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Jira vs SAP Portfolio and Project Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
285
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (1st), Application Requirements Management (1st), Project Management Software (1st)
SAP Portfolio and Project M...
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Project Portfolio Management (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

RituRaj - PeerSpot reviewer
SDE 2 at Virtusa
Centralized sprint boards have transformed our planning and now improve cross‑team visibility
While Jira is very powerful, there are definitely areas it could be improved, especially for usability and simplicity. One common challenge is that Jira can feel overwhelming for new users. The number of features, configurations, workflows, and settings is huge. Onboarding non-technical teams or new employees sometimes takes longer than expected. A simple default experience for a beginner would help a lot. Another issue is performance. In large organizations with heavy customizations, large backlogs, or complex dashboards, Jira can occasionally feel slow, especially when loading filters, reports, or larger boards. Pricing can also become expensive as an organization scales and multiple Atlassian products and plugins are added. Some smaller teams sometimes feel the ecosystem becomes costly over time. The mobile experience would be smoother for project managers or leadership users who mainly want quick update approvals or dashboard views on the go. Overall, Jira's biggest strength is flexibility, but that flexibility can also create complexity if not managed carefully. Improving simplicity, performance, and ease of adoption would make the platform even stronger. An additional improvement I would mention for Jira is around balancing flexibility with simplicity. Jira gives organizations a huge amount of customization power, which is great. But over time, many teams end up creating overly complicated processes. After a few years, some Jira environments become difficult to maintain because there are many workflows, custom fields, permissions, and automations layered on top of each other. It would help if Jira would provide a strong built-in recommendation or health check for keeping a project clean or efficient. For example, identifying unused custom fields, suggesting workflow simplicity improvements, flagging redundant automations, or recommending dashboard optimization.
Nalin Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Quality Assurance Group Lead at Samsung
End-to-end project management capabilities and offers seamless vendor and client contract alignment
The system is old, so there are several issues that arise when we fetch data from integrated systems. Sometimes the data gets stuck, and there are instances where we need to access multiple pieces of information simultaneously. This creates problems that I have personally experienced. Therefore, these aspects need to be much more free-flowing and seamless. If something gets stuck, it takes time to resolve, and during the contract phase, we have Service Level Agreements (SLAs). If those SLAs are breached, it becomes problematic. Given that there are approximately 3000 projects running concurrently worldwide, utilizing the system with a vast database and numerous activities taking place. It could benefit from decentralization. Currently, it operates as a central system, but if it could be centralized for specific subsidiaries, it would be easier for us to manage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Jira is the reporting feature, which allows us to track our team's tasks."
"Offers a common language set so we can bring people into projects and get them up and running almost immediately."
"The board has been a very valuable feature because it can be very simple for teams that are not technical. It can also be highly technical and have lots of data for teams that are technical. So we use it for both instances."
"The solution is valuable because it's pretty flexible; it allows you to do a lot of stuff, the functionality is pretty rich, and it integrates well with other products, like GitLab, that we are currently intensely using at the company."
"In my organization, we have so many diverse projects, that the flexibility to integrating JIRA with other tools has been a helpful feature."
"The TAM provided good insight as to how we can more effectively perform troubleshooting, and scale down operational costs."
"Jira is a strong and reliable project management tool, especially for agile teams, offering great flexibility and tracking capabilities, and keeping workflows simple helps teams to get a better experience from it, definitely improving overall productivity."
"The most valuable feature is project management."
"With SAP Portfolio and Project Management we were able to have a full track of project progress and get useful insights about our projects."
"The integration portion with SAP models is valuable."
"SAP is gradually introducing more flexibility and customization options to the system, allowing users to adapt it to their specific needs."
"It improves productivity, cash flow management, and inventory control for clients."
"The SAP PPM software is a very complete solution."
"The stability is good, and I have nothing bad to say about it."
 

Cons

"ClickUp is a good alternative to Jira, so they have a better interface [GUI]. I don't like Jira's graphical interface - it could be more user-friendly. Jira looks old school."
"JIRA still has their own backtracking tools. It should have a better visibility into HPE UFT. Most people use functional testing tools, like QTP. They need to improve their integration to make it seamless."
"Once a story is closed, all the records, versions, and documentation associated with it are gone. We lose the traceability of what was done."
"Some of the interfaces, especially on the administrator side and for permissions, are not so clear. They aren't very user-friendly."
"The user interface is very detailed right now. It could be simplified if they consider targeting the user experience."
"Previous solutions ... did not work - to put it mildly."
"The reporting needs to be improved."
"Users can be confused about how to use this tool as it's very complex."
"The system is old, so there are several issues that arise when we fetch data from integrated systems. Sometimes the data gets stuck, and there are instances where we need to access multiple pieces of information simultaneously."
"The product itself could have an advanced analytics layer with an improved user interface that is adapted to the new digital era."
"The initial support package of version 5.0 has some setup difficulties."
"It would be valuable if SAP integrated seamlessly with some products like Jira and Bitbucket."
"The platform's support structure needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is expensive."
"The price seems reasonable to me. It's very similar to Splunk."
"JIRA's pricing is very economical. I would say that JIRA is a great deal more economical than Microsoft."
"We are a regional research and education institute. We're using the free license provided for educational institutes."
"The basic price of Jira is reasonable, but for each plugin, we have to keep paying more. When you add it all up, it can be expensive. The main problem we face is we are forced to purchases plugin licenses for users who are not going to use them. For example, we have Jira licenses for approximately 450 people but if we only want a purchase a plugin for few people it is mandatory to buy the license for the 450 people who have Jira licensees. This is a problem because sometimes we need plugins for the product manager or for people in charge of the report, not everyone. For us, it can be very expensive in the end, they should alter this policy to allow plugins for only a set number of licenses."
"It is an affordable tool."
"The pricing is much higher than other similar solutions available in the market, and as such, the vendor should think about a price reduction to make this product more affordable."
"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."
"The product pricing varies based on whether the client is new or existing and the complexity of their business processes."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business109
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise153
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Jira operates on a subscription model, typically priced per user. It is quite affordable, and the setup cost is low. Licensing is simple and easy to get started with.
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Also Known As

Jira Software
Portfolio and Project Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Joy Global Inc., Citrix, EMC Corporation, Concho Resources, Concho Resources, RZD Russian Railways, Family Dollar Stores Inc., Lenovo
Find out what your peers are saying about monday.com, Planisware, Broadcom and others in Project Portfolio Management. Updated: June 2026.
906,829 professionals have used our research since 2012.