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Jira vs SAP Portfolio and Project Management comparison

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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

"I think it is quite a valuable tool and platform to streamline tasks, make project plans, and manage the release events."
"I have found the most valuable features of Jira to be ticketing, life cycle workflow, definition, and creation. Many of the features are useful."
"There are a couple of things that I find valuable about Jira, the first being its architecture. For instance, I like that you can create dashboards easily, which makes it very user-friendly. You don't need much training on that. You can just get right to it and people are able to use almost all of Jira's features with little training."
"JIRA was a major improvement for a variety of reasons listed in other answers."
"One of the most valuable features is querying because the jQuery function is very good. Additionally, we can create good designs very easily."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its ability to connect everything together."
"The most valuable feature is the feature of assigning. Whenever I have an issue, Jira doesn't stop at just letting me describe the issue. I can also assign the issue to a developer, and the developer gets notified about it. After he is able to work on it, he can update the status and revert back to me through the same platform. It really avoids a lot of communication over email and phone. This the feature that I really like about Jira. I always use Jira with my team."
"The solution is very good and there is not much to improve."
"The integration portion with SAP models is valuable."
"It improves productivity, cash flow management, and inventory control for clients."
"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."
"The stability is good, and I have nothing bad to say about it."
"The SAP PPM software is a very complete solution."
 

Cons

"The thing I don't like is that it is hard to decide which dropdown options should be selected. When we try and submit it, it will state that there are certain mandates in place. It won't allow us to submit the form unless we fill out all the details."
"I'm really new to Jira and I haven't used all of the features. However, it is quite difficult to use and manipulate. It was a little complicated for me and I don't know if it's difficult globally for others, but I had a difficult time understanding it at first. I used it for issues, epics, stories, tasks, and sub-tasks. For first-time users, Jira could be made better to help them understand."
"There could be an improvement in loading files and images for more than 50 MB. It would be good if it allowed more than 100 MB."
"I want Jira to have more plug-ins, which will allow for more free plug-ins that help with the area of reporting."
"The solution should be more user-friendly and include integration with different tools."
"The history with Jira is that it is a bit complex for many users."
"I wish the whole workflow process was easier to set up. You put the requirements in and then you send it to the developer. They get a notification. Then they go into Jira."
"The performance and stability are visibly degrading since the database has been growing every year."
"The platform's support structure needs improvement."
"It would be valuable if SAP integrated seamlessly with some products like Jira and Bitbucket."
"The initial support package of version 5.0 has some setup difficulties."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is fine, but we would like it to be less expensive. We are paying on a yearly basis."
"It is an affordable tool."
"As a company, we get a subsidized price, and it's lower than what's quoted on their website."
"It is subscription-based, and we probably pay yearly. I would rate it a four out of five in terms of price."
"It's not very cheap. It's also not very costly. I'd rate it a five out of ten in terms of pricing."
"I don't feel that price is an issue."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. It's paid yearly."
"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."
"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
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business108
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise155
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 is a good tool and it is not that expensive. The setup cost is pretty straightforward and the onboarding is smooth.
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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 Jira vs. SAP Portfolio and Project Management and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
916,056 professionals have used our research since 2012.