What are the main differences?

If you’re ready to buy project management software, Zenhub and Jira are two of the leading options. They’re packed with features to help companies get more done and respond to change, allowing organizations to grow while employees make the most of their time.

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Jira vs. Zenhub: Comparison table

Jira vs. Zenhub

Jira is an affordable project management solution used for planning and tracking agile and software developments projects. Jira is best for technical teams using agile management techniques. The solution offers over 3,000 integrations that help streamline its project management capabilities.

For more information, read our full Jira review.

Zenhub is a competitively priced project management solution for software teams. The solution is best suited for agile software development teams using GitHub’s native integration. Zenhub allows software teams to plan and track the progress of their projects using agile and scrum management techniques.

For more information, read our full Zenhub review.

Jira and Zenhub pricing

Zenhub and Jira have a similar price range, but there are a few differences in what you get with each plan. Jira’s pricing structure is also more complicated than it might first appear. Here’s what you need to know.

Zenhub pricing

Zenhub offers one free tier and two paid tiers:

• Growth: $8.33 per user per month, billed annually, or $12.50 per user, billed monthly.

• Enterprise: Contact sales for pricing.

Zenhub’s free plan comes with unlimited team workspaces, full access to the platform’s features and functionalities and support from a community of users. However, if you opt for the Growth plan, it’s a cloud-hosted option with email support. Signing up for an Enterprise plan lets you choose from an on-premises or cloud-hosted subscription that includes priority support and access to the company’s beta program.

Jira pricing

Jira offers one free tier and three paid tiers, and the total cost for all paid plans change depending on how many users have access. Use the pricing calculator on Jira’s site to get an idea of how much you’d pay before deciding if it’s the right match for you. Pricing for Jira for up to 10 users is as follows:

• Free: $0 for up to 10 users.

• Standard: $790 billed annually or an estimated $7.75 per user billed monthly.

• Premium: $1,525 billed annually or an estimated $15.25 per user billed monthly.

• Enterprise: Only available on an annual billing cycle for companies with 801+ users. Contact sales for a quote.

The free plan provides 2GB of storage and community-based support, and the standard plan provides 250GB of storage and professional support during business hours. The Premium and Enterprise plans offer 24/7 support and unlimited storage.

Feature comparison: Jira vs. Zenhub

Automation

Jira has a no-code automation engine that reduces manual, repetitive tasks (Figure A). Browse the helpful automation template library to get an idea of what you could do faster with Jira’s automation capabilities. For example, you can automatically clone issues, change an issue’s due date or assign tasks to specific users.

Figure A

Zenhub allows you to automate workflow steps to get more streamlined results. For example, when tracking problems with projects throughout your organization, you can make single issues appear simultaneously across all boards. Doing so lets all team members see what steps occurred before issues were assigned to them. Then, they’re less likely to do unnecessary work or require additional clarification before getting to work.

Report Creation

Jira provides handy, out-of-the-box reports (Figure B), which offer valuable insights across all project stages. See scrum metrics for company or team-managed projects and aggregated views of historical progress. Make a burndown chart to track sprint-goal progress or see how a velocity chart could support better sprint pacing in your organization. Real-time visual data simplifies improving your team’s performance.

Figure B

Zenhub creates agile reports with information from your team’s live issue data. Use cumulative flow charts to see which issues cause the most severe work slowdowns. Make a velocity-tracking report to learn the average number of story points your team completes in each sprint.

Integrations

Jira has more than 3,000 integrations — which the company calls apps. It’s also far easier to find suitable integrations for Jira than Zenhub. Fortunately, Jira excels in making its integrations accessible, even recommending certain options for specific teams at a company such as business leaders or IT professionals.

Although Zenhub does integrate with various other programs, it has far fewer options than Jira. You can connect a Zenhub account to GitHub or Slack (Figure C). Third-party sites also list other integration options, but the total number of integrations shown on those resources is less than a dozen. The easiest — but still cumbersome — option is to do a Google search for something like “[product name] integration with Zenhub” because the company does not have a dedicated integrations library.

Figure C

GitHub login option

Although a GitHub integration for Jira exists, you still have to create a Jira account to make use of it. Making another account isn’t difficult, but with the trend of many people trying to cut down on the number of times they log into different platforms per day, some users may rather not do it unless there’s no other option.

Zenhub is a GitHub-friendly platform, allowing people to log into it without creating a separate Zenhub account. You can also use GitHub to manage issues unrelated to development in Zenhub. These possibilities are undoubtedly helpful, especially for people who are already frequent GitHub users but don’t need or want to create another login specifically to use Zenhub.

Native planning poker capabilities

Jira does not offer planning poker options as native features. Instead, you must choose and install one of the dozens of planning poker apps in the app marketplace. You may find that overwhelming, particularly because it requires sorting through the available options and selecting the most suitable one. Not all these apps are widely used; although some have thousands of users trying them, many options that came up during a quick search showed less than 100 installs.

Planning poker is a consensus-based way of helping teams estimate the time it’ll take to resolve issues (Figure D). Zenhub allows product owners to ask team members for related estimates, and every participant gets an equal voice. One recommendation is to use planning poker in Zenhub before sprint planning occurs. It’s then less likely for issues to get added into sprints without associated estimates.

Figure D

Jira pros and cons

Pros of Jira

• Lots of customization options.
• Excellent issue/task tracking.
• Fantastic collaboration options for teams.

Cons of Jira

• Steep learning curve.
• Costly for a company with a large user base.
• Time-consuming setup process.

Zenhub pros and cons

Pros of Zenhub

• Usability with GitHub.
• Ease of managing complex projects.
• Flexibility to meet an organization’s needs.

Cons of Zenhub

• Occasional bugs.
• Slight learning curve to the user interface.
• Possibility for slowness, especially with larger projects.

Review methodology

We reviewed Jira and Zenhub by compiling information from each product’s official website and reading user reviews to identify common themes in their experiences. We evaluated the pricing options available for both Jira and Zenhub at various levels.

During the review process, we considered features such as automation capabilities, available integrations and other project management tools that would be applicable to the users of each product, which is primarily software development teams for both Jira and Zenhub.

Should your organization use Zenhub or Jira?

There’s no universal answer as to which of these products best fits your organization. Both are viable options, specifically for software development teams. Use the information described here to help you decide which positive features stand out the most or which limitations are possibly too much to handle.

For example, if you want to use several integrations, Zenhub may fall short because it offers so few compared to Jira. However, if your company is unwilling to invest in the necessary training, learning to use Jira could prove too frustrating.

However, don’t forget that each product offers a free plan. There’s no harm in trying them both and spending enough time with each one to show you which is more suitable for your organization’s present and future needs.

If you’re not satisfied with Jira or Zenhub, check out our list of the best cloud-based project management tools.

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