What is Jira used for?

Jira is Atlassian's project and issue tracking tool, used by software, marketing, IT and operations teams to plan, track and release work with AI assistance. It is a good fit for agile software development teams, marketing campaign planning, and IT and operations work tracking.

Yes. Jira has a free plan, and paid plans start at $7.91 per seat per month.

No. Jira is proprietary (closed-source) software. Open-source alternatives to Jira include Plane, OpenProject and ZenTao.

Can I self-host Jira?

Yes. Although Jira is closed source, it can be self-hosted on your own servers, and the vendor also offers a hosted version.

What are some alternatives to Jira?

Jira competes with Linear, Asana and ClickUp. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Jira alternatives.

Jira: features, pricing and alternatives

About Jira

Jira is a commercial work management and issue tracking product from Atlassian. Teams use it to plan work, break it into issues, follow progress on boards and timelines, and release projects, with a strong tradition in software development and agile methods.

The vendor describes the latest version as project management for the AI era, with AI agents that help plan and track projects at scale and the Rovo assistant built in. Solution pages are organized by team, covering marketing, engineering, design, operations and IT, and by use case such as planning, campaign management, agile project management and program management. A large template library includes templates for Jira Service Management.

Jira is proprietary software, sold as a cloud service with a free sign-up and enterprise plans, and Atlassian has also offered self-managed Data Center editions. It is widely used by engineering organizations and by other teams that adopt the same workflows, and it works closely with Confluence and other Atlassian tools.

Key features

Issue and project tracking
Boards, timelines and agile workflows
AI agents and Rovo assistant
Templates for many team types
Service management templates
Integration with Confluence and Atlassian tools

Good fit for

→Agile software development teams
→Marketing campaign planning
→IT and operations work tracking

Tags: project-management; issue-tracking; agile; atlassian; software-development; workflows

Jira: questions and answers

What is Jira used for?: Jira is Atlassian's project and issue tracking tool, used by software, marketing, IT and operations teams to plan, track and release work with AI assistance. It is a good fit for agile software development teams, marketing campaign planning, and IT and operations work tracking.
Is Jira free?: Yes. Jira has a free plan, and paid plans start at $7.91 per seat per month.
Is Jira open source?: No. Jira is proprietary (closed-source) software. Open-source alternatives to Jira include Plane, OpenProject and ZenTao.
Can I self-host Jira?: Yes. Although Jira is closed source, it can be self-hosted on your own servers, and the vendor also offers a hosted version.
What are some alternatives to Jira?: Jira competes with Linear, Asana and ClickUp. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Jira alternatives.