The hidden bottleneck in Jira and how plane.so streamlined everything

We didn’t realize it at first, but Jira had slowly become a bottleneck for our team.

What started as a flexible platform for issue tracking became an overwhelming mix of bloated workflows, rising license costs, and confusing configuration. Collaboration across functions became slower. Reporting was fragmented. And even the simplest workflows needed a Jira admin.

For a lean team that needs clarity and speed, this wasn’t acceptable.

We made the call to migrate our internal ops and sprint planning over to Plane.so — a modern, open-source alternative to Jira that’s clean, intuitive, and self-hosted.

Unlike Jira, Plane.so offered just the right amount of features without forcing us into rigid setups or third-party apps. The interface was faster, the logic was leaner, and setup didn’t require consulting a 20-page permissions doc.

We compared both on real use cases:

Pricing was an immediate win — Plane.so is free to self-host. Features were focused and not over-engineered. Ease of use was surprisingly high — no training sessions needed. Integrations were light but sufficient for our needs. Scalability remains to be proven at Jira’s level, but it’s more than capable for mid-size teams like ours.

The result? We cut our tooling costs significantly, improved transparency across the team, and gained back control over our workflow.

Sometimes, the problem isn’t your team or your process — it’s the tool that no longer fits.