Jira Software Reviews

“Feasible teamwork”

Pros

It helps our different teams collaborate easily across multiple office locations.

Cons

Server maintenance and update tasks seem to take longer than I would normally expect.

“clear sprint visibility”

Pros

Having everything in one place makes sprint tracking much more manageable. The dashboard gives the whole team a complete view so timelines are clear to everyone involved. It also lets users create stories and collaborate through the tickets that are raised which helps communication and keeps the project organized. Overall, it supports much more efficient project management.

Cons

My only concern is the pricing since it feels a bit expensive. Smaller or budget-conscious organizations may not be able to justify the cost. I recently suggested it to a new team and they were reluctant to adopt it because of the per-user pricing model.

“project management value”

Pros

It covers everything needed for managing projects and tasks and the pricing is much lower than most other tools available on the market.

Cons

Adding projects and tasks is very easy, assigning them to the team feels user-friendly and the Bitbucket integration is an excellent feature.

“smooth story creation”

Pros

Getting started with this product feels easy and creating stories or navigating through the software is pretty simple overall.

Cons

Setting everything up and keeping it maintained takes a noticeable amount of time and effort so it does require real commitment to the process.

“feature-rich but rough”

Pros

There are plenty of features and functions packed into it and they can handle tasks or issues of any size throughout the entire lifecycle. It also makes tracking projects much more efficient.

Cons

Having all those useful features is definitely a plus but a few of them can be glitchy. The login APIs occasionally fail and the platform overall could use better quality and fewer errors.

“custom boards that help”

Pros

One of the best things about it is how much you can tailor it to fit your team's specific workflow. There's hardly any limitation and when something doesn't quite work, you can adjust it, learn from it and keep refining the setup until it does. The task boards are a favorite feature of mine because they really help me stay focused and keep everything on track. I also appreciate the newer addition that shows how many days a ticket has been sitting in a category since that has been really useful for staying engaged and keeping work moving.

Cons

For someone new to the platform, the interface can feel like a lot to take in at first. Even as a UX designer who regularly works across different software tools, I still get mixed up by the filters sometimes.

“workflows with rich features”

Pros

Once it's set up properly, the workflow tools can be extremely powerful, particularly for larger and more complex organizations. There's also a huge range of functionality built in, plus plenty of additional options available through the third-party marketplace.

Cons

At the same time, it feels like the platform gets larger, slower and more awkward to use every year. The bulk change feature is fairly advanced but navigation can be so slow that you end up relying on it even when you're only dealing with a small number of issues. The workflow setup can also be frustrating for smaller organizations that just want the software to stay out of the way. On top of that, there are some long-standing missing features and limitations that seem tied to avoiding overlap with its third-party marketplace.

“clear ownership and alerts”

Pros

Best thing about it is that everyone on the project can clearly see who is responsible for each task and when it is supposed to be finished. On top of that, being able to assign work to other team members is really useful and the automatic notifications are helpful because the assignee gets alerted right away when something new is assigned.

Cons

The only thing I'd really like to see improved is the attachment size limit. There have been times when I wanted to upload files directly into it but I couldn't because the files were too large.

“great value for teams”

Pros

The starting price is really appealing for smaller teams that are just getting going and it includes all the features needed to manage the workflow for just about any type of project.

Cons

Setting up projects and adding new fields can be more complicated than they need to be. That said, the newer interface helps a lot and using a template project can be a practical workaround.

“powerful but hard to set up”

Pros

It's adaptable enough to support different workflows and it comes packed with pretty much every feature you could need right out of the box.

Cons

Getting it set up becomes really difficult once you need anything beyond basic customization and the overall complexity often makes it feel slow to use.

“Great dashboards”

Pros

Right away, this works really well for general business use and project tracking. It's very user-friendly while still offering detailed task tracking and reporting when you need more depth. Workflow-based process management can also be configured which helps adapt it to different ways of working. On top of that, the dashboard and reporting features are extensive and give a great view of progress and performance.

Cons

There really aren't many downsides overall. The biggest one is the licensing cost since it's a proprietary tool and can get expensive. For a very small team or a small project, it may not provide enough value to justify using it.

“agile boards that work”

Pros

Creating issues, tasks and questions feels very easy thanks to the user-friendly interface. Setting up boards is just as simple and there's enough customization to tailor them to the way your team works. It's an excellent tool to back agile projects and keep everything organized.

Cons

There are still some limits when it comes to customizing the look and feel of issues and boards so I'd like to see more flexibility there. Also, the JQL used for defining swimlanes or quick filters doesn't always behave as expected in certain cases even when the syntax appears to be correct.

“visibility and accountability”

Pros

Bringing Confluence and SQL into the platform makes data visualization far more powerful and genuinely useful. It gives you a quick view of how long people's work is taking, whether things are on track and a lot more beyond that. It does a really great job of keeping everyone accountable and focused on the work they need to deliver.

Cons

Setting up the boards can feel confusing at times. After using it for a week or so, it starts to make more sense but there's definitely room for tutorials or how-to videos so first-time users can get comfortable with the software faster. A more simple UI would probably help as well.

“backlog and sprint planning”

Pros

Creating epics, stories and bugs is easy and writing up stories feels natural thanks to the Word-like editor. Backlog management is also simple and setting up sprints for the team doesn't take much effort. Another big plus is the customization since you can adjust it to fit the way your team works.

Cons

It comes with a huge number of features and our team doesn't end up using many of them. Some parts feel like more than we really need although that may depend on the team. The interface can feel crowded and a bit hard to navigate at first even though it gets easier once you've spent more time with it. The pricing is also quite high especially for larger companies.

“free plan with strong tools”

Pros

It comes with a free version that works well for teams of 10 people or fewer and it includes a lot of powerful features for analyzing and organizing projects.

Cons

There are so many functions that not all of them will be useful for every user, the collaboration side can feel a bit confusing and the checklist feature isn't very practical.

“quick to learn”

Pros

From the start, this product has been simple to use and fast to pick up. It handles a variety of tasks within one software which makes it really useful overall.

Cons

I don't have any complaints. It's a great product, very easy to use, quick to learn and capable of doing multiple things well.

“strong project visibility”

Pros

Being able to organize separate teams, set up stories as parent-level tasks and then break work down into tasks and subtasks really helps keep everything needed to finish a project or manage a sprint in order. Tickets can be assigned to specific people and the reporter who created the ticket also gets notified about updates which is very useful. It provides clear visibility into what's happening across a project and how everyone is progressing.

Cons

Usability and design have come a long way since I first started using the software but it still isn't always very simple and can be a bit difficult to navigate at times.

“highly customizable”

Pros

There's a lot of flexibility here, with plenty of plugins available to handle just about anything you need or want. It's highly customizable and being able to test plugins before deciding whether to buy them is a big plus.

Cons

Nearly everything I want to accomplish seems to require a paid plugin. It also doesn't feel simple to me at all and I'm still having a hard time getting comfortable with it. I do have more training scheduled though.

“great with bitbucket”

Pros

Being part of the Atlassian ecosystem, it integrates really well with Bitbucket which is exactly what I expected. Managing the task lifecycle feels very easy with the swimlanes interface. The UX also seems well thought out especially when it comes to showing sprint status at a glance and helping users quickly understand what's going on.

Cons

The newer task details interface has been a bit frustrating for me. Some elements are harder to locate there so I sometimes have to switch back to the old view to find what I need. That said, having the option to return to the previous layout is a very nice feature.

“custom plugins that help”

Pros

With plug-ins, it can be tailored almost as much as you want sometimes even beyond what's really necessary.

Cons

It's pretty easy to go off track and build an environment that asks for too much required information. At times, a development team just needs the bare essentials.