Jira – Atlassian - Project Management

Our Verdict

Jira is an immensely powerful but flexible project management tool, especially for agile development teams. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. Its usefulness is tied to the complexity of the projects in that it can be incredibly efficient for managing large, multi-team, technical projects.

Its customizable workflows, query language (JQL), and automation features provide a granular level of control and insight for managing intricate projects. However, all of this means a steep learning curve and the potential for over-configuration.

Jira is best for technical teams, particularly those in software development, IT, and DevOps, where its agile boards, bug tracking, and seamless integrations with development tools are useful. It can also be good for operational and marketing teams (in technical niches). However, it may not be a great fit for small, non-technical teams or individuals working on more linear projects.

Pros

Optimized for development teams
Powerful integration capabilities
Free tier for small teams
AI features for more productivity
Scalable solution for fast-growing projects

Cons

Learning curve
Complex for simpler projects

Products & Pricing

Jira offers a free tier for small teams and paid tiers for large teams and enterprises. The paid tiers bring advanced features, more automation, and customer support.

Jira’s pricing is based on the number of users, so the total cost depends on the size of your team. Larger teams often get a lower price per user. You can choose between monthly or annual billing, with annual plans offering a discount.

Here are the plans and their prices:

Free: The free plan is for teams with up to 10 users and includes pretty much everything basic for project management, plus 2 GB storage and 10 automations per month.
Standard: The Standard plan includes all of the Free tier’s features and role-based access control, external collaboration, more storage, and automations. It starts at $8.60 per user per month.
Premium: The Premium plan includes all of the things in Standard, plus AI features, more collaboration capabilities, customizations, and 24/7 support for critical issues. It starts at $17 per user per month.
Enterprise: The Enterprise plan is custom-priced. It includes all of Premium features plus cross-product insights, more control and access management, and unlimited automations. It also includes round-the-clock support for all issues.

Free

$0 /mo

Up to 10 users

Standard

$8.60 /mo/user

Premium

$17 /mo/user

Enterprise

Custom Pricing

Up to 50,000 users

In-depth review

Task Management

Jira is built on a strong task management framework that helps teams organize, prioritize, and track their work. It refers to all work items as “issues,” which can be further categorized as tasks, bugs, user stories, epics, and sub-tasks. Each issue can be assigned to a team member, given a priority level, and a due date. Click on the task to have all the related information in one place. Those tasks can be viewed differently depending on how the project was set up, such as a list, calendar, timeline, sprints, and backlog.

Collaboration & Communication

Collaboration and communication are Jira’s significant strengths. All project-related information is in one place for all teams, including external ones (paid plans). Team members can leave comments on issues, use “@mentions” to notify specific colleagues, and receive real-time notifications about updates and changes. Plus, it integrates well with third-party tools many teams use for communication, like Slack and Microsoft Teams, so messages always have some context.

Project Tracking & Reporting

Jira’s project tracking and reporting capabilities are a core value proposition, as these features are also on the free tier. It offers a wide range of built-in reports for agile teams. Some examples include Burndown Charts to track sprint progress, Velocity Charts to forecast future capacity, and Cumulative Flow Diagrams to identify bottlenecks. These reports provide a data-driven view of project health and team performance. Teams can also create custom dashboards for reporting purposes. They can use JQL to create reports in seconds.

Integrations & Add-Ons

Integration is another area where Jira truly shines. It has created an ecosystem of add-ons (plugins) and third-party integrations through the Atlassian Marketplace, with over 3,000 integrations available. Popular integrations include GitHub, Bitbucket, Microsoft 365, Zendesk, Salesforce, AgileTest, and Kanban Analytics. These integrations extend Jira’s functionality beyond mere project management.

Automation & AI

Jira’s automation engine allows teams to create “if-then” rules to automate repetitive tasks without writing code. This feature can automatically assign issues, transition tickets through a workflow, or send notifications based on specific triggers. More recently, Jira has gotten the AI upgrade with “Atlassian Intelligence.”. These AI capabilities can help with tasks like summarizing lengthy issue comments, generating JQL from plain English queries, and even suggesting automation rules. Rovo, Atlassian’s AI assistant and agent, can help team members save time by performing simple tasks quickly with just a prompt.

Features & Functionality

Jira effectively covers all the basic project management features. It gives teams a central place to plan, track, and report on work. You can create and organize tasks, user stories, and bugs to keep everything on track.

All teams are accessible in one place, even if they aren’t directly involved in the project. Built-in tools like comments, mentions, and notifications help everyone stay in sync.

It can be used as a web application or standalone software on desktops (Windows and macOS) and mobile devices like iOS and Android (Jira Cloud app).

Here are three features of Jira that stand out:

Customizable Workflows

Customizable workflows let teams define the exact sequence of statuses and transitions a task or issue must go through from start to finish. Teams can tailor a workflow to match their specific processes, whether a complex software development pipeline or a simple marketing approval process. Since many organizations do things differently, this customization comes in very handy.

Jira Query Language (JQL)

A highlight of Jira is Jira Query Language (JQL), which is an SQL-like query language for advanced searching and filtering. You can build complex queries to find specific issues based on a wide range of criteria, such as status, assignee, priority, or custom fields. This capability goes beyond simple filtering and saves time. You can also share searches, create custom reports, and use JQL dynamic dashboards.

Granular Security Controls

Paid plans offer granular security controls, particularly role-based access control. For Premium and Enterprise users, there are even more comprehensive security measures, such as IP allowlisting, so only users from a trusted network can access projects in Jira. And, of course, all the data in the platform is encrypted.

Ease of Use

Jira started as a project management tool for agile development teams, and that shows in its ease of use. Although the user interface has improved significantly over the years, its extensive features and technical lingo (issues, sprints, epics, etc.) create a steep learning curve, especially for someone without a technical background.

That said, once a user is trained on using the platform, it becomes easy to use, simply because of the flow of things and the many automations it now offers. The tutorials are helpful for both new and experienced users, especially as new features and integrations are added.

So, while the learning curve can be steep at first, Jira becomes much easier to use with the right training and some hands-on experience.

Customer Service

Jira/Atlassian support is mainly based on Documentation and the Knowledge Base, where users can find all the information regarding the software. Premium and Enterprise subscribers have access to round-the-clock support. Additionally, Jira offers a knowledge base with detailed articles and an online forum.