We performed a comparison between Jira and Microsoft Project based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Project Management Software solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."I feel the strongest feature of Jira is its workflow engine. It helps us automate our workflows within our organization. It's the one characteristic of Jira which I think can help any organization, be it in any domain."
"I like the test cases in Jira. The orange dash items view was great, and I like the features and layout of the data. It's quite different, and people are now getting their items so quickly."
"The roadmap feature and the ability to integrate with Power BI are probably the most valuable features in it. It is a great solution. I absolutely love it. It is a tool that was designed for project management, and it has been awesome to work with it so far. I also love Confluence."
"The most valuable feature is that it is somewhat flexible."
"It has enabled us to keep track of features or projects. Previously, we used to manually keep track in Office. We now have a centralized repository for all the information."
"It's a very complete product overall."
"It helps me to use virtual Scrum boards across four locations, three time zones, and to plan my work. It fully supports the Scrum approach, and the Agile way of working, and it has Agile thinking behind it.."
"The two features that have been most valuable have been backlog management and sprint planning and tracking."
"The solution is stable."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is planning."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is time management."
"I use Microsoft Project to manage project timelines."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature is the Auto resource leveling tool because it shows students that often, expert resources get over-scheduled, and that dealing with the issue by just using the auto-resource leveling tool would have a large impact on the delivery date."
"In my experience, this solution is one of the best for the waterfall management model."
"Because I am a developer, I would like integration with Git Source Code Management so that for tickets, we can reference the code where the change has happened and where the issue is. This feature might be there, and I probably haven't discovered it."
"There could be an improvement in loading files and images for more than 50 MB. It would be good if it allowed more than 100 MB."
"There should be a way to integrate the mobile application or in some way, make it more clear because at first instance, I didn't understand how to use it."
"Based on the feedback from my admin, it is sometimes difficult to find some of the features. It is not a big deal, but its configuration interface can be improved to make it easy to find things."
"It is not user-friendly."
"The solution can improve by including test management functionality in a native bundle without plugins."
"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."
"I manage the progress of the stories in an Excel chart with dates on work progress or thing to do. I don't like the progress or the stage changing from the stories in Jira."
"Its reporting and its integration with some of the other related systems should be improved. It is not very easy to integrate."
"I find the setup a little bit cumbersome."
"There have been some drawbacks with customization. Some users want it to be an automation tool."
"There are some things about it that I've always hated, and they haven't really changed them. It makes a lot of assumptions. It is also difficult to put business rules in it. You have to de-link it from the consecutive task if you don't want to do a What-If analysis, and sometimes, if you forget to do that, it changes everything. It is a pain in the neck to undo it. I would also like to see better integration with graphics. The graphics are primitive, and they need some major work. I would like to have the ability to do some small macros within the project for fuzzy logic. For example, if you're not sure how long a task takes, you can get the earliest guess. It is very time and manpower intensive to keep it up to date. You need to constantly update it. You will find that you are spending more time working on the Microsoft Project file rather than working on your project. I don't want to devote a person to just do that. That's silly. You can link it to some more modern applications so that it is dynamic when a real-time resource schedule changes, but it is not at all dynamic. It is only as dynamic as the person using it. It would be nice if we could plug it in real time for each project, subproject, or task. If something is going on, I want to see it in real time. Sometimes we have international clients, and they don't use the same calendar. They have a Thursday and Friday weekend, and we have a Saturday and Sunday weekend. I can change it in Microsoft Project, but I would like to be able to do it globally. There may be a way to do it, but I just haven't figured it out yet. I would like to be able to specify globally what weekend we want or what we want to call a weekend. We might have a project that works seven days a week. Some tasks are automated outside, like manufacturing processes. Embedding external processes is almost impossible because, in a practical sense, we don't have people who can do a lot of programming here, and also the interface of Microsoft Project is not the easiest because a lot of it is proprietary. It would be nice if we can link different tasks to external sources of inputs and outputs so that we could integrate them with a master project plan and see in real time what's going on. For example, you are manufacturing a batch of a chemical, and I have to rely on if a customer is making some type of complex chemical. Their system does not interfere with ours. We have to get the outputs from their system and enter them manually into the project to see the effect. That takes time. If you're talking about hours, you going to spend three to four hours, but there is the risk of getting it wrong or making a mistake. On tight projects, every minute counts. I would like to see some control system interfaces with Microsoft Project. A modern machine shop has a lot of computer numerical control (CNC) computers. In fact, virtually all machining is done with a CNC machine. Even 3D additive manufacturing is made with CNC. That data can go to a computer, and that computer can spit it out to a project so that you can see in real time whether you are going to finish a day ahead. If you had to finish a day ahead, you could talk to the systems' software, which can say that if I have this machine working for another hour and this one for one hour or less, I would be able to meet the schedule. It can then make those changes, but it can't do that. Everything needs to be done manually, which takes more time, and there's a risk of mistakes. It requires smarter automation and more machine learning. There is no machine learning capability in Microsoft Project. It just doesn't exist. That's why I say it is only suitable for small-sized to medium-sized companies and small projects. Most people don't have the problems that I have. I don't have them all the time, but when I have them, they're big. When you're bidding on a project that has to get done, you find yourself spending most of the time working on Microsoft Project, whereas you should be spending these hours managing the project. Thinking on a bigger scale, I would like better integration with Office, Visio, and Access. If you make a change in one, it should cascade to others and vice versa. It doesn't do that. It is not a dynamic program. I would like to see a dynamic program or at least the capability of being dynamic, that is, even if it is close to real time where it outputs to a module, and the module then talks to real-time things. The real-time data goes back into the module, and the module updates the project plan. Such dynamic capability would be nice. It may not be real time, but it is at least close. I would like to be able to link directly to the data in an Excel spreadsheet so that I don't have to keep going back and forth updating it. I don't want to have to create a dynamic link library. Whenever I change the data in Excel, it should update in Visio or PowerPoint. If I'm doing a pie chart or any kind of graphic, I don't want to constantly update my graphics. I want to link them together, and I want them updated automatically. I know it is a wishful thing. They don't make major changes every time they come out with a new version. They don't fix the issue. They just add a few features."
"I would like to see an entire baseline, like in JIRA."
"It is positioned at the more high end. Sometimes it's more complicated than we need."
"Project availability and speed could always be improved."
"The collaboration has room for improvement."
Jira is ranked 4th in Project Management Software with 266 reviews while Microsoft Project is ranked 2nd in Project Management Software with 77 reviews. Jira is rated 8.2, while Microsoft Project is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Jira writes "A great centralized tool that has a good agile framework and is useful for day-to-day planning, task management, and work log efficacy". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Project writes "A stable solution that very accurately runs projects". Jira is most compared with Microsoft Azure DevOps, IBM Rational DOORS, OpenText ALM Octane, Rally Software and Planview AgilePlace, whereas Microsoft Project is most compared with Asana, Microsoft Project Server, Smartsheet, Broadcom Clarity and monday.com. See our Jira vs. Microsoft Project report.
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