GitHub Issues & Projects vs Jira

Free tier available

From $8 per user/month (Standard, indicative)

Effectively free — you are already paying for GitHub, and Issues adds nothing.

Standard lists around $7.91 per user/month on monthly billing, falling with annual billing and as the user count crosses Atlassian's tier thresholds. The base price is reasonable; the cost comes from Marketplace apps, which frequently exceed the Jira licence itself, and every licensed user is billed whether or not they log in.

Unlimited issues on public and private repositories at no cost.

Free for up to 10 users with core features.

Category standard

GitHub (Microsoft) · since 2009

Category standard

Atlassian · since 2002

• Zero additional cost and zero additional integration to maintain.
• Automatic linking between commits, pull requests and issues.
• Issue forms enforce the reproduction detail that makes bugs actionable.

• Configurable enough to model almost any process, including regulated workflows.
• The largest integration ecosystem in the category by a wide margin.
• Universal familiarity — new hires already know it.

• No native severity/priority model — you build it from labels.
• Reporting is weak; there is no real analytics layer.
• Poor fit for non-technical reporters who do not have GitHub accounts.

• Configurability reliably degrades into slow, over-customised instances nobody wants to own.
• Performance on large instances is a recurring complaint.
• Marketplace app costs compound quickly.

Engineering-led teams already on GitHub who want one fewer tool.

Organisations that need process flexibility and integration breadth above all else.