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Jira vs Microsoft Project Server 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.8
Jira boosts productivity, efficiency, and ROI through centralized planning and tracking, despite occasional plugin and tracking challenges.
Sentiment score
5.1
Microsoft Project Server offers positive ROI, varying by organization type, with benefits of time savings and improved reporting.
Overall, the ROI mainly came from improved team productivity, better project visibility, reduced coordination efforts, faster issue tracking, and more predictable delivery execution.
SDE 2 at Virtusa
A return on investment has been seen with Jira, as a lot of time has been saved in arranging tasks, converting software features into epics, tasks, and milestones, making it easy to track progress and plan future roadmaps.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
We implement it and track it with the help of the time tracking feature, which makes it quite easy to manage everything in a single platform.
Technical Lead at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Microsoft Project provides significant return on investment through time savings, enhanced visibility, real-time reporting, and risk mitigation for projects.
Project Manager at Digital Research Alliance of Canada
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Jira's customer service is helpful and responsive, but delays and complex issues require more personalized and faster resolutions.
Sentiment score
4.4
Microsoft Project Server support is decent but inconsistent; users rely on external resources and partners for comprehensive assistance.
Jira's customer support is one of the best I have ever dealt with because they respond quickly.
CEO at 2Help
They usually reach out within one to two business days and give specific answers.
Senior Technical Support Engineer I at Krisp
Atlassian's biggest strength is its self-service ecosystem: documentation, community discussions, and integrations.
SDE 2 at Virtusa
It's challenging to navigate, often making it necessary to search for solutions externally.
Project Manager at Digital Research Alliance of Canada
Their support tends to decline when not supporting cloud solutions.
Managing Director at Knights Innovation Support Centre
Communication with two people, one was knowledgeable while the other was learning.
Independent Business Consultant at Freelance
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Jira scales well for large enterprises but faces challenges with workflow customization and integration affecting user experience.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Project Server is scalable for large projects, though performance may vary based on version and infrastructure costs.
In our experience, Jira scales well across team size growth, multiple departments, larger project portfolios, and complex Agile environments.
SDE 2 at Virtusa
Overall, Jira is highly scalable for both team size and project complexity.
student at a university with 51-200 employees
As the number of users, projects, and work items grows, Jira can scale effectively.
Integration Supervisor Lead at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The desktop version does not have scalability.
Independent Business Consultant at Freelance
Microsoft Project Server is fully scalable and is widely used in many industries.
Project Manager at Marvell Technology Group
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Jira is generally stable and reliable but may face performance issues depending on customization, server setup, and user volume.
Sentiment score
7.1
Microsoft Project Server is stable and robust, with minor delays, improved in newer versions, especially the cloud version.
It handles team collaborations and large workloads consistently very well.
Software Engineer at ValueMomentum
Downtime is very rare.
SDE 2 at Virtusa
In my experience, Jira is stable, with around 99% uptime.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
I have never had to reach out to their support because the product works as expected.
Project Manager at Digital Research Alliance of Canada
 

Room For Improvement

Jira requires improvements in usability, integration, and training, with concerns in search, customization, workflows, and complex project management.
Microsoft Project Server requires better integration, customization, user-friendliness, cloud functionality, and agile methodologies to compete with alternatives.
Focus more on improving API integration and automation tools, not just the design.
CEO at 2Help
One feature that could improve Jira is the integration of AI capabilities, such as organizing Jira tasks autonomously with minimum human intervention and executing aggregations and clustering of these tasks.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
A simpler user experience for new users is necessary.
Senior Quality Analyst at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Exporting data from Microsoft Project, especially Gantt charts, is overly complex and not user-friendly.
Project Manager at Digital Research Alliance of Canada
The lack of collaboration capabilities on the desktop version, unlike the cloud version, is a limitation.
Independent Business Consultant at Freelance
Microsoft has become increasingly expensive, and there seems to be a push towards cloud solutions which can be challenging for some.
Managing Director at Knights Innovation Support Centre
 

Setup Cost

Jira's pricing varies by user and features; enterprises appreciate its value despite rising costs with scale and plugins.
Microsoft Project Server offers flexible pricing, with on-premise and cloud options, potentially costing enterprises $120,000 to $150,000 annually.
Even if only five people from your team use a financial plugin, you still pay for all 100 seats.
CEO at 2Help
Overall, Jira offers good value for an organization that actively uses its capabilities, but companies should plan carefully for long-term scaling costs, especially in large enterprise environments with many users and plugins.
SDE 2 at Virtusa
It is quite affordable, and the setup cost is low.
student at a university with 51-200 employees
Microsoft Project Server is on the expensive side due to high licensing costs.
Project Manager at Marvell Technology Group
Microsoft's products are expensive for individuals.
Independent Business Consultant at Freelance
Considering the infrastructure commitments to SharePoint and SQL, the implementation costs are low if already set up.
Managing Director at Knights Innovation Support Centre
 

Valuable Features

Jira offers customizable project management with bug tracking, agile support, robust integration, and collaboration features enhancing team productivity.
Microsoft Project Server streamlines complex project management with resource allocation, integration, and robust tools for efficient collaboration and scheduling.
You can build your own workflows and make it work exactly the way your team needs and integrate it with almost every third-party software.
CEO at 2Help
Agile boards give instant visibility into what is in progress, blocked, or completed. It provides clear status and ownership, which helps the team stay aligned without constant follow-ups.
Senior Quality Analyst at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Jira has helped not only our organization but many organizations to be very focused and understand what needs to be done and to prioritize things effectively.
Senior Technical Support Engineer I at Krisp
The Gantt chart is also a very powerful tool for a visual presentation of sequences, critical paths, and execution processes, which simplifies comprehension for users.
Project Manager at Digital Research Alliance of Canada
This setup allows for comprehensive reporting and management across multiple projects and portfolios.
Managing Director at Knights Innovation Support Centre
The dashboards are amazing for data crunching and provide a project focus with upcoming predictions, including burn-up and burn-down charts.
Project Manager at Marvell Technology Group
 

Categories and Ranking

Jira
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
284
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (1st), Application Requirements Management (1st), Project Management Software (1st)
Microsoft Project Server
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Project Portfolio Management (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

RituRaj - 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.
JV
Owner at CPSTECH
Collaborative task management simplifies office work, but agile methodology features need enhancement
In order to improve Microsoft Project Server, collaborative features could be enhanced, as it is possible to improve it in a collaborative way similar to other office products, for example, using cloud drives like OneDrive. Another feature is Kanban or other features such as Scrum with agile methodologies. Microsoft Project Server is limited and falls short in using agile methodologies, which is the most important issue to improve. Microsoft Project Server is a good product; it is possible to improve regarding enabling agile features because the teams in my work are using Trello and Jira products due to the blackboards, Kanban, and Scrum. To do activities and stopping activities is more comfortable and easier to use, making it more practical in my teamwork. These features do not exist in Microsoft Project Server.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business109
Midsize Enterprise60
Large Enterprise153
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise33
 

Questions from the Community

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 operates on a subscription model, typically priced per user. It is quite affordable, and the setup cost is low. Licensing is simple and easy to get started with.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Project Server?
The pricing for Microsoft Project Server is standard, around $200-$250, but I think it's actually $80 to $100 per year. The pricing for Microsoft Project Server is relative; I would say it is cheap.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Project Server?
In order to improve Microsoft Project Server, collaborative features could be enhanced, as it is possible to improve it in a collaborative way similar to other office products, for example, using c...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Project Server?
Today, the use cases for Microsoft Project Server are for office tasks, such as writing in Word processors, worksheets in Excel, Word processors with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft ...
 

Also Known As

Jira Software
MS Project Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Magnachip, Gwinnett County Schools, CLEAResult, Medbit Oy, Intelbras S.A., ETS, CORE Construction, Keller Foundations
Find out what your peers are saying about Jira vs. Microsoft Project Server and other solutions. Updated: July 2026.
903,147 professionals have used our research since 2012.