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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
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 22.7%, 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

"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"It can be adapted to any process flow and easily be integrated with other in-house tools using the ClearQuest API."
"There are many good things about Atlassian."
"It is scalable, and it can cover many projects and a lot of job delegations."
"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."
"It's a very powerful product."
"All of the tracking features are the most valuable because it allows me to see where we stand today and every day."
"Offers great multiple reporting charts."
"Without this tool, our projects cannot be completed fully."
"Jira is easier to configure than other platforms like DevOps, is fairly easy to learn so long as you dedicate some time to it, and is easier to use than other solutions."
 

Cons

"It’s very expensive, especially considering that there are much more economical options out there."
"The user interface could benefit from a more modern look and feel."
"However, the user interface seems very static and the user experience was not the best."
"Lack of a modern web interface compared to other systems might discourage customers."
"Lack of a modern web interface compared to other systems might discourage customers."
"Workflows can be improved. Its interface could be more intuitive for workflows."
"Pretty much 70% - 80% of the Next-Gen Projects features are still to be developed."
"The reporting needs to be better."
"The solution needs more integrations with Azure DevOps OnPrem."
"I want Jira to have more plug-ins, which will allow for more free plug-ins that help with the area of reporting."
"There's been the odd amount of JIRA downtime (not self hosted) and sometimes tickets that can't be accessed."
"Lacks field-level permission in the cloud version."
"My main concern is the administration of projects, especially user groups, and this requires root access rights but there is no concept of layered admin rights."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I think the starter pack of three users, up to five users, is free. So you can try it out."
"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."
"The licensing model is annoying. They nickel and dime you."
"The price seems reasonable to me. It's very similar to Splunk."
"There are no additional costs to the standard licensing."
"It does not cost that much."
"The pricing for Jira is reasonable, although I think they can bring it down because the plugins cost extra."
"We are on an annual license to use Jira."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
33%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
6%
Insurance Company
4%
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 Enterprise58
Large Enterprise151
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational ClearQuest vs. Panaya Test Dynamix and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,868 professionals have used our research since 2012.