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JIRA Portfolio vs Jira Align comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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

Jira Align
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (9th), Value Stream Management Software (1st)
JIRA Portfolio
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Enterprise Agile Planning Tools category, the mindshare of Jira Align is 4.9%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of JIRA Portfolio is 1.1%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
 

Featured Reviews

ShyiamaKishun - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a straightforward setup process and efficient project management features .
Jira Align supports program increment planning by facilitating the planning aspect, including team setup, dependency management, and defining the layout for each step or stage in a project. The platform aids in breaking down targets into parts, aligning with Agile principles, and ensuring a structured layout. The most impactful feature of Jira Align for project management lies in its capabilities related to planning and setting up projects. The platform visually understands targets, offering a clear and detailed layout. We can determine when to speed up the process or access the project. We can address the issues related to planning and development efficiently. It is a great product to use, aiding in project planning and alignment. I recommend it to others and rate it a ten out of ten.
Gary Craven - PeerSpot reviewer
Powerful, flexible solution with a bit of a learning curve
The weakness of the solution is that the interface is a little nonstandard, meaning it's very flexible. It's got a lot of power and gives the user the ability to combine different projects into the portfolio and move user stories between projects and link them. What I have found in a couple of organizations that I've used it with, is that the uptake tends to be a little slow because it's got a bit of a learning curve. It can dump data out to Excel and those programs, but it also has a big ecosystem of plugins and add-ons that you can get. I guess it has some strength in that regard, but if you're going to run it on-prem, you have to have people that are pretty well-versed in the program and have the time and capabilities to handle integration and make sure they're adding those modules correctly. Their interface is a little unique and I think that's partly because the core of the product has morphed into several sub-products, but the underlying architecture has stayed the same on all of them in that it was originally a help desk ticketing system. Now they are moving into these new use cases, including systems development, business projects, business processes, and redevelopment projects, but there is a problem with the nomenclature that they use, and some of the documentation is a little techy for moving it into those more business-focused use cases. It's a very tech-focused product and that's fair given its origins, but if they really want to expand their community of users, then they're going to have to move beyond that a little bit and polish it up.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The OKR experience is great."
"The most valuable features of Jira Align are its product roadmap and reporting."
"The most valuable feature of Jira Align is the overall team vision."
"Jira Align's most valuable features are the roadmap, the program board, and the reports."
"The tool enabled everyone to see the status of each environment."
"We use Jira Align for business strategies, collaboration, and reporting."
"The deployment phase of Jira Align wasn't difficult."
"Some of the most valuable features are the configurations and dashboards."
"The most valuable feature of JIRA Portfolio is the visuals it provides rather than Kanban boarded tickets."
"What I like about the product is its extensive features, particularly the wide set of attributes for tracking issues. Jira Portfolio allows us to track not only the overall project but also specific components within it. This is beneficial for all stakeholders, including developers and business owners. For example, business stakeholders can track all issues, regardless of status."
"Managing product development and managing inter-team communications are also valuable features."
"The solution's tracking capabilities helped ensure we had full visibility into planned work and scheduled work."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"The feature that we like the most is that JIRA enables modules. Atlassian provides a lot of products around JIRA, such as compliance for the documentation, BitBucket for the Git version. We are new to these products developed by Atlassian, but they can integrate very easily. Generally, when an editor is developing a solution, they think about integrating with JIRA. When we are looking for any other solution, they plan to easily integrate with JIRA."
"The most valuable features of the JIRA Portfolio are the ease of use, many developers are familiar with it."
"The stability of JIRA Portfolio is very good."
 

Cons

"The product should improve its communication. My English proficiency is not high, but writing in English is another skill that you need. Maybe AI can help here. Because I can see in some other applications, they have AI helpers. So when you write something and you want to do something, it can help. For example, Google Cloud Platform has it. They have a helpdesk for it. When you want to create a cluster, it can help you."
"The solution needs to improve its pricing. It also needs to provide an integrated view of how other tasks are to be tracked. It would be also useful to see the integration of Confluence, Teams, and Slack into the product. I want to be able to communicate directly with others while using the product. I am also not sure if the integration of third-party alternate workflow tools like SAP would be possible."
"Maybe some of the terms and the connectivity could be improved."
"I don't know if Jira provides training for people who want to be certified with the solution, so that is one of the problems."
"The vendor should implement automation features"
"One area where Jira Align could improve is in its licensing model. There was a significant change in the licensing module about six months ago, which resulted in increased costs for customers like us. This change wasn't communicated clearly, and it made it challenging for companies to adopt Jira Align without facing higher expenses. In terms of features, I would like to see improved workflows in the next release, as that would greatly benefit our organization."
"It would be helpful if they had something for capacity planning that was simpler to understand."
"Jira Align fails to provide its users with a complete package in terms of portfolio management."
"I think the solution can improve in graphs and the analysis part."
"Converting a task into an epic is very troublesome."
"n the next version I would like to see better reporting and safer plugins, as well as easier scalability."
"The HR aspect of the solution could be improved."
"It would be nice if it could provide an end-to-end solution for a project."
"In the next release, Portfolio should include more metrics and develop their portfolio planning."
"JIRA Portfolio's configuration management could be improved."
"We are using the on-premise deployment, but it is slower and not as easy to manage as the cloud version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Jira Align is an expensive solution."
"My company pays approximately 399 USD per month for the solution."
"Our customers buy licenses. We are not involved in its purchase."
"I would rate this solution a nine out of ten for pricing. The price of the solution depends on the number of people using it and the projects you are working on."
"At our company, we were concerned about the cost of Jira Align, which is expensive"
"The pricing and licensing costs are rated lower, around six mainly due to significant increases in licensing costs that were not well-received by users."
"Jira Align has price packages for different purposes."
"Jira Align was reasonably priced then, especially for a bundle license that accommodated around 50 monthly users."
"The price is reasonable"
"Portfolio is very expensive, costing on average $2000-3000 per user per month."
"We pay our fees annually, although monthly payments are also available."
"I do not believe that the product provides value for money since I feel that it is quite expensive."
"There are free plugins available, but most of them are at an additional cost. Additionally, other services are an extra cost."
"I use the free version for personal use."
"The pricing of the solution is expensive."
"The solution is offered at a high cost"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Jira Align?
I joined the company because they had a large project, and as a startup company, they needed to scale up efficiently. My task was to review the current baseline, assess the team's capabilities, and...
What needs improvement with Jira Align?
The platform's communication features could be more robust for better team integration.
What is your primary use case for Jira Align?
We use Jira Align for business strategies, collaboration, and reporting. The solution allows us to manage the various products and features delivered on that platform.
What do you like most about JIRA Portfolio?
The solution's tracking capabilities helped ensure we had full visibility into planned work and scheduled work.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JIRA Portfolio?
I am part of the delivery team and am not exposed to the commercial information. However, from what I understand, JIRA is competitively priced. It is not considered expensive in the market.
What needs improvement with JIRA Portfolio?
User experience should be more intuitive. Currently, it's not that intuitive. Additionally, a lot of querying and customization is needed for reporting. If there could be some templates out of the ...
 

Also Known As

AgileCraft
Portfolio for JIRA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Anthem, nielsen, Homeland Security, NCR, dimension data
Rosetta Stone, Sprint, UBS, Workday, Expedia, J.P. Morgan
Find out what your peers are saying about JIRA Portfolio vs. Jira Align and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.