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Jira vs Rally Software comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

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
6.7
Jira enhances efficiency, productivity, and collaboration, offering positive returns, though challenges with plugin support and precise measurement exist.
Sentiment score
7.5
Rally Software boosts efficiency by 10%, offers 15X ROI, saves time, and is cost-effective despite some user challenges.
It's always hard to measure ROI precisely, but overall, the development time usually pays off within a year through efficiency gains.
CEO at 2Help
The ROI is visible, as that's why we are investing in these tools and running our projects successfully through them, despite a few challenges such as role-based access being somewhat difficult.
Sr. Information Architect and Principal Consultant UX at Tech Mahindra Limited
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Jira's support is considered helpful and responsive, though some users desire more proactive and personalized assistance.
Sentiment score
6.8
Rally Software's customer service is responsive, with quick, knowledgeable support and proactive communication, generally satisfying users despite occasional delays.
Jira's customer support is one of the best I have ever dealt with because they respond quickly.
CEO at 2Help
I did not face any issues with stability or upgrades.
Senior Director, Head of Information Systems Division at Israel Innovation Authority
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Jira effectively supports organizational scalability, though integration complexities can present challenges in implementing Scaled Agile Frameworks.
Sentiment score
7.2
Rally Software offers strong scalability supporting large enterprises, despite occasional performance issues, effectively handling significant user volumes globally.
Scalability for Jira is great, and it handles growth easily from 100 to thousands.
CEO at 2Help
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Users praise Jira's stability, citing minimal bugs and glitches, with occasional issues linked to resource constraints and updates.
Sentiment score
7.4
Rally Software is generally stable and reliable, with occasional slowness and downtime, but users appreciate the responsive support.
 

Room For Improvement

Jira struggles with complexity, UI issues, and limited reporting, needing better integration, customization, and user-friendly features.
Rally Software struggles with navigation, integration, user-friendliness, and requires improvements in reporting, customization, and workflow efficiency.
Focus more on improving API integration and automation tools, not just the design.
CEO at 2Help
To improve Jira, maybe some AI features could be added.
Senior Director, Head of Information Systems Division at Israel Innovation Authority
One area for improvement might be the rigidity in role and access configurations, which require many process changes to fit the tool.
Sr. Information Architect and Principal Consultant UX at Tech Mahindra Limited
 

Setup Cost

Jira's pricing rises with team size, with significant costs for enterprises due to licenses, plugins, and cloud transitions.
Enterprise users find Rally Software pricing high but valuable for large-scale agile projects, suggesting a more flexible model.
Even if only five people from your team use a financial plugin, you still pay for all 100 seats.
CEO at 2Help
Rally Software is affordable because our customers also prefer it.
Sr. Information Architect and Principal Consultant UX at Tech Mahindra Limited
 

Valuable Features

Jira excels in agile support, collaboration, customization, and efficient project management with user-friendly interfaces and robust integration options.
Rally Software offers user-friendly Agile project management with real-time dashboards, customizable reporting, and robust integration capabilities.
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
Rally Software provides real-time dashboards for different kinds of stakeholders and governance, giving clear insights into project progress, team velocity, and potential risks.
Sr. Information Architect and Principal Consultant UX at Tech Mahindra Limited
 

Categories and Ranking

Jira
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
276
Ranking in other categories
Application Requirements Management (2nd), Project Management Software (1st)
Rally Software
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Jira is 13.3%, down from 22.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rally Software is 5.3%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Jira13.3%
Rally Software5.3%
Other81.4%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

Nathan Akimoff - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at 2Help
Has customized workflows to fit internal processes and improved overall team organization
I don't have a particular customization or integration that's been especially valuable for my team, but I experienced integrating Jira and QuickBooks, which was very challenging, but it really impacted the efficiency of the whole company. I have been working with Jira for over 12 years, and I've seen it grow every year. It's a powerful product, but lately, I think Atlassian has been adding too many simplified features that look nice but don't offer the same level of flexibility, and made some fields not available through the API, which is kind of frustrating. If I could make one suggestion, it would be to focus more on improving API integration and automation tools, not just the design.
Rakhee Srivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Information Architect and Principal Consultant UX at Tech Mahindra Limited
Real-time dashboards provide clear insights into project progress and team velocity
Rally Software is easy to use for Agile project methodology because it follows Scrum and Kanban, helping with sprint planning and backlog management. Rally Software provides real-time dashboards for different kinds of stakeholders and governance, giving clear insights into project progress, team velocity, and potential risks. Backlog management is present in the product, allowing prioritization of tasks. The dashboards provide all types of insights through analytics. Capacity planning helps optimize resource allocation, ensuring balanced workload and realistic sprint commitments for our projects. The solution integrates with GitHub, and we can also integrate with Excel and CI/CD pipelines.
report
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Comparison Review

it_user355629 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Corporate Systems and Emerging Business at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nov 19, 2015
JIRA can do incident management, work configuration, and a lot of other different things. But we haven't found anything as compelling as CA Agile.
The tools are not overly complex for Agile. It appears that CA has recognized that. They're not just building the connector for Rally, but they are also allowing other groups to build connectors from JIRA into CA PPM and from other tools to CA PPM. If you are looking at open source products, why…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Insurance Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business105
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise149
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise110
 

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 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...
What do you like most about Rally Software?
Rally offers many features that help the management of activities, coordination, alignment and reports, which applies agility across the organization. If I were to highlight a particular feature, i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rally Software?
Rally Software is affordable because our customers also prefer it, and I have never heard concerns about pricing preventing us from using this tool.
What needs improvement with Rally Software?
While I'm not heavily involved in project management tools, I am familiar with these tools. One area for improvement might be the rigidity in role and access configurations, which require many proc...
 

Also Known As

Jira Software
CA Agile Central, Rally Enterprise, CA Agile Training, CA Agile Coaching, CA Agile Academy, CA Agile Management , CA ALM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Physicians Mutual, Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare, Editora Abril, Tata Communications, Level 3 Communications, Seagate, TomTom, Philips, Hiscox, Physicians Mutual, MYOB
Find out what your peers are saying about Jira vs. Rally Software and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,425 professionals have used our research since 2012.