Product Solutions Resources Partners Pricing Support Talk to an expert Get free trial Login GitLab vs Jira Decision Kit GitLab vs Jira Overview Jira Software is an issue tracker and agile project management application. Portfolio for Jira Portfolio is a separate add-on that enables portfolio management in Jira Software. Jira Service Desk is a separate application to enable IT and customer service capablilities. Jira Core is a scaled down version of Jira Software that contains the general project management capabilities without the software and agile-specific functionality of Jira Software. Jira is available via 3 deploment models: Cloud: SaaS version of Jira hosted and managed by Atlassian Server: self-managed version that can be deployed on a single server Data Center: self-managed version that can be deployed to multiple servers for high availability. Gaps Extending the native functionality of Jira is done through plugins. Plugins are expensive to maintain, secure, and upgrade. In contrast, GitLab is open core and anyone can contribute changes directly to the codebase, which once merged would be automatically tested and maintained with every change. Comments/Anecdotes From customer comment on why they won’t switch from Jira: > Probably some of these features could be worked around in GitLab (e.g. by using labels exclusively). In particular for our organization we have been using Jira for much longer than GitLab. Migrating to another issue tracking system for existing project would be less than trivial, i.e. if one wants to maintain the history. From HackerNews JIRA customer about JRA and how it makes their developers feel: Agreed that the problem isn’t directly Jira, but (anecdotally maybe) there seems a clear correlation between Jira and unhappy developers who feel their tracker has way too much process. Jira doesn’t cause the root problem, but Atlassian are profiting from it existing, and so maybe people are encouraged to use it in those ways. I’m not letting it off the hook so easily. JIRA makes it dangerously easy to implement overly bureaucratic processes. A certain kind of organization is drawn to it for that reason. Even a healthy organization switching to JIRA can get carried away with the tools now at its disposal. Resources Jira Software Jira Portfolio Jira Service Desk Jira Core Integrations GitLab has Jira integration that allows Jira Software to be used as an issue tracker for the planning stage while using GitLab for the rest of the DevOps lifecycle: source code management, CI/CD, and monitoring. Pricing Jira Software pricing - Cloud - Flat $10 per month for up to 10 users - $7 per user/month for 11-100 users - Server: $3,600 one-time payment (50 users) - Data Center: $12,000 per year (500 users) Portfolio for Jira pricing - Cloud - Flat $10 per month for up to 10 users - $3.50 per user/month for 11-100 users - Server: $9,900 one-time payment (500 users) - Data Center: n/a Jira Service Desk pricing - Cloud - Flat $10 per month for up to 3 agents - $20 per agent/month - Sever: $13,200 one-time payment (50 agents) - Data Ceneter: $60,000 per year (500 agents) Jira Core pricing - Cloud - Flat $10 per month for up to 10 users - $5 per user/month for 11-100 users - Small teams: $10 One-time payment for up to 10 users - Growing teams: $13,200 one-time payment (500 users) Comparison A few missing features in GitLab that JIRA has from this comment - The concept of “Components” with a configurable set of default assignee’s and associate component watchers (this is separate from “Labels”, which also exist in Jira) - Multiple issue types - Configurable set of fields and screens for each issue type - Workflow definition (e.g. allowed transitions for each issue status) for each issue type - Fine-grained notifications control for each issue action Feature Comparison FEATURES Issues SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Quickly set the status, assignee or milestone for multiple issues at the same time or easily filter them on any properties. See milestones and issues across projects. Learn more about the Issue Tracker Description Templates SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE By adding a description template to your issues or merge requests, users who create a new issue or merge request can select a template to help them to communicate effectively. Learn more about GitLab Description Templates GitLab Flavored Markdown SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE GitLab uses ‘GitLab Flavored Markdown’ (GFM). It extends the standard Markdown in a few significant ways to add some useful functionality. Learn more about GitLab Flavored Markdown Labels SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Labels provide an easy way to categorize issues, merge requests, or epics based on descriptive titles as ‘bug’, or ‘documentation’. Learn more about GitLab Labels Issue Weights SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE GitLab lets you manage issues using Agile practices by setting the weight of an issue. Read our Issue Weights documentation Milestones SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Create and manage milestones at both the project and group levels, viewing all the issues for the milestone you’re currently working on, representing an Agile program increment or a release. Learn more about Milestones Iterations SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Create and manage iterations at the group level, view all the issues for the iteration you’re currently working on within your group or project, and enable all subgroups and projects to stay in sync on the same cadence. Learn more about Iterations Issue Due Dates SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE In GitLab, you can set a due date for individual issues. This is very convenient if you have small tasks with a specific deadline. Due dates documentation Multiple Issue Assignees SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Assign more than one person to an issue at a time. Read our Multiple Assignees Documentation Confidential Issues SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Keep your information secure with Confidential Issues. With GitLab, you can create confidential issues visible only for project members with Reporter access level or above. Learn more about Confidential Issues Issue Dependencies SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Explicitly mark issues as blocked and blocking and track their status. Blocked issues are visible in the issue card view for easy identification. Learn more about Issue Dependencies Linked Issues SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Mark issues as related to one another. Learn more about Related Issues Move Issue to Another Project SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE You can move issues between projects in GitLab. All links, history and comments will be copied and the original issue will reference the newly moved issue. This makes working with multiple issue trackers much easier. Learn more about moving issues between projects Mark Issue as Duplicate SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Mark an issue as a duplicate of another issue, closing it. Learn more about marking duplicate issues New Issue via Email SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Create an issue from email by sending in the issue title and description. Create issue from email Burnup Charts SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE With Milestone and Iteration Burnup Charts, you can better understand scope change during a sprint or while working on a new version of your software. Read our Burnup Charts documentation Burndown Charts SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE GitLab provides Burndown Charts as part of Milestones and Iterations. This allows users to better track progress during a sprint or while working on a new version of their software. Read our Burndown Charts Documentation Project Issue Board SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE GitLab has Issue Boards, each list of an Issue Board is based on a label that exists in your issue tracker. The Issue Board will therefore match the state of your issue tracker in a user-friendly way. Learn more about GitLab Issue Boards Group Issue Board SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Issue board scoped at the group level, so that you can view issues in all projects of that group. Learn more about Group-level Issue Boards Multiple Project Issue Boards SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Large companies often have hundreds of different projects, all with different moving parts at the same time. GitLab allows for multiple Issue Boards for a single project so you can plan, organize, and visualize a workflow for a feature or product release. Multiple Issue Boards are particularly useful for large projects with more than one team or in situations where a repository is used to host the code of multiple products. Multiple Project Issue Boards Multiple Group Issue Boards SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Multiple Group Issue Boards, similar to Multiple Project Issue Boards Multiple Group Issue Boards Issue Board Label Lists SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE An Issue Board is based on its project’s label structure, therefore, it applies the same descriptive labels to indicate placement on the board. GitLab issues can appear on multiple issues and they still have meaning without the context of a particular board. Learn more about labels and Issue Boards Issue Board Configuration SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Associate a board with a milestone, labels, an assignee, and a weight Learn more about configurable Issue Boards Issue Board Focus Mode SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Get more information at a time with the Issue Board focus mode, which removes all unnecessary elements from the screen to show your Issue Boards. Learn more about Issue Board focus mode Add Multiple Issues to Project Issue Board SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE From an Issue Board, you can add multiple issues to lists in the board by selecting one or more existing issues. Learn how to add multiple issues to your Issue Board. New Issue in Issue Board List SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE With GitLab Issue Boards, you can create issues directly from the board and assign multiple labels allowing them to appear on multiple boards. Learn how to create a new issue from the Issue Board Issue Board Types SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Issue boards/dashboards reflect an organizations flow for processing work items. These boards can reflect individualized workflow or follow established patterns. Issue board types with established patterns (such as Scrum and Kanban) can make setup of new boards easier. See issue for details Issue Board Configuration with Advanced Logic SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Define what issues show in an issue board using advanced Boolean logic. See epic for details Time Tracking SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Time Tracking in GitLab lets your team add estimates and record time spent on issues and merge requests. Learn more about Time Tracking Single level Epics SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Plan and track features and work group level epics that collect issues together. Easily create and assign Issues directly from the Epic itself Learn more about Epics Multi-level Epics SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Plan and track strategies, initiatives, and features with multi-level epics. Organize and prioritize work across multiple children epics and their issues within the Epic Tree. Learn more about Epics Confidential Epics SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Organize a collection of related confidential issues into a confidential epic, allowing you to manage sensitive work more efficiently. Learn more about Epics Roadmaps SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Visualize multiple epics and milestones across time in a roadmap view. Learn more about Roadmaps Portfolio-level Roadmaps SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Establish product vision and strategy, gain progress insights, organize, govern and shape the effort of multi-disciplinary teams with portfolio-level roadmaps. Learn more about Roadmaps Out-of-the-box Agile Reporting SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Teams have access to more than a dozen out-of-the-box reports with real-time, actionable insights into how their team is performing sprint over sprint. Example reports are sprint burndown, epic burndown, cumulative flow diagram, velocity chart, burn up chart, and sprint report. Read our Burndown Chart Documentation Requirements Management SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Gather, document, refine, and track approval of business and system requirements. Define traceability between requirements and other requirements, code, or test cases. See direction page for details Satisfy Requirements from CI/CD pipelines SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE This powerful feature uses the GitLab single-application model to allow testing run in the CI/CD pipelines to satisfy your requirements. This automates the cumbersome task of identifying satisfied requirements, and enables your organization to focus on delivering value. See direction page for details Import & Export Requirements SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE To better collaborate with external groups and organizations, requirements can be imported and exported in CSV format. This allows teams to use a single interface for development and testing against requirements. See direction page for details Service Desk SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Allow external users to create issues in your GitLab instance without an account and without access to anything except their issue. Manage tickets from the GitLab interface. Learn more about Service Desk Service Desk Custom Branding SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Allow customization of incoming issues and response emails, including the service desk user name to allow for a cohesive branding experience for your customers. Learn more about Service Desk customization Portfolio Management SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Plan and track work at the project and portfolio level. Manage capacity and resources together with Portfolio Management. Learn more about Portfolio Management Create, search and view issues from chat SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Quickly create, view and search for issues straight from chat. Read the documentation on Slash commands Mattermost integration SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Mattermost can be automatically installed and integrated using GitLab Omnibus Read the documentation on Mattermost integration Multiple integrations SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE GitLab can integrate with Authentication and Authorization (LDAP / AD) mechanisms, multiple 3rd party services, CI/CD, and other tools such as ALM, PLM, Agile and Automation tools. Learn more about GitLab's integrations Automatically close issue(s) when a merge request is merged SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE With GitLab, you can use specific keywords to close one or more issues as soon as a merge request is merged. Learn more about automatically closing issues Configurable issue closing pattern SaaS FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Self-Managed FREE PREMIUM ULTIMATE Define your own specific keywords to close one or more issues as soon as a merge request is merged. Learn more about automatically closing issues Twitter Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Why GitLab? Product Solutions Services DevOps tools Is it any good? Releases Pricing Get started Resources All resources All-Remote Blog Newsletter Events Webcasts Topics Training Docs Developer Portal Install Community Customers Contribute Community Programs Direction Technology Partners Channel Partners Open Source Partners GitLab for Open Source GitLab for Education GitLab for Startups Shop Community Forum Support Get help Contact Sales Contact Support Support options Status Customers Portal Company About What is GitLab? 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