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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
284
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (1st), Application Requirements Management (2nd), 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 (10th)
 

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

"Jira as a structure has Confluence for documentation, and for what it is offering it is a strong suit with Atlassian."
"The product is quite easy to use and simple to navigate, it's flexible and can provide a lot of different options, such as dashboards that you can create and manage, so you can really tailor-make your own dashboard depending on your needs."
"Jira is designed for issue tracking, making the process much easier than traditional methods like paper-based tracking. It is number one for agile management."
"Some of the features that are most important to me of JIRA Agile are the sprint planning, being able to write user stories and being able to use task management."
"I recommend JIRA Agile to anyone looking for a mature, easy to use and customizable issue tracking system, especially in the context of large, geographically distributed teams."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"Without Jira, I don't see how we would be able to manage and trace in a very consistent, effective way."
"It is user-friendly, and you can manage your project according to the methodology you want. It is also easy to configure."
"With SAP Portfolio and Project Management we were able to have a full track of project progress and get useful insights about our projects."
"It improves productivity, cash flow management, and inventory control for clients."
"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."
"The SAP PPM software is a very complete solution."
"The stability is good, and I have nothing bad to say about it."
 

Cons

"An area for improvement in Jira is that it's not designed for test management. To use it for test management, you need an add-on or several add-ons, e.g. Xray or Zephyr."
"The migration from an older application to Jira was not so easy, and it required a lot of effort."
"We spend hours and sometimes days looking through completed stories in order to determine how to manage a defect in our existing system."
"I find the dashboard to be Jira's most problematic feature; I do not like it and feel Jira is troublesome when it comes to visualizing the reports."
"The CACD solutions on JIRA has some plugins, but they are not easily understandable or workable."
"The release of a MailServer feature within Jira would be beneficial."
"Overall, Jira is a little bit old fashioned, it could be more user friendly."
"The filtration could be better."
"The product itself could have an advanced analytics layer with an improved user interface that is adapted to the new digital era."
"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."
"It would be valuable if SAP integrated seamlessly with some products like Jira and Bitbucket."
"The platform's support structure needs improvement."
"The initial support package of version 5.0 has some setup difficulties."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price at the moment for Jira is okay. I'm absolutely not amused with the plans to try to drive us to the cloud or to other licensing models. For the very simple reason that we are a company in the defense sector where cloud is problematic in a number of the domains. We are now approximately 60 users and the new policy will actually confront us with an upscale to approximately 500 users. I find it unacceptable, and may potentially lead us to look for another solution."
"When you get larger, the pricing becomes very, very steep."
"We have an enterprise license that includes cloud service and support."
"It is certainly a long-term solution for our company and for previous companies that I have worked for. They have these long-term term licenses, but I'm not sure if they really pay on a yearly basis. They are certainly using it for a really long period and for a lot of users."
"Our client handles the licensing aspect. They have not yet purchased the premium version."
"There is a monthly license required for this solution and it is expensive."
"We are on an annual license to use Jira."
"It does not cost that much."
"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
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business109
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise152
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?
In terms of pricing and setup cost, my experience with the pricing and licensing of Jira was generally positive, especially compared to the operational value it provides for project management and ...
What advice do you have for others considering SAP Portfolio and Project Management?
The platform integration with SAP finance systems has unified language and criteria, reducing the time for growth periods and ensuring international financial control and management. The resource m...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Portfolio and Project Management?
The product pricing varies based on whether the client is new or existing and the complexity of their business processes.
 

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 Broadcom, Planisware, monday.com and others in Project Portfolio Management. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.