Wrike vs Jira Comparison: Which is the Better?

In today’s work environment, it seems that project management is expected from everyone, not only from experienced or trained project managers. This may seem overwhelming or unfair. But if you look at the opportunity, it can also mean that project management belongs to everyone, including its benefits. Professionals and teams who seriously learn the discipline, the process and the practice can experience improved productivity, reduced cost and workload, improved collaboration, and most of all, improved customer satisfaction.

However, every project comes with its own unique challenge. Teams and organizations need all the help they can get, especially from the right project management software. PM software, like Wrike and Jira, enables the project team and other stakeholders to make use of a system that keeps information organized. They are able to plan, schedule, allocate, track, document, communicate, and deliver the project successfully and provide the value or solution it was designed for.

Wrike

Wrike is an online project management and collaboration software for business. Founded in 2006, it is now being used by over 20,000 teams and customers such as Mars Candy, L’Oreal, and Tiffany and Company, to help their organizations streamline their workflow. By using the PM tool, they are able to flexibly support, manage and track their tasks through completion. It has enabled teams to boost their performance, whether they are in the same premises, or distributed half-way around the world.

Jira

Jira is an issue and project tracking software popular among software development teams. Launched in 2002 as a simple bug tracking software, it has steadily evolved to a dependable project management tool used by various teams and industries. With its collection of features, 65,000 customers worldwide, like Spotify, Cisco, and Airbnb, are now able to choose from ready-to-use workflow, or create their own to successfully manage the completion of their tasks and the shipment of their products.

Wrike vs Jira

These 2 PM platforms are popular to their users which have proven capabilities to support project management implementations. Still, most teams would rather use the best one for their requirement, and so we will compare them on 5 points: features, price, ease of use, security, and support. For every comparison point, there will be a winner, and in the conclusion, the overall winner will be declared.

1. Features

Wrike has a comprehensive system of tools and features that can address both project management and work management requirements. It has one of the best interactive Gantt chart with support for subtasks and dependencies. Teams are able to simplify their planning, also with the help of dynamic request forms for capturing user requirements. It has customizable workflows as well as project templates to quickly organize and launch initiatives. Collaboration is built-in, allowing communication within work context, and supporting multiple types of components in its proofing tool. Users experience improved visibility with real-time dashboards, with overview or granular details, as well as with shareable reports. Wrike also works with other cloud and on-premise apps through integration.

Jira is preferred by agile teams who use it for software project management and other product development and service delivery initiatives. It has built-in Scrum and Kanban boards, which are powerful features for working on iterative efforts and sprints, as well as lean and fast processes to quickly deliver results. It also has roadmap tools for handling long-term projects, for communicating plans, and for aligning projects and strategies. More than a dozen of ready-to-use reports are available, as well as custom ones. It seamlessly integrates with other developer tools for version control, build, deployment and feature flagging, as well as a Marketplace of thousands of apps for extending its capabilities.

Winner: Wrike

2. Price

Wrike has plans for every kind of team and company. A Free plan for up to 5 users that includes a simple shared task list is available for small starting teams. The Professional plan is priced at $9.80 per user per month billed annually for groups of 5, 10, and 15 users. This plan already includes tools a team would need for project planning and collaboration. The Business plan is at $24.80 per user per month billed annually for teams of more than 15 members. An enterprise plan is also offered, as well as team packages specific for marketers or for professional services 5 members and up. Also, a free trial period of 14 days is available.

Jira offers cloud subscription and self-managed licenses. For cloud offerings, users can choose to pay either monthly or annually. A Free plan is offered for up to 10 users, which includes Scrum and Kanban boards, customizable workflows, roadmaps, agile reporting, integration and more. This can be all that a small team will need for starters. The Standard plan is priced at a flat rate of $10 per user per month for up to 10 users. For more than 10, prices is at $7 per user per month. A 10-member team can also choose to pay a flat $100 a year, and this includes all Free plan features, in addition to anonymous access, audit logs, and 250GB of file storage. For on-premise, self-managed implementation, they offer the Server and Data Center products.

Winner: Jira

3. Ease of Use

Wrike is a serious business tool that aims to help teams with a variety of complex requirements. Nevertheless, it is easy to get started with the PM software with its simple sign-up process and team invitation. Users are welcomed by an intuitive screen with a navigation pane and a project or work view. Plenty of templates are available to help teams hit the ground running. The number of features can sometimes be overwhelming, but every button and icon works as they are supposed to, so as users get familiar, they can become proficient in navigating the system.

Jira introduces its interface with a product tour. This quickly helps users get familiar with the system. Like Wrike, it also has templates many of which are applicable to software developers. Navigation can be confusing at times, and user feedback reports of inconsistencies, like delayed response and/or missing/re-appearing features.

Winner: Wrike

4. Security

Wrike considers its world-class security as one of its main features. It details its physical security measures, network and system security, application security, privacy, compliance and others. Continuous backup is performed on customer data and securely stored on redundant and geographically dispersed servers. There is regular update and patch management, complies with US-EU privacy shield framework as well as GDPR, SOC2 Type2, and ISO/IEC 27001:2013, and also a member of the Cloud Security Alliance. Most security features are available on the enterprise plan, and includes SAML 2.0 SSO, 2FA, password policies, admin-controlled permissions, user audit reports, network access and compliance policies and advanced user access controls.

Jira is also a member of the Cloud Security Alliance, and has similar security in place. It complies with ISO 27001 and ISO 27018, SOC2 and SOC3, PCI DSS, EU-US and Swiss-US Privacy Shield framework, GDPR, and VPAT 508. Data encryption is applied to both data in transit and at rest. For users, administrative controls help enforce organization-wide protection, including SAML SSO, SCIM user provisioning and enforced 2FA.

Winner: It’s a tie.

5. Help and Support

Wrike has a Help portal called the Help Center and is complete with interactive training, videos, and getting started articles. It also has an active community where users can ask questions and learn best practices from the forum. Furthermore, support is offered for free, included in the plan, or a choice of premium support that is available 24/7 through multiple channels. Users can get support through email, help center chat, dedicated phone line and workspace chat, too.

Jira and other Atlassian product support are available from a dedicated support site, where users can browse by product. For Jira, it has documentation, system status, marketplace, community forum, suggestions and bug reports. Free plan users only have the community for support, the Standard plan have 9-5 standard support, while Premium plan can provide up to 24/7 support.

Winner: Wrike

Conclusion – Wrike is the Winner!

Overall, we choose Wrike as the winner. It has a more rounded set of features, consistency in its interface, great support and world-class security. Jira has more attractive pricing, a greater number of integration options, and geared more towards software development teams. However, both PM tools are flexible and customizable in their own rights, and can fit a variety of applications, depending on the personal preference of their users.

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