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IBM Rational ClearQuest vs Jira comparison

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 (7th)
Jira
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
278
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 21.4%, down 35.7% compared to last year.
Jira, on the other hand, focuses on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites, holds 12.6% mindshare, down 22.6% since last year.
Defect Tracking Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Rational ClearQuest21.4%
Adminitrack13.4%
ISC Software JCL Checker11.8%
Other53.400000000000006%
Defect Tracking
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Jira12.6%
Microsoft Azure DevOps10.3%
Codebeamer7.4%
Other69.7%
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

"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."
"It can be adapted to any process flow and easily be integrated with other in-house tools using the ClearQuest API."
"The informatics is the most valuable feature. It captures what we need."
"It's very simple to change the workflow and adapt it. Jira is very user friendly for the agent and the user."
"JIRA stores history of changes, which helps a lot to track who, when, and why the issue was modified​."
"All of the tracking features are the most valuable because it allows me to see where we stand today and every day."
"I liked the flexibility of the application. It was pretty user-friendly."
"Jira queries can be used for different types of deployment automation processes."
"It's a Scrum tool, so it's very easy to use."
"The customization and tailoring of the workflows have proven to be very useful."
 

Cons

"Lack of a modern web interface compared to other systems might discourage customers."
"I would like to have a future-proof idea of the cost and the roadmap for my class."
"Having more seamless integration with Confluence would really help us track our product management activity and other product details in one place."
"Jira could be easier to use, especially for administrative tasks. It's quite complex, so it's important to understand it well. While the reporting and dashboards are good, there's room for improvement in some areas where extra features would be helpful."
"In terms of the general Jira software, one element that is missing is budget management. Perhaps such functionality exists in add-ons, however."
"Backlog pruning and visualization are poor."
"If they want Jira to be the one-stop shop of the view of all of your deliverables, not just from a defect tracking perspective, but also from a requirement perspective, a code perspective, and a testing perspective, it needs to pull out more data and work better as an integration tool."
"It is not capturing the number of hours for which each person has worked on certain things. We use many add-ons to let resources enter the time in the user story itself. We use an add-on called Tempo, but it is kind of a lousy add-on. It is not straightforward. Rather than helping us, it creates a lot of confusion. So, instead of looking out for the additional add-on, I would prefer to have the timesheet entered as a part of Jira itself. They are anyways capturing every information they could for each user story, and then we are able to break down all the task lists. For each task, we're also assigning a resource. So, while we're doing it, why can't they allow the users to enter the time that can be created as a report? Right now, we need to acquire the add-on, and the add-on is not great. It is not helping. The add-on is also not free."
"I'd like the solution to be more secure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing is much higher than other similar solutions available in the market, and as such, the vendor should think about a price reduction to make this product more affordable."
"The price is quite competitive."
"Its price is fine, but we would like it to be less expensive. We are paying on a yearly basis."
"There is an annual subscription to use Jira."
"Jira and its solution off the shelf are cheap. It is cheap for startups."
"It is certainly a long-term solution for our company and for previous companies that I have worked for. They have these long-term term licenses, but I'm not sure if they really pay on a yearly basis. They are certainly using it for a really long period and for a lot of users."
"The price at the moment for Jira is okay. I'm absolutely not amused with the plans to try to drive us to the cloud or to other licensing models. For the very simple reason that we are a company in the defense sector where cloud is problematic in a number of the domains. We are now approximately 60 users and the new policy will actually confront us with an upscale to approximately 500 users. I find it unacceptable, and may potentially lead us to look for another solution."
"The ballpark figure is about $100 a month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
34%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
Insurance Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business106
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise150
 

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.