Over the years, Jira has evolved into a tool that’s capable of being used in most facets of an IT business workflow, moving past its core function of a ticketing tool into an almost one-stop-shop for development work. But is it the right tool for you? 

Jira is considered the first choice among bigwigs for project management. But many viable options work exceedingly well, such as Vault. While Jira and Vault both have their strengths and specific areas where they shine, a good comparison is what you need to know which tool satisfies your needs the best. Let’s compare Jira with Vault and see which one is best suited for you.

What is Jira?

Jira is fundamentally a ticketing system. Developed as part of the larger Atlassian suite of applications, it has grown into a complete work management tool with many features that support project management. It helps with team management, sprint planning, bug tracking, and more. It’s popular with software development teams that need a robust system to keep track of all their agile artifacts and user stories.

Some notable features of Jira are:

• Scrum boards
• Kanban boards
• Roadmaps
• Agile reporting
• Workflow automation
• Access to Atlassian tools and rich APIs
• Bug tracker and reporting
• Mobile app support
• Custom filters
• Developer tool integration with end-to-end traceability

Jira: advantages and disadvantages

Jira has been around for a while as a solid offering for the IT industry to manage its work. Its core strength lies in the ticketing system, allowing stakeholders to keep an eye on the work in progress, as well as manage the backlog of requirements. The common method of handling tickets is a Kanban style project in Jira. The statuses of the tickets can be set up using templates or can be completely customized. Whilst this may seem great in the beginning, it adds a layer of complexity which can be overwhelming for new users or organizations using Jira for the first time.

Customizable, yet not very intuitive

Never-ending customization benefits large organizations that want the tool to suit themselves without having to change their workflow. The drawback of all this is the set-up time required to get Jira ready to be efficiently used. Due to all this customization, the interface of setting up roles, boards, and projects can be quite cumbersome and could be more intuitive.

Comprehensive knowledge base

Despite its complex set-up, Atlassian (the makers of Jira) have gone to great lengths to simplify this process for users by making a series of tutorials, blogs, web posts, and so on. Although, the other way of looking at it is because it’s so complex to set up you have no choice but to get all the help you can.

Time-tracking through integrated tools

Time-tracking can be handled by Jira as well, albeit through apps which are then integrated into Jira. This allows the project manager to get time reports from Jira. Only by hooking these apps up to Jira can the project manager extract the relevant time sheet data. In order to integrate billing into this, the project manager would need to download another app which would help with the billing process.

Jira is a better fit for highly technical development teams that are looking for a highly customizable solution that can fit into anything from simple to complex workflows.

Here are some more advantages of Jira:

• Provides powerful roadmap features that can be very helpful in managing huge projects with several dependencies.
• Suited to agile projects as many features such as scrum boards and Kanban boards are tailored to support agile project management.
• Allows for a high level of workflow customization.
• Provides you with loads of apps ready to extend your existing functionalities.

Here are some more disadvantages of Jira:

• While Jira does provide a mobile app, it’s not the best web version of a project management tool you can find in the market. The UI and navigation can be tricky for a beginner to follow.
• Project migrations and integrations can be a complex and time-consuming process in Jira.
• The reports you download from Jira are not reusable as they get downloaded as images.
• There are limitations on the file upload size.

Summary of Jira

While Jira does have its benefits, it can also be quite complex to get started with. Jira is a bulky software that’s suited to big software projects. It works best for agile projects and with sprint-based project management techniques. But with its limited support for file uploads, it can be tricky to incorporate with projects that have huge documentation needs. Jira can also be intimidating for beginners to get use to due to its tricky UI and complex features.

What is Vault?

Vault-ERP is a web-based complete project management tool developed by the Rare Crew, who put in their years of expertise and real-world learning to create an optimized project management tool.

Vault allows you to digitize all types of business processes and helps optimize workflows across the organization. Some of the notable features of Vault-ERP are:

• Project dashboard
• Task boards
• Gantt charts
• Resource allocations
• Time tracking 
• Cost management
• Checklists
• KPIs
• Leave management
• Asset management

Before diving into Vault’s features, let's look at how it came about. Rare Crew has used several tools over the years to run their company. They recognized that there were parts which were great, but also aspects that could be improved. That led to Vault, a project management tool that took what worked and left out what didn’t.

Vault: advantages and disadvantages

For the whole team, not just developers

It’s important to note that Vault wasn’t only created for developers, but for the whole company. This brings a new perspective on what a project management tool should do as developers and tech minded people aren’t the only stakeholders, the back-office staff and support processes also had to be included. It’s important to keep in mind that non-developers don’t really care about release pipelines, tickets and Kanban.

For non-developers, the power of Vault comes from the fact that it simplifies and speeds up the process of extracting useful data and presents it in a meaningful way.

Strong emphasis on tracking KPIs

Let's look at one module in Vault for now, KPIs. Attendance, number of employees, personnel cost, training costs, overtime hours, employee turnover rate, fixed cost or company expenses - these are just some of the key indicators that allow you to assess how your company is progressing. Base all your decisions and processes on relevant data. Create an insightful report with ease and view it on your customizable dashboard. It's not only about moving tickets on a board or a release schedule, but it's about seeing real data that managers can use.

A project manager’s best friend

For project managers, Vault also has a Gantt chart feature that helps plan and schedule work. Another clever feature is Checklists where tasks can be assigned to users or departments and the manager can see the progress of these tasks through the system.

Read on: What is a Gantt chart and how does it help?

One area that’s useful for multi-tasking teams is time tracking. Your teams track their time based off tickets on their boards (including boards from Jira, Unfuddle, Trello) and then the project manager can generate time sheets and if needed, invoices for business partners.

Read on: The best time tracking software for projects

Easy management of human resources

HR is another area where Vault shines. Onboarding/offboarding checklists, leave management and other staffing essentials are easily managed through Vault.

Read on: 8 Ways Vault can help your HR department

Here are some more advantages of Vault:

• Easy customization and tailored solutions for your business needs.
• A modular pricing model which allows you to pay only for the modules you use.
• Allows for a multi-company setup.
• Can be used by non-development teams.
• Allows for the efficient tracking of KPIs.
• Easy to use as it has an intuitive UI that can be easily adopted by anyone.
• Web support.

Here is another disadvantage of Vault:

• It’s an all-in-one tool with a set of features that addresses more business aspects. Compared to tools specialized in one niche it may lack some functionalities when it’s not customized.

Summary of Vault

Unlike Jira, Vault is aimed at a broader audience. It can be used by the whole organization and not just developers. This allows for easier integration across the organization’s teams and a much smoother information flow across the company. If you are looking for unique solutions for your business processes, Vault gives you pre-made opportunities without the need to code your own system. Your needs will be also addressed by the team of developers from Rare Crew (the software house behind Vault) so any part/module of Vault can be adapted and customized.

Which one should you pick?

The decision to use a project management tool has been debated often enough online. Yes, we’re all aware that using G-sheets or MS office products to run a business starts to fail when the organization grows in size and complexity. But let’s not forget the reason why companies use them to start out with, they’re easy to get into and relatively easy to control. A project management tool shouldn’t require more than it gives back, otherwise what’s the point of paying for it in the first place? These tools are meant to help the business, not be a hungry beast that requires constant care and attention.

Thus, the criteria should reflect your tech-savviness.

Who should pick Jira?

All in all, Jira is a great tool, but you have to be prepared for its complexities and be willing to spend time getting familiar with it. It’s a great fit for tech minded teams that are looking for a lot of customization.

If you have a clear request for your ERP system, history of using cloud tools, and enough skilled and tech-savvy employees, Jira can be a great asset to your workflow. It uses current standards, can be integrated with a lot of useful software solutions, and provides timely customer support.

Jira is really good at requirements definition, ticketing/boards, and DevOps. It falls short with timecards, or financials, though attempts to handle it with apps. If you don’t mind using external apps and integrations for more features, Jira will suit you.

Who should pick Vault?

Vault is the winner if you’re looking for a more rounded solution which’ll benefit the whole organization, and if you’re looking for a solution that builds in more financials into its project management tool. It integrates with your ticketing solution (if you’re not using Vault for ticketing) and you can simply generate time reports off that, or automatically bill through Vault, using your local accounting software.

The benefits of Vault for a non-technical team that are looking to organize and automate their working tasks are in its relative ease of set-up. We can’t ignore the fact that the more you want from your chosen project management system, the more you need to feed it. So, the set-up is vital to get things going right off the bat.

Vault’s set up is relatively simple and provides you with more options of customization than Jira. It’s pretty quick to set up a new project, assign users, get a board up and running and assign tickets. Use time tracking so you can easily view whose working on what for how long and then easily generate a time report. Check out team members allocations, workloads, task resolution and more without having to install add-ons or use complex queries to find the data you need to see.

Jira’s pricing and plans

Jira provides various pricing plans with different file storage and user limits.

Basic plan

Their basic plan starts at $7 per month for each user. This basic plan supports up to 10 people and has a maximum file storage limit of 2GB.

Premium plan    

Their premium plan is priced at $14 per month per user and includes advanced features like unlimited storage, 24/7 support, and project archiving.

Vault’s pricing and packages

Starter

Priced at $450 per month, the starter is ideal for smaller companies with streamlined operations, simple workflow, and a limited number of integrations. Companies with up to 50 users.

Premium

Priced at $1,050, the premium package is ideal for bigger companies with more complex operations and workflow, and with more challenging integrations. Companies with up to 250 users.

Enterprise

Ideal for enterprise companies with more complex operations and workflow, unlimited number of users, with more complicated integrations and where more business analysis is needed.

Vault vs Jira: The conclusion

If you want organizational level support, cross-team information flow and workflow optimization, easy setup, efficient project management tools for a fair price, and customized solutions, Vault would be the best choice for you.

But if your needs align with that of a huge development team that needs efficient, agile-based project management requirements, Jira could be the best choice.

Vault: Next level support

Compared to Jira, Vault’s support is not just about knowledge base recommendations, troubleshooting, and ticketing. A team of development consultants can make custom changes to integrations and the features of Vault, making it truly tailor-made. While Jira is a tool that you can work with, Vault can become part of your organization’s assets, helping you further optimize your business processes with custom solutions. The level of support you get from Vault is unmatched from any other project management solution.

Reach out to us if you want to learn more about Vault and its features.