Customer Success teams that accompany the implementation and interactive guides within the system itself. In addition, Monday invests in building a growing community through user groups, professional meetups and an online Academy. The result is that Jira provides a sea of resources but requires filtering and knowledge to use them effectively, while Monday Dev offers more targeted support from within the platform. For those who prefer to rely on a long‑standing community, Jira is the safe choice; for those who prefer a structured and clear learning experience, Monday Dev offers a fresh and easy‑to‑digest answer.
What is the next step?
The choice between Jira and Monday Dev is not merely technical; it is strategic. If your organization lives and breathes Agile, with large development teams and the ability to maintain a dedicated administrator and advanced add‑ons, Jira is a powerful tool that continues to prove itself. If, however, you are looking for a system that can be deployed quickly and serves not only development but also marketing, sales and operations with full transparency and 24/7 support, Monday Dev is a mature and relevant alternative. The next step is to examine not only the license price but the total cost of ownership and organizational culture. Ask yourselves whether you need endless flexibility and are ready to manage it, or whether you want one system that will work for you from day one.
