With a multitude of Agile-focused project management tools on the market today, it can be tough to narrow down your options. While Azure Boards is a prominent and well-known solution, it might not best suit your team’s unique needs. Whether you’re exploring Azure for the first time or looking to transition into a new solution, understanding what other top vendors have to offer can make narrowing down your choices much easier. Read on to learn more about top Azure Board alternatives. 

Top alternatives to Azure Boards for 2024

Zenhub: Best all-around pick for Agile enterprise teams

Monday Dev: Best for data visualization

Jira: Best for technical team support

Microsoft Project: Best for Microsoft fans

GitHub Projects: Best for surface-level task management

How we chose our top picks

To select our top alternatives, we examined over a dozen enterprise-grade project management solutions with target audiences and features comparable to Azure Boards.

Here are the top criteria we considered:

Criteria: 

• Ability to facilitate Agile frameworks
• AI and automation capabilities 
• Visibility for internal and external stakeholders
• Reporting capabilities and ability to show data trends over time

Zenhub: Best all-around pick for Agile enterprise teams

Zenhub was designed to meet the needs of enterprise-level Agile teams–without all the fluff and overhead. And not to brag, but we’ve gotten pretty good at it. Devs love using Zenhub because of the ability to leverage a single GitHub Issue across the whole project management system. That’s right, no context switching, jumping around into project management tools, or shuffling through information to get the most recent updates. 

Our Agile toolbox is deep and carefully cultivated, from automated sprints to real-time roadmaps, planning poker, and more. We go beyond the run-of-the-mill project management features you would expect to facilitate a more seamless and stress-free project experience. AI-powered capabilities help you spend less time focusing on menial tasks and more time making genius happen with streamlined processes, automated actions, and even AI-generated sprint reviews to keep things moving.

Top features

AI-powered and Automated Agile: Zenhub’s AI and automation features are designed to reduce the overhead in running Agile processes. With automated sprints, Zenhub enables sprints to be auto-generated based on your team’s calculated velocity and preferences. Leverage AI-generated Acceptance Criteria and GitHub labels to improve the consistency and speed of populating Issue data. Use AI-sprint reviews to generate quick summaries and a historical record of previously completed sprints.

GitHub integration: As a tool that began as a GitHub extension, Zenhub’s GitHub integration is by far the most seamless and comprehensive on the market. The integration enables users to manage projects using their actual GitHub Issues without needing to create or update new Issues or tasks in the platform, minimizing configuration and manual work. 

Powerful reporting options: Burndown charts, velocity reports, cumulative flow charts, and release reports allow you to analyze data–and what’s more, Insights and Recommendations generate custom data recommendations to help you move more strategically. 

Why you should consider Zenhub

Zenhub is a power-packed, enterprise-friendly tool perfect for growing Agile teams that want to prioritize a streamlined project experience without the overhead. Compared to Azure Boards, Zenhub is ready to use out of the box, with a wide selection of AI-powered features and intelligent reporting options. 

Monday Dev: Best for data visualization

Monday Dev combines the usability and customization options teams have come to love about Monday Work Management with the Agile capabilities that development teams need to thrive. All of the essentials are in play, from bug tracking, sprint management, backlog management, customized task columns, and dashboard analytics views for micro and macro overviews.

With GitHub integrations and a toolbox of apps and add-ons, Monday Dev users have many customization options. What’s more, technical teams working with non-development departments, such as marketing teams, can integrate Monday Dev data with information from Monday Work Management.

Top features

Reporting features: Monday Dev offers burndown charts, dashboard analytics views, and customizable project overview charts to help teams make data-driven decisions through visual aids. 

Documentation options: Monday Dev offers document management space so that teams can collaborate, document procedures and notes, and house essential information all from the Monday interface. 

Automation: Monday Dev offers an array of automations to help developers keep their project management system updated with minimal effort. Automations include task assignments, notifications, and workflow integrations with tools like Slack or GitHub.

Why you should consider Monday Dev

Monday Dev is a strong all-around pick for software development teams who want a high degree of customization options with the ability to pair the solution with a less developer-focused option for working alongside non-technical teams. While some users report the need to relink integrations from time to time, overall, Monday Dev’s extremely intuitive interface can be a selling point for users who find Azure Boards too clunky and dated for their team needs.

Jira: Best for technical team support

Atlassian products have long since become a household name for developer teams as one of the largest and most trusted legacy brands.  With a host of features designed with Agile teams in mind, from Scrum boards to Atlassian Open DevOps connections and even time tracking, Jira has something for every shape and size of the dev team.

Top features

DevOps add-ons: Jira has 170+ DevOps-specific add-ons and integrations, such as ScriptRunner and Zephyr, to help maximize and extend its capabilities. While most of these come at a cost, they allow for high tool customization. 

Test case management: QA teams and stakeholders can track testing activities and updates within Jira, helping keep everyone on the same page. 

Real-time chat and commenting: For quick collaboration, Jira offers chat and commenting features to help teams align quickly without the need to navigate out to Gmail or Slack (but you can integrate those, too, if you want).

Why you should consider Jira

Despite Jira’s intense learning curve and complexity, it remains a top pick for larger Agile teams who need a solution with an intense focus on software development-related features. Compared to Azure Boards, Jira provides similar support for Agile teams with the added benefit of roadmaps, which Azure Boards lacks.

Microsoft Project: Best for Microsoft fans

Microsoft Project is Microsoft’s oldest project management tool, designed as a more general solution for Agile and Waterfall teams. Unique features such as advanced Gantt charts, budgeting capabilities, and resource management tools help Microsoft Project stand out for Agile teams that need more features than Azure Boards.

Top features

Budgeting and resource management: The desktop version of MS Project allows for custom cost fields, which can help keep projects on budget and track expenses.

Advanced Gantt charts: Teams that rely on the task-dependent visualizations and organization features of Gantt charts can enjoy advanced and highly customizable Gantt charts.

Reporting tools: MS Project emphasizes roadmapping and reporting tools, which is useful for teams who need access to more granular data.

Why you should consider Microsoft Project

It would be hard to compare Azure competitors without mentioning Microsoft’s oldest project management tool, complete with its various project features. While Microsoft Project is certainly not the most attractive-looking solution and is not specifically geared toward software development teams, it’s a good all-around solution for teams willing to sacrifice more technical features for resource management features. 

GitHub Projects: Best for surface-level task management

One of the biggest complaints about GitHub is that while it’s essential for dev teams to handle tracking and version control, it’s not designed for project management. GitHub Projects is a project management tool that bridges the gap between issue tracking and actual project management for developer teams that rely on GitHub for product management. The solution offers basic task tracking, collaboration tools, and project management features for surface-level project management. 

Top features

Data sync: Conveniently, GitHub Projects works in sync with the data your team relies on in Github, making sure that you always have access to the latest updates.

Custom fields: Users can customize project and task fields to track specific metrics, such as delivery dates and more. 

Collaboration tools: Notes, reviews, mentions, and comments enable teams to collaborate easily in-app without external navigation. 

Why you should consider GitHub Projects

While GitHub Projects is not intended to be used as a stand-alone tool, it’s a viable pick for teams who are GitHub-dependent. For example, if you want to move completely to a different Git–hosting and version control system, GitHub makes sense. But remember that GitHub projects do not have very built-out Agile project management tools, so you’re better off using a tool that integrates seamlessly with GitHub, like Zenhub.

FAQS

What is Azure Boards? 

Azure Boards refer to the project management component of Microsoft’s Azure DevOps solution. Designed to meet the needs of fast-moving software development teams, Azure Boards come standard with features that support Agile and Scrum processes, such as Kanban boards, task and bug tracking, and more. 

Why Explore Azure Board Alternatives?

You might want to explore alternatives outside of Azure Boards for several reasons. While Azure Boards might be appealing to some teams because of features such as compatibility with other Microsoft projects, Agile process support, and enterprise-level capabilities, there are a few notable negatives that might motivate a team to seek other solutions.

For example: 

• Git-hosting: Dev teams often prefer a platform more centered around Git-hosting and version control (such as GitHub)
• Usability: Azure is not known to be a highly user-friendly solution, it can be complex and lack the intuitive feel of other comparable solutions. 
• Lack of AI: AI-focused teams may prefer a solution with better AI support for software development and project management. 
• Infrastructure maintenance: Azure DevOps requires infrastructure maintenance, which can make it less scalable and more costly for enterprise-level teams in particular. 

The Bottom Line: The Best Azure Boards Alternative for Your Team

While there are dozens of appealing options out there, the truth is, that determining the right fit for your team’s unique needs is a highly individualized decision – and it can be extremely stressful if you’re going it alone. Luckily, that’s where we come in. Book a call today with one of our software experts to help determine the best Azure Boards alternative for you.