What is the difference between Jira and Jira Service Management?
Asked by Rebecca Hernandez:

Hi all,

I need clarification on understanding the **difference between *Jira* and *Jira Service Management*** in my billing with regards to ++permissions and access++ . **Is there any overlapping access between the two? Is it beneficial to have both simultaneously, and if so, why?**

**Billing:**

![Capture1.PNG](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/336142i64932CEB8F141E8A/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Capture1.PNG")

**Licenses:
![Capture2.PNG](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/336145iE77FD80D70EC6097/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Capture2.PNG")**

**Goal:** As I have reached maximum licenses for *Jira*, I question how I can use Atlassian products more effectively.

For company background, we have a Service Desk ticketing system that automates "round-robin" for the entire help desk team. Other teams in IT, such as our developers, receive escalated ticket from Service Desk, so our whole IT department needs access to our ticketing system. Almost all our teams in IT use boards (ex. Kanban) to manage tasks. We have a team of 5-6 people accessing one "project" at a time with a *Jira* license each because we all need the ability to reach out to the end-user we are servicing. Let me know if there's any questions.

In attempts to free up licenses, by switching off *Jira* (highlighted in yellow) for an IT employee in user management administration, this IT employee is unable to access boards and loses admin rights. **Is there any other difference I have overlooked?**

Before considering to upgrade our plan (since it is by tier-based), I'd like to better understand more the difference between the two licenses. Are there other alternatives? **Is it possible to entirely remove *Jira Service Management - Agent* and upgrade my entire IT department to *Jira* (in yellow)? What are the pros and cons, if any?**

Thank you for your help!


Answers:
author: Mikael Sandberg
body: Hi [@Rebecca Hernandez](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5545568)

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

[Jira](https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira) is intended for project management and task management, [Jira Service Management](https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/service-management) for service management like IT Helpdesk, HR Onboarding/Off-boarding etc. Both are similar, the main difference is that for JSM only agents need a license, customers can access and submit requests via a portal. In Jira anyone that need access to a project would need a license.

Also check out [this blog post](https://www.adaptavist.com/blog/jira-service-management-vs-jira-software) for a comparison of the two.

comments: author: Trudy Claspill
body: I would like to some key points to this.

If your teams are using Jira Service Management projects to interact with customers, anybody that needs to change the issue status or add comments that will be visible to customers must have a Jira Service Management Agent license. If they have only a Jira license they will not be able to change the status of issues in JSM projects nor add comments that are visible to Customers. They will only be able to view the issues and add Internal comments.

If you switched from using Jira Service Management to using Jira exclusively then you would no longer have the Customer Portal interface, and your Customers would need to be made licensed Jira user in order to submit and update issues in Jira Software projects.

JSM has a built-in option for a single, Kanban-style board. That is enabled through the JSM project's Project Setting / Features page. Agents would have access to that board. Jira users would not.

If you build additional Kanban boards based on saved filters, those are accessible only to licensed Jira users. Scrum boards and Kanban boards (other than the one you can enable through Project Settings / Features) are a feature of the Jira product only, not the JSM product. Your user that have Agent licenses would not be able to access those without Jira licenses.


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