Jira Software Reviews

“Kanban boards improve planning”

Pros

Over the past few months, this software has really helped me organize my work better. I can plan tasks from log files and send them to the development team for prototype builds which has made my workflow much more manageable. It also works well for reporting bugs and tracking issues. The scrum and kanban boards are especially helpful for prioritizing tasks and keeping everything moving quickly and efficiently.

Cons

It's a very useful tool overall but I do run into occasional problems when trying to save my files.

“Agile-friendly features”

Pros

There are plenty of features that align well with agile methodology needs.

Cons

UI could use some improvement because it can feel confusing and overly complex at times.

“Flexible planning tools”

Pros

There's a huge range of features and configuration options which makes it adaptable for all kinds of project planning and management needs and team setups.

Cons

The sheer number of available options can feel overwhelming when you're just getting started.

“Keeps work organized”

Pros

It does a really good job of organizing development tasks and helping everyone stay on track.

Cons

It can be a bit difficult at times especially if you have not used a tool like this before.

“Bitbucket workflow done right”

Pros

It's impressive how much power this tool has under the hood. Our team has made it part of our standard development workflow and we really appreciate how naturally it connects with BitBucket which makes tracking branches and commits much more manageable. The sprint dashboard is easy enough for our product and account managers to follow while each story, task and sub-task still includes the level of detail our developers need to jump in and get moving.

Cons

Getting started comes with a pretty steep learning curve. I'm saying that as a product manager so developers may pick up the concepts faster than I did. It took me quite a while to understand how the relationships work when setting up sprint logic and mapping a story's progress across the board. Once I spent more time in it, everything started to click little by little. Even so, I think a more detailed sample project built into the tool would be extremely helpful for guiding new users.

“Quick setup and automation”

Pros

Getting a project organized and a team up and running takes very little effort with this tool. The customization options and automation features save a lot of time as well and help move work along much faster.

Cons

Interface gets updated fairly often which can be a little disruptive and some pages start to feel laggy if they've been open for a while without a refresh.

“Agile planning setup”

Pros

After adjusting the way you plan, this turned out to be one of the best systems I've worked with. Once you get comfortable with it, it becomes a really strong tool for Agile planning. I've also used it beyond Agile as a hybrid solution for data center provisioning especially in situations where a pure Agile approach is difficult to apply.

Cons

It does take some time to fully understand how to merge multiple projects and clearly view the dependencies between them.

“All-in-one tracking platform”

Pros

Having everything in one place is a big plus. It combines issue tracking, logging and a Kanban/Scrum board to follow work throughout the software development lifecycle. It also supports reading and writing work items to Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) which really matters because my company relies on TFS for source control.

Cons

Getting projects and boards configured can be a little tough because there are so many options to work through. Thankfully, support is available to help with that part.

“Practical case tracking”

Pros

Being able to assign cases to different departments is really practical and it makes follow-up and tracking much easier when you're waiting on a solution or requesting information.

Cons

There are times when the platform won't let you log in and in my case I sometimes have to clear the cookies before I can access it properly.

“Handy project docs access”

Pros

Having quick access to documentation for projects other teams are working on has been really helpful especially when those projects impact my day-to-day work and overall workflow.

Cons

Social media feed integration still feels limited. I'd like to embed Twitter and Instagram feeds directly into customer SOP pages but right now I have to go to each customer's social media page separately to find that information. Definitely could use more API support.

“Team collaboration across teams”

Pros

Across the last three companies I've worked at, this tool has consistently been part of my workflow and one thing I've really appreciated is how well it connects with other tools while also offering everything needed for collaboration in one place.

Cons

Sometimes it feels overly complicated and figuring out how to use certain features can be difficult.

“Excellent ticketing and integrations”

Pros

Ticket creation is excellent and there's a ton of support available. The integration capabilities are also really strong.

Cons

Reporting data can feel delayed and reports sometimes get mixed up. Permission settings are also pretty finicky to manage.

“Task tracking standard”

Pros

It's become the industry standard and it lets me record and follow tasks from the initial concept and design stages all the way through development and deployment.

Cons

There are so many features that it can feel a little overwhelming at first. At the same time, you don't need to know much to start using it so the thing that might seem like a weakness is also one of its biggest strengths. In the end, that's actually a positive. You can create a task with just a few keystrokes and track it from beginning to end or you can dig into the full range of features and APIs if you want to do a lot more.

“All projects in one place”

Pros

Having everything from all my projects together in one place makes managing work really simple. It saves me a ton of time and keeps things much more organized.

Cons

There are times when it takes a bit to load but once it does, it's completely worth it.

“Flexible drag-and-drop for tech teams”

Pros

Compared with Basecamp, Asana and Wrike, the drag-and-drop feature here stands out the most. It feels more flexible and works better for our technical team which has made it a better fit for us than the other systems we've used.

Cons

Missing piece right now is urgency tracking and proper due date management.

“Built for enterprise workflows”

Pros

Being the industry-standard ticketing platform gives it a huge advantage since almost everyone in IT knows it and people even use the product name as shorthand for tickets in general. It handles large, monolithic projects well, along with all the connected work that goes with them. One of the most useful parts is how it automatically creates self-referencing links inside comments and ticket fields so dropping a ticket title into another issue turns into a direct reference automatically. It also does a great job of expanding existing tickets with related tasks, subtasks and priority tracking. On top of that, its popularity means an enormous number of third-party tools support it through plugins and integrations which makes it hard to avoid in the IT world.

Cons

Even though it is the standard, that does not mean it is the right fit for every project or every company size. Like a lot of heavy commercial platforms, it is not really built for simple everyday usage. It starts to shine in bigger projects, larger teams and more complex organizations but that same strength does not really carry over to smaller projects or basic day-to-day ticket management. JQL is another frustration because it feels unnecessarily tough and falls into the same trap as other proprietary query languages that only make sense if you use them constantly. That may be fine for dedicated power users but not everyone works that way. When my day is split in twenty directions, I usually just need to jump straight to a ticket, review the issue, get approval on a fix and move on, not spend extra time dealing with a specialized language. I have also noticed more uptime problems this year especially since the move to new data center providers and I do not remember seeing this kind of instability before that change.

“Versatile task management hub”

Pros

From day one, it worked really well as an organizational tool for prioritizing IT development work thanks to the simple drag-and-drop setup. Tasks can be reordered quickly and each ticket can also be moved through its proper stage, whether that's DEV, UAT, QA, DEPLOY or something else. Every ticket includes space to attach files, add detailed descriptions, assign users, link related tasks, leave comments for progress tracking, mark the ticket type such as bug, story or task, include deployment notes, update statuses and a lot more. Having all of that in one place makes it a reliable all-in-one solution for managing IT development tasks regardless of the project management approach being used.

Cons

The one part that has been a little inconvenient is that labels can't be searched directly through the built-in search feature. Since labels are useful for grouping and categorizing tickets, that limitation can be frustrating at times. That said, there are still simple workarounds, like using Ctrl+F in the browser or setting up a one-click filter for labels.

“Frustrating UI and weak feedback tools”

Pros

One useful part is the flexibility, it allows you to build pages with as much content as needed, including images.

Cons

Where it really falls short is in handling change requests in a more advanced way. There's no good way to place tags directly over an image to point out exact areas on a screenshot that need attention which is why we ended up switching to Zeplin for that workflow. Those two issues were the biggest complaints across our team and ultimately the reason we stopped using the software. On top of that, the interface is behd difficult to navigate and I never managed to work out a clear way to add a new task or bug to a specific sprint even though that should be a very easy action.

“Agile customization powerhouse”

Pros

Working with a team that follows agile, this tool covers pretty much everything you could ask for. I've gone through quite a few project management platforms and this one stands out as the best by a wide margin. It handles all the essentials like creating stories, tasks and bugs, running sprints and assigning story points, just like other tools do. The real advantage though, is how much customization it gives you. You can tailor almost every part of it to fit the way your team works.

Cons

Getting started can feel pretty overwhelming for someone new. The workflows can also be confusing at times.

“Excellent progress tracking”

Pros

A really great project management tool especially for teams trying to improve their build process and follow best practices more consistently. It does a good job with tracking work and checking progress and it's one of the better options for building an Agile mindset and supporting a Scrum framework across the team.

Cons

Biggest downside is the pricing which can be hard to justify for teams with a smaller budget. Progress status also doesn't fully cover the full developer team roles like coders, testers, leaders, reviewers and the PO. Another missing piece is a clearer parent-child ticket structure since that relationship isn't explicitly available.