Jira Software Reviews

“Great tool”

Pros

Right from the start, it gives you a clean, simple setup that still feels very powerful. It works well for basic ticket workflows immediately and then scales with you as your company grows or as the range of tasks you need to manage expands. One thing I really appreciated is how customizable the ticket views are so you can show the information that matters and keep unnecessary clutter out of the way. The workflow editor is honestly one of the strongest I've seen in my professional career. That may not sound critical at first but once a business starts growing, unexpected needs always show up and suddenly you need to track work you never planned for. This system handles that really well, letting you create different task types, move them through task-specific phases and assign matching statuses. On top of that, all the notification handling and responsibility tracking between people is very well supported. Two other points deserve mention. First, it integrates easily with other tools, Confluence, Bamboo and the rest fit in naturally and that genuinely makes using the tools enjoyable. It's one of those products that actually makes you smile when you have to open it, regardless of the kind of task you need to track because it feels convenient, polished and backed by a very rich ecosystem of free and paid plugins even for fairly unusual use cases. Second, the licensing model scaled extremely well for us in the beginning. We brought it in when the company had only 8 people and now we're moving toward 200 so keeping tool costs reasonable was essential and it definitely delivered on that.

Cons

Once we grew larger, the licensing stopped feeling as flexible in the higher user tiers as it had in the lower ones. We also had one bad experience with an update that went wrong and it took a huge amount of time and effort to get everything working properly again. To be fair, we were running it on-premise and also using custom plugins so some of the risk likely came from that setup. If you rely on plugins, you really need to confirm they are available for the version you want to upgrade to which can mean quite a bit of research before doing updates. Another thing is that the workflow and notification setup can become extremely complex if you let it. Without great documentation at the time you configure it, that complexity can absolutely cause problems later.

“Workflow tracking tools”

Pros

convenient integration with GitHub and Bitbucket makes this incredibly valuable for our company. Ticket tracking works really well and once the workflow is configured properly, the whole system feels fantastic to use. The kanban and agile tracking features are especially helpful and I get a lot of value from the control chart reports. The Cardboard integration is another bonus that I really appreciate.

Cons

The workflow on our side was originally configured by someone else so making changes has been a challenge for me. I could probably sort it out by spending more time with the documentation but that part of the software doesn't feel very simple to navigate.

“Flexible workflows across teams”

Pros

Different departments across our company can all work in the same software while still using it in ways that fit their specific needs. It gives each team the freedom to build and follow its own workflow instead of forcing everyone into the same process.

Cons

One frustration is that the setting or feature we need is pretty often locked behind a paid integration or requires upgrading to a higher subscription tier.

“Strong team communication”

Pros

It works really well as a collaborative communication tool and makes it easier for teams to stay connected and work together.

Cons

At times, links to other pages do not show up clearly right away so they can be a little hard to notice on the page.

“Team visibility and tracking”

Pros

Across the team, it gives everyone a clear view of what each person is working on. You can quickly check project progress, leave comments, add links and share attachments in one place. It also makes it simple to prioritize issues openly and archive them for future reference.

Cons

It can be configured to send emails as an issue moves forward and if you get tagged often, the volume can feel a bit overwhelming. That said, you can manage it by adjusting the email settings or setting up a separate folder for those messages.

“Agile tool that clicks”

Pros

Compared with other Agile platforms, this one has been the most dynamic and easy to use. The screens respond fast and update without those irritating refreshes you get with tools like SharePoint or Team Foundation Server (TFS). It feels simple enough that I can teach teams about 90% of what they need to know about great Agile practices in about an hour.

Cons

One area that used to be pretty confusing was maintaining security groups and I'm hoping that's been improved in the latest release. We've also run into occasional performance slowdowns though they're usually brief and last only a few minutes or, at most, a little over an hour.

“Great SDLC and sprint tracking”

Pros

The platform feels user-friendly from the start and works really well for tracking the full SDLC. It has strong project management capabilities especially for sprint planning, retrospectives and similar workflows. It's also useful beyond development since it can handle application support and bug fixing effectively. Another plus is the single sign-on feature which is simple to use and convenient.

Cons

A few things could still be better. Ticket creation is manual, unlike Zendesk where tickets are generated automatically and that adds extra effort. It can also be hard to locate the version number when needed. On top of that, mass edits are a major tough point.

“Organized workflows and access”

Pros

One thing this tool does really well is user management. It handles both internal and external users with different permissions and access levels which makes administration much more practical. Being able to attach various file types to tickets and issues also helps a lot when you need to give full context. It keeps the whole team organized and productive and the integrations with platforms like Slack, Zapier and Gmail are another valuable plus. The interface is simple and easy to use as well.

Cons

Honestly, there is not much to dislike about this tool. If I had to point out one area for improvement, it would be the template designs and overall structure which could be refined a bit more.

“Scrum boards and insights”

Pros

Creating tickets, building dashboards and managing scrum boards is very easy with this tool. It also comes with strong filtering features that make it easier to understand what's happening and pull useful insights, including burndown charts and similar reports.

Cons

One area that could be better is filter creation. It would be more user-friendly if the filtering options were available in a more GUI-based format.

“Flexible setup and great support”

Pros

One thing that really stands out is how customizable this software is. You can tailor workflows, fields, user roles and plenty of other areas as much as you want or keep things more basic if that suits your team better. The pricing also feels very reasonable for what you get and support has been consistently excellent.

Cons

Because it gives you so much control over the functionality, it can feel a little overwhelming at times. There's also a huge amount of online documentation and while the answer to almost any question is usually there, tracking down the exact document you need can sometimes be frustrating.

“Project management tools”

Pros

It comes with a strong set of features for project management, along with great reporting tools that add a lot of value.

Cons

Getting everything set up can be fairly complex and providing day-to-day support can also take extra effort.

“Feature-rich ticketing”

Pros

Each ticket comes with plenty of fields which makes it possible to capture detailed notes for tasks, bugs and follow-ups. There's also a wide range of functionality built in once you know where to look and the available plugins help extend the product and make the overall experience better.

Cons

Different modes aren't very simple to discover so some parts can be harder to find than they should be. Also, paying for this software can feel a bit excessive when there are free alternatives out there that offer similar capabilities.

“Collaboration that clicks”

Pros

Navigation is very easy and it works really well for collaborating with others.

Cons

There are quite a few features packed in so it can feel a bit overwhelming for new users at first.

“Flexible tracking and updates”

Pros

One thing that really works well here is the flexibility. Linking stories and tasks is easy and the sub-task feature makes it much better to track every piece of work tied to an issue. The watching feature is also very useful because it keeps me notified when something changes which helps me stay current with development progress. On top of that, the comment section keeps all discussions in one place so it's easy to follow conversations whenever needed.

Cons

One limitation is that certain file types can't be attached to stories, bugs or tasks. I'd personally prefer the option to attach Word documents to issues although I understand that in our setup it would use too much storage space which is why we don't allow it.

“Great for team organization”

Pros

After a brief walkthrough from someone more familiar with it, using the platform becomes very easy. Setting up jobs is a simple process and it doesn't take an expert to build out a job structure with Epics and job links. It keeps the whole team organized, helps everyone stay focused on their tasks and makes it quick to show what we've been working on and why certain jobs may still be unfinished.

Cons

It has a lot of features that we're not really taking advantage of because we don't fully know they're there and there isn't much guidance explaining what's available.

“Zero learning curve”

Pros

Back when I first started using it, it was mainly focused on handling software fixes in development environments and it felt fantastic in its simplicity. There was honestly no learning time at all.

Cons

The design still feels like an area that needs more work but aside from that, it's excellent.

“Agile teamwork and visibility”

Pros

Our team relies on this product to handle software development projects organize tasks and monitor trouble tickets and it has become the central project management tool for everything we do. The usability and collaboration features are a big reason it works so well for an agile development team. It also gives managers strong visibility into projects which helps a lot with setting priorities and keeping track of progress. On top of that, the training resources are structured well and are very useful for helping new hires get up to speed quickly.

Cons

This program includes a huge amount of functionality which is useful but it also makes the learning curve pretty steep. Figuring out how to navigate it and really use all of its capabilities takes a considerable amount of time and effort.

“Bug tracking with deadlines”

Pros

Keeping tabs on bugs with this tool has been really good. It gives plenty of detail about each issue being tracked which helps a lot when following progress. It's also very useful for staying on top of project deadlines.

Cons

Getting started with it can feel pretty overwhelming at first but after using it a couple of times, it becomes much more manageable.

“Packed with integrations”

Pros

It really feels like they covered all the bases, with plenty of plugins and integrations available across a large number of third-party software tools.

Cons

We're using the hosted version and lately it has been running sakmaod slowly. It would help a lot if there were some kind of optimization option to improve the speed.

“Helpful task tracking features”

Pros

Getting started with it was very easy. It gives a much better way to track statuses like "Ready for QA" and "Ready for Testing," which makes progress much clearer. It also offers several task types beyond just stories and bugs, such as "Dependency," and that makes it much easier to distinguish between different kinds of work.

Cons

At this point, I don't have anything I dislike about it.