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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

"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."
"It can be adapted to any process flow and easily be integrated with other in-house tools using the ClearQuest API."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is that it has different APIs available, with good services, and it is completely by the books."
"The customization and tailoring of the workflows have proven to be very useful."
"Our Premier Support engineer was extremely helpful with deployment."
"The solution's most valuable features revolve around the dashboard view, which has a burndown chart indicating progress."
"The way we can define and customize the search queries for the tickets in Jira is most valuable."
"What I find valuable about Jira is that it's an ecosystem."
"From Agile delivery teams that are here to deliver their MVPs and stuff like that, I think it's great to keep track of all their backlogs and stuff like that."
"The most valuable feature is that it is somewhat flexible."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"However, the user interface seems very static and the user experience was not the best."
"The solution heavily focuses on the Agile framework, which might only suit some business use cases. This particular area needs enhancement."
"The reporting part is a little bit difficult for me. It is not so easy."
"The only problem area for me is applying filters, and for new users it is very complicated work."
"We would like to see integration between Tempo and Jira."
"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."
"It lacks features to cover all testing aspects, so we often integrate it with other plugins or tools like X-ray."
"In general, although we use JIRA, we never really learned how to use it properly. The learning curve of the solution is high. It has a lot of power, and yet we don't understand its capabilities."
"The reporting tool and the approval tool need work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The cost is about $10 per user, per month."
"We are a regional research and education institute. We're using the free license provided for educational institutes."
"The license is yearly. It is a large, long-running program."
"We feel that the product is a good value for the cost."
"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."
"There are no additional costs to the standard licensing."
"The ballpark figure is about $100 a month."
"It is an affordable tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
32%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
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
Earn 20 points
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.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational ClearQuest vs. Panaya Test Dynamix and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.