Jira
Read everything about the Jira project management tool in this detailed review. Find out its key features, pricing plans, integrations, alternatives, and more.
What is Jira?
Jira is one of the most popular project management tools used by agile software teams around the world. Users can use Jira to chalk out a roadmap, prioritize, and delegate tasks.
It is primarily used by software teams as the project management tools efficiently streamline different stages of the application development process.
The vendor has ensured that the Jira tool is regularly updated to stay abreast with the latest trends in the software development space. The solution enables users to create flexible plans due to its support for Kanban, Scrumban, and Scrum methodologies.
The platform’s visual and data-driven reporting is a huge bonus as teams can access them to learn more about their agile processes.
The user interface is among the easiest to understand and allows users to collaborate and optimize their work processes. As Jira Software is available for Android and iOS users, users can track and manage projects in real-time.
Vendor Details
- Company: Atlassian
- Website: https://www.atlassian.com/
- Founded in 2013
- Country of origin: Australia
Jira Key Metrics
Scrum boards
The scrum boards provide a visual understanding of the progress made by teams guided by a scrum framework. Scrum boards are more than just task boards and function to improve communication and transparency. Besides they also enhance team focus and organization and encourage sprint planning and iterative development.
Despite being primarily developed for technical teams, Jira’s scrum boards can be used by different teams to facilitate efficient project management.
Kanban boards
Kanban is a framework for DevOps and agile software development that offers work and team capacity. Jira’s Kanban boards enable developers to understand their workflow, maximize efficiency, and limit work-in-progress.
Kanban boards allow users to consistently improve their cycle time and boost efficiency. Jira Kanban boards streamline workflows, help developers identify bottlenecks, and promote transparency.
Roadmaps
This feature is arguably one of the most powerful features of the Jira tool. It allows developers or users to chalk out a roadmap, communicate the same with stakeholders, and ensure all the team members are connected to the roadmap.
Jira offers two road-mapping tools (basic and advanced) which allow users to create and achieve goals. Users track dependencies across different teams and also create multiple versions of their roadmap (available for advanced only).
Cutting-edge reporting
Users can improve performance and delivery with agile reports. These reports provide insights for Kanban, Scrum, and other agile methodologies in between.
By glancing through these reports, users can stay afloat with their sprint goals and enhance retrospectives with data. These reports also help users identify bottlenecks and make predictions for future performances.
Reports offered by Jira include pie chart report, average age report, recently created issues report, resolution time report, time since issues reports, and more.
Customization
Jira was predominantly marketed as an agile system that is capable of addressing the niche requirements of different industries. Jira has consistently been upgraded over the years with new customizable features.
The latest version uses a hybrid Scrumban approach which integrates Kanban and Scrum to enable adaptation with various user scenarios.
Jira Important Features
- Bugs and defect management
- Search and filtering
- Mobile interface
- Scrum, Kanban, and Scrumban boards
- Customizable dashboards and wallboards
- Customizable workflows
- Unlimited custom fields
- Advanced reporting
- Advanced administration and security
- OnDemand and OnPremise deployment
- Easy data import from other systems
Jira Pricing
Jira offers four main pricing plans. The pricing varies on the number of users.
The prices given below are for 10 users. For more information, visit the vendor’s website.
Free
- Price: $0
- Ideal for: small teams
Standard
- Price: $7
- Ideal for: expanding teams
Premium
- Price: $14
- Ideal for: businesses that scale how they track work and collaborate
Enterprise
Price: Custom pricing
Ideal for: large enterprises with high-end governance, scale, and security requirements.
Jira Pros and Cons
- User-friendly interface
- Positive user experience
- Extremely agile Kanban/Scrum support
- Customization options for reports, dashboards, etc
- Very collaborative
- One of the best tools to get status updates, controlling workflows, and drawing a roadmap.
- Workflow feature
- Jira can get slow at times
- Edit and viewing workflows created by other users needs improvement
- Steep learning curve for admins
- Reporting can be cumbersome on some occasions.
- Requires a high-performance system to operate.
- Roadmapping capabilities require some minor tweaks.
- Jira could add a whiteboard or a storyboarding feature.
Jira Integrations
- ScriptRunner
- BitBucket
- Service Desk
- nFeed
- Sales Cloud
- Balsamiq
- Zendesk
- EasyBI
- Gliffy
- Zephyr
- Tempo
- Timetracker
- Google Docs
- GitHub
- io
- Microsoft Teams
- Atlassian Confluence
Jira Specifications
Free Trial – Yes
Free version – Yes
Deployment
- Cloud-hosted
- On-premise
Devices supported
- Windows
- Linux
- iPhone/iPad
- Mac
- Web-based
Training
- Atlassian community
- Knowledge base
- In-app training
- Free video tutorials
- Hands-on training
- Documentation
- Developer resources
Typical customers
Software teams in:
- Small-sized businesses
- Medium-sized businesses
- Large businesses
Jira Pricing
- Free plan: $0 per month per user
- Standard: $7 per month per user
- Premium: $14 per month per user
- Enterprise: custom pricing
Languages supported
- English
- Spanish
- German
- French
- Italian
- Dutch
- Korean
- Chinese
- Japanese
- Russian
- Portuguese
- Polish
Jira support
- Live support
- Phone
- Tickets
Jira Alternatives
- monday.com
- Asana
- Wrike
- ClickUp
- Ravetree
- Trello
- ProWorkflow
- HarmonyPSA
- Smartsheet
- Workfront
- Easy Projects
- Favro
- Quixy
- Samepage
- Odoo