Jira Align vs Rally Software comparison

Atlassian and Broadcom are both solutions in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category. Atlassian is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0, while Broadcom is ranked #10 with an average rating of 6.8. Atlassian holds a 1.6% mindshare in ALM, compared to Broadcom’s 6.4% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Atlassian users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Jira Align

Read 41 Jira Align reviews

926 Views
592 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Rally Software

Read 119 Rally Software reviews

4,216 Views
2,155 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Jira Align

Rally Software

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Rally Software and Jira Align compete in the project management and Agile tools category, both catering to enterprise-level planning. Rally Software holds an advantage in ease of use and detailed progress tracking, while Jira Align excels in integration capabilities and portfolio management efficiency.

Features: Rally Software offers detailed progress tracking, customizable reporting, and an intuitive interface for agile methodologies. It supports release management and Kanban, although it is more focused on scrum features. Jira Align is known for strong portfolio management and integration with Jira, providing program-level reporting and a scalable structure that supports enterprise agile practices.

Room for Improvement: Rally Software can enhance its defect management cycle, Kanban functionalities, and tool integration for better analytics. Users find its interface could be more intuitive. Jira Align users face challenges with navigation, Jira integration, and customization, especially within portfolio management. The synchronization speed between Jira and Jira Align also needs improvement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both platforms offer deployment in public and private clouds, with Rally also providing hybrid solutions. Rally Software's technical support is praised for responsiveness and knowledgeable service. Jira Align's support is generally reliable, although training and documentation could be enhanced to help users maximize features.

Pricing and ROI: Rally Software is priced higher, with significant ROI when agile practices are well executed, although cost might be prohibitive for small organizations. Jira Align is also costly, particularly for smaller businesses, but larger enterprises find value in its integration with Jira and comprehensive features, contributing to a positive ROI despite the upfront expense.

To learn more, read our detailed Jira Align vs. Rally Software Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Jira Align vs. Rally Software

May 2025

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Helped 860,592 peers since 2012

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

Jira Align

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

8th

Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Value Stream Management Software (1st)

Rally Software

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

10th

Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

119

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Jira Align is 1.6%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rally Software is 6.4%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

Featured Reviews

ShyiamaKishun

Senior Manager, Technology & Delivery at S&R TECHNOLOGY

Has a straightforward setup process and efficient project management features .

Jira Align supports program increment planning by facilitating the planning aspect, including team setup, dependency management, and defining the layout for each step or stage in a project. The platform aids in breaking down targets into parts, aligning with Agile principles, and ensuring a structured layout. The most impactful feature of Jira Align for project management lies in its capabilities related to planning and setting up projects. The platform visually understands targets, offering a clear and detailed layout. We can determine when to speed up the process or access the project. We can address the issues related to planning and development efficiently. It is a great product to use, aiding in project planning and alignment. I recommend it to others and rate it a ten out of ten.

Read full review

Deep Maini

Agile CSM - Sr. Scrum Master at Alliant Energy Corporation

Helps you collaborate on various effects and solutions from the top to the bottom of the organization

We use Rally Software extensively in our agile development processes. We have program boards set up where we write and break down stories. We assign story points and map dependencies between different stories, showing how stories from one team may depend on stories from another team. It integrates these functions well, especially compared to Jira, which has some limitations in this area. The tool keeps improving based on how teams actually work in Scaled Agile, continually upgrading their software versions to meet our needs. I find the whole Rally Software tool integrated very nicely. In Jira, we often go to Confluence for documentation using two separate tools. But in the product, it's not like that. The documentation is tightly integrated. I don't feel like switching to another tool, like going from Jira to Confluence. The tool is designed for collaboration. It shows your organization's view, showing different teams and verticals. It helps you collaborate on various effects and solutions from the top to the bottom of the organization. It has an ecosystem that supports this. All the dependencies between different teams can be easily mapped in Rally Software. They have a program board for that purpose.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Defect tracking and dashboards are the most valuable features of Jira Align."

"The most valuable features of Jira Align are its product roadmap and reporting."

"Some of the most valuable features are the configurations and dashboards."

"The product has good visualization capabilities and helps to see the different dimensions of a plan."

"The most valuable features in Jira Align are the dashboard and the reporting feature."

"The product's most valuable feature is CMDB for services desk management and backlog projects."

"The interface of Jira Align is very easy to use and manage"

"Velocity and reporting provide good visibility, burndown charts, and particularly velocity measurement."

More Jira Align pros

"It is very stable. It has been on the market a long time."

"Rally Software provides the capability to accurately estimate the time required for building large software projects, which can be challenging to predict...Rally Software enables us to schedule tasks better, allocate resources, and meet project deadlines."

"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."

"The most valuable features of Rally Software are the executive dashboards, ease of use, and many other features. They have encapsulated everything that a GI can do, such as monitoring, maintaining, and then releasing. It's continuous integration and development."

"It helps me evaluate teams' historical performance using velocity charts."

"It has allowed the quality assurance team to keep all information in sync with the application requirements and user stories for our general development."

"What I like most about Rally Software, in terms of using it for the agile process, is that it's clear, useful, and user-friendly. I also like that it has every field you can use for the Scrum process."

"It documents stories in a way where we do not have to be heavy on front-end requirements, front-end documentation, and front-end workflows."

More Rally Software pros

Cons

"The solution needs to improve its pricing. It also needs to provide an integrated view of how other tasks are to be tracked. It would be also useful to see the integration of Confluence, Teams, and Slack into the product. I want to be able to communicate directly with others while using the product. I am also not sure if the integration of third-party alternate workflow tools like SAP would be possible."

"There are fewer customization options in Jira Align due to how it was designed."

"One area where Jira Align could improve is in its licensing model. There was a significant change in the licensing module about six months ago, which resulted in increased costs for customers like us. This change wasn't communicated clearly, and it made it challenging for companies to adopt Jira Align without facing higher expenses. In terms of features, I would like to see improved workflows in the next release, as that would greatly benefit our organization."

"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."

"We have experienced errors with the internal server that occurs frequently."

"The workflows are scalable from portfolio to individual level but can sometimes be complex to navigate."

"Lacks sufficient reporting capabilities."

"The vendor should implement automation features"

More Jira Align cons

"More importantly, we are seeing internal challenges from Atlassian because of their highly integrated suite that enables further automation and centralization of activities that are also highly necessary – messaging notifications cued off builds, collaboration on Solution Architecture Documentation, etc."

"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'd like to be able to color code timeboxes, so I have an easy visual way to track the success of sprints."

"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."

"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."

"We want Rally to generate OKRs, to allow teams to record the OKRs, and then the OKRs can be mapped to the epics and there is organizational alignment."

"More customization capabilities would be helpful. Providing a little bit more structure around how the system should be set up in terms of the hierarchy structure might be helpful as well."

"The Reporting feature can improve, especially around executive summaries and dependency mapping."

More Rally Software cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Jira Align has price packages for different purposes."

"The tool is moderately expensive."

"At our company, we were concerned about the cost of Jira Align, which is expensive"

"The license for Jira Align is priced fairly."

"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."

"Jira Align is an expensive solution."

"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 pricing and licensing costs are rated lower, around six mainly due to significant increases in licensing costs that were not well-received by users."

More Jira Align pricing and cost advice

"The license costs are fairly high as compared to some of the other solutions out there."

"Frankly, pricing is expensive and needs to be carefully planned for when budgeting."

"From a price point, it's a cost effective solution for our needs."

"Rally Software costs $50 a month, and for a base account, that price is acceptable."

"I understand it's a little more expensive. That is why many people prefer Jira."

"We are always looking for a discount, if the solution was less expensive it would be a benefit."

"I don't know the exact pricing, but I think the tool is priced high. They provide quality workmanship, good software, regular upgrades, and they're always attentive and listen to users. Everything comes with a price. I think it's an expensive solution compared to Jira or other competitors, but it's a complete package."

"It is expensive and may not be worthwhile for a small company."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Insurance Company

Educational Organization

42%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Jira Align?

I joined the company because they had a large project, and as a startup company, they needed to scale up efficiently. My task was to review the current baseline, assess the team's capabilities, and...

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What needs improvement with Jira Align?

The platform's communication features could be more robust for better team integration.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Jira Align?

We use Jira Align for business strategies, collaboration, and reporting. The solution allows us to manage the various products and features delivered on that platform.

See all answers

What do you like most about Rally Software?

Rally offers many features that help the management of activities, coordination, alignment and reports, which applies agility across the organization. If I were to highlight a particular feature, i...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rally Software?

I don't know the exact pricing, but I think the tool is priced high. They provide quality workmanship, good software, regular upgrades, and they're always attentive and listen to users. Everything ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Rally Software?

The product itself seems to have a lot of bugs. One issue is that it sometimes allows people to modify data inappropriately. For example, team members can change numbers at will. While we have a me...

See all answers

Comparisons

OpenText Core Software Delivery Platform vs Jira Align

Compared 33% of the time

ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management vs Jira Align

Compared 27% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Jira Align

Compared 7% of the time

Jira vs Jira Align

Compared 6% of the time

Broadcom Clarity vs Jira Align

Compared 5% of the time

More Jira Align Competitors

Jira vs Rally Software

Compared 31% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Rally Software

Compared 31% of the time

TFS vs Rally Software

Compared 6% of the time

OpenText Application Quality Management vs Rally Software

Compared 5% of the time

Smartsheet vs Rally Software

Compared 4% of the time

More Rally Software Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Jira Align

June 2025

Download Jira Align product report

Buyer's Guide

Rally Software

June 2025

Download Rally Software product report

Also Known As

AgileCraft

CA Agile Central, Rally Enterprise, CA Agile Training, CA Agile Coaching, CA Agile Academy, CA Agile Management , CA ALM

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.”

Atlassian

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.

Broadcom

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

Buyer's Guide

Jira Align vs. Rally Software

May 2025

Free Report: Jira Align vs. Rally Software

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