Jira is an enterprise-grade project management platform designed for complex workflows with advanced reporting and customization, while Trello is a lightweight, visual kanban tool optimized for simplicity and small-to-medium team collaboration. Jira costs 3-5x more and requires significantly steeper learning curves, making Trello better for teams prioritizing ease of use over sophisticated tracking.
Jira vs Trello — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Choose Jira if your team needs advanced agile workflows, detailed reporting for compliance, complex dependency management, or scaling beyond 50 people — it's the standard for enterprise development teams. Choose Trello if you prioritize simplicity, visual collaboration, faster onboarding, and cost efficiency for small-to-medium teams managing straightforward projects or multiple concurrent initiatives.
Enterprise project management platform with advanced agile workflows, reporting, and automation.
Visual kanban-based project management tool emphasizing simplicity and ease of collaboration.
Structured comparison data for Jira vs Trello with 166 attributes.
Advanced Agile Features (Sprint Velocity Tracking)
Monthly Cost (Single User, Standard Plan)
Professional Plan Price (Per User/Month)
Jira vs Trello — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Jira vs Trello.
Which tool is better for small startups?
Trello is better for startups under 15 people. Its $5/user/month cost, 2-4 hour onboarding, and visual simplicity reduce overhead. Jira becomes cost-effective only when you need multi-sprint planning, burndown charts, or 50+ contributors — typically at Series A+ funding levels. Trello's free tier supports unlimited cards, making it viable while bootstrapping.
Can Trello handle Scrum methodology like Jira does?
Trello can visualize basic Scrum with boards, lists, and cards representing sprints, but it lacks native sprint automation, velocity tracking, and burndown charts. Jira provides 8+ Scrum-specific reports, automated sprint duration enforcement, and story point estimation. For teams doing strict Scrum with velocity metrics, Jira's $18/user/month is a necessary cost; Trello requires workarounds via Butler automation.
How do Jira and Trello differ in reporting for stakeholders?
Jira provides 40+ native reports including cumulative flow diagrams, sprint velocity trends, and cycle time analytics — critical for C-suite visibility in regulated industries. Trello offers 5 basic views (calendar, timeline, dashboard) but no burndown, velocity, or predictive analytics. Trello's gaps require exporting data to Excel or using third-party tools, adding 3-5 hours/month of manual work for stakeholder dashboards.
Can both tools handle enterprise security requirements?
Jira Enterprise supports SSO, SAML 2.0, audit logging, IP whitelisting, and 8+ permission roles needed for SOC 2 Type II compliance. Trello Business tier supports SSO and audit logs but lacks fine-grained role-based access controls. For companies with compliance audits (healthcare, finance), Jira's $29/user/month Enterprise plan is required; Trello Business ($17.50) is insufficient for HIPAA/PCI-DSS environments.
Which tool integrates better with development tools (GitHub, Jenkins, Slack)?
Jira has 1000+ integrations with native GitHub/Bitbucket auto-linking, Jenkins pipeline visibility, and Slack workflow automation. Trello has 240 Power-Ups but relies on Zapier (third-party, $19-$99/month) for similar GitHub-to-Trello ticket syncing. Jira's developer-centric design saves engineering teams 4-6 hours/week on context-switching; Trello requires external tools, increasing toolchain complexity.