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IBM DOORS vs Jira comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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 DOORS
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jira
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
275
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (1st), Project Management Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Application Requirements Management category, the mindshare of IBM DOORS is 30.1%, down from 35.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jira is 14.2%, down from 15.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Requirements Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Jira14.2%
IBM DOORS30.1%
Other55.7%
Application Requirements Management
 

Featured Reviews

UweSeufert - PeerSpot reviewer
Old but capable of storing, organizing, and exchanging requirements
I use IBM DOORS because my customer wants it for managing their requirements IBM DOORS is a tool from the 20th century. It is very old but capable of storing, organizing, and exchanging requirements. It helps to manage requirements efficiently, which significantly improves the way requirements…
AmitUbale - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient project management that's comprehensive and and helps with time efficiency
We use Jira primarily for project management within the organization. It helps us manage tasks, bug management, and tracking tickets effectively. We assign tickets to individual team members and track them easily For project management, Jira has helped facilitate efficient task segregation and…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It's a very interesting tool. I like that it's simple. You have to create your document, add your templates, and have your headings and definitions, and it's done. You must attribute the discipline and fill out the comment field for requirements. It also provides you with unique IDs for each requirement. I like that it never duplicates IDs."
"Makes good work of prioritizing and planning product delivery."
"I like the user interface with regard to creating links between requirements and tracing links to requirements."
"It is a stable solution."
"We have different generations of all products. It lets us select and see unique attributes for each release or generation. You can use attributes to define a selection area to see which equipments are for the old versions and which ones are for the new versions. This inbuilt view is what I like in IBM Rational DOORS. So, for a database and a set of requirements, it will select and show unique attributes for a release or a generation."
"Rational DOORS' most valuable feature is that you can write any kind of requirement you want."
"I like being able to sort and categorize the requirements and the exporting functions."
"I would say that the best feature of the solution is that since everything is in one place, and if you make any changes, then they are recorded or tracked."
"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.."
"The pricing of the product is very good. It's not too expensive"
"The solution is extremely stable."
"I have found Jira to be stable."
"We have the best community to support any problems that we have."
"The initial setup was pretty straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of Jira is the reporting feature, which allows us to track our team's tasks."
"The integration between Confluence and Jira, along with Jira's ticketing system, is a valuable feature the product offers its users."
 

Cons

"They need to provide users with information on what options would be best for their setup."
"The performance could be improved. It doesn't run as smoothly as it could."
"It is complicated sometimes, such as the logic about updating, moving from one server version to another, and the communication between restricted and non-restricted servers."
"The interface is not very user-friendly and has not evolved in a long time."
"The problem is that because the GUI is so bad, you either have to spend a lot of money customizing the interface yourself, or a lot of money on training."
"It would have been ok ten years ago, but we are used to having better tools now."
"Both the performance and the price could be improved."
"IBM should integrate some solutions they already own toenhance the utility of the product further. Specifically import and export to Office products is more difficult than it needs to be."
"The performance could be improved in the future."
"The CACD solutions on JIRA has some plugins, but they are not easily understandable or workable."
"The hierarchy for Jira tickets is too flat."
"​I would like integrated requirements management, so we do not have to buy plug-ins for JIRA, since it was hard to get requirements management for it.​"
"I do know the initial setup was pretty complicated. The user interface could be better organized and easier. ​"
"I would like to see it connecting to Git. That could be useful. We use it for Stash, but I think there is one for Git also. I don't know if it's a plug-in that exists already, but that could be nice."
"In Jira Cloud, integration with Excel is missing. Previously, I could import our Excel files into Jira, and I could also download a big Jira report in the Excel format, but now, it needs to be manipulated after that, which is not good. It looks like they've done that on purpose, but I don't understand the reason for it."
"I also wish Jira had an indicator to tell you that you are approaching the limit for the story points that can be delivered during a sprint. I don't think there is an indicator like that, but such an indicator will be very helpful because then I will be easily able to see that we are approaching the limit."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being very affordable and ten being quite expensive."
"It's expensive."
"I am not sure why it is so expensive, but one license will cost approximately $15,000 in US dollars."
"The licensing cost is too high."
"I don't personally know what the numbers are. I just know that one of the reasons we've limited it to three seats is a function of cost."
"The licensing costs for the product are quite high."
"I think it's expensive because you have to pay for the licenses to IBM and all that and maintain them."
"IBM DOORS is available at a reasonable price"
"We have an enterprise license that includes cloud service and support."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"The tool is expensive."
"The price of Jira could be lower."
"I am not sure if the client is using a commercial version. I think it is on a per-user basis, and it is around 15 Canadian dollars for a user, but I'm not sure. It also has a free version."
"It is very cheap if you forego the local instance and stick to the cloud."
"The license is yearly. It is a large, long-running program."
"We feel that the product is a good value for the cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
26%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise36
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business102
Midsize Enterprise57
Large Enterprise149
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Rational DOORS?
The traceability matrix in DOORS improved our project outcomes. It helps ensure coverage of requirements at different levels, from user requirements to software requirements to test requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Rational DOORS?
Over the years, the first version cost something around 5800 euros.
What needs improvement with IBM Rational DOORS?
Compared to today, DOORS' competitors also excel in this discipline. Yet the price is too high. It's often not as generic as it used to be. IBM promised to find a way for a generic format that allo...
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?
We operate under a nonlimited license with Jira, allowing a number of users to access it with a single enterprise license.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Rational DOORS
Jira Software
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Infosys, Chevrolet Volt
Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DOORS vs. Jira and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.