I’ve been using Jira for project tracking but honestly it feels like overkill for our team. The interface is overwhelming and the pricing keeps going up. We’re a small development team and don’t need all those enterprise features.
I’ve heard people talking about switching to tools like Asana, Trello, Linear, or Notion for project management. Some folks also mentioned trying out Basecamp or Azure DevOps as alternatives.
Has anyone here made the jump from Jira to something simpler? What tool did you pick and how was the transition? I’m particularly interested in hearing about the pros and cons you discovered after switching. Any recommendations would be really helpful!
Switched to Linear six months ago - best decision ever. Coming from Jira, the speed difference hits you immediately. Everything loads instantly and keyboard shortcuts actually work. The interface feels built for devs, not corporate bureaucrats. Transition was easier than expected. Linear imports Jira issues pretty well. We lost some custom field data but most of it was useless anyway. Biggest change was their cycles-based planning, but it actually made our sprints more disciplined. Only downside is weaker reporting compared to Jira. For small teams though, you don’t need those crazy complex dashboards. Plus the pricing is way better.
We switched to Notion after wrestling with Jira’s mess for two years. Yeah, there’s a learning curve - Notion’s got tons of customization options that can overwhelm you at first. But once we dialed in our setup, it became a beast. The killer feature? Everything lives in one spot. Project tracking, docs, meeting notes, knowledge base - it’s all there. The database views let us build dashboards that actually fit how we work instead of forcing us into some rigid structure. It’s not perfect though. Gets sluggish with lots of data, and some teammates still want their specialized tools. But for a small team that wants flexibility without Jira’s bloat? It’s been great. Just know you’ll need to tinker with it - it won’t work like Trello straight out of the gate.
i switched from jira to trello too! the ease of use is a game changer, right? for smaller teams, it’s perfect. sure, it lacks some fancy features, but idk, sometimes simpler is better! i’m loving the change so far!