Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
278
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 21.4%, down 35.7% compared to last year.
Jira, on the other hand, focuses on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites, holds 12.6% mindshare, down 22.6% since last year.
Defect Tracking Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Rational ClearQuest21.4%
Adminitrack13.4%
ISC Software JCL Checker11.8%
Other53.400000000000006%
Defect Tracking
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Jira12.6%
Microsoft Azure DevOps10.3%
Codebeamer7.4%
Other69.7%
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

"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."
"Its integration with Bitbucket, Confluence, and other things is most valuable."
"The most valuable features of this solution are workflow and reporting."
"Integration is good."
"The solution is easy to use and user-friendly."
"All of the tracking features are the most valuable because it allows me to see where we stand today and every day."
"In general, the GUI is nice."
"It is very flexible, so we can do pretty much what we want with it."
"When combining Jira with Bitbucket, you have the possibility to ensure continuous integration and other functions which is highly appreciated by our software development team."
 

Cons

"Lack of a modern web interface compared to other systems might discourage customers."
"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."
"I'd like to see better notetaking capabilities so every user can get notes when someone provides comments on a Jira ticket. So if they don't want to provide the comments on the Jira ticket, they can get the personal notes in a Jira tool for every profile."
"The release of a MailServer feature within Jira would be beneficial."
"There is a difficulty viewing all the attachments because they are shown in one place. I would like attachments to be shown at the comment level."
"The challenge which I frequently see from Jira is the label. When you search for a label sometimes, it suddenly disappears. If there's a mismatch due to all-caps or lower case, you won't be able to find it. It won't even come up as a recommendation or suggestion. That's something that can be really frustrating, as people create labels in their own specific ways and then no one else can find anything."
"The reporting part is a little bit difficult for me. It is not so easy. There should be a simpler way to track the efforts of our team. For example, in an Excel sheet, there is a feature for filtering. It would be much better if we can use something like that. Currently, for a complex query, we need to use Jira Query Language. Using Jira Query Language every time is not efficient for me."
"Sometimes the screens can be a bit too busy. There's often a lot of information on the screen. I think paring things down and applying some UX improvements might enhance the look and feel of the interface."
"The solution needs more integrations with Azure DevOps OnPrem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"There are other solutions that are free making this solution seem expensive in comparison."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten. It's paid yearly."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis, and it is based on what you use."
"We are using the enterprise license which is nice because it ensures that we always have the latest versions of Jira software."
"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."
"We feel that the product is a good value for the cost."
"The basic price of Jira is reasonable, but for each plugin, we have to keep paying more. When you add it all up, it can be expensive. The main problem we face is we are forced to purchases plugin licenses for users who are not going to use them. For example, we have Jira licenses for approximately 450 people but if we only want a purchase a plugin for few people it is mandatory to buy the license for the 450 people who have Jira licensees. This is a problem because sometimes we need plugins for the product manager or for people in charge of the report, not everyone. For us, it can be very expensive in the end, they should alter this policy to allow plugins for only a set number of licenses."
"If I compare Jira's licensing model with that of other products, I think that the other products have a much better licensing model."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Defect Tracking solutions are best for your needs.
882,032 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
34%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
Insurance Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business106
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise150
 

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.