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."It's very simple to change the workflow and adapt it. Jira is very user friendly for the agent and the user."
"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."
"We can create multiple boards for the same product backlogs."
"Great for tracking my development team's productivity."
"The solution is extremely stable."
"We have found the structure, functionality, and how Jira handles the tickets most valuable."
"It gave us control over all test artifacts in one place, along with easy traceability, mapping between stories, bugs, test cases, and test cycles."
"The most valuable feature is that it has different APIs available, with good services, and it is completely by the books."
"Dependencies (not typically effectively used in "Agile" techniques) allow understanding of actual project status and challenges."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"I use Microsoft Project to manage project timelines."
"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."
"A lot of valuable features have been added in the last three years, including scheduling automation and intelligence."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Project are you can create critical paths pretty easily, and you can import from an Excel spreadsheet to your task list as you create it during your working sessions with your team."
"The solution is stable."
"They now have MS project Online and they have two levels, so it's easier to access what you need and to choose specifically what you'll use. You can start at a lower level, for example, and be more cost-effective and move up if it suits you."
"The performance and stability are visibly degrading since the database has been growing every year."
"It should be less expensive."
"Jira is a little bit old fashioned, it could be more user friendly."
"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."
"It should have Behavior Driven Development (BDD). There should be an option to add macros to help with that. A lot of people are using it now, and it would be nice if there was a way in there to be able to generate the BDD of commands whenever you're creating a story."
"I would like our clients' IT group to be able to have oversight without setting up agents. We're managing tickets, and I'd like their IT group to see everything we're doing without having to set them up as agents. There should be a better way of managing their users. I've got such requests, but Jira is expensive, and it is difficult to pay an agent fee for somebody else to view these tickets. Currently, the only way in which I can do that is by setting a user up as an agent, and it becomes cost-prohibitive. They need to do a better job on ticket viewers."
"Atlassian has multiple tools and it becomes difficult for a customer to process everything differently. Atlassian should combine them and form a single solution for DevOps by including the Jira Confluence, Bitbucket, Bamboo, and others. This would be much easier for customers by purchasing a package, rather than purchasing bits and pieces. With Azure DevOps and other companies, it becomes easier to go with one company having multiple areas that they can cater to, but in Atlassian, the problem is that you have to select different solutions to have a full package. For example, to have document management customers have to purchase Confluence and for Git repository management they have to purchase Bitbucket, et cetera. There is always another add-on that you need to attach to have a complete solution in Jira."
"It would be very practical if you can more freely reach the information that is already inside the system. Currently, we have to buy add-ons for it. There is a lot of information in the Jira system that you can handle only through add-ons. You cannot reach such information on your own. If you want to use this information, which is already in the system, you have to buy some add-on to use. For example, information about how much time an assignee is spending on a ticket is there in the system, but you cannot access it without an add-on. JQL is a very good way to reach the data inside Jira. If we can reach more objects, even through JQL, it would be great."
"There have been some drawbacks with customization. Some users want it to be an automation tool."
"Project is not easy to scale. It isn't a cloud-based solution where everybody can utilize it at the same time without version issues when you save your file. We use it at the enterprise level, but you have to share the files to others within your organization through Teams or SharePoint. One improvement would be to transition to cloud-based functionality. However, that might limit the functionality in other ways."
"It needs to be more comprehensive."
"There are a few bugs that can affect the stability. This is typical of most applications."
"It should be easier to break things. Breaking up the visualization from the task is sometimes a little bit tricky to do. You can do it, but it takes a minute. It's not an easy function to do. The way you have to format it and stuff like that takes a minute."
"Could be more user-friendly, and forecasting could be better."
"Planview FLEX licensing gives us a central repository where all the projects are stored so you can check the finances, resources, etc. It's quite useful to have everything connected. We don't have that for Microsoft Project. It's disconnected. The reporting capabilities could also be better, especially with finance and resources. Everybody complains about reports. That's why we need another tool."
"Microsoft Project should provide better documentation regarding the usage of the solution."
Jira is ranked 5th in Project Management Software with 259 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 Jama Connect, whereas Microsoft Project is most compared with Asana, Microsoft Project Server, Smartsheet, Broadcom Clarity and monday.com. See our Jira vs. Microsoft Project report.
See our list of best Project Management Software vendors.
We monitor all Project Management Software 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.