I use Jira for maintaining our user stories, creating defects, and tracking progress. It's a part of my daily workflow. We have a dashboard where we manage stories within sprints, see backlog items, and keep track of both open and closed defects.
Senior QA Automation Engineer at Xoriant
Facilitates bug tracking in our projects, easy to collaborate but communication features could be enhanced
Pros and Cons
- "Jira is great for story management."
- "Test case management could be more user-friendly. When we add or update test cases, there should be a better way to organize them within the dashboard."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Jira facilitates bug tracking in our projects. When we find a defect, we log it in Jira and assign it to a developer. Once the developer fixes it, the defect moves into verification or the QA stage. The QA team validates the fix, and if everything is good, they close the defect. If needed, they can re-assign it back to me with comments.
What is most valuable?
I like how easy it is to collaborate. We can add comments and tag specific people, which is useful for both onshore and offshore teams. Here, we can tag the person easily, and Jira updates. The commenting feature keeps everyone updated on what work has been done. Jira has a lot of versatility, which makes it a handy tool.
Within Jira, we can tag stories by the current sprint and associate them with the developer working on them. We also use Jira to track story points and progress based on status. Once a story is ready for QA, the QA team can create sub-tasks directly in Jira and start their work.
So, Jira is great for story management, but I'd like to see better tracking of employees' daily status for improved visibility for higher-level stakeholders.
What needs improvement?
The communication features could be enhanced. While Jira sends email notifications when comments are added, it would be great to have a more real-time chat function directly within the Jira dashboard. This would streamline communication when we need to clarify defects.
Also, test case management could be more user-friendly. When we add or update test cases, there should be a better way to organize them within the dashboard.
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Jira
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Jira. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
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For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Jira for over seven, maybe eight years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't experienced any stability problems myself, but there's always room for improvement. So, I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. I have not faced any major issues with Jira's stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.
Everyone uses Jira. If something isn't working, that person likely isn't working either.
How are customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've always worked with Jira since the beginning. It is a tool
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Jira is relatively straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten.
I would recommend using it. It's the only tool where everyone can work within a single system, and we can track each other's records. That's a tool that helps people stay aligned.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Apr 30, 2024
Flag as inappropriateSenior Manager, Connected Home Product Management and Strategy at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
An affordable solution. for communication with easy maintenance
Pros and Cons
- "Everything is tracked in one place."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
We maintain all space-related information in Jira. We track all stories and add tasks to identify specific services. We pull the relevant functions onto the screen. We follow a two-week sprint cycle, completing sprints accordingly. We proceed to make a release. We conduct testing activities, whether manual or automated. If bugs are identified, we fix them. The customer story remains in the loop until we move to the release cycle. Upon release, developers can automatically deploy the code. After deployment, we proceed with user acceptance testing and move to the front end.
What is most valuable?
Everything is tracked in one place.
What needs improvement?
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.
Additionally, Jira analytics needs further development to analyze code, but we should keep the queries. This will allow us to delve into the details of completed tasks, work in progress, and pending items. However, more information regarding graphical representation is still required. Considering the number of test cases, it's crucial to have comprehensive data on completion status, logs, and retesting. Jira excels in providing such detailed information.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Jira for 6 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is stable.
I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution’s scalability is good.
55 users are using this solution every day.
I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
We receive technical support. Some challenges may arise, particularly in labels, but we receive assistance.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used ALM before. It has high pricing, considering the maintenance and shipping costs. Although the features are new, if we compare them to Jira, ALM still lags.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy and takes a few hours to complete.
I rate the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.
What about the implementation team?
A third-party vendor handles deployment. They will automatically execute the small instructions. Based on that, they will create a charge code, seek approval from management, and then proceed to deploy the particular feature. While auto-deployment is happening, we'll validate it once it's done. If everything is good, we'll release it. If there are any challenges, we'll roll it back.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product is cheap.
I rate the product’s pricing one out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What other advice do I have?
Jira is easy to use and maintain; everything is in one place. Minimal maintenance is also required.
We have our developers to maintain Jira. They will develop whatever we require for labels and provide them to us.
If you want to inform me about the adaptations for scaling Jira, it will be convenient to use Jira, but most of the reports will be easy to generate. We integrate with Git, making the process a bit easier.
Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Apr 25, 2024
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Jira
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Jira. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
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Director of Robotics at Fresh Consulting
Great for managing backlogs, moving around tasks, and bringing structure to projects
Pros and Cons
- "The solution provides users with clarity in terms of the scope of work in a given timeframe."
- "There's a really steep learning curve for configuration."
What is our primary use case?
We basically use the solution for trying to develop a product end-to-end. It's assisting us in having hardware and software come together.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution provides users with clarity in terms of the scope of work in a given timeframe.
What is most valuable?
Managing the backlog and being able to move work around and drag it around in order to replan it to certain sprints is the solution's most valuable aspect.
What needs improvement?
There are many areas where improvements can be focused.
There's a really steep learning curve for configuration. I'd like them to simplify all of their configurability yet not remove the configuration options.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We haven't had any noticeable stability issues. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. it's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There are some issues with scaling. It's difficult to consistently configure multiple teams within a single product.
We have about 150 and they're robotics engineers, software engineers, firmware engineers, PMs, and product people. Anyone that would be on a product development team uses it.
We will maintain usage and intend to continue using it for this deployment. I cannot speak to if there are plans for expansion.
How are customer service and support?
We've never reached out to technical support. I can't speak to how helpful they are.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I'm also familiar with Azure DevOps, which is easier to set up. However, this company has always used Jira.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup has a moderate amount of difficulty. It's more complex than, for example, Azure DevOps. I'd rate the process at a three out of five.
The deployment took about three months.
I'm not sure how many staff are needed for deployment or maintenance tasks.
What about the implementation team?
We handled the implementation process in-house with our own team. We didn't have any consultants or integrators to assist us in the process.
What was our ROI?
It's hard to put a number to the ROI we're seeing. It's more qualitative around the structure it provides than any kind of cost savings.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost is about $10 per user, per month.
There is a perception with Jira that they try to nickel and dime you quite a bit.
For example, they'll often say "Oh, you want this little feature? We'll charge you $3 per month per user." Whoever's signed up to your account they will charge you, even though you might only need five people to sue it from a 150 person team. That's excessive.
Compare that to Azure DevOps where withAzure DevOps, you just pay $20, and then you deploy that extension to your instance or tenant. With Jira, they charge you a dollar or $2 per active account in your tendency even if not everyone in my tenancy needs to have that extra feature set.
What other advice do I have?
Since we use the cloud, we are using whichever version is currently deployed there. It's updated automatically.
I would recommend Azure DevOps over Jira.
I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Managing Director at Corecom Quality Engineering
A flexible and customizable solution that supports remote collaboration
Pros and Cons
- "In our organization, we use Jira for project management and usually use the Scrum project type. We might adjust the workflows and stages to better suit our needs, but we mostly use the default functionalities it offers to manage our projects."
- "Jira could be easier to use, especially for administrative tasks. It's quite complex, so it's important to understand it well. While the reporting and dashboards are good, there's room for improvement in some areas where extra features would be helpful."
What is most valuable?
In our organization, we use Jira for project management and usually use the Scrum project type. We might adjust the workflows and stages to better suit our needs, but we mostly use the default functionalities it offers to manage our projects.
It's flexible and customizable, and we frequently use it with customized workflows and dashboards to track defects. Jira works well with tools like TestRail and Clarity, which help with test management. It has various APIs.
Jira's reporting and analytics features support project management by providing useful out-of-the-box reports. These include burn-down charts for Agile project management and various other reports. These default reports typically cover around 60 percent of users' needs. Users can customize their reports and dashboards for the remaining needs, which usually fulfill about 80-85 percent of requirements. Add-ons can be used for the remaining small gap.
The tool mainly supports remote or distributed team collaboration through its cloud version, accessible from anywhere. Within Jira, you can communicate effectively with team members by assigning issues, leaving comments, and referencing people for notifications. While direct communication features within the tool are decent but not outstanding, integration with tools like Slack or Teams can enhance collaboration further.
What needs improvement?
Jira could be easier to use, especially for administrative tasks. It's quite complex, so it's important to understand it well. While the reporting and dashboards are good, there's room for improvement in some areas where extra features would be helpful.
Sometimes, we need add-ons in the product, especially for reporting. While you can get these through add-ons, they can be pricey. The licensing system for add-ons might also seem unfair because you often have to pay for all users, even if only a few use the add-on. So, maybe the licensing model could be adjusted.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with the product for ten years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the tool's stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We've never had any issues, even with up to 2000 users. However, scalability can be limited by the license type. I'd rate Jira's scalability as a ten out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The tool's support is helpful.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
For deployment, setting up the tool takes minutes. Implementing additional configurations like SSO or integrations might take half a day to a day. The time spent configuring and customizing screens and workflows depends on your specific needs. I usually take about three or four days to complete everything.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing cost for Jira is typically around seven dollars per user, though it may vary depending on regional variations. This cost is for a subscription-based model rather than a one-time purchase. I rate its pricing a seven out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
I work across multiple projects, so people might approach me for support when needed. I would recommend Jira to other organizations. For inexperienced users, I would advise seeking help from experts if there's something you can't do in the tool. They can customize it to fit your needs. Overall, I'd rate the product an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Apr 12, 2024
Flag as inappropriateProduct Owner at Algoriza
Excellent for writing user stories and adjusting metrics but expensive
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Jira for sprint planning is the timeline feature, which allows for better visualization and planning of releases."
- "Jira lacks easy capacity calculation compared to TFS, making it harder to know how much work to allocate to each specialist."
What is our primary use case?
I have managed various projects using Jira, including tasks for the government, the environmental sector, education, and donation applications. I have also worked on multiple websites for marketing and search engine optimization.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Jira for sprint planning is the timeline feature, which allows for better visualization and planning of releases. However, there are limitations compared to other tools like TFS, which offer more flexibility with features like user stories, epics, and initiatives without extra fees. Despite this, Jira's ease of adding user stories to sprints and connecting them to releases is very good.
What needs improvement?
Jira lacks easy capacity calculation compared to TFS, making it harder to know how much work to allocate to each specialist. In TFS, it is simpler to manage capacity and reassign tasks when necessary. Additionally, a feature in TFS automatically creates relevant tasks based on a code snippet linked to a user story, saving time and effort in task creation. This feature isn't available in Jira, which makes task management less streamlined.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Jira for almost two years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Jira is expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend Jira for its usability, especially for writing user stories and adjusting metrics, though it is expensive.
Jira has improved our team's productivity mainly through integrations, particularly with Slack. This integration helps keep track of changes made to user stories, providing alerts for any updates.
I would recommend Jira for managing projects in agile environments, but certain features are necessary for better functionality, like improved capacity calculation and streamlined task creation. Additionally, Jira can be expensive, so essential tools like test planning should ideally be included in the standard subscription rather than requiring costly third-party plugins.
Overall, I would rate Jira as a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Apr 17, 2024
Flag as inappropriateLead Software Engineer at SS&C
Robust reporting, issue tracking, and collaboration features
Pros and Cons
- "Jira's collaborative features, such as comments, notifications, and real-time updates, facilitate better communication."
- "Jira required a significant amount of system resources, particularly for larger organizations with extensive workflows and numerous projects."
What is our primary use case?
We are using Jira to plan and manage projects, including tasks, sprints, and releases.
It allows teams to create, assign, and track issues. It supports various agile methodologies like Scrum and Kanban, providing tools for backlog management, sprint planning, and burndown charts.
It offers robust reporting capabilities, allowing teams to track progress, monitor team performance, and generate visual reports.
Jira's user-specific dashboards and reporting capabilities provided insights into individual and team performance. This promoted accountability and allowed our development team to recognize and reward high-performing team members.
How has it helped my organization?
Jira's collaborative features, such as comments, notifications, and real-time updates, facilitate better communication. Teams can discuss tasks, provide feedback, and track progress in one centralized platform, leading to smoother workflows.
Tracking bugs, feature requests, and development tasks was cumbersome. It was difficult to prioritize and assign issues, leading to delays in issue resolution. With Jira's issue-tracking capabilities, we can create customizable workflows. This enables users to capture, categorize, and assign issues with ease. As a result, the development team can address issues promptly, improving product quality.
What is most valuable?
Jira's native support for agile practices, including Scrum and Kanban boards, allowed our development team to embrace agile methodologies seamlessly. This enabled them to prioritize features, plan sprints, and adapt to evolving client needs more effectively.
Jira's user-specific dashboards and reporting capabilities provided insights into individual and team performance. This promoted accountability and allowed our development team to recognize and reward high-performing team members.
What needs improvement?
Jira required a significant amount of system resources, particularly for larger organizations with extensive workflows and numerous projects.
The high level of customization and feature-rich nature of Jira are confusing for new users, requiring some time to learn and navigate.
Administering Jira, especially in large organizations with complex workflows, can be challenging and may require expertise.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Jira for issue tracking and task management for the last seven years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not previously use a different solution.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Product Manager at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Great for collaboration, very stable, and extracting data is straightforward
Pros and Cons
- "You no longer need to email people. You can mention them right in Jira and have conversations there."
- "In Jira, say on the team, no matter the methodology, it doesn't matter what I'm practicing, if I am using the tool for a while and I've compiled some sort of history. If I want to change my workflow, say my team is today using to-do in progress done, and tomorrow, I decide I want to use to-do in review and done, and I apply that new workflow, I have just now effectively lost all of my histories in terms of reporting."
What is our primary use case?
We are using the product for general task management, largely. From a software development community perspective, obviously, we use the task management piece - the foundation to what leads into the development and the CI/CD pipelines and et cetera. Outside of that, it varies widely. At its very core, it's task management, however, then it's used by various functional areas within the company. For example, we have contracting and procurement that utilize it. And we have marketing that uses it and security, IT security, audit, compliance. Various functional areas across the company use Jira. We use it a lot. More and more business teams are using it today than were previously.
We also use it for reporting. With task management comes the Jira out-of-the-box reporting. We had Advanced Roadmaps before it was included in the product. And now that it's just rolled into the Data Center product, you obviously don't have to pay for it specifically anymore, however, that's the most scaled reporting that we have. Then, as far as any other apps are concerned, we really just use time and status for measuring continuous flow and have more of a Kanban approach. Of course, some workflow, add-ons, and things of that nature to add some value such as training for Jira.
I'm less concerned about marketplace apps due to the fact that, whether you go to Azure DevOps or Microsoft, or whether you go to Atlassian, there are countless apps out there that will extend the application itself.
How has it helped my organization?
It's an organized, collaborative, transparent way of working and that's really helped the organization overall. Otherwise, many teams would still be managing work in Excel spreadsheets and/or SharePoint, which is just ridiculous. At least this provides some sort of structured approach that can easily be queried and have data extracted. I use Jira for everything at work. I don't even use email that much. It's through @mentions and all these different things.
What is most valuable?
The solution is great for helping teams to collaborate.
There are tons of apps and add-ons for the solution that help you expand its offering via third parties.
The product allows you to become very structured in your approach to work.
You no longer need to email people. You can mention them right in Jira and have conversations there.
It's easy to extract data and do queries.
What needs improvement?
The way that Azure DevOps rolled out their boards and made them flexible is something that Jira lacks. You want a workflow and you're configuring your columns and you're mapping status to columns, however, in Jira, you can't have more columns than you do status. Whereas in Azure DevOps from a Jira admin perspective, it's amazing as it doesn't care what you need in terms of what your life cycle is. The underlying process template is very generic. It's just like a to-do, in progress, done ordering basically, except they use the words inprog or active, resolved, and a couple of others. Open, active, resolved, and maybe one more.
No matter what they do to the face of the board, they can create 15 columns if that's what they want to represent their lifecycle, which gives them that visibility and the ability to then report on that. The reports will run off of that, however, they never have to actually reach out to an admin and say, "I need you to build me a workflow." On the admin side of Azure DevOps, they could modify the underlying process template to include things like that would be the equivalent. They refer to them as rules in Azure DevOps, however, it would be the equivalent of post functions and validators and these things within Jira.
The great majority of teams don't care about that. What they care about is just being able to properly represent their lifecycle. It provides a great deal of flexibility and it cuts down a tremendous amount on admin having to build a workflow for each and every team that feels that their process is somehow different than everybody else's. It lets them basically self-organize. Agility, being able to just boom, build out their workflow as they see fit. That's the biggest thing that I've seen so far that Jira could really learn from.
In Jira, say on the team, no matter the methodology, it doesn't matter what I'm practicing, if I am using the tool for a while and I've compiled some sort of history. If I want to change my workflow, say my team is today using to-do in progress done, and tomorrow, I decide I want to use to-do in review and done, and I apply that new workflow, I have just now effectively lost all of my histories in terms of reporting. Now the issues themselves, of course, the activity, the history, all of it is still there, but you lose all your boards. Not the boards per se, but the reporting within them. That includes all of my past sprint burndowns, all my past velocity reports, some of that stuff gets completely wiped away. The only way to restore it is to replace the original workflow. It's insane. It's the way that the application is built and it's all tied in with it. I had it explained to me one time by Atlassian, however, it's just really a bad thing - especially when you're in a large enterprise organization and then you get somebody like me that comes around that they hire to come in and be the product manager. The first thing I say is, "We need some fricking governance. You can't have 100 plus statuses. What the hell is this? Or 500 custom fields that half the people aren't even using."
The statuses in the workflow standardization become virtually impossible as I can say, "Hey. This workflow that you're using is a terrible workflow. Let me fix it for you. Let me give you a better workflow. Let's talk about this. Let's build a really good workflow." We need to go through that pain and then I have to tell them that, "Oh, and by the way though, if you adopt this new workflow that I'm sitting here telling you it's going to be so much better, be advised that you're going to lose all your reporting history." How do you think that's going to go? Probably not so good. That is a huge downfall.
For how long have I used the solution?
I'm an avid user of Jira and I've been using the product for at least a decade. At my company, I'm the product manager, however, I'm also the Jira admin support desk, and I wear all the hats for 4,000 plus users. Therefore, I'm very familiar with Jira.
I'm learning Azure DevOps as well, mostly due to the fact that I'm being forced to. The company is adopting Azure DevOps. I'm fighting to keep Jira around. It still has the value that it adds to the company. The business side of our company is largely embedded in the tool.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is excellent. I've never had any issues. If anything, it's probably one of our more stable products.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have found it difficult to scale. With the Advanced Roadmaps, we do have the ability to add additional layers of hierarchy. However, that's been a struggle at our organization as we're trying to adopt a Scaled Agile Framework. Unfortunately, with the Advanced Roadmaps for Jira, the hierarchy is very inflexible, which I've actually opened up a ticket with Atlassian on.
With the Scaled Agile Framework, you need to be able to move from the program - what was once called referred to as the program layer - and you may have a large solution layer, or you may not. If you don't, you go directly to the portfolio layer. That said, in Advanced Roadmaps, it's very inflexible. You can't skip a level if you want to. You have to go through this regimented hierarchy, which does not bode well for a Scaled Agile Framework environment. I've never been able to crack the code on how to get around that.
Also, the reporting in Jira seems to be very team-oriented. Yes, you can create boards and things using queries and combine items, however, I find it difficult to scale without an additional app or plugin. For example, if you've got a program and you've got a bunch of teams that are supporting said program, I find it difficult to be able to scale and show a program increment, a PI. That level of reporting is lacking. I know that there are apps out there for that. However, unless you're willing to spend a small fortune on a lot of apps, well, the core product doesn't scale above that of the team level.
The solution is extensively used in the company, and we are quite sizeable. We have about just under 4,000 active users. It used to be used it was 5,000 and then COVID hit and we lost a lot of contractors that were cut when COVID hit. It's that mostly and then some of the users are being siphoned out of the Atlassian tool stack now into Azure DevOps.
How are customer service and technical support?
99% of the technical support staff have been awesome. We actually have premier support. They seem to be very responsive and very helpful. Where I personally get frustrated is if there are issues and we give feedback and advice, and they respond with a "thank you, however, we aren't changing". They will tell us it's not a priority for them right now, and it can be frustrating.
There's a lot of different things out there that people feel that should be included as basic functionality within the application. Maybe some of those I agree with, some of them maybe not. However, when I see something that I consider a bug and then they tell me that, "Yeah, that's not a priority right now." I find that very frustrating. Just now, I was trying to configure the application for the ability to create or comment on issues by setting up a mail server. And there's a known bug. I don't know if they consider it a bug. However, when you configure that and somebody actually does reply to a system-generated email notification, it will add it as a comment, which is great, yet it will also automatically attach your profile picture to that issue.
Therefore, as many times as you comment or reply via an email is exactly how many times an attachment will be added to your issue, which obviously is ridiculous. That cannot be purposely designed that way. Who wants attachments of your own face added to an issue? And it just takes up space needlessly. Their response to me was, "Well, that's just not a priority right now." Basically, not enough people have complained about it yet and they must not be using that functionality, therefore they're not worried about it.
How was the initial setup?
I wasn't at the company when they originally set this solution up. There are certainly some things that I would do differently in hindsight, however, I wasn't here when they set it up originally and can't speak to what the process was like.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing information you can just get right off the internet. Atlassian is notorious for not negotiating. They have never negotiated up until very recently. They've started to negotiate contracts as they're really trying to push the cloud. They're trying to get people to move to the cloud. In some cases, they are willing to negotiate costs if you're willing to move to the cloud. Not only costs. Terms. They treat everybody equally, which honestly, I respect.
However, large enterprise organizations like the one I work for, hate it. They hate that as they feel like they have some sort of clout or they need to be able to throw their weight around a little bit and they needed to be treated specially. One of the biggest things that hurt Atlassian is its unwillingness to work directly with large enterprise organizations. It works well with smaller companies, however, their approach to large enterprise organizations really hurts them. The Microsofts of the world will send you a whole crew of people that will come in and do demos and meet with your senior executives. Atlassian has that in the equivalent of a TAM, technical account manager. 99% of the time if you call Atlassian, they'll say, "Whoa. You work with one of our third-party vendors." Which, okay, there's a ton of third-party vendors that are fantastic I'm sure, however, people want to see Atlassian. When you get into a larger enterprise organization, they don't appreciate the fact that an Atlassian representative can't come in and take the time to meet with people and do these things when they're spending that kind of money. It doesn't bode well. They really don't like it.
That's largely why they're being pushed out of Jira and onto other solutions. Microsoft, for example, has invested time and energy. Microsoft has also negotiated terms and pricing. Large companies would rather have a relationship with a company like that than a company that doesn't negotiate or come to see you.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I've started to look at Azure DevOps. I am personally the Jira product manager, and what I'm trying to do is have some sort of comparison. It all became very sudden. I was recently asked if, by the end of the week, I could provide a recommendation as to when one team should use Azure DevOps versus when one team should use Jira. I was told to look into why we should use one over the other or if they are so similar that it doesn't matter and we could just get rid of Jira. I've done very little research so far,
Obviously, Microsoft and Atlassian are competitors. Back when Azure DevOps was TFS, it wasn't even a close comparison in terms of boards. Jira blew TFS out of the water. It wasn't even remotely close. Well, then they obviously knew that they needed to improve and they basically made freaking boards look like Jira's boards and made some improvements on top of it in some ways. I suspect that there may be some underlying limitations with DevOps. I know that in Jira you could allow teams to just create the workflows that they want within reason, of course, while pulling from a series of predefined statuses and these things. Whereas, I don't know that you can do that in Azure DevOps. But then again, I don't know that it's necessary since you can already create the boards the way you want to.
I know that some people so far from customer feedback, tend to like the dashboards more in Azure DevOps. They seem to like the reporting options. They find it easier and more intuitive to use, however, I don't really know anything more about it than that. I just need to really know the pros and cons of each of these things. Here's what's surprising to me, if I'm at Atlassian or if I'm Azure DevOps or Microsoft, you would think that they would have something like that. You would think they'd be going, "Who is my biggest competitor? Well, I need to know these things so that I can improve my product and compete with him." However, when I reach out to them, I don't have any real comparison to work off of.
I did find one article online that was written by Atlassian and Azure DevOps versus Jira, however, it wasn't well-written.
What other advice do I have?
We're just customers and end-users.
I upgraded the application back in December, so we're on 8.13 right now. While we're currently on-premises, one of the things that were on my to-do this year was to consider moving to the cloud, which is something that we are very interested in doing.
Currently, we're using the Jira Data Center.
Our company has barely scratched the surface of the power of Jira in my personal opinion as they've just largely tried to do a bunch of customization. There was no governance set when I first joined the organization. People were just allowed to create whatever they wanted in any way they wanted, and it needed to be cleaned up, which doesn't help my efforts of course.
There might, in the near future, be many people who get siphoned off of Jira as the company already made a decision that Bamboo and Bitbucket are going. They're moving all the software development activities into Azure DevOps. We already know that. That's already been decided. Atlassian doesn't know that, however, it's happening. The process is probably going to take a year, maybe two. We haven't really rolled it out yet or defined or planned it out. That said, it will happen. Whether or not Jira sticks around though, we don't know yet. I'm hoping it will as I love using it.
I'd advise new companies that one of the biggest things to do at the outset is to just put some governance in place before you go rolling out. It's a super-powerful application. However, if you are in a large enterprise organization, you need to establish an advisory board before you go rolling this thing out. Really think about a steering committee. How are you going to handle requests for customization? What will the board handle? What will the board not handle? Or the committee, whatever you want to refer to it as. They obviously did not do that here when they rolled this out. It can be a really great thing if you have that in place. It's not overly cumbersome.
I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Sr. Sales Manager at ESDS Software Solution Pvt Ltd.
Easy to implement, easy to use, and suitable for smaller projects
Pros and Cons
- "The burndown charts help track projects."
- "Scripts should be more readily available for implementing projects."
What is our primary use case?
We are using the solution for project management.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution helps to track issues related to project management. It helps with different activities like assigning tasks and reacting to issues.
What is most valuable?
Linking the issues to members in the team and outside the team has been valuable. Jira's reporting and analytics features are very important for analyzing the entire sprint activity at the end or middle of the sprint. The tool helps track the capacity, velocity, assignments, and different team members’ activities. We can track the entire sprint speed. The burndown charts help track projects. Over time, the tool has completely adapted to our project's scanning needs. We use it however we want and change the settings as we want. So it's quite adaptive.
What needs improvement?
The product must provide more automation. Scripts should be more readily available for implementing projects. It should provide quick launch features to build projects.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the tool’s stability an eight to nine out of ten. It's quite stable. We haven't faced any issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The tool is quite scalable. It was quite useful for our projects. I rate the scalability eight out of ten. We have 30 to 40 users. We use the product daily.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Azure for some projects. We switched to Jira because it is easy to implement and use. It is good for smaller projects. It is easier to start using Jira than other products.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was quite easy. I rate the ease of setup an eight out of ten. The product is deployed on the cloud.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is quite competitive. I rate the pricing a seven to eight out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
I will recommend the product to others. It is easy to use and implement. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Apr 14, 2024
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