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Jama Connect vs Jira vs TFS 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Jama Connect is 3.9%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jira is 11.2%, down from 21.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TFS is 4.4%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Jira11.2%
TFS4.4%
Jama Connect3.9%
Other80.5%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

Juergen Albrecht - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at CCC Systems Engineering Suisse GmbH
Has required better change management and easier tool integration but supports certification needs and strong collaboration
The visualization tools are nearly similar, so it does not matter if you use DNG or even Jama Connect, but at Jama Connect, the selection and setup for running complex scripts is very powerful and fast compared to IBM, which is sometimes very slow due to the complex software which has lost focus on usability. The collaboration capabilities of Jama Connect are fantastic, and when comparing IBM, PTC, and Jama Connect, they are nearly equal because all three have recognized the importance of collaboration in today's work environment. The feature that I really appreciate about Jama Connect is its allowance for certifications through the FAA and FDA organizations in the US, which in the past was not possible for smaller companies because larger ones, such as Boeing and Airbus, often advised against using unapproved tools.
Rituraj NSIT - PeerSpot reviewer
SDE 2 at Virtusa
Centralized sprint boards have transformed our planning and now improve cross‑team visibility
While Jira is very powerful, there are definitely areas it could be improved, especially for usability and simplicity. One common challenge is that Jira can feel overwhelming for new users. The number of features, configurations, workflows, and settings is huge. Onboarding non-technical teams or new employees sometimes takes longer than expected. A simple default experience for a beginner would help a lot. Another issue is performance. In large organizations with heavy customizations, large backlogs, or complex dashboards, Jira can occasionally feel slow, especially when loading filters, reports, or larger boards. Pricing can also become expensive as an organization scales and multiple Atlassian products and plugins are added. Some smaller teams sometimes feel the ecosystem becomes costly over time. The mobile experience would be smoother for project managers or leadership users who mainly want quick update approvals or dashboard views on the go. Overall, Jira's biggest strength is flexibility, but that flexibility can also create complexity if not managed carefully. Improving simplicity, performance, and ease of adoption would make the platform even stronger. An additional improvement I would mention for Jira is around balancing flexibility with simplicity. Jira gives organizations a huge amount of customization power, which is great. But over time, many teams end up creating overly complicated processes. After a few years, some Jira environments become difficult to maintain because there are many workflows, custom fields, permissions, and automations layered on top of each other. It would help if Jira would provide a strong built-in recommendation or health check for keeping a project clean or efficient. For example, identifying unused custom fields, suggesting workflow simplicity improvements, flagging redundant automations, or recommending dashboard optimization.
PS
Service delivery manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Ensures team collaboration with strong version control but could improve testing capabilities
Version control is the most basic feature in TFS. It has been there since the beginning. We use it primarily for that purpose. Basically ensuring that the code is not overwritten by other team members and maintaining the sanctity of the code. Bringing order to a disparate team which is virtual at different locations is very important, and TFS provides that control. Once you update a code, nobody can modify it until you are done working on it and check in. It is a great product that revolutionized the way teams work together on Microsoft pieces of code. The versioning part has unique features and capabilities which are unmatched with other products out there.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can get full traceability with any other system. It also includes a test module, and you build the traceability matrix incrementally throughout the development process."
"The most valuable feature is the single identity provider capability, which simplifies the integration with various platforms, like Google App Store and Microsoft Azure, for providing user access."
"It is good at requirements management and test management."
"It is good at requirements management and test management, and for day-to-day users, it is very user-friendly."
"Traceability is a key differentiator for Jama Connect, especially compared to Jira."
"The impact that Jama Connect provides for my company overall is significant as it saves a huge amount of time."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface."
"Jama helped our employees, mostly software engineers, to be more aware of where the requirements are and how to determine them, making the visibility more clear so we can better fulfill international standards in our line of work."
"It is a user-friendly solution that is simple to use."
"The integration between Confluence and Jira, along with Jira's ticketing system, is a valuable feature the product offers its users."
"I like that all of the team members on an agile team can use it. No one is in a separate application."
"I have trained several non-it people in its usage and they all say it's really easy software to use."
"What I like most about Jira is that it's flexible, as it has the flexibility to be configured for any company."
"Dashboard possibility JQL query Workflow management."
"It helps me to use virtual Scrum boards across four locations, three time zones, and to plan my work."
"It's very simple to change the workflow and adapt it. Jira is very user friendly for the agent and the user."
"The most valuable features are test case writing and bug tracking."
"The traceability is valuable. While managing the workflows, it was always nice to have that traceability from requirements and all the way through design. It integrates with Microsoft Test Manager, and you can have everything that is related to a requirement attached to it."
"Build definitions and releases within the product. allow us to put our latest applications in the field."
"It's an integrated system that includes all the information that we need to deliver our products smoothly and to track the progress of each piece of code."
"What I like the most is that you can set permissions on just one folder."
"If you don't have any impediments, choose a Microsoft Solution."
"The most valuable feature of TFS is integration."
"I like its MTM (Microsoft Test Manager) section which gives us options to create various test plans and add test cases into it."
 

Cons

"I think Jama Connect's change management feature is not well developed at this stage, as it lacks many steps for marks, building IDs, and the usual functionalities such as comparing past changes and generating reports automatically."
"We did have some issues of scalability issues early on. I believe we pushed the envelope on numbers of test cases, and did suffer some performance issues, and outages in effect."
"I have inquired about pricing for this solution but have not yet heard anything, so their response time in this regard is something that should be improved."
"Test management can be improved. It's not so scalable. The user interface needs to split things into small projects."
"The collaboration feature in Jama Connect could be improved because it is only used by a limited number of people within an organization due to license costs."
"The solution is expensive."
"There are some security concerns with Jama Connect, including two-factor enablement."
"I believe one of the weak points is the reporting side. You must export inter-readable reports from Jama if you do not use the system as a repository for your design history file. Jama is great if you keep it in Jama, but reporting out requires some customization to get it right."
"I have to go through a lot of processes to consider it done. I have to log in then change the logins and make it interesting. It's not so good for testing."
"One thing that I don't like about Jira is that when you do an export, it only allows a thousand issues. So the export feature needs to be better."
"If you're not a technical person, it might not be very user-friendly."
"Sometimes it takes time to load the data."
"The reporting capabilities, specifically customized reports, should be improved. The out-of-box reports don't meet our needs."
"The user interface is very detailed right now. It could be simplified if they consider targeting the user experience."
"Some of the customizations are definitely a little challenging."
"We would like to see integration between Tempo and Jira."
"TFS and MTM have their own style of working and they are different from other tools like Jira or TestRail, which are simpler and easy to use."
"The price could be cheaper."
"It has been really dated. When you start to work more in an agile environment, it is not really that flexible."
"I'm looking for specific options that aren't currently available, such as active status, new status, or what's currently in progress."
"Access and permissions are confusing when attempting to include basic manual testing functionalities."
"TFS is scalable with different Microsoft tools for test management but it is not scalable with other third-party tools."
"The product needs to stay competitive with its peers like Github, and the adoption of other markup language renderings in the code section of TFS."
"The security model could be more granular."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"To have a single source for all the requirements and all the change requests our company gets is the most valuable feature. It has also helped us to keep track of reviews."
"The cost seems very competitive with other offerings."
"If you want to have creative licenses, pricing may be an issue with the licenses, as it can become quite expensive over time to serve many people."
"Jama Connect is a little pricy."
"The price is quite competitive."
"The price of Jira could be lower."
"The licensing model is annoying. They nickel and dime you."
"We are on an annual license and could be less expensive."
"Jira and its solution off the shelf are cheap. It is cheap for startups."
"It is certainly a long-term solution for our company and for previous companies that I have worked for. They have these long-term term licenses, but I'm not sure if they really pay on a yearly basis. They are certainly using it for a really long period and for a lot of users."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"We feel that the product is a good value for the cost."
"The price of the solution is cheaper than other competitors and it is a per-user license."
"The overall price of TFS is good."
"The solution is expensive."
"I would like to see TFS improve its web interface as there are some limitations with IDs and the integration behind it and with open source tools like VS Code."
"TFS is not cheap."
"Use the Microsoft recommended “seat-based” licensing model. This allows a single developer with multiple machines to consume only one client license."
"TFS is expensive, and the licensing costs are yearly. I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"I was working with the engineering team, and that was not under my umbrella. From what I can remember, its license was yearly. They had the licenses on a per-user basis, and they included MTM."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
28%
Healthcare Company
9%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
6%
Government
5%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business108
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise152
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise64
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Jama Connect?
I think Jama Connect's change management feature is not well developed at this stage, as it lacks many steps for mark...
What is your primary use case for Jama Connect?
I am currently dealing with all options based on what the customer wants because my goal is not to promote one tool o...
What advice do you have for others considering Jama Connect?
At the moment, from what I hear from clients and from my own use, I would rate Jama Connect between five to six. I ha...
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 d...
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 a...
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...
Which is better - TFS or Azure DevOps?
TFS and Azure DevOps are different in many ways. TFS was designed for admins, and only offers incremental improvement...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TFS?
While I do not know the exact pricing, TFS is likely more expensive than GitLab.
What needs improvement with TFS?
From a testing perspective, while the build and deploy automation capability and pipeline integration are already pre...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Jira Software
Team Foundation Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deloitte, SpaceX, Omnigon, Delft University
Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Vendex KBB IT Services, Info Support, Fujitsu Consulting, TCSC, Airways New Zealand, HP
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian, Microsoft, OpenText and others in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites. Updated: May 2026.
895,151 professionals have used our research since 2012.