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IBM DOORS vs Jira comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jira
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
275
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (1st), Project Management Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Requirements Management category, the mindshare of IBM DOORS is 32.0%, down from 34.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jira is 15.4%, up from 15.5% 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…
AmitUbale - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient project management that's comprehensive and and helps with time efficiency
We use Jira primarily for project management within the organization. It helps us manage tasks, bug management, and tracking tickets effectively. We assign tickets to individual team members and track them easily For project management, Jira has helped facilitate efficient task segregation and…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The platform's traceability capabilities are invaluable. They provide a solid foundation for certification processes and manage requirement changes across project lifecycles."
"IBM Rational DOORS keeps everything organized."
"It is a stable solution."
"The next-generation features are good."
"The data logs are ver conveneint."
"Compared to other tools that I have used over the past 20 years, DOORS is the best of the best."
"The most valuable feature is the management verification and login."
"Makes good work of prioritizing and planning product delivery."
"The flexibility to create different flows is most valuable."
"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."
"Jira is a pretty capable product, and a lot of features are valuable. We value being able to set up separate projects and configure teams in them, set up sprints, and manage our sprints with its history tracking. These are all very useful features. It has been a very popular product for our work."
"In general, the GUI is nice."
"There are a lot of plugins in Jira and we purchase the ones we need."
"We use Jira mostly for task coordination and assignment. Additionally, scrum methodologies defined work items and bug issues. If we create any bugs all of them are fixed."
"It was easy to use. The consultants that we had on board were familiar with it. So, obviously, having a community that had used it before or was familiar with it was a positive thing."
"The most valuable feature is the Burndown Chart to see work that is outstanding."
 

Cons

"There needs to be quicker access to tech support. When I have a two minute question that takes two minutes to answer, it shouldn't take me 45 minutes and/or a few days of callbacks to get to the right technical support person. It's unnecessary and frustrating for the user."
"It would be helpful if Microsoft provided a more user-friendly interface for updating and querying updates. Additionally, if there was a way for users to notify developers of any changes in requirements, it would allow for faster and more efficient updates to the solution's architecture. This could be in the form of a notification system that alerts developers of any changes that need to be made. Additionally, the solution is document-driven and it should be more digital."
"One thing that I would like to see is a lower-cost version of it that we could use for smaller projects. Sometimes, we do projects for commercial customers who would benefit from something like DOORS, but it's just so expensive. It's just a monster, so a lower-cost version would be the thing that we'd like to see."
"The performance could be improved. It doesn't run as smoothly as it could."
"Enhancing security measures, particularly when handling multiple projects simultaneously, would be beneficial to prevent data loss within DOORS."
"One of the things that many people complain about is it's hard to manage attributes. For example, tables or figures. This is something that can be improved."
"They need to provide users with information on what options would be best for their setup."
"The kind of dashboard is not very convenient."
"If I'm comparing it to ALM Octane, the documentation is not as robust as ALM Octane's documentation. So, they can improve on the documentation side."
"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."
"It should be connected to ServiceNow."
"There should be a way to look for specific comments. When we have thousands of comments on a Jira ticket, there is no way to look at the comments of a specific type. In the comments, if there is a way to put a tag, it would be helpful. For example, when there are a lot of lengthy discussions happening on a particular ticket, there could be a conclusion tag or something like that to indicate a conclusion. It would help in sorting the comments based on a certain category, such as conclusion."
"It would be very useful to have drag and drop time tracking."
"It is not user-friendly."
"The solution lacks integration with visualization tools like Power BI or Tableau, which would be beneficial for better insights."
"This solution would be improved with the inclusion of integration with SVN, and auto-sync with the build release number."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing costs for the product are quite high."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being very affordable and ten being quite expensive."
"The licensing cost is too high."
"I am not sure why it is so expensive, but one license will cost approximately $15,000 in US dollars."
"I don't personally know what the numbers are. I just know that one of the reasons we've limited it to three seats is a function of cost."
"I think it's expensive because you have to pay for the licenses to IBM and all that and maintain them."
"IBM Rational DOORS is highly expensive."
"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."
"I understand JIRA is quite expensive."
"One of my customers told me that they were receiving better pricing for a similar tool from Microsoft."
"It is an affordable tool."
"The tool is expensive."
"There is an annual subscription to use Jira."
"The tool's pricing is expensive. The new pricing is indeed quite expensive compared to what it was a few years ago. Last year, when we intended to renew our subscription, we found the pricing considerably higher."
"The price of the solution could be lower."
"The price at the moment for Jira is okay. I'm absolutely not amused with the plans to try to drive us to the cloud or to other licensing models. For the very simple reason that we are a company in the defense sector where cloud is problematic in a number of the domains. We are now approximately 60 users and the new policy will actually confront us with an upscale to approximately 500 users. I find it unacceptable, and may potentially lead us to look for another solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
26%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
 

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: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.