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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 (7th)
Jira
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
276
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (1st), Application Requirements Management (1st), 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 24.1%, down 37.5% compared to last year.
Jira, on the other hand, focuses on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites, holds 14.7% mindshare, down 23.1% since last year.
Defect Tracking Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Rational ClearQuest24.1%
ISC Software JCL Checker14.5%
Adminitrack12.3%
Other49.099999999999994%
Defect Tracking
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Jira14.7%
Microsoft Azure DevOps10.8%
Codebeamer8.3%
Other66.2%
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…
Nathan Akimoff - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at 2Help
Has customized workflows to fit internal processes and improved overall team organization
I don't have a particular customization or integration that's been especially valuable for my team, but I experienced integrating Jira and QuickBooks, which was very challenging, but it really impacted the efficiency of the whole company. I have been working with Jira for over 12 years, and I've seen it grow every year. It's a powerful product, but lately, I think Atlassian has been adding too many simplified features that look nice but don't offer the same level of flexibility, and made some fields not available through the API, which is kind of frustrating. If I could make one suggestion, it would be to focus more on improving API integration and automation tools, not just the design.

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."
"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."
"Its integration with Bitbucket, Confluence, and other things is most valuable."
"I think one of the most powerful features in Jira is the customization of fields and workflow."
"The informatics is the most valuable feature. It captures what we need."
"It is a good defect tracking tool. It has a lot of capabilities and functionalities. There are a lot of graphs and a lot of tracking. It can be sprint-driven if you want."
"I like seeing which tickets are open and what our response rate is. They have a lot of good metrics in their system to see what's going on."
"The level of stability is quite good."
"I like that Jira allows you to customize the flow for an agile process and adapt it to your own flow."
"In our organization, we use Jira for project management and usually use the Scrum project type. We might adjust the workflows and stages to better suit our needs, but we mostly use the default functionalities it offers to manage our projects."
 

Cons

"Lack of a modern web interface compared to other systems might discourage customers."
"Jira could be more, for example, like Micro Focus, which is what I mostly work with currently."
"The performance and stability are visibly degrading since the database has been growing every year."
"From an automation perspective, there are more aspects that could be needed, especially regarding natural language reporting in the generative AI context."
"From the project management perspective, I would say there are a lot of different issues that could be tweaked. There can be small improvements with traceability, for example."
"The tool lacks support for testing aspects, which means we often rely on integrations with other tools for testing purposes. If Jira could incorporate testing modules within its platform, it would eliminate the need for external integrations."
"For me, the solution is too complicated as it has too many features. It would be nice if they could streamline things."
"Integration with some of the automation tools could be improved."
"Stability is an area of concern and it needs improvement, otherwise, it's a good product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing for Jira is reasonable, although I think they can bring it down because the plugins cost extra."
"We are a regional research and education institute. We're using the free license provided for educational institutes."
"We are on an annual license to use Jira."
"We have a corporate license, and it is probably based on the number of people."
"There is a monthly license required for this solution and it is expensive."
"If I compare Jira's licensing model with that of other products, I think that the other products have a much better licensing model."
"The price is quite competitive."
"The price of the solution could be lower."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
34%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Insurance Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business105
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise149
 

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.