Jira is a comprehensive project management platform with advanced workflow customization and reporting, while GitHub Issues is a lightweight, integrated issue tracker built directly into GitHub repositories. Jira excels for large teams managing complex projects, whereas GitHub Issues is ideal for developers who want simplicity without leaving their code hosting platform.
Jira vs GitHub Issues — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Choose Jira if you manage enterprise projects, need advanced agile workflows, require detailed reporting/analytics, or work with teams exceeding 50 members. Choose GitHub Issues if you prioritize simplicity, need seamless code integration, maintain small-to-medium development teams, or want zero additional tooling overhead.
Enterprise-grade project management and issue tracking platform by Atlassian with advanced customization.
Lightweight, integrated issue tracking system built natively into GitHub repositories with minimal setup.
Structured comparison data for Jira vs GitHub Issues with 181 attributes.
Advanced Agile Features (Sprint Velocity Tracking)
Jira vs GitHub Issues — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Jira vs GitHub Issues.
Can GitHub Issues scale to manage 500+ concurrent issues across multiple teams?
GitHub Issues becomes difficult to manage beyond 100 concurrent issues due to lack of advanced filtering, custom workflows, and no native burndown/velocity tracking. For 500+ issues, Jira's custom dashboards, JQL queries, and sprint-specific metrics make issue triage vastly more efficient. GitHub Issues is designed for small-to-medium repositories (< 50 issues per sprint).
Does GitHub Issues support Scrum or Kanban workflows?
GitHub Issues supports basic Kanban via Project Boards (columns represent workflow states). However, it lacks Scrum-specific features like sprint planning, velocity tracking, burndown charts, and commitment-based sprint cycles. Jira natively supports both Scrum (with backlog refinement, sprint planning, burndown) and Kanban (with WIP limits, cycle time metrics).
Is Jira worth the cost for a 15-person startup?
No. A 15-person startup should use GitHub Issues (free, integrated) or Plane/Linear (lightweight, $50-100/month). Jira's $500/month cost, 50-hour onboarding, and enterprise-focused features create unnecessary overhead. Start with GitHub Issues, migrate to Jira only when managing 10+ concurrent projects with strict workflow/reporting requirements.
Can Jira and GitHub Issues be used together?
Yes. Many teams use GitHub Issues for development tracking (linked to PRs/commits) and Jira for cross-team project management, roadmaps, and executive reporting. However, this creates duplicate issue entry and synchronization overhead. Atlassian's GitHub integration allows read-only syncing of GitHub issues into Jira, but the reverse (Jira → GitHub) requires third-party tools like Zapier.
Which tool has better integrations with other software?
Jira has 3,000+ integrations (Slack, Confluence, Bitbucket, Salesforce, Zendesk, etc.) via the Atlassian Marketplace. GitHub Issues integrates natively with 200+ apps (Slack, Discord, GitLab, GitKraken, linear.app) plus any service supporting webhooks. For enterprise use, Jira's integration ecosystem is richer; for developers, GitHub's webhook-based approach is simpler.