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IBM Rational ClearQuest vs Jira comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Rational ClearQuest
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Defect Tracking (1st), Software Configuration Management (8th)
Jira
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
274
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (1st), Application Requirements Management (2nd), Project Management Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Lifecycle Management solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Rational ClearQuest is designed for Defect Tracking and holds a mindshare of 50.0%, up 25.0% compared to last year.
Jira, on the other hand, focuses on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites, holds 21.9% mindshare, down 23.9% since last year.
Defect Tracking
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

it_user541326 - PeerSpot reviewer
Tracks change requests, problems, and physical asset management. I would like to see data type for floating point numbers.
Customer Service: Customer service has been adequate. Most of the times we've had any issues IBM has been able to provide a solution. We've dealt mostly with customer service representatives in Brazil. Technical Support: Technical support from IBM is pretty good since you can create a PMR with them and they’re very responsible.
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

"It can be adapted to any process flow and easily be integrated with other in-house tools using the ClearQuest API."
"The combination of a highly flexible state machine together with a platform independent API enables possibilities to automate many steps that in many systems are manual."
"The dashboards are useful."
"It is a complete solution. It has more features as compared to other tools, especially the open-source one that we use. It is also easy to administer."
"The most valuable feature is that it has different APIs available, with good services, and it is completely by the books."
"I think one of the most powerful features in Jira is the customization of fields and workflow."
"For QA, the most interesting for me are boards, backlog, and filters."
"We can cope with processes easily without adapting the tool, but adapting the tool to processes."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
"It handles all of the issues that we need it to do."
 

Cons

"Lack of a modern web interface compared to other systems might discourage customers."
"While it's very powerful, it's very complex sometimes."
"I find the dashboard to be Jira's most problematic feature."
"In Jira Cloud, integration with Excel is missing. Previously, I could import our Excel files into Jira, and I could also download a big Jira report in the Excel format, but now, it needs to be manipulated after that, which is not good. It looks like they've done that on purpose, but I don't understand the reason for it."
"Its search and reporting can be improved. They are already nice, but they can be further improved."
"Jira has recently updated their UI, but more can be done to make it even better."
"Sometimes, we create the same bug with two or three different Jira tickets in my company, which leads to duplication, making it an area where improvements are required."
"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 want Jira to have more plug-ins, which will allow for more free plug-ins that help with the area of reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I understand JIRA is quite expensive."
"For very small companies, if you have less than 10 individuals, it is $10 a year for each of the products. When we were a part of the enterprise and had more than 10 people using it, or before they came up with this solution for small companies, it was $2,500 a year for the license for Jira and Confluence, and I believe something like $600 a year to perpetuate the license. I can't remember if it was $600 or $2,500 annually. It was for up to 25 people at the time, and this was in the early 2000s and mid 2000s."
"The price is quite competitive."
"When you get larger, the pricing becomes very, very steep."
"It depends on the type of license. In terms of subscription, it is cheap, and it works pretty well."
"I am not sure about the pricing, but I know its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"It does not cost that much."
"Its price is good and similar to other products. It is about five or six dollars per user."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
29%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
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
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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 ClearQuest
Jira Software
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Atos SE, STM, Regence BlueCross BlueShield
Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational ClearQuest vs. Panaya Test Dynamix and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.