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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
279
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 21.7%, down 41.7% compared to last year.
Jira, on the other hand, focuses on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites, holds 12.3% mindshare, down 22.2% since last year.
Defect Tracking Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Rational ClearQuest21.7%
Adminitrack14.3%
Assembla Workspaces12.4%
Other51.6%
Defect Tracking
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jira12.3%
Microsoft Azure DevOps10.3%
Codebeamer7.0%
Other70.4%
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."
"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 integration is nice. We can integrate with TeamViewer and many more solutions. We need to go into Jira to complete the secure software delivery."
"The most valuable feature is that it has different APIs available, with good services, and it is completely by the books."
"It helps me to use virtual Scrum boards across four locations, three time zones, and to plan my work. It fully supports the Scrum approach, and the Agile way of working, and it has Agile thinking behind it.."
"It is very configurable, and we can do whatever we want. Jira dashboards are also good, and we use them extensively. We also use the tracking mechanism extensively."
"It is very straightforward and easy to use."
"It is a very convenient tool. We can organize our sprints through scrum or kanban. There are scrum boards, and there are kanban boards. If you prefer scrum, you can use Jira. If you prefer kanban, you can still use Jira. You can create your kanban boards in a similar way as you create your scrum boards. It is very useful. It also seems to be very popular these days."
"One of the most valuable features is querying because the jQuery function is very good. Additionally, we can create good designs very easily."
"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."
"The reporting tool and the approval tool need work."
"Integration with some of the automation tools could be improved."
"it would be helpful to have a better tutorial for learning and to have a better understanding of what the features are and what they do."
"The performance could be improved in the future."
"I find the dashboard to be Jira's most problematic feature."
"Jira can improve by making user management better. It is not easy to have visibility of who has the right to do what. Only the administrator has this visibility but there should be the option for other users too."
"It is not intuitive."
"I would like to see test execution modules."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"There are no additional costs to the standard licensing."
"I don't feel that price is an issue."
"The pricing for Jira is reasonable, although I think they can bring it down because the plugins cost extra."
"The price of Jira could be lower."
"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 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."
"For very small companies, if you have less than 10 individuals, it is $10 a year for each of the products. When we were a part of the enterprise and had more than 10 people using it, or before they came up with this solution for small companies, it was $2,500 a year for the license for Jira and Confluence, and I believe something like $600 a year to perpetuate the license. I can't remember if it was $600 or $2,500 annually. It was for up to 25 people at the time, and this was in the early 2000s and mid 2000s."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
35%
Government
5%
University
4%
Transportation Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business107
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.