Pricing, Ease of Use, & Alternatives

Business owners understand the importance of effective project management. However, with so many options, knowing which software is right for your company can be overwhelming. Jira Software is one possibility to consider. Its unique features and capabilities make Jira Software the perfect choice for businesses to streamline their project management processes and achieve their goals. In this Jira review, we are going to break down the software highlights.

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What is Jira?

Jira Software is project management software designed for “issue tracking.” It can be project tasks or bugs, but the goal is to keep you informed across all project aspects. Teams can use multiple work views, like kanban, list or issue tracking, as well as project templates such as those in Jira Work Management. While the tool is an ideal fit for product or software development, it can also be used by any team for detailed project management and analytics.

Hands-on Jira review results

Based on initial impressions from exploring Jira Software, it’s an intuitive, feature-rich tool with great templates and project work views. The interface is fast, sleek and easy to navigate. As you’re setting up, there are built-in tutorials to help you start your projects, a variety of work views, customizable filters, task automation and project templates.

It can take longer to learn if you aren’t used to having so many options or templates to choose from. No matter what software you buy, even if you think it’s beginner-friendly, you still need to plan time for training. You should give your team about three weeks of grace and always base the timeframe on how comfortable they are. Jira is most certainly not a software solution you can become an expert in after one week.

Jira pricing: 4.4/5

The main difference between monthly and annual pricing is the number of seats you need. If you need one seat or less than 10, then you pay per user monthly. The annual plans are for buying a set of 10 minimum licenses for the year.

Free

The Free plan includes 10 users, 2GB of file storage, community support and a maximum of 100 emails daily. Teams can spread out with unlimited project boards and 100 automations across multiple projects per month. It provides access to Jira Work Management and offers agile boards for scrum and kanban, allowing you to break large projects into manageable pieces.

Standard

Jira Software’s Standard plan caps at 35,000 users, has 250GB of file storage, and 1,700 automations per month. Teams get advanced role permissions, permission sharing between company-managed projects and audit logs for tracking significant changes and powerful Agile boards. The Standard plan is suitable for team collaboration and those with less complex project management requirements.

Premium

Jira Software Premium offers unlimited storage, 1,000 automations per month per paid user, 24/7 Premium support and 99% uptime service-level agreement guaranteed. Teams can organize with project archiving to reduce clutter and stay current. The plan even has sandbox and release tracks, allowing you to test and experiment with projects before they go live. Managers can view projects better in the advanced roadmaps as well. The Premium plan is ideal for large organizations with multiple teams and complex projects.

Enterprise

The Enterprise plan’s pricing is available when you contact the sales team. It includes unlimited product instances, centralized per-user licensing, enterprise-grade security, and governance controls. Large teams will benefit from unlimited users and sites and Atlassian Enterprise Advocates for ongoing support. Jira Software’s Enterprise plan is ideal for large organizations with complex requirements, such as multiple projects, teams, and locations.

Core Jira features: 5/5

Like its competitors, Jira is a great solution for project management, resource management, customization and analytics. Its unique offering is suited to handle complex project management needs. We go over those features below.

Dashboards and reports

Figure A

At least 39% of businesses use data to find opportunities and make informed decisions. You can use Jira Software’s dashboards and reports to gather real-time insights into a project’s progress and adjust accordingly (Figure A). Create over 15 reports for every project stage to help you visualize trends, such as sprints, versions, epics and issues.

Jira Software’s issue tracking is a powerful tool that helps teams manage tasks, bugs and other issues in a centralized location. You can create problems, assign them to team members and set priorities and due dates.

The issue-tracking feature also provides transparency and visibility into your team’s work. You can view the status of issues at any time and create custom dashboards and reports to track progress (Figure B). You’ll also get live updates on new tasks, changes or comments.

Figure B

Integrations

Figure C

Jira Software integrates with over 3,000 tools your team needs to complete their work, including Slack, Microsoft, Google, Zoom and more. Jira also has a cloud family of applications, including Jira Software, Jira Service Management, and Jira Work Management, which you can use on the same site. Additionally, the Jira Cloud integration for Excel lets users push data into a spreadsheet.

Agile development

Jira Software was designed to use Agile methodologies for planning, tracking and managing projects and software development. It is an iterative approach that allows teams to break their tasks into smaller chunks. It also enables employees to adjust quickly and adapt to changes.

Additionally, Jira Software provides templates for kanban (Figure D) and scrum frameworks, allowing teams to choose the best approach for their project.

Figure D

Roadmaps

Figure E

Jira Software’s roadmaps let you plan, track, release and report on work (Figure E). It provides a Gantt chart view of data from one team in a single project, with customizable options to view the name and status, plus dependencies between tasks.

Roadmaps enable you to align your project with company objectives while promoting accountability and communication. You can also export your roadmaps in PDF or CSV format for easy sharing.

Role assignments

Role assignments allow you to manage user access and permissions for products easily. It enables you to assign users to groups, project roles and applications (Figure F). This feature is handy for businesses with multiple projects as it allows for keeping track of configurations and avoiding potential conflicts. Jira Software enables you to assign permissions via group control; create new projects, fields and users; and change workflow.

Figure F

Jira ease of use: 4/5

Jira scores pretty high for ease of use because it offers a modern design that is easy to navigate. The setup is fast and has built-in tutorials. The downsides are the software is dense and you need time to learn all the options. The more customization, automation, and analytics a project requires, the more time you need to set everything up.

Jira customer service and support: 4.3/5

When it comes to customer support, users are generally satisfied, but there is definitely room to improve. With such complex software, not having as much access to support can be frustrating, so make sure the software meets your team’s needs.

Community support

In the free plan and all paid plans, teams can look in the community forum to see if their question has already been answered. They will also be able to pose a new question or open up a discussion. It’s not very personalized and can take time, but it does offer an extra learning space.

Support across plan tiers

Only paid plans are actually able to contact the Jira support team about issues, and in Standard, you can only get a response during regular business hours. The Premium plan offers 24/7 priority support, and the Enterprise plan includes 24/7 support with the ability to connect individual user subscriptions in one license.

Customer service

In terms of reviews from third-party sites, Jira has overall good feedback on its customer support, generally ranking around 4 out of 5 and sometimes 3 out of 5. Negative feedback for software tends to focus on responsiveness and access to support.

Jira pros and cons

Best uses for Jira

Overall, Jira’s customizability, range of features and real-time visibility are why many businesses choose Jira Software. This project management software allows them to manage their projects more effectively and significantly increase productivity. Still, if you’re looking for something more niche, here are some examples.

Software development

Jira Software is best suited for technical teams and organizations looking for a comprehensive solution to manage software development projects. It provides teams with various features, including tracking bugs, managing releases and versions, and integrating with other development tools. Plus, with its highly customizable workflows and Agile methodology support, businesses can tailor Jira to their project management needs.

Small startups and nonprofits

Large teams will end up spending more in Jira, but small teams capped at 10 users can still utilize the Free plan. It offers a great introduction to core features like work views, templates and work management. Nonprofits can also benefit from the free plan, and if they qualify, they can get 75% off their paid plan. You can go to Jira’s application page to apply.

Complex projects

Even if you aren’t a tech team, Jira is still a great project management application for complex projects that need reporting and automation. You can track goals, people and deadlines with Gantt charts; build custom filters or dashboards; and import data into project templates.

Jira alternatives and competitors

Jira Software is a popular project management tool but is one of many available. Here are three of Jira’s main competitors and some key ways they differ.

Trello

Trello is a visual, card-based project management tool often used by small teams and individuals. Unlike Jira Software, Trello is designed to be simple and intuitive, focusing on visual organization and collaboration.

Trello is also more affordable than Jira Software, with a free version that offers basic functionality and paid plans that are more affordable than Jira’s pricing.

Check out our more in-depth comparison of Jira Software and Trello.

Asana

Asana is a cloud-based project management tool designed to help teams track and manage their work. Like Jira Software, Asana offers a range of features and customization options, but it is generally considered more user-friendly and accessible.

Asana also offers better customer support, with a dedicated team and a range of resources and tutorials to help users get started.

Check out our more in-depth comparison of Jira Software and Asana.

ClickUp

ClickUp is an online, highly customizable project management application. You can explore its 15 different work views, custom templates for different use cases and over 50 native integrations. The software has sprint workflows, advanced automation, analytics and reporting options. Compared to Jira, ClickUp can be easier to get started with and offers more customization for less cost.

Jira review methodology

We evaluated Jira Software by testing the software and looking at online resources, such as the Jira Software Evaluator Resources page. We also examined the success criteria for Jira Software before and after using it to measure parameters such as usability, productivity, transparency and satisfaction with overall capabilities and additional features.

Jira is easy-to-use, but it can also be overwhelming at first and can set your team back initially. If you need a large number of users and the power to handle complex projects like software development, then Jira is certainly worth trying. You should take full advantage of online tutorials and the free trial. Keep your team involved and value their feedback.