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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 (5th)
Jira
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
282
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 22.7%, down 50.0% compared to last year.
Jira, on the other hand, focuses on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites, holds 11.2% mindshare, down 21.4% since last year.
Defect Tracking Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Rational ClearQuest22.7%
Adminitrack14.6%
Assembla Workspaces11.9%
Other50.800000000000004%
Defect Tracking
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jira11.2%
Microsoft Azure DevOps9.5%
OpenText Application Quality Management6.5%
Other72.8%
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 workflow feature with stateful record types and the ability to implement these rapidly in our project have been of value to us."
"This enabled us to completely migrate from paper-based forms to electronic forms for a number of business areas."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Jira has impacted the productivity and cost efficiency for me and my development team, though I have faced some challenges with Jira during this time."
"Its integration with Bitbucket, Confluence, and other things is most valuable."
"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."
"We have around 2000 plus users, so scale wise, there are no issues. We can easily scale up with multiple users."
"The integration between Confluence and Jira, along with Jira's ticketing system, is a valuable feature the product offers its users."
"You can record your unit testing, regression testing, UATs, et cetera."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the configuration, being able to configure it to suit your own needs."
"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, there is a lot of data that you can pull out for estimations, it has got a lot of out-of-the-box functionalities, and it also works well with all the integrated tools that you buy."
 

Cons

"The user interface could benefit from a more modern look and feel."
"Lack of a modern web interface compared to other systems might discourage customers."
"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."
"Some small issues with stability."
"The performance is not so good sometimes. I know that fully depends on the implementation and the IT environment of Jira or the version of Jira installed. The performance is sometimes not so good. I would like to have a better response time from the Jira server. And it fully depends on the administration side of the Jira."
"The history with Jira is that it is a bit complex for many users."
"Could offer an improved user experience."
"The way to configure it can definitely be improved. It is very difficult and complex to configure."
"The pricing is quite high."
"Based on the feedback from my admin, it is sometimes difficult to find some of the features."
"The permissions can be challenging to get right."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It is very cheap if you forego the local instance and stick to the cloud."
"As a company, we get a subsidized price, and it's lower than what's quoted on their website."
"The tool is expensive."
"It depends on the type of license. In terms of subscription, it is cheap, and it works pretty well."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"If you are using just Jira, it is cheap, but if you start to use it and you feel you need some more services or more functions, then you have to buy add-ons, which can make it expensive."
"Its price is fine, but we would like it to be less expensive. We are paying on a yearly basis."
"I think the starter pack of three users, up to five users, is free. So you can try it out."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
32%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Government
5%
Outsourcing Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business108
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise152
 

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.
893,915 professionals have used our research since 2012.