Jira alternative

Jira can do almost anything, and that is exactly why small teams often dislike it — too many settings for a simple "what are we doing, who is doing it, what is done". In Skillok issues and boards are simpler, modelled on GitHub, and they live next to your code and documents.

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In this article

What you get for working with tasks#

  • Issues — a markdown description, labels, milestones (the counterpart of releases or phases), assignees, mentions, attachments up to 10 MB, edit history.
  • Projects in three views:
    • board — columns by status, cards are dragged between them;
    • table — all issues as a list with sorting and grouping;
    • roadmap — issues on a timeline.
  • Custom fields in a project: text, number, date, single select, iteration — that is how you make priority, estimate, sprint.
  • Project templates — "Kanban", "Bug tracker", "Team planning" and others.
  • Drafts — a card on the board before it becomes an issue.
  • Link to code — a pull request closes the issue, and code review happens right there.

What is missing compared with Jira#

  • configurable workflow schemes with transitions and permissions on each transition;
  • sprint reports, burndown charts, time tracking;
  • subtasks and "blocks / depends on" links as separate entities;
  • issue templates and automations;
  • import from Jira — you can put a CSV export from Jira in a repository, but it will not turn into issues by itself;
  • email notifications — only the inbox on the site.

If your process depends on these things, Jira will remain more convenient. If a team of five to fifteen people needs to see who is doing what, a board and issues are enough.

How to set up your team#

  1. Create an organization and invite the members.
  2. Create a repository for the product — it will hold the issues and the documents.
  3. Create a project from the "Kanban" template and add a "Priority" field.
  4. Mark the nearest releases or phases with milestones.
  5. Agree that an issue is closed by a pull request — then the board shows not only the status but also the work that was done.

Who it suits#

Small development and product teams that need a clear board and a link between issues and code, not a corporate workflow builder. If all you need is cards in columns, the Trello alternative page shows the board on its own.

Try it on your own task

Create a repository — history, issues and pull requests from day one.

Create a repository

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More solutions

GitHub alternative Skillok is built like GitHub and repeats the familiar parts — repository, commits, branches, issues, pull requests, projects, organizations. The interface is available in English and Russian. Below is an honest list of what already works, what does not yet, and how to move your code in a few minutes. GitLab alternative If you use GitLab for repositories, issues and code review, and do not want to maintain a server, Skillok covers that part. If you live in GitLab CI and the package registry — honestly, that is not us yet. Here is what matches and what does not. LMS for a small team A full LMS is dozens of features, most of which a small team never needs. In Skillok the learning side is built from a few things — challenges with automatic checking, materials with history, and assignments with review. Here is exactly what there is, so you can decide whether it is enough. Confluence alternative Confluence keeps documentation as pages inside spaces. In Skillok documentation is a set of markdown files in a repository, and you work with it the way you work with code — edit, history, review. That is stricter and more transparent, but there is no visual page builder and no real-time co-editing. Notion alternative Notion is built from page blocks and databases. Skillok works differently — your notes are plain markdown files in a repository, and every change has a history. If you care about text, order and being able to take everything with you at any moment, this may suit you better. If you need database tables with formulas and real-time co-editing, it will not. Trello alternative People love Trello for its simple board — columns and cards. In Skillok every project has a board, cards are dragged between columns, and issue cards get labels, assignees, due dates through custom fields, and a link to files and code.

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