Jira vs Microsoft Project comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Jira
Ranking in Project Management Software
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
266
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (1st), Application Requirements Management (2nd)
Microsoft Project
Ranking in Project Management Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2024, in the Project Management Software category, the mindshare of Jira is 8.8%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Project is 7.2%, down from 14.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Project Management Software
Unique Categories:
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
25.7%
Application Requirements Management
15.6%
No other categories found
 

Featured Reviews

JD
Apr 20, 2021
Designed for project management, meets all IT software development needs, and integrates with Power BI
They can maybe dumb down the directions for building the automation a little bit because to be able to build out the automation, I had to play around with it and learn what all the fields meant and what they were referencing. I don't have an IT background originally. My background is in biology, and I got into project management by chance. I am good at it, but I haven't really worked with coding languages. In terms of writing automation, it is easier for devs because they intuitively know what they're being asked, but as a PM who originally didn't have IT experience, it was a little bit daunting at first. It could also have an extra hierarchy to be able to allow tasks under stories. It could be the way it is set up at our organization, but currently, under stories, you can have sub-tasks, but you can't create a task. Being able to customize your hierarchy a little bit more would be beneficial because sometimes, the devs would say, "Well, here's a story, and now we need sub-tasks," but as we were building out the sub-tasks, sometimes we had to go a step lower to dig in a little bit more, and we couldn't do that.
SN
May 12, 2021
Good project planning features, good charts, and good at doing what it is supposed to do
We use it for IT project management. It is mainly used for managing tasks The standard project planning features and charts are most valuable. When a project plan becomes huge, it is painful to arrange and structure the project in Microsoft Project. Currently, you require a separate product for…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Powerful features including a good reporting capability."
"Scaling the product wouldn't be difficult."
"The most valuable feature is project management."
"The customization and tailoring of the workflows have proven to be very useful."
"Jira improved our team collaboration by providing visual visibility and transparency. Everyone could see what tasks were being worked on and the progress made. The development team updated task statuses, making tracking progress and planning sprints easy. If there were any impediments or challenges, we addressed them. This process helped us track our progress."
"It is very flexible, so we can do pretty much what we want with it."
"It is easy to deploy in the cloud and other environments. It is also easy to view the reports of the sprint review or the sprint plan and the relation between the backlog and the repositories."
"Jira is very useful for project management for internal projects."
"The solution is stable."
"I find the planning features the most valuable to me."
"The reporting features are quite strong. Being able to do team reports and find out what work is pending, what work needs to be done are key in my day-to-day management of the team. The earned value analysis capabilities and critical path capabilities inside the tool help me make sure that I'm keeping the projects on track."
"The built-in dashboards are powerful because they show both project and overall progress."
"Microsoft Project is easy to use and helps our teams visualize the evolution of our projects."
"In my experience, this solution is one of the best for the waterfall management model."
"If you work with Microsoft, it's very easy to work with this."
"The daily tracker is valuable."
 

Cons

"Jira lacks easy capacity calculation compared to TFS, making it harder to know how much work to allocate to each specialist."
"The tool should improve its pricing."
"I have had problems with performance and unresponsiveness. All of a sudden, the performance slowed down, and I had a number of users that could not use the tool."
"There are no fields to search or to filter by, mainly the ones which use a data around a date and time when something changes."
"Ease of administration and customization. It is really clunky in this area."
"The hierarchy for Jira tickets is too flat."
"The sprint-related graphics need to be improved."
"We'd like to use it with non-Agile projects in the future, however, right now, it is a very Agile-focused product."
"It is a traditional Waterfall-based solution, so it doesn't lend itself particularly well to Agile development. You can record Agile sprints within it, but it is not really an Agile-based product. It can store the basic information about budgets that an Agile set of work is looking to use, but that's about it."
"The dashboard could be improved."
"The stability of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings that need improvement."
"It would be better if there were more access to Agile implementations."
"The tool's most valuable feature is scheduling."
"Its reporting and its integration with some of the other related systems should be improved. It is not very easy to integrate."
"It has a bit of a learning curve since there are a lot of features in it, and we haven't really gotten a chance to train through the whole product."
"The solution is currently a bit slow and can be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The standard package of Jira is for 100 users. They should offer more packages for other increments, such as 500 or 2,000. In my previous company, there was a free package that provided a minimal number of users."
"I understand JIRA is quite expensive."
"There are other solutions that are free making this solution seem expensive in comparison."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"There is a monthly license required for this solution and it is expensive."
"The pricing for Jira is reasonable, although I think they can bring it down because the plugins cost extra."
"If you are using just Jira, it is cheap, but if you start to use it and you feel you need some more services or more functions, then you have to buy add-ons, which can make it expensive."
"I am not sure about the pricing, but I know its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The product is not expensive. My company has opted for an annual subscription."
"You only need a Team's license in order to use Microsoft Project within Teams, which is very helpful."
"The licensing model is somewhat complex."
"Licensing costs vary depending on the user volume. The pricing is good, I'd rate it four out of five."
"The cost for an on-premises-based license is a one-time fee, and the cloud-based is an annual payment plan."
"Its price could be reduced a little."
"I do not have personal experience with pricing or licensing of this product."
"It gets expensive when having to add all of the plugins and everything that you need."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
44%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Educational Organization
59%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Government
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Is Jira better or would you go with Micro Focus ALM Octane?
Hi Netanya, Basically , it all depends on the use cases for your environment and the business needs. Hope the below data may be relevant to you for identifying your needs and deciding on the approp...
Which is better - Jira or Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Jira is a great centralized tool for just about everything, from local team management to keeping track of products and work logs. It is easy to implement and navigate, and it is stable and scalabl...
Has anyone tried integrating HP ALM and JIRA ?
HP ALM and Jira can be easily integrated with the aid of a third-party Integration Solution. To help you select the right integration approach and tool, you should first define your integration req...
Has anyone moved from Microsoft Project to Smartsheet? How has your experience been with Smartsheet?
Hi @Eire Zimmermann, I helped an organization evaluate both MS-Project and Smartsheet when they were conducting their PM tool RFP. The short of it is this, MS Project is not caught up with the mo...
What do you like most about Microsoft Project?
The product's initial setup phase is easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Project?
The product is not expensive. My company has opted for an annual subscription.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Jira Software
Project Pro, MS Project
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Aston Martin, ABANCA, Airbus Group, Capita, Cardiff University, City of Saskatoon, Intel, Pegasus Airlines, South Australia Power Network (SAPN), Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing
Find out what your peers are saying about Jira vs. Microsoft Project and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
787,779 professionals have used our research since 2012.