The Best Alternative to Monday.com 2024

 

• Jestor vs Monday comparison summary table
• Top Reasons why Jestor may be better than Monday for you
  • 1. Pricing Model
  • 2. No-code automations
  • 3. No-code integrations
  • 4. API
  • 5. Low Code and Developer tools
  • 6. Permissioning
  • 7. Workspaces vs Folders
  • 8. Apps and Dashboards
  • 9. Navigation and Usability
  • 10. Mobile
  • 11. Forms
  • 12. Buttons
  • 13. Chat
  • 14. Data Structure
  • 15. Kanbans and Views
  • 16. Fields
  • 17. Conditional Fields
• Monday Pros
• Jestor Pros
• To Sum Things Up

Monday is one of the most used work management software out there. Its task-like structure and multitude of views proved to be quite handy for companies looking for solutions that solved multiple needs at once. As such, it started being used for things from CRM to project management tools.

Being a reasonably seasoned software, it is packed with features. In fact, when first creating an account, it would not be unreasonable to assume, from the sheer amount of icons and buttons on display, that Monday would probably work for your company’s internal processes.

However, a more in-depth look would show that, while Monday is a very capable tool, it is not as generalistic as it seems at first glance. The lack of some dedicated features, and the rigidity of some existing ones, mean that while it’s possible to use Monday for a lot of things, it doesn’t always work great for them all.

So, given that one of Monday’s strongest selling points is being your company’s main work software, it is not unreasonable to ask: will it be able to do everything I need? Or will it almost cover a lot of the bases?

This comparison will go over some key points that will help you decide whether Monday is truly the all-in-one tool for you, or whether you should stick with a different solution.

Jestor vs Monday comparison summary table

Item	Monday	Jestor	Comments
Pricing	🟢️	✅	– Monday: charges per user/per product. – Jestor: only one subscription required
Pricing similar plans	🟢️	✅	– Monday: charges $16 per user on its Pro plan. However, you may need additional license types for other products, for example CRM or Forms. – Jestor: charges $10 per member user on its App Developer plan and $80 per builder user. As the bulk of users are typically members, it is typically cheaper than Monday.
No-code Automations	✅	✅	– Monday: 15 triggers and 30 actions. – Jestor: 50 triggers and around 200 actions, with operations/specific automations. More being developed.
No-code Integrations	✅	✅	– Monday: around 35 integrations. – Jestor: around 35 integrations.
Low-code	🟡️	✅	– Monday:  no dedicated low code area. – Jestor: feature-rich developer area.
API	✅	✅	– Monday: GraphQL API. – Jestor: REST API.
Permissioning	🟡️	✅	– Monday: classic spreadsheet-like approach to permissioning. – Jestor: advanced permissioning with custom business rules.
Workspaces	🔴️	✅	– Monday: not fully communicating workspaces. – Jestor: custom connected folders and apps.
Dashboards	✅	✅	– Monday: interactive dashboard with over 25 components, but can’t cross information between boards. – Jestor:apps with over 30 different components, ranging from analytical to navigational and operational/interactive.
App Building	🔴️	✅	– Monday: apart from custom dashboard, only pre-built views. – Jestor: build your own apps for desktop and mobile dragging and dropping blocks. Bundle structure for larger apps.
History Log	✅	✅	– Monday: exportable activity log with usage and structural actions. – Jestor: exportable history log with usage and structural actions.
Mobile	🟡️	✅	– Monday: mobile app that verticalizes use, but loses functionalities. – Jestor: customized experience for each app developed and mobile native navigation without feature loss.
Forms	✅	✅	– Monday: custom forms as a board view. – Jestor: Super Form with lots of customizable options.
Buttons	✅	✅	– Monday: custom buttons with automations with many actions, but no navigation internal or external. – Jestor: buttons for navigation, data input, and automations.
Chat	🟡️	✅	– Monday: comments on records. – Jestor: complete communication tool.
Data Structure	🔴️	✅	– Monday: n:n connection fields that incentivize disorganization and get in the way of automations. Data dies with the process. – Jestor: n:1 connection fields that ensure correct data structure and allow powerful automations, allowing for correct n:n auxiliary tables. Single source of truth. 1:1 and M:N connections available for niche uses.
Kanbans	✅	✅	– Monday: has customizable kanbans. – Jestor: Smart Kanban with optimized process oriented features such as conditional fields and colors, and Super Form compatibility.
Views	✅	✅	– Monday: multiple customized views per board. – Jestor: multiple customized views per table.
Fields	✅	✅	– Monday: around 35 fields. – Jestor: over 45 fields, with technical fields (such as Formula), and even integrated fields (such as Address, which integrates to Google Maps to search for a location). Some fields equate to more than one on Monday (such as Text in Jestor encompassing Monday’s Text and Long Text).
Conditional Fields	🔴️	✅	– Monday: no conditional fields. – Jestor: has conditional fields with nested AND/OR conditions.

Top Reasons why Jestor may be better than Monday for you

Pricing Model

Monday’s pricing model is user-based. That is, you’ll always pay a monthly fee for the number of active users you have on the platform. This is a rather standard pricing model for SaaS platforms, but a distinct disadvantage that Monday has is that there are multiple different products within the platform itself, and they are charged on top of the base subscription.

To better explain what this means, the base subscription for Monday is for licenses to its Work Management platform (a more task/workload-based solution). Should you need to use Monday’s CRM, that is a different platform that you have to acquire on top of the WM base product, adding to the total cost of the subscription.

Another issue is that every Monday user you acquire is the same price regardless of purpose. So if you have an admin user which you’re using to build and customize stuff in the platform, it will be billed the same as a user that is only going to use the platform.

Jestor, on the other hand, while mainly being a user-based priced platform as well, separates builder users from member users. This means users that are going to engage with the platform in a more complex manner will have a slightly higher price, but the member user is going to have a lower price compared to Monday’s. This makes it so the average user price in Jestor is lower than Monday’s.

Also, Jestor doesn’t have multiple, separately billed products. Being an all-in-one customizable platform, the subscription will allow you to have any sort of process (Work Management, CRM, Billing, Payment Requests, etc) for no further costs, either by downloading templates or building from scratch.

For a better understading, let’s compare Monday’s Pro plan with Jestor’s App Developer plan.

Monday charges $16 per user/mo on its Pro plan. However, there are two major caveats to this pricing:

1. It’s only for the Work Management OS. This means if you need to use the CRM, it must be purchased as a separate product. Some features that you might think are native are also separate products, such as Forms.
2. You always have to subscribe to the Work Management OS. You can’t subscribe to the CRM independently.

Because of those two points, the average user price tends to be higher on Monday than the base price of $16 per user.

Jestor charges differently per type of user. For example, in its App Developer plan, the platform charges $10 for member user and $80 for builder user per month. Being that builder users are the ones that are going to effectively build apps and interfaces, and member users are the one that are just going to use the platform, the average user price in Jestor tends to be lower than Monday’s, as most accounts tend to not need a large number of builders.

Also, there is no need to acquire separate licenses for different products on the platform. Once you subscribe to a plan, you can build your own solutions without additional cost given the features you subscribed to.

No-code automations

Monday has a lot of different no-code automations. With around 15 triggers and 30 actions, there’s a lot you can do without having to code anything.

A more careful look, however, shows that many of Monday’s actions are very simple, and very project oriented. In fact, many of the actions perform the same basic task (such as updating a record’s specific field value), but Monday will segregate those into separate actions. Not only does this make no-code automations less general purpose than one would want in such a tool, but it brings a certain inherent inefficiency to it: you may need to have many actions in the same automation, when just one broader action would do it.

Also, you don’t have any niche, process specific automation. While Monday’s triggers and actions may cover some basic workflows, it’s a lot harder to work with more complex processes.

Monday’s automation tool lacks in flexibility

Jestor on the other hand has a wide array of native no-code automations, both generic and specific/niche. With around 50 triggers and nearly 200 actions, Jestor is an automation platform all by itself. The broad range of automation possibilities make it so it’s very unlikely you’ll have to subscribe to an external automation platform in order to fully automate your processes.

By having process-oriented internal automations, Jestor allows users to tailor workflows to very specific scenarios. For example, it is not only possible to create a Billing record when a Sale is Won, but create monthly installments from that sale, take items sold from inventory, and generate a custom QR Code to direct the customer somewhere else, among other uses.

It’s also possible to string as many actions as you like in one single automation, and even use the result of an action in the next action. This means you can run sequences instead of simple one-offs, like: if a record is created, send a POST call to an external platform and, depending on the result, create another record.

Jestor has general and niche automatic actions

No-code integrations

Integration is one of the strongest areas for Monday. With around 35 native app integrations, there’s a good chance that whatever you’re using right now, it communicates in some way with Monday.

That being said, integrations may still suffer from the lack of variety and specificity of Monday’s no-code automations. Most of the integrations are something along the lines of “when something happens there, create an item on Monday”. As such, Monday behaves more as an aggregator of events than a true orchestrator of workflows. So while pairing information is simple, fully automating processes is a different story.

Nevertheless, if what you need is very simple integrations between a wide variety of tools, chances are Monday will have you covered.

Monday has a lot of native integrations

Jestor also has a good number of integrations, and is constantly developing new ones. With around 30+ different native app integrations, it’s about on par with Monday with how large an ecosystem you can build right out of the box. Not only does it connect with some popular tools such as Slack, Discord, or Google Sheets, it also integrates with communication tools like Twilio and marketing tools such as Mailchimp. You can even set a workflow to create a PDF through Google Docs and send it via DocuSign at the click of a button.

This wide variety of integrated tools paired with the power of its native no-code automations allows Jestor to be at the center of operations, effectively allowing it to be the single source of truth that connects the whole ecosystem together and fully automating any process that a team may need to work on.

Jestor’s portfolio of integrations is always growing

API

Monday uses a GraphQL API, and there are some advantages to it. GraphQL communication APIs are faster, and require only one query to fetch the information you may need. However, it’s not entirely without its problems. The first problem is that most web applications use REST APIs. This alone makes integrating GraphQL APIs harder, as most developers will not be familiar with it and will need to spend some time studying it before being able to take advantage of it.

The second problem is that introducing a new technology to the ecosystem will necessarily make maintaining the whole thing more complex and burdensome. Developers will need to write more documentation, and may need to create auxiliary structures just to make sure everything else communicates correctly with this one tool.

GraphQL may not be as intuitive to most developers

Jestor uses a REST API, which is immediately familiar to most developers or tech-oriented team members. This means that anyone familiar with integrating platforms can most likely hit the ground running.

With a more easily understood API, maintenance and initial development costs are kept slim. A lot of the problems that come with introducing a less adopted technology to the table are altogether eliminated, incentivizing fast development.

Not only that, but its API is effectively supercharged by the presence of its low-code features. This means the API is not the only tool a developer may use to make fully programmatic changes on its account, something we’ll get to in the next section.

REST is the most used and familiar API structure

Low Code and Developer tools

Monday has no in-depth low-code/development area. There is an area used to create apps that can run code created outside of the platform, but there’s a downside to this in the fact that you’re doing all of the work on your end (from using your own tools to hosting the code by yourself). As such, it severely limits the options for non-developer users who are technical enough to write a bit of code, but not technically inclined enough to fully develop a product by their own means.

Jestor on the other hand has a feature-rich development environment that allows developers or tech-oriented individuals to create complex and unique solutions to their problems. This means anyone can start automating processes with bits of code without the need for separate environments or setting up their own hosting services/servers. It’s as straightforward and in-built as using Excel formulas; no additional tools are required.

Jestor has a feature-rich low-code area

The development area encompasses:

• Triggers: you can create custom low-code automations called triggers. They’re lines of code that will run whenever the trigger you set up (such as After a record is created in Receivables) is activated. This allows you to create a plethora of complex automations that no-code automations are too generic to do, such as running financial predictions or treating data before sending a POST request. There’s a wide variety of native methods that allow you to fetch and manipulate data inside Jestor, as well as specific things such as cURL requests or creating files (even custom PDFs).
• Functions: you can create back-end functions that will behave similarly to triggers, but can be invoked in other situations, such as through a webhook or in the middle of a trick.
• Webhooks: you can create incoming webhooks that either create records directly into a table or run custom functions from the data you receive, which can be particularly useful to integrate event-heavy platforms, such as PMS’s or payment platforms.

Jestor’s low-code tools are also flexible in the technologies supported. Currently, there are three different programming languages users can choose from when creating a trigger or function:

• Python
• PHP
• .NET

This makes it so it’s very easy for users who already know how to code to get acclimated with the platform, as they need only to learn the few native methods to Jestor that are described in its documentation.

Triggers can also run in synchronous or asynchronous modes, which can grant a bit more control for when actions are performed and allows for even more ways to set up the user’s experience (for example, showing error/block messages when something is now allowed).

Permissioning

Monday has the following types of permissions:

• Board
• Column
• Dashboard
• Workspace
• Account

These settings provide a good amount of permission control for certain things, such as hiding a field from a specific user, or not allowing them to edit something.

Apart from that, there are also predefined user types. These user types have pre-set permissions, but there’s some room for more customizing by using the permissioning settings mentioned above.

The problem, however, is that, by not allowing you to create custom roles, while there is some degree of customizability and granularity, you may not be able to create the permissions you want, and what you can create is heavy manual work.

You can invite users to board with simple permissions on Monday

In Jestor, there are multiple ways of setting up permissions, either through no-code or low-code features. They both customize the same access levels, but with varying degrees of possibilities.

Let’s start with the no-code possibilities:

Jestor’s Roles allow you to create pre-defined access levels

In Jestor, you can easily create Roles, which are basically customized access levels which dictate user powers, such as creating new tables or customizing colors, as well as app and table permissions, such as defining which tables a user will have access to and whether they’ll have full access and powers in it, or a more limited scope.

This means that you create a Sales role that can see Client information (but not edit), use the Opportunities kanban fully, but not have access to the Accounts Receivable database.

If you need a little bit more control, you can also use Record Attribution fields: they are basically multiple user fields that make it so member users can only see records they’re assigned to.

Now for the low-code features: if you need even more intricate permissioning rules, you can set up the JSON file that defines that role’s permission with even more options, down to data filters which allow you to hide records from view, or even setting up fields as read-only for those users. For example, you can make it so Junior Salespeople can only see clients with potential under $5,000.00, or leads that they created themselves, but not be able to change the contact information.

Permission JSONs allow for extra layers of security

One huge upside of having custom low-code Profiles is that you can create a super intricate access level that follows dynamic rules and filters, then concede this access level to multiple users and still have them see different things based entirely on your specifications. This eliminates manual work and a lot of menu fidgeting that usually comes with other software access level controls.

Workspaces versus Folders

Monday allows you to create workspaces, which are groups of boards, forms and other sorts of pages. This allows for a good level of organization when dealing with a lot of different workspaces, something very common in mid and large sized teams.

One huge problem of this setup, however, is that workspaces don’t fully communicate between themselves. For example, if you have a Sales workspace and a Finance workspace, while you can create connection fields between them, you will find that your ability to use data from multiple workspaces is severely limited.

For example, there’s no way to create a chart that pulls data from two different workspaces (for example, Leads in Sales and Ads ($) in Marketing.

And, while you can move boards between workspaces, you cannot have one board in more than one workspace at the same time.

Monday’s workspaces can feel isolated

Jestor, in turn, allows you to create folders.

Folders are sort of like Workspaces: they’re areas that allow for easier navigation by grouping tables and apps. However, in Jestor an app or table can be in more than one folder at the same time. This means the same database (such as Clients) can be shared between many workspaces. There’s no need to sync between duplicates of tables: everyone can rest assured they are seeing real-time, up-to-date data.

Because Jestor doesn’t have workspace separation in the manner Monday does, this also means charts (or really any feature) can get and use data from any table or app, regardless of workspace.

Jestor’s folders and apps are more flexible

Apps and dashboards

Monday has a great variety of widgets you can insert in a dashboard. They can range from traditional charts to board update feeds.

Featuring over 25 different widgets one may choose from when creating a custom dashboard, Monday allows for reasonably useful dashboards, and ones that look quite fun too.

The downfall of this feature, however, is that it’s not possible to cross data between boards. When you create a component, it’s always seeing data from a board, and some types of insight are not feasible to create.

Monday’s dashboards has standard analytical tools

Sometimes, however, you may need something more than a dashboard, and this is where Jestor app-based approach really shines. Jestor app pages are not only analytical, but customizable interfaces you can use to build full-fledged internal apps.

To customize them, there are currently 33 different components, accounting for all chart variations of the chart component, and they range from forms to charts and even navigation menus. The idea of the platform is to create several pages and then bundle them together into a single app, so you can have a dedicated app for each specific process. In fact, that’s how Jestor recommends that the platform be used: instead of users using the table directly, each process should have an app with all the tools they need for it.

Because of this mindset of encouraging mainly using apps, there are two main things that differentiate Jestor’s apps from Monday’s dashboards:

Jestor’s apps allow you to pull data from anywhere inside Jestor, not only a specific table or base. This means the finance team can pull information from the sales team’s tables to build their indicators and charts, for example.
Jestor’s components are very operations-inclined. While there are charts and indicators, there are also interactive components such as order carts, forms, dynamic filters, and even kanbans.

Those two items combined allow for Jestor’s apps to behave less like a simple dashboard, and more like central hubs where data can be used as desired, and operational tasks can be performed. For example, you can have a CRM with charts, contact lists, and a kanban view all in the same place, an HR hub to see all information related to an employee, or even a form that automatically subtracts items from stock.

Jestor’s apps are both operational and analytical

Navigation and Usability

Monday will have a very familiar interface to those already using some sort of work management software. This is not a bad thing in itself! Everything is easily findable, with most features set in expected parts of the interface. In fact, Monday may as well be one of the most intuitive tools out there for out-of-the-box solutions.

However, this also comes with a downside, which is the lack of customization in navigation and usability in the platform. What you see is what you get, and you will need to use the platform as-is, adapting to it instead of the other way around.

Monday’s navigational customization is limited

In Jestor, you can customize a ton of how users will interact with the platform, from hiding menus to creating icon bars.

Using its app-based approach to building, Jestor treats menus as components which can be created and customized, not only aesthetically but in function as well. You can make it so certain apps have shortcuts to Jestor’s chat feature while others don’t, or even make it so only just a certain app has a side menu.

As a result, Jestor’s look and feel can be radically different from account to account, or even from team to team. Apps can be extremely simple for simple processes (such as inventory forms) or as complex as needed for more intricate processes (such as the CRM). A side effect of this is that the platform won’t have additional complexity for users because you can always hide features or parts of the platform that are irrelevant to them.

Even Jestor’s menus are customizable

Mobile

Monday has a mobile app that mirrors what you would expect from the desktop experience of using a board but in a more verticalized manner.

However, there’s a lot missing from the mobile experience: mainly, customization options are severely limited in the app. You are not able to create automations and some more advanced fields, and some types of views are altogether missing from the mobile app.

In short, it’s a watered down version of the full experience that may suffice if you only plan to use it for data access, but that will not get you much further than that. If you need to build a new indicator in a dashboard, for example, you’ll have to wait until you have a laptop at hand.

Monday’s mobile app is not as complete as the desktop experience

In Jestor, the mobile app also adapts features for verticality and usability. More important, however, is that the mobile app retains the same functionalities and operations-oriented design of the platform. This means there’s a wide array of things you can do aside from filling and moving records around.

Not only that, but Jestor also has a mobile-view builder which allows you to customize how an app will look on mobile. This means that, if you don’t like the default automatic resizing that the platform provides, you can always take matters into your own hands and resize and rearrange blocks until you are happy with the final result. This makes it so mobile doesn’t feel like a workaround for when you don’t have a laptop around, but a viable device for your main usage of the platform.

By using a combination of folders, navigation tweaks and custom apps, the mobile experience can be just as feature-rich and easy to use as the desktop version. Navigation is just as customizable, and even more complex apps and dashboards, like inventory counting or project calendars, will have the same features and usability.

Jestor has a mobile app builder

Forms

Monday allows for the creation of forms directly on the workspace, just like you would create any board or dashboard. It’s powered by a separate tool, but it’s quite pleasant to look at, and if what you’re looking for is a Google Forms alternative, it might just get the job done.

The problem, however, is that Monday’s forms are not fully compatible with its own boards. Some very important fields are not supported, such as connection fields. This severely limits the power of the forms, as you may not be able to collect all the info you need.

Also, being a different tool means it must also be subscribed to separately, which means additional costs depending on how many submissions you will be expecting monthly.

Monday’s separate form product is lackluster

Jestor’s forms, on the other hand, are a central part of the platform, presented as the Super Form component.

Super Forms are, by default, as feature rich as you can expect a form to be: you can set up conditionals for fields (such as hiding or making them optional based on the user’s input), add videos and images, divide it in pages, and even set up inline grouping (that is, having more than one field in the same row). Fields can even have predefined values or be hidden from the end-user.

Also, the form itself allows you to not only create records in the table/kanban it’s connected to, but create connected data at the same time. For example, if you have a form for New Client, you can also add sections to add as many Contacts as you want, and this information will be created in Jestor already connected correctly.

Jestor’s Super Form has a myriad of advanced features

Another advantage of Jestor’s Super Forms is that they can be set not only to create records, but update existing ones. This means you can create an asynchronous process in which a form can be sent to external or internal users requesting information, and this information will be fed into specific cards.

Super Forms can also be integrated into kanbans and tables, substituting the default modal/window, letting you effectively customize Jestor’s appearance even further. Additionally, some fields have more than one appearance option, such as displaying a single option list as radio buttons.

Super Forms can update records and change a field’s appearance

Finally, as an additional positive effect of being created as app components, forms can be mixed with other components such as indicators or charts. For example, if you want to present a list of open positions next to a Job Application form, you can! This makes it so the form is extremely flexible, because it can be paired with many of the other features seamlessly.

Buttons

Monday allows you to create buttons in a table which can be linked to its native no-code automations. This is a really nice feature that allows you to add an extra layer of interactivity to tables that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

However, as we’ve mentioned before, the underwhelming nature of Monday’s no-code automations somewhat limits the potential of buttons in the platform. It gets the job done if all you need to do is update a record at the click of a button, but it’s not possible to do something more complex like running a script or updating inventory from connected records.

Monday’s buttons can trigger automations

Jestor allows you to create three types of buttons:

• Buttons that add connected records (for example, add an Apartment record to the Hotel record you’re currently seeing).
• Buttons that navigate to a link, which can also be used to open pre-filtered apps.
• Buttons that run standard no-code automations, such as send an email, remove an item from stock, or even start a shift on a timesheet (marking the current time), or even low-code functions.

These buttons can be accessed not only on the tables and kanbans, but in app components as well, allowing users to create a more intuitive experience (for example, a green button that approves a payment request, and a red button that denies the request and sends an email to the requestee).

Jestor has different types of buttons

Chat

Monday allows you to comment on records, tagging other users. It’s also possible to reply to or like specific comments.

You can leave comments in Monday’s records

Jestor has a fully developed chat feature which is more resemblant of communication tools than card history, and is divided into basically three parts:

• DMs.
• Channels.
• Card mentions.

This means you can use the comment section of a card/record just as you would on Monday, but this is integrated directly into the chat feature so It’s not necessary to navigate all the way to the card to see if there’s a new message, as you can just check the Chat to see new messages.

Channels and DMs add another layer of communication which can be more effective, as sometimes you may need to ask for or note down information that is not regarding a specific record.

Additional chat features include:

• Threading (that is, sending messages inside messages).
• Reactions.
• Voice messages (with AI transcription!)

Jestor has a full-fledged communication tool

Data Structure

Monday has connection fields. That is: a field that allows you to select cards or records in other pipes or databases. However, those fields allow for n:n connections, which introduces ambiguity to the data structure of the cards.

As such, there are usually two problems with growing structures in the platform:

Automating is harder, as there’s no way to standardize connections in a way that allows for complex automations. Data becomes disorganized, as the many connections start to scramble information, usually leading to the platform being used more to control workflows and less like a single source of truth. It’s not uncommon for data duplication to occur to facilitate processes.

While it is possible to force n:1 connections, just the existence of n:n in the same field makes it hard for the platform to create more useful automations and features using connected data, as you can have anywhere from zero to hundreds of records being referenced in a single field.

Monday’s connection field

In Jestor, connected data is mainly n:1. This introduces clarity to the data structure, as there’s always a “stopping point” to connections. This means the software always “knows” what to expect, allowing for more complex and useful automations.

Also, by the virtue of forcing correct data layout across all tables, data grows organized. Jestor can be (and is) used by many companies as a single source of truth, and there’s no need for data duplication to run processes. If there’s any need for n:n connections, it is also possible to do it using auxiliary tables, which keep data organization and clarity intact.

In the rare cases in which you really need other types of connections, Jestor also has 1:1 connections and M:N connections. Although they have fringe use cases, the platform provides them for when the need arises.

We encourage companies to take our data structure courses to understand how to better approach database building.

Jestor has N:1, 1:1, and M:N connection fields

Kanbans and Views

One of the main strengths of Monday is the number of views it supports. From kanbans to Gantt and calendars, you can create many views for a board that allow you to see data however you prefer.

There are some downsides to Monday’s views, however:

Not every field is supported in every view. For example, it’s not possible to put a button in a kanban card (it will only appear when opening the card). There’s no way to set up conditional fields, so big processes can get a little bit harder to manage.

Monday’s standard kanban view

Jestor allows you to create custom kanbans, tables, gantt views and more. They can be set up directly from a table, but are ideally built as components when app building.
Jestor’s views are also very feature-rich. Using its Smart Kanban as an example, you can easily set up cards to have cover images, conditional colors, and even customize behavior such as disabling drag and drop, and not allowing duplicate cards.

Also, you can pair up kanbans with Super Forms to further customize user experience, making it so the creation and editing modals/windows look just the way you want them to, like showing more than one field per row, or changing the appearance of specific fields (such as showing tags as buttons instead of a dropdown list).

Another advantage of Jestor’s Smart Kanban is that, because of the platform’s mindset of app-building, you can mix the Smart Kanban with other components, such as charts, indicators, or even videos. This makes it so you can have more useful interfaces, such as analytical information besides the kanban, or even instructional texts or videos.

Jestor’s Smart Kanban has conditional fields and colors

Fields

There are currently about 38 fields in Monday. Apart from the usual fields, such as checkbox or numbers, Monday has a lot of novelty fields. Things like Rating are a cool way to see information that could be encompassed by other types of field (like dropdown), but in a fun manner.

There are also some useful fields for productivity, such as time tracking, or fields for ease of input, such as Location.

Monday has a wide array of different fields

Jestor currently has over 45 different fields, just a tad below Monday. However, apart from the usual direct data input fields, there are also interactive fields (such as Checklists or Buttons), but technical fields (such as formulas), and even integrated fields (such as Address, which integrates to Google Maps to search for a location) as well. Some of them may also cover more than one field in Monday, like Text, which covers both Monday’s Text and Long text, as well as a Rich text option.

Jestor has even more types of fields

Conditional Fields

Monday has no conditional fields for the records.

Jestor has a conditional fields feature that allows you to determine when a field should either:

• Appear or be hidden.
• Be required or optional.
• Become read-only.

This means that you can set up, for example, a Recruiting structure where an applicant has to provide a diploma only for certain positions, or hide the Social Security Number field when a contractor is a Corporation instead of Individual.

Conditional fields make processes more reliable

Also, these conditions can be nested and complex, following OR and AND structures up to three levels of rules.

This ensures that not only you’re able to create a kanban that holds all the information you need, but that only shows and requires certain data in specific scenarios. In other words, it makes the process easier to follow for the user, minimizing mistakes.

Monday Pros

There are some places in which Monday has some advantages over Jestor.

• Monday currently has a bit more views, which allows you to look at and tackle data in more ways.
• Monday currently has a bit more native integrations, which can be useful if you have a particularly large software ecosystem.
• Monday is a software specifically designed for workload and project management, with a user interface that reflects that. So, if you intend to use Monday just for those, it can be a bit more optimized for you.

Jestor Pros

Here are the main ways Jestor has an edge when compared to Monday.

• Jestor’s app-based approach allows for extremely customizable interfaces, which has a direct impact on workflows and processes.
• Jestor’s Super Form and Smart Kanbans are cutting edge tools for internal processes. Given that most workflows are managed via kanbans/boards, they become the most important parts of processes naturally.
• Automation-wise, the sheer number of no-code options and the flexibility of low-code features make Jestor a more flexible tool.
• Permissioning is one of the most feature-rich parts of the platform, making it extremely safe and flexible when set up correctly.

To Sum Things Up

Monday is a pretty useful tool for workload and project management. One quick look at its widgets and fields makes it clear that it’s designed around this specific purpose and, honestly, it performs quite well in this sense. While the user interface may be a bit too crowded for some audiences, with moving icons and many elements at once, it may be a good fit for smaller scale uses.

However, when it comes to complex processes, field operations, or large volumes of data, Monday may not work as well as you would expect. Whether it’s because you can’t cross data between dashboards, or because the itemized structure of the platform doesn’t work well for many scenarios, you may not be able to manage all you wanted in it. Some less than ideal aspects of it may hinder your use:

• Forms are separate products and not very flexible/customizable.
• Lack of in-depth developer area or low-code tools.
• Non-scalable data structure.
• No conditional fields to prevent data input mistakes.
• Rigid user types with no custom roles.
• Isolated data in dashboards.
• Shallow no-code automations.

In Jestor, you have a wide array of features that will not only cover your database needs, but can create internal apps that can be used or adapted to any process in your company at any size, from an individual freelancer to thousands of employees. From back office to field ops, you’re covered no matter the problem you’re trying to solve.

Create your account here to understand why many companies are migrating from Monday to Jestor.