Jira Software Reviews

“reliable ticket tracking”

Pros

It's been a dependable tool for creating and tracking support tickets. Being able to drag and drop images is really handy, every update is emailed to the whole team automatically and organizing tickets by priority makes everything much easier to manage.

Cons

At the beginning, it can feel a bit overwhelming but after a little time using it, it becomes very easy. One part that isn't always as helpful is how quickly email notifications are sent whenever a ticket is edited.

“costly plugins and setup”

Pros

As a trouble ticketing tool, it does a really great job and one of its biggest strengths is how much you can expand it with the many plugins available. It also works well for Kanban and SCRUM within agile development which makes it useful beyond basic ticket management. On top of that, it's quite interesting for keeping projects monitored and organized.

Cons

The downside is that each plugin comes with a significant cost so for business use you end up paying for everything you need. Configuration and day-to-day use are not very easy either and there's a good chance you'll need support to get it set up properly.

“team visibility boost”

Pros

It works really well for keeping track of my own tasks while also giving me a clear view of where everyone else on the team stands with theirs. The interface is easy and it doesn't take much training to get other people comfortable and up to speed with using it.

Cons

Only downside I've run into is that duplicate jobs can pile up pretty easily and some jobs can sit around for a long time without any real reminder that they still exist. Lower-priority items can end up being overlooked indefinitely. That said, this feels more like an administrative process issue than an actual limitation of the software.

“feature-packed and connected”

Pros

It comes with a lot of useful features and the integration with other products works really well. The progress tracking tools are powerful and the notification system does a very good job of keeping everything on track.

Cons

It does take some time to get comfortable with the platform. The onboarding could also be more convenient especially for people who are new to task tracking.

“boards keep teams aligned”

Pros

One thing that really works well here is the Boards functionality, along with the frequent updates overall. The Boards give teams a very effective way to share work, collect resources and keep everything in one place while collaborating on projects.

Cons

Setting up certain plugins can feel a bit intimidating but it does provide great documentation for almost everything, including plugin configuration.

“flexible customization”

Pros

The biggest advantage is how customizable it is. You can set it up pretty much any way you want.

Cons

At times, tasks or boards take a while to load but honestly, a short coffee break during work isn't the worst thing.

“covers the essentials”

Pros

Using this has been a really positive experience overall. Everything from epic and story creation to tracking and reporting works well and the platform covers all the features I need as a user.

Cons

Only minor downside is that parts of the UI feel a bit outdated in design though that is a very light concern. The functionality the system provides is genuinely impressive and very effective to work with.

“great for issue tracking”

Pros

It does a great job of tracking development issues across our environment and gives us a practical way to assign tickets through the system.

Cons

Cost is a downside and it isn't very simple to use. The feature set also doesn't feel strong enough to clearly justify choosing it over free or lower-cost alternatives and finding older tickets or quickly referencing recent work is not easy.

“works well for large teams”

Pros

Handling and keeping track of issues and use cases becomes much more manageable with this especially when working across bigger teams.

Cons

Software is great but it seems to serve only a fairly small part of larger project workflows. A lot of other tools already include similar features so it can end up feeling like just one more tool added to the stack.

“better team collaboration”

Pros

One thing I appreciate most is how the platform provides a more aligned way to collaborate and share within software development project management.

Cons

Even though this software is an improvement over its predecessor, Unfuddle, the UI/UX still has plenty of room for refinement.

“Great ticket organization”

Pros

It works really well for managing tickets across multiple teams. All the tasks stay organized inside separate boards which can be structured by department, topic or category depending on how your team prefers to work.

Cons

The editing tools used to be harder to locate and use although the latest updates have made them more visible. There are still several different paths to reach the same ticket and that can be confusing at times.

“clean UX and integrations”

Pros

The UX feels really well done and I also appreciate how the software handles integrations with Bitbucket and testing tools like Selenium.

Cons

One thing that bothers me is how assigned tasks are listed. Since the task list is paginated, I keep getting sent back to the first page which means I have to go through each page again to find the task I need.

“great once configured”

Pros

Packed with features and after the initial setup is done, it becomes fairly easy to use.

Cons

Performance isn't as fast or responsive as I'd want which gets in the way of productivity as a power user. Setting up project and board schemas at the beginning is also very difficult. If the setup wizards and the schema reuse process were improved, it would be much better. Support isn't something to count on either, there's no live chat that I've seen and email responses can be pretty slow unless the question is about sales. The rich text editor still feels rough even after all this time and sometimes certain areas don't even include it for no clear reason. File uploads were also buggy, at least in 2019, with uploaded images ending up broken in the end.

“productive and powerful”

Pros

Right away, the full set of features made this tool stand out to me. I can customize my home view so the information that matters most is always front and center and it also supports working with stories based on the Agile framework as well as handling tickets. Altogether, it feels like a complete solution that really helps make the day more productive. "Be productive" is exactly the slogan that fits it.

Cons

I haven't run into anything yet that I would consider a downside.

“flexible forms and workflows”

Pros

Once you become familiar with it, the platform is quite easy to use. Being able to tailor forms, workflows, statuses and other features is very useful and as an admin making those changes is fairly simple as well.

Cons

It is definitely on the pricey side and any customizations that are not included out of the box usually require plugins. On top of that, most of those plugins are also quite expensive.

“reliable task tracking”

Pros

Across our projects, this has become a go-to tool for managing work and assigning tasks. We use it to track every project task from start to finish and it helps us stay organized throughout the entire process. Setting up alerts and due dates for tasks is also really helpful for keeping everything on schedule.

Cons

I can't think of any downsides. The software does exactly what it's supposed to do.

“team-friendly setup”

Pros

Getting started with this tool feels very easy thanks to its simple design. It works especially well when a large team is not grouped together and having the option to set up several environments is really useful. The mobile version is also available which makes it more convenient to use on the go.

Cons

There really are not many issues overall although new users can occasionally feel a bit confused at first. Since it's an older tool, there are plenty of tutorials available which helps a lot when that happens.

“versatile for many teams”

Pros

Right from the start, it was impressive to see how this tool works well for such a wide range of users and use cases. On top of that, I haven't heard any complaints from people as they began using it which says a lot about how approachable and effective it is.

Cons

From a usability standpoint, I haven't run into any drawbacks myself. The only concern I'm aware of is that the pricing can be pretty high for smaller companies.

“agile collaboration hub”

Pros

Across bug tracking and agile project management, this has been an excellent tool. It works especially well when several teams are involved at the same time, with plenty of integrations that help product strategy, product design and product development collaborate in one place and improve the overall project outcome. Each team can stay on top of its own milestones, deliverables and tasks through the filter and search features which makes day-to-day tracking much more manageable. If your team follows Agile Scrum, daily standups are supported really well through custom views. You can build views that focus only on the issues relevant to the discussion which saves time and makes those quick ten-minute meetings more efficient. Other features that make it very worthwhile are due date notifications, assignment distribution, labels, task priority levels and epic links that show both user stories and overall project progress. For teams using Kanban, the boards are flexible and let you turn certain features on or off depending on what you want visible to other members. It offers a lot of flexibility for managing task and deliverable backlogs and those capabilities work across different frameworks. Sprint planning, sprint releases and history organization are all handled in a very structured way. It can fit almost any kind of project management setup and the availability of customer support is also very helpful.

Cons

It does have some weaker points at a more detailed level. When managing workflow for a specific task, customizing the columns can be difficult. The layout tends to show every column in one static-style view without scrolling so each column gets squeezed into a smaller width and the text becomes harder to read because of the reduced font size. Since scrolling is not available, everything has to fit into a single browser screen which makes the view less practical. Pricing is another major concern. It is costly and clearly suits larger enterprise budgets much better while many small businesses may find it too expensive to justify. Limited user access can also make adoption tougher for smaller companies. There is a trade-off between usability and efficiency because users need a great understanding of the navigation and customization options before they can really make the platform work efficiently for project management. Customer support is useful but paying extra for it adds to the cost. At this point, pricing, customization and overall ease of use remain the biggest downsides.

“workflows and plugins”

Pros

The newer versions have a clean, user-friendly interface. It's very capable of managing permits and building workflows and the broad plugin selection adds a lot of extra functionality. There's also the option to create blackboards, plus it connects well with other applications in the suite. On top of that, the API makes automation possible which adds even more value.

Cons

Getting started can take time because the learning curve is fairly steep. Permission management is also quite complex and the per-user pricing can get expensive.