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IBM DOORS vs Jira comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM DOORS
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jira
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
274
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (1st), Project Management Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Requirements Management category, the mindshare of IBM DOORS is 34.0%, down from 35.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jira is 15.7%, down from 16.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Requirements Management
 

Featured Reviews

UweSeufert - PeerSpot reviewer
Old but capable of storing, organizing, and exchanging requirements
I use IBM DOORS because my customer wants it for managing their requirements IBM DOORS is a tool from the 20th century. It is very old but capable of storing, organizing, and exchanging requirements. It helps to manage requirements efficiently, which significantly improves the way requirements…
Saroj Ekka - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good repository integration, sprint board and easy to set up
There are some features and reports we need that are not there. For example, if I have to find out the capacity of the current sprint by user and compare it with the previous sprint, that visibility isn't there. We can know the capacity and what happened with the whole sprint, but not for an individual person to see where it's falling and how it's tracking. Report and analytics capabilities are important for a product manager. That visibility is important, so we use Jira. Some of the features are there, and I use my own Excels or other data things to compensate for that.

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 feature is the management verification and login."
"I like the way we can simply link requirements with one another and with test descriptions and then automatically produce reports that are required to show compliance to our customers. It is a combination of requirements management and reporting that I like, but I really have very little to do with the reporting part of it. I don't know how easy or hard it is to create those reports."
"It helps to manage requirements efficiently, which significantly improves the way requirements are managed."
"It has the features of: traceability, configuration management, and user access."
"The program is very stable."
"Starting to use the solution is pretty straightforward. There isn't too much of a learning curve."
"The next-generation features are good."
"I would say that the best feature of the solution is that since everything is in one place, and if you make any changes, then they are recorded or tracked."
"The most valuable feature of Jira is the integration with all the different Atlassian tools. They all integrate very easily."
"I like seeing which tickets are open and what our response rate is. They have a lot of good metrics in their system to see what's going on."
"Jira as a structure has Confluence for documentation, and for what it is offering it is a strong suit with Atlassian."
"Jira is easy to use and there are a lot of tools that are integrated with it."
"The solution is very scalable and flexible."
"It handles all of the issues that we need it to do."
"I like that all of the team members on an agile team can use it. No one is in a separate application."
"There are many good things about Atlassian."
 

Cons

"There are problems with communicating between DOORS and Microsoft Office."
"The user interface for the Change Proposal System could be improved."
"Enhancing security measures, particularly when handling multiple projects simultaneously, would be beneficial to prevent data loss within DOORS."
"IBM DOORS should cover all engineering functions seamlessly, not just requirement engineering."
"Rational DOORS' most valuable feature is that you can write any kind of requirement you want."
"The kind of dashboard is not very convenient."
"It's difficult to set the code on the solution."
"The customer must also have the tool to import the changes and accept them as a part of the review."
"Users can be confused about how to use this tool as it's very complex."
"Jira required a significant amount of system resources, particularly for larger organizations with extensive workflows and numerous projects."
"In Jira, say on the team, no matter the methodology, it doesn't matter what I'm practicing, if I am using the tool for a while and I've compiled some sort of history. If I want to change my workflow, say my team is today using to-do in progress done, and tomorrow, I decide I want to use to-do in review and done, and I apply that new workflow, I have just now effectively lost all of my histories in terms of reporting."
"One major issue that I, and even our business stakeholders, have noticed is related to Epic Link. When Epic Link's background color is a dark color, it effectively becomes unreadable. I wish there was a way for us to change the text color of Epic Link in the Issue Navigator view."
"The performance could be improved in the future."
"From the project management perspective, I would say there are a lot of different issues that could be tweaked. There can be small improvements with traceability, for example."
"In JIRA, it's a bit complex in terms of what advanced search queries we use. Sharing them is also a problem. Because TFS is on the cloud, we can easily save that query and share it with our team members."
"There's a really steep learning curve for configuration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM DOORS is available at a reasonable price"
"Licensing fees are billed annually and there is no support included with what I pay."
"We have to pay for a license. I think it's a one-time payment as my company hasn't notified me about more charges. I don't think it's expensive for large corporations, but it will be costly for an average person."
"Pricing can vary depending on the size of the organization and how contracts are negotiated."
"The licensing cost is too high."
"It's expensive."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being very affordable and ten being quite expensive."
"I am not sure why it is so expensive, but one license will cost approximately $15,000 in US dollars."
"We are using the enterprise license which is nice because it ensures that we always have the latest versions of Jira software."
"The price of the solution could be less expensive. We pay annually for the solution."
"There are other solutions that are free making this solution seem expensive in comparison."
"I don't have the number, but I sure wish Jira was less expensive. Its price point should be a little lower, and it should be more flexible for users who are just ticket viewers."
"We have an enterprise license that includes cloud service and support."
"We used to be on a perpetual license provided by our clients."
"Our client handles the licensing aspect. They have not yet purchased the premium version."
"The licensing model is annoying. They nickel and dime you."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
27%
Computer Software Company
10%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
52%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Rational DOORS?
The traceability matrix in DOORS improved our project outcomes. It helps ensure coverage of requirements at different levels, from user requirements to software requirements to test requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Rational DOORS?
Over the years, the first version cost something around 5800 euros.
What needs improvement with IBM Rational DOORS?
Compared to today, DOORS' competitors also excel in this discipline. Yet the price is too high. It's often not as generic as it used to be. IBM promised to find a way for a generic format that allo...
Is Jira better or would you go with Micro Focus ALM Octane?
Hi Netanya, Basically , it all depends on the use cases for your environment and the business needs. Hope the below data may be relevant to you for identifying your needs and deciding on the approp...
Which is better - Jira or Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Jira is a great centralized tool for just about everything, from local team management to keeping track of products and work logs. It is easy to implement and navigate, and it is stable and scalabl...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jira?
We operate under a nonlimited license with Jira, allowing a number of users to access it with a single enterprise license.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Rational DOORS
Jira Software
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Infosys, Chevrolet Volt
Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DOORS vs. Jira and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.