Many project management tools offer different solutions to the same problem. Hence, choosing the right project management tool is crucial for the success of your product. It can significantly impact your team's efficiency, collaboration, and overall productivity. A well-suited tool can streamline processes, reduce manual tasks, and ensure everyone is aligned on goals and tasks.
Two popular tools used in project management software are Productboard and Jira. However, despite being in the same software category, both of these platforms cater to different needs and use cases.
Productboard is specifically designed for product teams, offering features for collecting customer feedback, prioritizing ideas, and creating roadmaps. On the other hand, Jira is a more general-purpose project management tool that can be used for various types of projects, including software development.
In this article, we’re going to examine Productboard and Jira, comparing their features side by side to create a comprehensive comparison of both platforms. By the end, you should have all the information to help you determine which product is the best fit for your project.
- Productboard is an excellent tool for any customer centric project such as product development since it utilizes customer insight
- Jira is a great tool for more all kinds of project management scenarios as it allows users to tailor their workflows to their own liking
Features | Productboard | Jira |
User Interface | Modern, streamlined interface that focuses on smooth navigation | Intuitive and user-friendly interface that facilitates customized project views |
Workflow Management | Utilizes a Product Hierarchy to organize elements and a dashboard for managing tasks | Utilizes a dashboard to track issues throughout the project lifecycle. |
Customization | Customizable data fields, status and boards | Custom dashboards, fields, notifications, layout, issue types, automation rules, etc. |
Project Templates | Specific use templates such as templates for roadmaps, user stories, etc. | General use templates such as project management templates, Kanban templates, sales templates, etc. |
Collaboration Tools | Real-time messaging, file sharing, comments and collaborative docs | Comments, child issues, mentions, delegated administration, file sharing, etc. |
Reporting And Analytics | Notes, Insight Trends and integrations with Amplitude and Mixpanel help aggregate consumer data | Burndown charts, velocity charts, sprint reports, cumulative flow diagrams, and custom reports |
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Productboard is a powerful tool designed to streamline the development process and ensure that products are built with customer needs at the forefront. Its strengths lie in its ability to effectively gather, organize, and prioritize customer feedback, allowing teams to make data-driven decisions about product features and roadmaps.
Productboard is particularly well-suited for product managers, designers, and engineers who are looking to build products that resonate with their target audience. However, it can also be used in project management due to its task assignment and collaboration features.
Productboard Key Features
- Essential management features such as task assignment, scheduling, progress tracking, etc.
- Product hierarchy—a feature that allows you to organize all ideas into three categories: product, component and subcomponent
- Dynamic roadmaps that align with both stakeholder’s interests as well as market trends
- Notes and insights that allow users to organize and link notes (feedback) with a takeaway based on AI summaries (an insight)
- Collaboration tools such as file sharing, video conferencing, content management, etc.
Pros
Roadmap Management
One of Productboard’s selling points is its ability to create dynamic roadmaps that keep stakeholders informed. The platform’s intuitive interface, combined with its data driven approach enables teams to create and manage roadmaps that are visually appealing and strategically sound.
Insights Collection
Productboard’s Insights collections is a great way to analyze trends in consumer behavior. This feature also allows users to group all insights together so that product managers can access and process feedback in less time. Users can also search through these collections with the help of set filters.
Cons
Lack Of Versatility
Productboard’s focus on specific use cases (such as roadmaps), combined with very specified workflows (such as linking notes and insights together) can be a limitation for organizations that require a more versatile or customizable platform.
Jira software is a popular issue-tracking tool that’s widely used by teams of various sizes. Its primary strengths are its issue tracking capabilities, customizability and integration with various third-party software.
As a result of Jira’s sheer customizability and workflow management, it’s primarily used by software developers, project managers and agile teams who need a tool to track tasks, manage sprints and collaborate effectively.
Jira Key Features
- Issue tracking, where tasks and requirements are constantly monitored throughout the entire project lifecycle
- Robust reporting capabilities, allowing you to track project progress, identify bottlenecks, and make data-driven decisions
- Customizable workflows that are tailored to your team's specific processes, ensuring that the project progresses as smoothly as possible
- Integrates seamlessly with other popular tools like Git, Confluence, and Slack
- Can be used for projects of any size, making it suitable for all kinds of teams
Pros
Customizability
Jira's strongest selling point is its extensive customizability. Boards, filters, fields, notifications—all of it can be customized to the user's whims. This level of customizability means that teams from different disciplines with varying workflows can utilize Jira.
Extensive Integrations
Jira offers integrations with popular third-party software such as Git, Bitbucket, and Slack. These integrations help enhance its appeal for Agile teams since the platform streamlines workflows and incentivizes collaboration. In other words, those integrations help align Jira further with Agile methodology principles.
Agile Design
Jira offers a host of features that are designed to help streamline Agile practices. These features include Kanban boards, sprint functionalities, and burndown charts. Finally, Jira's primary function regarding issue tracking and assigning tickets means that the software lends itself naturally to an iterative approach, making it more suited for Agile teams.
Cons
Complexity
Jira's impressive level of customizability—while its greatest strength—is, ironically enough, a drawback to some groups. The level of customization offered means that companies often overcomplicate their own workflows in an attempt to make full use of Jira's functionality. As a result, these overcomplicated workflows can hinder rather than help projects.
Optimization Challenges
At times, Jira can get slow or unresponsive due to handling very large but poorly designed custom workflows. Finally, compared to other lightweight software such as Asana and Trello, Jira also takes up more resources for systems.
1. Pricing Plans
Productboard
Productboard offers flexible pricing plans to cater to different business needs and team sizes. The lower tiers offer essential features such as feedback notes, a teamspace and a product portal. Conversely, the higher tiers offer more advanced features such as insight automations, trend reporting, customizable data fields, etc.
Currently, Productboard offers the following pricing plans:
- Starter: Free
- Essentials: $25/maker/month
- Pro: $75/maker/month
- Enterprise: Customized pricing
Disclaimer: Pricing is subject to change.
Jira
Jira offers a similar pricing model: lower tiers that offer basic features such as reports and dashboards, and higher tiers that offer advanced features such as unlimited storage and automation.
Jira offers the following pricing plans:
- Free: Available for up to ten users
- Standard: $7.53/user/month
- Pro: $13.53/user/month
- Enterprise: Customized pricing
Disclaimer: Pricing is subject to change.
Winner: Jira wins this category due to being cheaper in all tiers compared to Productboard.
2. Workflow Management
Productboard
Productboard’s workflow management is mostly geared towards what it does best—creating roadmaps or product ideas. However, it does utilize a dashboard for typical project management actions such as setting tasks, tracking milestones, and improving performance. This board approach also helps facilitate Agile methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban.
Productboard also categorizes all its elements using Product Hierarchy—a list that allows its users to organize all their data into a single hierarchy, streamlining all their ideas. This structured approach is further reinforced with notes and insights, that allow users to run an AI analysis on feedback to gain further insights into consumer behavior.
Jira
Jira’s workflows entail seeing an issue from creation to completion. To help keep track of issues, Jira uses three elements in their workflows: status (the position of the issue), transition (any action that changes status) and resolution (issue completion).
These issues are normally viewed on a board that helps in visually tracking the issue as it moves through your workflow. Users can also customize their workflows with custom fields, automations, templates, etc. This level of flexibility makes Jira a versatile tool, as it allows its users to tackle a variety of projects instead of being limited to specific cases.
Winner: Jira allows its users to customize their workflows any way they want, thus making it the winner in this category. However, anyone wanting to make a roadmap or product ideas might be more predisposed towards Productboard.
3. User Interface
Productboard
Productboard's user interface takes a minimalist approach, focusing on avoiding icon clutter and remaining intuitive for all users. It features a modern interface with clear navigation and data visualization. The platform's use of color coding and icons helps users quickly understand and prioritize information. Productboard also offers a few customization options, allowing users to personalize their workspace and tailor the UI to their specific needs.
Jira
Jira's user interface is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly. The interface features a clean layout, clear navigation menus, and customizable dashboards that allow users to personalize their workspace. Jira also offers a variety of themes and customization options, enabling users to tailor the UI to their preferences and needs.
Winner: Both offer an accessible UI that’s appealing and intuitive. However, some newcomers may find Productboard more welcoming than Jira which is stacked to the brim with complex features.
4. Collaboration And Communication Tools
Productboard
Productboard offers Collaborative Docs, a document editor that facilitates real-time collaboration between various employees in any business organization. This centralized approach to handling information also bridges the gap between various departments, ensuring that everyone is on the same page during a project lifecycle.
Additional components for Productboard include all standard features found in other project management tools such as real-time messaging, file sharing and commenting. These tools incentivize collaboration between teams from all over the organization.
Jira
Jira offers a robust set of collaboration features that enhance teamwork and communication within development teams. These features include issue comments, mentions, child issues, flagged items, notifications, etc.
Additionally, Jira also allows for specific permissions, allowing users to access only the authorized parts of the project. Integrations with third party software such as Github and Slack also help in extending its communication capabilities.
Winner: Despite featuring different stand-out collaboration tools, both software remain tied. ProductBoard’s collaborative docs feature makes it a good fit for product development matters, however Jira’s various integrations and permissions make it great for agile projects.
5. Project Templates
Productboard
Productboard offers several types of templates for all their customers’ needs. Users can pick templates out for roadmaps, user stories or basically any element with a description field. While these templates are for specific use cases, they can help users familiarize themselves with the way things are set up on Productboard.
Jira
Jira has a number of in-built project templates for a variety of scenarios. Users can select from specific templates like Scrum and bug tracking, as well as more general options like Kanban templates. In addition, Jira allows its users to create and save custom templates for users with complex or specific workflows.
Winner: Jira has an advantage over Productboard as it offers both generic and specific use templates.
6. Reporting And Analytics
Productboard
Productboard can aggregate customer data from multiple sources to gain a clear, concise view of key metrics such as performance. It does by using built-in integrations with Amplitude and Mixpanel to gather all that data to create custom user impact scores.
In addition, Productboard offers Insights Trends, a feature that allows users to sort and view various trends based on customer segments. Finally, it also offers operational reports that help measure team effectiveness.
Jira
Since Jira is designed for Agile teams, it utilizes various scrum reporting tools such as sprint reports (for curbing scope creep), burndown charts (for tracking progress), velocity charts (for estimating time), etc. These reports can all be tracked with a single dashboard on Jira, making it an attractive option for users who prefer a visual approach to project management.
Winner: Both software are tied since they offer an equivalent number of reporting tools that cater to different sections of the audience. Productboard is more suitable for users who want to gain consumer insights, whereas Jira is great for creating a visual workflow.
7. Integrations
Productboard
Productboard offers integrations with many platforms that can help speed up processes and make work easier. Whether it’s software for customer feedback (Salesforce), collaboration (Figma), or version control (Github), Productboard has you covered.
Jira
Jira can also integrate with a wide variety of third-party software. Examples of this include tools for documentation (Confluence), communication (Gmail), spreadsheet software (Excel) and many more.
Winner: Both tools can integrate with similar software, so they are tied in this category.
9. Security
Productboard
Productboard encrypts its data using an industry-standard AES-256 encryption algorithm, ensuring that any data sent to and from the software is fully secure. Permissions and authentication are reinforced with sign-ins and two factor authentication protocols. Finally, Productboard is SOC2 Type II and ISO 27001:2013 certified, meaning that it’s up to date on global security standards.
Jira
Like Productboard, Jira also encrypts sensitive data using ab AES-256 encryption algorithm. Further security safeguards include IP allowlisting and customizable permissions for access to data. To maintain their security, Jira has partnered with Bugcrowd to regularly scan for any system vulnerabilities. They are also certified with global security standards such as SOC2 Type II and ISO 27001.
Winner: Both are evenly matched when it comes to security and encryption of data.
10. Customer Support
Productboard
Productboard’s primary mode of support is an online help center which provides a knowledge base and a developer portal to enable users to troubleshoot their problems. In addition, Productboard also offers Productboard Academy, which provides tutorials and online certifications to help users master the software.
Jira
Jira offers a variety of resources to help users, including documentation, an online knowledge base, system status bug reports, etc. They also offer more direct forms of support through a ticket system, email and community forums.
Winner: While Jira may offer more modes of support than Productboard, it’s important to keep in mind that customer support can vary from user to user and is ultimately, a subjective experience.
To sum it up, both software have their strengths and drawbacks. Productboard excels at collecting and analyzing customer feedback, prioritizing features and creating roadmaps, making it ideal for teams focused on building customer centric products. On the other hand, Jira is great for tracking issues all the way till project completion, creating custom workflows and other agile project management endeavors.
Therefore, the correct choice depends on the user themselves. If the team is primarily focused on building products that align with customer needs and require a tool that is specifically designed for product management, Productboard may be the better option. However, if they need a more versatile project management tool that can handle various types of projects, then Jira may be a better fit.
If neither Productboard nor Jira are what you’re looking for, then we recommend trying alternatives such as Asana software or Microsoft Project. These tools provide effective solutions for teams looking to streamline their workflows and improve collaboration.
