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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 (7th)
Jira
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
277
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 22.9%, down 35.7% compared to last year.
Jira, on the other hand, focuses on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites, holds 13.3% mindshare, down 22.9% since last year.
Defect Tracking Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Rational ClearQuest22.9%
ISC Software JCL Checker13.2%
Adminitrack13.2%
Other50.7%
Defect Tracking
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Jira13.3%
Microsoft Azure DevOps10.3%
Codebeamer7.7%
Other68.7%
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."
"It can be adapted to any process flow and easily be integrated with other in-house tools using the ClearQuest API."
"Jira is quite easy to use and very simple from my point of view."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"For QA, the most interesting for me are boards, backlog, and filters."
"It is a stable solution, and we have had no issues with stability."
"It is a complete solution. It has more features as compared to other tools, especially the open-source one that we use. It is also easy to administer."
"I have found the tracking, project and task management most valuable in this solution."
"The most valuable features in Jira are the dashboard, reports, and boards that help us to control the advancement of the project."
"It's really smart how they connected third-party vendors into their own marketplace. You can create and add apps. Anybody can do it."
 

Cons

"Lack of a modern web interface compared to other systems might discourage customers."
"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."
"So at one point in time, they did a huge UI upgrade. At that time, I felt like they had changed something, so it was hard to figure out. Now that we are habituated, it's not an issue now."
"Lacks some common building block approaches to certain things."
"They could improve the solution by having a multiple project dashboard to be able to manage many projects KPI's at once, this would really be helpful."
"Once a story is closed, all the records, versions, and documentation associated with it are gone. We lose the traceability of what was done."
"From an automation perspective, there are more aspects that could be needed, especially regarding natural language reporting in the generative AI context."
"I'm really new to Jira and I haven't used all of the features. However, it is quite difficult to use and manipulate. It was a little complicated for me and I don't know if it's difficult globally for others, but I had a difficult time understanding it at first. I used it for issues, epics, stories, tasks, and sub-tasks. For first-time users, Jira could be made better to help them understand."
"I'd like the solution to be more secure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I am not sure about the pricing, but I know its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The ballpark figure is about $100 a month."
"One of my customers told me that they were receiving better pricing for a similar tool from Microsoft."
"It's not very cheap. It's also not very costly. I'd rate it a five out of ten in terms of pricing."
"There is an annual subscription to use Jira."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"There is a monthly license required for this solution and it is expensive."
"The tool is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
33%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Retailer
5%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
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 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.