Jira Align vs Rally Software comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Jira Align and Rally Software based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Enterprise Agile Planning Tools solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Jira Align vs. Rally Software Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The most valuable features in Jira Align are the dashboard and the reporting feature.""I like the way the UI functions.""The technical support services are excellent.""The OKR experience is great.""I've had no issues with Align's stability.""Jira Align helps us manage communication and tasks for a variety of teams without overlap.""The most valuable feature is that engineers can access the Jira database and just search for the tasks that are assigned to them. They can then update the status on their own in those records that are assigned to them.""Being able to do PI planning using the program levels is most valuable. I find that the program-level reporting is most useful."

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"The effect of these kind of tools drives the way you organize things. It helps you shape the way you flow.""It's a good platform to keep track of all the user stories across all projects. So rather than having one off Excel spreadsheets with all of the requirements, it is a good place to have all of that.""We can work better and at a higher quality, than we were able to before.""The metrics - collecting metrics. It's because we've used several other tools in the past, and they don't give you a full indication of how well your teams are performing, at a portfolio level, at a product level, and at the team level.""Having that view into features and roadmap from product to delivery teams, and where they are going, then execute on.""The reporting, and being able to roll that up across the verticals, was an important selling point for us.""We've actually used it for virtual PI planning. We have teams in different locations, and we actually virtually do PI planning, big-room planning, using the tools.""We use the roadmap features, and we're getting better at using dates to use the roadmap so that we can see if we're on target for work."

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Cons
"There are fewer customization options in Jira Align due to how it was designed.""Someone who is new to Jira or doesn't have many years of working experience in Jira Align gets easily lost because everything looks the same in the product.""Deployment was very complex.""I would like to see Jira Align merge and integrate better with Jira as a whole. A lot of the time, the data from Jira won't map very well into Jira Align.""One area for improvement is that Jira Align's double menu and multiple menus can be difficult for new users.""I've encountered limitations in using Jira Align for certain aspects, particularly in implementing OKRs. Jira Align's highest hierarchy is Epic, which may not always align perfectly for specific initiatives. Additionally, while Jira Align offers functionality for tracking OKRs and generating dashboards, I've found that it lacks in some areas. As a result, we've explored alternative solutions that better meet our needs in these areas. Its Kanban feature is also limited.""AI is utilized worldwide; they could implement the functionality for notifications and other organizational operations in the product.""One of the biggest issues I found in the new version was once we clicked on one of the tasks that were specifically for our group and went to look at the other portfolios in other areas we had to browse all the way back to the beginning. If you click the back button, it would not work, it stayed the same place. Additionally, if you click on page B, but then you wanted to go back to page A it would not go back to page A. You would have to browse back to the portfolio and then find your group again and open it. This was the only issue that I had with it and I am not sure if it is a Jira issue or it was because of the way the site was laid out."

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"It requires better scalability for the implementation of the whole suite. We do not use it in that fashion, and visibility is sometimes a problem.""I think the interface could be a little bit more visual and less wordy. Right now, it seems like it's just a lot of text on the page. In other ticketing systems where it's more visual, you can see more of a flow. But in this one it's more just a list of tasks. I would like to see that a little bit better, especially considering it has so many great organizational features, like child tasks, different artifacts. It would be great to see it presented more appropriately.""In Rally Software, the connection with GitLab and GitHub needs improvement.""There's a lot of support for Scrum and Agile, but it needs something for the Kanban side.""What I don't like about it is that it is really hard to find old work to reference information and use the reporting section of the application in terms of trying to analyze trends. If I am trying to find out which interfaces took this long and I want to compare and measure improvement from one quarter to another quarter, the reporting mechanism within Rally is very troublesome. They have an Excel plugin that you're supposed to use, but you literally have to pull the raw data out before you can do the analysis. You can't do it within Rally, and if you can, it is a secret, and I don't know how to do it. It should have better, easier, and user-friendly reporting without having to use the Excel add-in. It is very clunky. There is a lot of data in there, but it is not organized in such a way that makes it intuitive. You really have to kind of look for where do you put your documentation or dates. Some customization is available, but it is not plug-and-play like Jira. When I switched from TFS to Jira, I just went and started using Jira, whereas with Rally, you kind of have to really get in and figure out what you need to do before you set stuff up, or you're going to get yourself stuck. You can just start using Jira and be successful.""It's a bit cumbersome to manage the Project Picker. As we sunset teams or projects close out - but we still have test cases tied to those teams or projects that are being used in other spaces - we have this monstrous list in the Project Picker that becomes really difficult to manage and find, and we can't clean that up ourselves. It would be nice if it was easier to do that and not lose your history.""I'd like the ability to customize reports without having to incur Professional Services, or having to write my own code GitHub and then implement that as a custom report. That's untenable. It's not sustainable.""I wish there was a view, like the Kanban view, where you could see the parent, and see all the children visually, so you could drag and drop where you want it to go. Something like that might help."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The software is very good, but the price is expensive. Our licensing costs are on a monthly basis, but there are no additional costs to the standard license fees."
  • "The license for Jira Align is priced fairly."
  • "Jira Align is quite expensive for small-to-medium companies, but it's quite reasonable for larger ones."
  • "I would rate this solution a nine out of ten for pricing. The price of the solution depends on the number of people using it and the projects you are working on."
  • "My company pays approximately 399 USD per month for the solution."
  • "On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate Jira Align a seven out of ten."
  • "The tool is moderately expensive."
  • "Jira Align is an expensive solution."
  • More Jira Align Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Frankly, pricing is expensive and needs to be carefully planned for when budgeting."
  • "The license costs are fairly high as compared to some of the other solutions out there."
  • "From a price point, it's a cost effective solution for our needs."
  • "It is expensive and may not be worthwhile for a small company."
  • "We are always looking for a discount, if the solution was less expensive it would be a benefit."
  • "I understand it's a little more expensive. That is why many people prefer Jira."
  • "Rally Software costs $50 a month, and for a base account, that price is acceptable."
  • More Rally Software Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The product's most valuable feature is CMDB for services desk management and backlog projects.
    Top Answer:Jira Align's cost needs improvement.
    Top Answer:We use Jira Align for service desk and backlog project management.
    Top Answer: We have teams come and go all the time. We have teams in India, America, Ireland, Poland, Italy, England... we are spread out everywhere! Rally is our key tool for scrum planning and our single… more »
    Top Answer:Rally Software costs $50 a month, and for a base account, that price is acceptable.
    Top Answer:It is hard to track the changes. For example, we're in sprint 25, and then we have 26, 27, 28, and 29. Throughout that whole time, we're developing pipelines in Azure, moving to GitHub, creating… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    4,160
    Comparisons
    2,261
    Reviews
    25
    Average Words per Review
    517
    Rating
    8.0
    Views
    5,109
    Comparisons
    2,252
    Reviews
    7
    Average Words per Review
    695
    Rating
    8.1
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    CA Agile Central, Rally Enterprise, CA Agile Training, CA Agile Coaching, CA Agile Academy, CA Agile Management , CA ALM
    Learn More
    Atlassian
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    Overview

    Jira Align is a cloud-based agile planning tool designed to help enterprises visualize, manage, and carry out large-scale software and IT projects. Jira Align’s features are designed to align the activities of your company’s development team with the overall goals of the organization by helping you achieve the following results:

    • Connect and coordinate enterprise-level business teams.
    • Make your entire enterprise’s work visible to drive and improve business outcomes.
    • Improve product quality with a fully aligned organization.
    • Shorten delivery cycles by increasing operational efficiency.

    With Jira Align’s integration with Jira Software, businesses can simplify governing large-scale software development efforts by translating their strategy and goals into the technical execution and delivery of work.

    Jira Align uses the aggregated data from Jira Software to produce reports on every aspect of the development process. Product stakeholders are granted immediate visibility into the progress that has been made and can easily identify delays and their causes.

    The solution also assists in budget planning by assigning expenses to various work items and giving management real-time insights into ongoing expenditures and performance against set budgets.

    Jira Align Features

    Some of the top features and benefits of using Jira Align include:

    • Strategy management: Jira Align provides a clear visualization of where your enterprise is holding via strategic snapshots. The snapshot helps guide teams throughout the product. With the snapshot in view, it becomes easier to see and track the goals your company wants to carry out.
    • Progress monitoring: View a progress bar that provides indication of the level of completeness of your projects. The interface is populated with live data, which assists with planning and execution reporting.
    • Reporting and metrics: Jira Align creates valuable insights using the aggregated data it collects, ensuring that changes are tracked across teams and results are made visible early on in the process. These metrics allow managers to quickly determine what actions need to be taken.
    • Scalability: Jira Align is designed to work within organizations with hundreds of technical staff members and it can scale to support tens of thousands of users.
    • Backlogs and workflows: Effectively manage your work utilizing backlogs and workflow boards.
    • Customizable dashboard: Lay out key data points to help management keep tabs on important items. Easily make decisions based on active live consolidated data along with forecasting, risk tracking reports, and more. To help lower risks, Jira Align provides you with a visualization of program cross dependencies. It also displays a comprehensive view of resource utilization across projects, and highlights inefficiencies so that they can be resolved quickly.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Jira Align stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its program-level planning options and its reporting capabilities.

    A project manager at a consultancy notes, “I like how things can be sorted out, and it shows the different objectives one can do. You could also create a team view that would allow your team to see work outcomes. Jira Align also helps with the reporting, because we can export data to Excel or another format.”

    With Rally Software, you can plan, prioritize, manage, track, and continuously improve your work so that you can deliver the value that your customers need with speed, quality, and efficiency. Our enterprise-class Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) SaaS platform provides visibility into progress, roadblocks, and dependencies across multiple teams, projects, and programs. This allows you to align to your strategic goals and create better business results, and to do it all in a single system of record.

    Sample Customers
    Anthem, nielsen, Homeland Security, NCR, dimension data
    Physicians Mutual, Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare, Editora Abril, Tata Communications, Level 3 Communications, Seagate, TomTom, Philips, Hiscox, Physicians Mutual, MYOB
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company39%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Healthcare Company6%
    Maritime Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm28%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Insurance Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Healthcare Company17%
    Comms Service Provider15%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization78%
    Financial Services Firm3%
    Healthcare Company3%
    Manufacturing Company3%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business41%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise32%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business12%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise79%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business10%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise80%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business3%
    Midsize Enterprise79%
    Large Enterprise18%
    Buyer's Guide
    Jira Align vs. Rally Software
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Jira Align vs. Rally Software and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Jira Align is ranked 3rd in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools with 35 reviews while Rally Software is ranked 7th in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools with 116 reviews. Jira Align is rated 8.0, while Rally Software is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Jira Align writes "Creates visibility, has lots of reports, and removes silos". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Rally Software writes "A solution that enables users to accurately estimate the time required for building large software projects". Jira Align is most compared with OpenText ValueEdge, ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management, JIRA Portfolio, Planview AgilePlace and Targetprocess, whereas Rally Software is most compared with Microsoft Azure DevOps, Jira, TFS, OpenText ALM / Quality Center and Digital.ai Agility. See our Jira Align vs. Rally Software report.

    See our list of best Enterprise Agile Planning Tools vendors.

    We monitor all Enterprise Agile Planning Tools reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.