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IBM DOORS vs Jira comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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
6.9
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 April 2025, in the Application Requirements Management category, the mindshare of IBM DOORS is 34.0%, down from 35.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jira is 15.7%, down from 16.4% 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…
Saroj Ekka - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good repository integration, sprint board and easy to set up
There are some features and reports we need that are not there. For example, if I have to find out the capacity of the current sprint by user and compare it with the previous sprint, that visibility isn't there. We can know the capacity and what happened with the whole sprint, but not for an individual person to see where it's falling and how it's tracking. Report and analytics capabilities are important for a product manager. That visibility is important, so we use Jira. Some of the features are there, and I use my own Excels or other data things to compensate for that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I really like the customization that can be done using the DOORS Extension Language (DXL)."
"The shell scripting is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"It is a mature product that is stable."
"The data logs are ver conveneint."
"It has the features of: traceability, configuration management, and user access."
"It's a very interesting tool. I like that it's simple. You have to create your document, add your templates, and have your headings and definitions, and it's done. You must attribute the discipline and fill out the comment field for requirements. It also provides you with unique IDs for each requirement. I like that it never duplicates IDs."
"I like the user interface with regard to creating links between requirements and tracing links to requirements."
"I really enjoyed the API."
"We integrate Jira with QRadar which is helpful."
"The solution offers a lot of plugins."
"The solution's most valuable features revolve around the dashboard view, which has a burndown chart indicating progress."
"The way we can define and customize the search queries for the tickets in Jira is most valuable."
"The solution is very scalable and flexible."
"The most valuable feature is that it has different APIs available, with good services, and it is completely by the books."
"Reports, analytics, and a ton of widgets, they are great and intuitive. Perfect for an agile team."
"The two features that have been most valuable have been backlog management and sprint planning and tracking."
 

Cons

"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 software and GUI is very outdated."
"The images are not clear. We have to use them as OLE objects. And in the testing part, I'm not sure how to link it with it. This is my main concern."
"One thing that I would like to see is a lower-cost version of it that we could use for smaller projects. Sometimes, we do projects for commercial customers who would benefit from something like DOORS, but it's just so expensive. It's just a monster, so a lower-cost version would be the thing that we'd like to see."
"Enhancing security measures, particularly when handling multiple projects simultaneously, would be beneficial to prevent data loss within DOORS."
"Both the performance and the price could be improved."
"They need to provide users with information on what options would be best for their setup."
"The kind of dashboard is not very convenient."
"Jira should allow you to create and develop pipelines easily. In India, we have to purchase them separately or integrate other data tools. All these tools should be in Jira."
"We'd like to see more collaboration tools implemented within the product itself."
"There should be a way to integrate the mobile application or in some way, make it more clear because at first instance, I didn't understand how to use it."
"I have to go through a lot of processes to consider it done. I have to log in then change the logins and make it interesting. It's not so good for testing."
"From a very software-centric or a lead developer standpoint, there should be the ability to work at multiple levels. You have epic stories and use cases or epic stories and tasks. It would be nice to be able to have multiple levels of stories and multiple levels of epics work with it. It's lacking a little bit there, and this is the big thing for me because it makes it difficult to do a real sprint when you're limited to one story per epic. It's really hard to isolate tasks at multiple levels to match the type of use cases you normally do. That's the biggest difficulty. Other than that, they've been improving year to year, and every version seems to have a level of improvement."
"If I'm comparing it to ALM Octane, the documentation is not as robust as ALM Octane's documentation. So, they can improve on the documentation side."
"The plugin management needs a lot of work."
"In terms of the general Jira software, one element that is missing is budget management. Perhaps such functionality exists in add-ons, however."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think it's expensive because you have to pay for the licenses to IBM and all that and maintain them."
"The licensing cost is too high."
"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."
"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."
"The licensing costs for the product are quite high."
"I don't personally know what the numbers are. I just know that one of the reasons we've limited it to three seats is a function of cost."
"Pricing can vary depending on the size of the organization and how contracts are negotiated."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being very affordable and ten being quite expensive."
"I think the starter pack of three users, up to five users, is free. So you can try it out."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis, and it is based on what you use."
"The price of the solution could be less expensive. We pay annually for the solution."
"I understand JIRA is quite expensive."
"I don't have the number, but I sure wish Jira was less expensive. Its price point should be a little lower, and it should be more flexible for users who are just ticket viewers."
"If I compare Jira's licensing model with that of other products, I think that the other products have a much better licensing model."
"We have a corporate license, and it is probably based on the number of people."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
27%
Computer Software Company
10%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
53%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

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: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.