Looking for something simpler than Jira?
Jira is an issue tracker built for software teams, and it is very good at being one. If you have landed here it is probably because you are not a software team — you are handing jobs to people in an office, and a tool with sprints, epics and workflow schemes is asking you to describe your work in a language you do not speak.
If you searched for a free Jira board.
Then take it. Jira has a free plan for small teams, it is a real product and not a trap, and if a free board is what you need there is no argument here worth ₹14,999 to you.
WorkQueue is not free. It is free for thirty days, and then ₹14,999 once for your whole company — no monthly bill, no per-person count, and no renewal you are obliged to pay. Whether that beats free comes down to two things.
Where the work lives. A cloud plan keeps your task history on somebody else's servers, and free plans are the ones that get changed. WorkQueue keeps everything in one file on a PC in your office and cannot phone home, because it has nowhere to phone.
Who has to open something. A board only works if people look at it. WorkQueue puts the job on a strip that is already on the employee's screen and starts timing it whether or not anybody looks.
Side by side.
| WorkQueue | Jira | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Handing jobs to people in an office | Software teams tracking issues |
| How you pay | ₹14,999 once, whole company | Per user per month, with a free tier for small teams |
| Where the data lives | A PC in your office | Atlassian's cloud, or your own servers on their self-managed plan |
| Setting it up | An afternoon | Longer, and usually somebody's actual job |
| What an employee opens | Nothing | The web app |
| Time tracking | Automatic, two timestamps a task | Manual, or an add-on |
| Sprints, epics, workflows | None | All of it |
| Custom fields and automation | No | Extensive |
| With the internet down | Keeps working on the office network | Stops |
| Mac and Linux employees | Not yet | Yes |
Jira's plans and limits change; check the current ones yourself. What is compared here is the shape of the two tools, which does not.
Which way you should go.
Stay on Jira if
- You ship software. Backlogs, releases, branches, code review — WorkQueue has none of it and is not going to.
- You need real workflow states. WorkQueue has waiting, in progress and completed. That is the entire list and you cannot add to it.
- Your team is spread across cities. WorkQueue can be joined to a private network, but Jira was born remote and it shows.
- Anyone works on a Mac. The employee strip is Windows-only today.
Move to WorkQueue if
- You are paying per person for a fraction of the features, and the bill grows every time you hire.
- Half the team never opens the board. The strip is docked into Windows and cannot be covered or ignored into the background.
- You want to know how long jobs took without asking anybody to log their time against a ticket.
- The work should not sit abroad. One file, one PC, your office, and a GST invoice in rupees.
The things people ask about this
Can I import my Jira issues?
Not automatically — there is no importer today. Most teams making this move are switching how tomorrow's work gets handed out rather than carrying a history across, and start clean. If you have a backlog you genuinely need, ask before you buy rather than after.
Is WorkQueue cheaper than Jira's free plan?
No, and nothing is. The comparison worth doing is against what you pay once the free plan stops fitting: ten people on a per-seat tool at ₹600 a month is around ₹72,000 a year, every year. WorkQueue is ₹14,999 once.
Does it do kanban?
There is one board with three columns — waiting, in progress, and completed today. You cannot add a column or rename one. That is a real limitation, and it is also the point: there is no configuration meeting.
Could I self-host Jira instead?
You can, on their self-managed plan, and if you have people to run it that is a legitimate answer to the same problem. WorkQueue is the version for an office where nobody's job is IT.
We are a software team but tiny. Which one?
Jira, or one of the lighter issue trackers. WorkQueue has no concept of a branch, a release or a bug report, and pretending otherwise would waste your thirty days.
Try it on your own team for thirty days.
Every feature, unlimited PCs, no card and nothing to cancel. We will help you install it, and if it does not fit, nothing of yours has left the office.