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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 (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

"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."
"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."
"It can be adapted to any process flow and easily be integrated with other in-house tools using the ClearQuest API."
"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."
"The solution's most valuable aspect is its workflow sensibility."
"Powerful features including a good reporting capability."
"I would recommend Jira for Sprint management."
"I think one of the most powerful features in Jira is the customization of fields and workflow."
"We can create multiple boards for the same product backlogs."
"I like that Jira allows you to customize the flow for an agile process and adapt it to your own flow."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the source linking on the commit level to git."
"The roadmap feature and the ability to integrate with Power BI are probably the most valuable features in it. It is a great solution. I absolutely love it. It is a tool that was designed for project management, and it has been awesome to work with it so far. I also love Confluence."
 

Cons

"It’s very expensive, especially considering that there are much more economical options out there."
"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."
"The user interface could benefit from a more modern look and feel."
"However, the user interface seems very static and the user experience was not the best."
"There needs to be easier integration with third-parties — personally, this is the biggest issue for me."
"Reporting is something Jira could work on. The reporting capabilities should have the same flexibility we see in Excel, including the ability to manipulate data and create graphs. They need to have that, so we don't need to export to a spreadsheet."
"Overall, Jira is a little bit old fashioned, it could be more user friendly."
"I wish the whole workflow process was easier to set up. You put the requirements in and then you send it to the developer. They get a notification. Then they go into Jira."
"In terms of improvement, I think Jira (Jira Agile, specifically) can be made more user-friendly."
"I think support could be improved, in particular it would be helpful having a login for the support team."
"Sometimes the screens can be a bit too busy. There's often a lot of information on the screen. I think paring things down and applying some UX improvements might enhance the look and feel of the interface."
"We're doing PI planning, Program Increment planning, and that kind of stuff, and it's not always a good facilitator for that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I don't deal with licensing in my current consultant position."
"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 price seems reasonable to me. It's very similar to Splunk."
"It is subscription-based, and we probably pay yearly. I would rate it a four out of five in terms of price."
"I understand JIRA is quite expensive."
"We currently have ten users, and it is free for ten users."
"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."
"It is very cheap if you forego the local instance and stick to the cloud."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
33%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Insurance Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
 

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

Ask a question
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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.