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IBM Rational ClearQuest vs Jira comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

IBM Rational ClearQuest
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Defect Tracking (1st), Software Configuration Management (6th)
Jira
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
281
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (1st), Application Requirements Management (2nd), Project Management Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Lifecycle Management solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Rational ClearQuest is designed for Defect Tracking and holds a mindshare of 22.0%, down 50.0% compared to last year.
Jira, on the other hand, focuses on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites, holds 11.5% mindshare, down 21.9% since last year.
Defect Tracking Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Rational ClearQuest22.0%
Adminitrack13.7%
Panaya Test Dynamix12.2%
Other52.099999999999994%
Defect Tracking
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jira11.5%
Microsoft Azure DevOps10.0%
Codebeamer6.1%
Other72.4%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

it_user808977 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Developer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
It can be adapted to any process flow
ClearQuest is a Defect Tracking system with a highly adaptable state machine together with an easy to use API, which can do all of the functions available in the GUI. This simplifies integration and automation of many steps is why the organization still uses a much older version, as there are no…
Akhil Viswam - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Agile workflows have streamlined sprint planning and tracking for faster feature delivery
Jira has a very good interface and it is very easy to manage sprints, tasks, and epics. The main feature is the hierarchy, as features can be converted into epics and topics, allowing bigger tasks to be partitioned into smaller ones. The hierarchy feature in Jira helps the team significantly compared to other tools that have been used, such as Trello, which is mainly useful only for a waterfall model. For modern Agile practices, Jira is the most adapted tool in the industry. Another valuable feature is that Jira APIs have been used for data science projects to analyze tasks and get insights. This has also been very helpful in the project.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It can be adapted to any process flow and easily be integrated with other in-house tools using the ClearQuest API."
"Customization level of the tool to meet client’s requirements, you can do almost all of the customizations for a project or ticket management system, and notification, hooks, and UI customization are very stable."
"In combination with a good Configuration Management plan, an organization can create an optimal level of administration and automation creating good traceability in your tasks."
"The combination of a highly flexible state machine together with a platform independent API enables possibilities to automate many steps that in many systems are manual."
"This enabled us to completely migrate from paper-based forms to electronic forms for a number of business areas."
"The workflow feature with stateful record types and the ability to implement these rapidly in our project have been of value to us."
"You can see what everyone is doing in your team and you can check and get updates on progress."
"I recommend JIRA Agile to anyone looking for a mature, easy to use and customizable issue tracking system, especially in the context of large, geographically distributed teams."
"What I find valuable about Jira is that it's an ecosystem."
"Jira has gone from being a simple bug tracker to a full development planning suite, in addition to tracking our support and production tasks."
"Straightforward system that gets the job done."
"This software is ideal for tracking problems, managing, planning and carrying out real-time monitoring of the tasks or projects you want to develop in a much simpler way and in the shortest possible time."
"The most valuable feature of Jira is the integration with all the different Atlassian tools; they all integrate very easily."
"Jira is designed for issue tracking, making the process much easier than traditional methods like paper-based tracking. It is number one for agile management."
 

Cons

"The user interface could benefit from a more modern look and feel."
"Lack of a modern web interface compared to other systems might discourage customers."
"Lack of a modern web interface compared to other systems might discourage customers."
"It’s very expensive, especially considering that there are much more economical options out there."
"However, the user interface seems very static and the user experience was not the best."
"A lot of features, such as time tracking, are only available through the marketplace. If multiple users are working on a user story, we aren't able to pull out the reports. So, there are many things that they aren't offering. They are available only through the marketplace. That's not good for a product."
"There should be a way to look for specific comments. When we have thousands of comments on a Jira ticket, there is no way to look at the comments of a specific type. In the comments, if there is a way to put a tag, it would be helpful. For example, when there are a lot of lengthy discussions happening on a particular ticket, there could be a conclusion tag or something like that to indicate a conclusion. It would help in sorting the comments based on a certain category, such as conclusion."
"The help desk and services management features are in need of improvement."
"The only thing in our current setup that is a bit difficult is that Jira is a bit of a black box."
"In Jira, sometimes developers are not getting alerts when Jira is moving out of the SLA to the product development team."
"The user interface is very detailed right now. It could be simplified if they consider targeting the user experience."
"This product or software still requires improvements, especially in its interface since its learning curve is somewhat high because it offers so many features that the user tends to get confused, or the software adaptation time is much longer than it should be."
"Jira could improve by making the user interface easier to use and the functionality could be better. While we are managing multiple sprints and other elements of the projects, it's very difficult to manage the labels and other aspects."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We are using the enterprise license which is nice because it ensures that we always have the latest versions of Jira software."
"I am not sure about the pricing, but I know its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. The product offers flexibility in pricing since it depends on the memory bits you have used."
"The ballpark figure is about $100 a month."
"I think the starter pack of three users, up to five users, is free. So you can try it out."
"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."
"As a company, we get a subsidized price, and it's lower than what's quoted on their website."
"The price of the solution could be lower."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
33%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
6%
Insurance Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business108
Midsize Enterprise58
Large Enterprise151
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jira?
Jira itself is fairly priced for the features it provides, but pricing is a bit higher than some alternatives, mostly because many plugins and add-ons are paid and licensed per user. So even if onl...
 

Also Known As

Rational ClearQuest
Jira Software
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Atos SE, STM, Regence BlueCross BlueShield
Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.