No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Jira vs SAP Portfolio and Project Management comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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 (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 (12th)
 

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 product is good, stable and very cost-effective for small teams."
"The solution has basically been problem-free so far, and overall we have found the product to be quite flexible, with a very good level of stability and the ability to scale if needed."
"I appreciate the openness of Jira; it is based on a concept that is well understandable and works in a logical way, allowing customization of any process that needs to be applied."
"This solution is a top-of-the-line CRM, I have used the others solutions, and it has the most flexibility and the best visibility."
"I would recommend the solution to others."
"Jira has a good reporting system. It also has an API, so we can do all sorts of reporting."
"It's scalable, easy to deploy, and the cost of the solution seems to be reasonable."
"I have definitely seen a positive return on my investment with Jira; the team loves it, and relevant metrics include considerable time saved, as Jira is a great tool for me compared to manually tracking all the user stories and writing them on Microsoft Word or Google Docs."
"The SAP PPM software is a very complete solution."
"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."
"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 stability is good, and I have nothing bad to say about it."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Ease of administration and customization. It is really clunky in this area."
"In Jira Cloud, integration with Excel is missing. Previously, I could import our Excel files into Jira, and I could also download a big Jira report in the Excel format, but now, it needs to be manipulated after that, which is not good. It looks like they've done that on purpose, but I don't understand the reason for it."
"Jira could improve the workflow, screen, and field configurability. They are lagging behind other solutions, such as Allegra in work system configurability."
"I do know the initial setup was pretty complicated. The user interface could be better organized and easier. ​"
"The following definitely need improvement: UI, speed, and mobile app functionality."
"Workflow management User permissions Native reporting capabilities in workflow Ticket status, etc"
"The platform's support structure needs improvement."
"The product itself could have an advanced analytics layer with an improved user interface that is adapted to the new digital era."
"It would be valuable if SAP integrated seamlessly with some products like Jira and Bitbucket."
"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 initial support package of version 5.0 has some setup difficulties."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not sure if the client is using a commercial version. I think it is on a per-user basis, and it is around 15 Canadian dollars for a user, but I'm not sure. It also has a free version."
"If I compare Jira's licensing model with that of other products, I think that the other products have a much better licensing model."
"As a company, we get a subsidized price, and it's lower than what's quoted on their website."
"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."
"The pricing for Jira is reasonable, although I think they can bring it down because the plugins cost extra."
"The tool's pricing is expensive. The new pricing is indeed quite expensive compared to what it was a few years ago. Last year, when we intended to renew our subscription, we found the pricing considerably higher."
"It does not cost that much."
"The standard package of Jira is for 100 users. They should offer more packages for other increments, such as 500 or 2,000. In my previous company, there was a free package that provided a minimal number of users."
"The product pricing varies based on whether the client is new or existing and the complexity of their business processes."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Project Portfolio Management solutions are best for your needs.
912,022 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business109
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise154
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.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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 Jira vs. SAP Portfolio and Project Management and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
912,022 professionals have used our research since 2012.