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IBM DOORS vs Jira comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM DOORS
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jira
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
274
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (1st), Project Management Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Requirements Management category, the mindshare of IBM DOORS is 33.2%, down from 34.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jira is 15.4%, down from 16.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Requirements Management
 

Featured Reviews

UweSeufert - PeerSpot reviewer
Old but capable of storing, organizing, and exchanging requirements
I use IBM DOORS because my customer wants it for managing their requirements IBM DOORS is a tool from the 20th century. It is very old but capable of storing, organizing, and exchanging requirements. It helps to manage requirements efficiently, which significantly improves the way requirements…
Grigoriy Kneller - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for agile management and project tracking
Setting up on Windows is very easy, while on Linux, it's a bit more complicated. I would rate it around a seven out of ten. It is possible to deploy it both on the cloud and on-premises. The deployment duration varied based on whether it was on the cloud or a server. If it was on the cloud, it took slightly less time, while installing it on a server took anywhere from ten minutes to an hour.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Rational DOORS' most valuable feature is that you can write any kind of requirement you want."
"The shell scripting is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"It helps to manage requirements efficiently, which significantly improves the way requirements are managed."
"The most valuable feature for me is the ability to enter data into one table, or context, and link it across modules."
"I like the user interface with regard to creating links between requirements and tracing links to requirements."
"Traceability on requirements for a huge project in an organization is a big gain."
"It has the features of: traceability, configuration management, and user access."
"The data logs are ver conveneint."
"I have found Jira to be stable."
"The solution is very scalable and flexible."
"Jira is very useful for project management for internal projects."
"Overall, the solution is very nice and has a variety of great features."
"The initial setup was pretty straightforward."
"With the help of Jira, tasks are less likely to remain stagnant for a long time. We always see them somewhere on the board."
"JIRA's technical support is absolutely fantabulous. I had used it in the past when I was working at my previous organization. And when we wanted to link it with a framework, they helped us out with the API we were looking for."
"Issue linking has enabled teams to trace issues."
 

Cons

"It would have been ok ten years ago, but we are used to having better tools now."
"IBM DOORS should cover all engineering functions seamlessly, not just requirement engineering."
"The solution should be more compatible with thin clients"
"It is complicated sometimes, such as the logic about updating, moving from one server version to another, and the communication between restricted and non-restricted servers."
"The customer must also have the tool to import the changes and accept them as a part of the review."
"It's difficult to set the code on the solution."
"I would like to see them improve in agile management the Scrum/Kanban Board to work with overseas team members."
"The problem is that because the GUI is so bad, you either have to spend a lot of money customizing the interface yourself, or a lot of money on training."
"Out-of-the-box reporting is limited. It would be helpful if more customisation was possible."
"The help desk and services management features are in need of improvement."
"They can maybe dumb down the directions for building the automation a little bit because to be able to build out the automation, I had to play around with it and learn what all the fields meant and what they were referencing. I don't have an IT background originally. My background is in biology, and I got into project management by chance. I am good at it, but I haven't really worked with coding languages. In terms of writing automation, it is easier for devs because they intuitively know what they're being asked, but as a PM who originally didn't have IT experience, it was a little bit daunting at first. It could also have an extra hierarchy to be able to allow tasks under stories. It could be the way it is set up at our organization, but currently, under stories, you can have sub-tasks, but you can't create a task. Being able to customize your hierarchy a little bit more would be beneficial because sometimes, the devs would say, "Well, here's a story, and now we need sub-tasks," but as we were building out the sub-tasks, sometimes we had to go a step lower to dig in a little bit more, and we couldn't do that."
"I manage the progress of the stories in an Excel chart with dates on work progress or thing to do. I don't like the progress or the stage changing from the stories in Jira."
"I'm mostly focusing on the requirements traceability with my thesis, the integration could improve for other tools. The companies are not only using Jira. For example, for the test cases or for the documents templates, we are using Polarion and we have been having some integration issues."
"My main concern is the administration of projects, especially user groups, and this requires root access rights but there is no concept of layered admin rights."
"The performance is not so good sometimes. I know that fully depends on the implementation and the IT environment of Jira or the version of Jira installed. The performance is sometimes not so good. I would like to have a better response time from the Jira server. And it fully depends on the administration side of the Jira."
"It is not user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have to pay for a license. I think it's a one-time payment as my company hasn't notified me about more charges. I don't think it's expensive for large corporations, but it will be costly for an average person."
"Pricing can vary depending on the size of the organization and how contracts are negotiated."
"I am not sure why it is so expensive, but one license will cost approximately $15,000 in US dollars."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being very affordable and ten being quite expensive."
"I think it's expensive because you have to pay for the licenses to IBM and all that and maintain them."
"Licensing fees are billed annually and there is no support included with what I pay."
"IBM DOORS is available at a reasonable price"
"IBM is a bit too expensive in terms of pricing. Customers are paying a lot for the license, and the price is quite high for this kind of environment. It is quite high as compared to what we can get today with other solutions."
"The ballpark figure is about $100 a month."
"Compared to the value Jira provides, it’s not that expensive. It has an yearly licensing cost."
"I don't feel that price is an issue."
"Worth the extra cost."
"The price of the solution could be lower."
"To try this solution, use their cloud offering to get familiar. After that, it's in my view worth the money."
"It depends on the type of license. In terms of subscription, it is cheap, and it works pretty well."
"The pricing for Jira is reasonable, although I think they can bring it down because the plugins cost extra."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
27%
Computer Software Company
9%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
49%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Rational DOORS?
The traceability matrix in DOORS improved our project outcomes. It helps ensure coverage of requirements at different levels, from user requirements to software requirements to test requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Rational DOORS?
Over the years, the first version cost something around 5800 euros.
What needs improvement with IBM Rational DOORS?
Compared to today, DOORS' competitors also excel in this discipline. Yet the price is too high. It's often not as generic as it used to be. IBM promised to find a way for a generic format that allo...
Is Jira better or would you go with Micro Focus ALM Octane?
Hi Netanya, Basically , it all depends on the use cases for your environment and the business needs. Hope the below data may be relevant to you for identifying your needs and deciding on the approp...
Which is better - Jira or Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Jira is a great centralized tool for just about everything, from local team management to keeping track of products and work logs. It is easy to implement and navigate, and it is stable and scalabl...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jira?
We operate under a nonlimited license with Jira, allowing a number of users to access it with a single enterprise license.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Rational DOORS
Jira Software
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Infosys, Chevrolet Volt
Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DOORS vs. Jira and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.