Tags and Custom fields are provided for personalizing your project data. Both are used for customization, but your needs define which suits you the best. Following is the list of differences.

Tag Custom Field
  • A tag acts like a label on an item. To highlight a common attribute of some items, you can group your data on basis of Tags, without adding any new field.
  • Tag is not item specific. You can use same tag for a user story and issue as well.
  • Any user can create a standard tag. Special Tags can only be created by Admin.
  • Tags are usable company wide. No settings are required to add a tag in a particular project.
  • Tag values can be filtered in search by using #tagname
  • Tags are optional attribute. Users can freely use them. An item can have up to 15 tags.
  • There are three types of tags Standard, Special and Integration Tag.
  • Special Tags can be used to monitor project progress using charts. For example Issues in Sprint by Special Tag
  • A custom field is to support item customisation. Define a custom field, to personalise your project items. Custom field can be added in User Story, Issue, Task and Epic.
  • Custom field is item type specific. Custom field defined for User Story cannot be used for Issue. In such case, define another custom field for Issue.
  • Only Super Admin can create Custom fields.
  • Custom fields are Company wide, you can use same custom field for multiple projects but you need to add project name in custom field settings.
  • To search a custom field value, you can filter results like standard fields. On boards, You can use Custom Field(only dropdown type) to show data in different groups using board swimlanes.
  • You can make a custom field as an optional or mandatory field.
  • You can create multiple types of custom fields.
  • To monitor custom field value, you can add it as a Column on Sprint board.