What are the differences between the well-known task management solutions from Microsoft and Atlassian? See the differences between Planner Basic and Premium plans, SharePoint List, Jira Business Projects and Microsoft Loop in the following comparison.
Microsoft and Atlassian offer many different solutions for tracking open issues, requirements and tasks. The larger solutions such as Microsoft Project, Azure DevOps and Jira Software Projects are deliberately excluded here. The smaller solutions includeMicrosoft Planner Basic plans, Microsoft Lists, Microsoft Planner Premium plans and the business projects from Atlassian Jira. Below is a brief comparison of what we consider to be some of the key features of the products.
| Feature | Microsoft Planner Basic |
Microsoft List SharePoint Lists |
Jira Business Spaces (Projects) |
Microsoft Planner Premium Planner Plan 1-3 (formerly Project for the web) |
Microsoft Loop (Copilot Pages, Copilot Notebooks) |
| Kanban board for each project | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Kanban board across all projects | No | No | with Jira Software projects | No | No |
| Kanban board in Microsoft Teams | Yes | Yes | No, not part of the Teams integration | Yes | Yes |
| Hierarchical tasks | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Linking tasks | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Comments on | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pasting images via the clipboard | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Mentions in comments | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Comments per task in teams | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Categorization/Labels | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free access for external users | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Sign in with Microsoft account | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Task titles are searched through Microsoft 365 Search and Copilot | No | Yes | Yes, if integrated | Yes, if integrated | No |
| Support through artificial intelligence | No | No | Yes, with Jira Premium | Yes, with Copilot for M365 | No |
| Time recording | with Allocatus | No | with Allocatus | with Allocatus | No |
Further information on Planner Premium, including a comparison with MS Project and the differences between Microsoft Project and the Planner Premium license plans Planner Plan 1 and Project and Planner Plan 3 and 5, can be found here.
The Microsoft Planner Premium plans come closest to the Microsoft Project Online software that emerged from Project Server. The Premium plans were previously called Project for web and are technically based on the calculation logic of Microsoft Project. However, there are limitations here, for example in cross-project project and resource management. Projectum xPM and Altus are better suited as a replacement here. See more here.