What Plugin Is Used For Test Management In Jira? A 2025 Guide To Select The Best Option
Hi guys. I'm Kayson from AgileTest.
What Plugin Is Used For Test Management In Jira? This is a common question for teams that rely on Jira for development and want to manage testing in the same place. Jira is excellent for tracking issues, but it lacks the structure needed for test case creation, planning, execution, and reporting. That’s why many teams turn to test management plugins that extend Jira with dedicated testing features.
This article walks you through the core testing activities, the limitations of Jira, and the key criteria to help you choose the most suitable plugin for your team in 2025.
1. Key Activities In Test Case Management
Before selecting the proper tools, it’s important to understand what these tools are used for. Below are the four core test management activities every team needs to handle inside Jira.
Generate Test Cases
Test case creation is the foundation of any QA process. You can import them from your existing files, create new ones manually, or generate them with AI. Each test case will include a sequence of actions, along with sample data and expected results. This process is the basic stage where you and your team list out what to examine during each run session.
Organize Tests into Plans
After listing out test cases, waiting for your tests, you come to the next phase to organize them. It will be a huge challenge when you do not structure these test cases properly, especially when scaling up. You can group test cases by feature, tag with labels, assign priority levels, or bundle them into specific execution cycles. A well-organized test plan helps teams stay focused and ensures nothing is overlooked.
Execute Tests
For better result tracking, it is recommended that you establish test run sessions. Then, you can run all your test cases as many times as you want. In each test case, you need to mark the test status, attach your findings, and defect links, to follow up. This activity provides real-time insight into what is working, what is failing, and what needs further investigation.
View Test Reports
After executing your tests, you will summarize them into a report to analyze how well your team has covered the requirements, along with the defect resolution during the whole testing process.
Explore more details about the fundamental test process here.
2. Why A Plugin Is Needed For Jira
While Jira excels at issue tracking and project management, it was not originally designed to support end-to-end test case management. As a result, teams quickly run into limitations when trying to manage QA activities directly inside Jira.
Limited Test Organization
Jira has no native fields for test steps, expected results, preconditions, or reusable test templates. Many teams try to work around this by creating custom issue types. They also make use of labels to categorize test cases into related groups. This approach can work for a small number of test cases. However, when your test library grows, everything becomes hard to find and even harder to maintain.
Source: Atlassian Community
No Built-In Test Workflow
Jira is designed mainly for bug tracking and project management, so it naturally lacks many of the advanced capabilities that dedicated test management tools provide. For example, something as simple as reusing or versioning a test case becomes a manual task in Jira. In contrast, testing-focused tools offer built-in features, such as cloning, that let teams create variations of a test case instantly. Without these conveniences, testers end up spending more time managing test assets than actually testing.
Manual Setup For Test Reports
In Jira, teams must build reports manually using filters, dashboards, and gadgets. While this works for simple setups, it quickly becomes inefficient as testing grows more complex.
For example, if a team wants to analyze defects for the current sprint, they first need to create a filter, then add it to a dashboard gadget to visualize priority levels. If later they need the same report for a previous sprint or for a 30-day window across multiple projects, they must create new filters and new dashboard gadgets each time. Over months of testing, these results in dozens of similar filters, each representing a slightly different perspective.
Read the full analysis article for the question: Can Jira be used for Test Case Management?now.
While Jira can support basic testing activities, its limitations become clear as soon as teams need structure, reusability, and reporting. These gaps are why many teams look for Jira add-ons that bring dedicated test case management capabilities into their workflow. With that in mind, the next step is understanding how to choose the right plugin for your team’s needs.
3. How To Choose A Suitable Jira Plugin for Test Management
Testing Features
Your team should begin by identifying its testing needs before comparing plugin options. Different Jira add-ons specialize in different testing strategies. For example, tools like AIO or QAlity Plus focus mainly on classic manual tests and automated test management. These are suitable for teams with traditional or automation-heavy workflows.
On the other hand, plugins such as AgileTest provide a broader range of testing options, including exploratory testing and script-based tests. Flexible testing strategies allow teams to adapt their approach depending on the scenario. This helps QA teams support diverse testing activities within the same tool.
Reporting Features
Along with the testing features, your team also needs to consider the reporting abilities of these tools. Some apps, such as Xray, have 9 different reports that keep track of your testing from organizing to executing and analyzing results. These are ideal for teams that rely heavily on metrics or need full visibility across multiple releases.
In case you only need to track results after executing, you can simply choose other plugins with more affordable prices. In this case, a reporting feature may be enough without the added cost of advanced analytics.
Price
Each plugin follows its own pricing model, so it’s important to review licensing details on the Atlassian Marketplace and choose one that fits your budget. Some plugins (AgileTest, QMetry, etc) are free for teams under 10 members. Others (XRay, TestRail, etc) will have a flat fee to teams under 10 members. Most testing tools have a free trial period, and it is highly recommended for your team to try them before purchase.
Learn how to set up a free Jira Test Management Tool for your team trial with our AgileTest example here.
AI Capabilities
Some plugins apply AI to their features to enhance the whole testing process. For instance, AgileTest has the AI-Generator that helps your teams generate test cases with detailed test steps from the requirement description. Other add-ons, such as QMetry, have the Gen AI that helps teams smart search for work items, detect flaky tests, etc. These AI-powered capabilities can significantly boost efficiency, especially for teams working under tight release cycles or managing large, complex test repositories.
Check out the top 10 Jira Plugins for Test Management in 2025 here.
Final thoughts
Jira can handle simple testing needs, but as your test cases, releases, and reporting requirements grow, its gaps become more noticeable. Test management plugins fill these gaps by adding structure, workflows, and insights that Jira doesn’t provide on its own.
To answer the question “What Plugin Is Used For Test Management In Jira?”, you should focus on the features you need: testing capabilities, reporting depth, pricing, and AI support. You can have a free trial before selecting a plugin that enhances your QA process and helps your team work more efficiently inside Jira.
AgileTest is a Jira Test Management tool that utilizes AI to help you generate test cases effectively. Try it now
Q&A
Q1: What plugin is used for test management in Jira?
Jira does not include native test management features, so teams use plugins such as AgileTest, Xray, AIO Tests, QAlity Plus, or QMetry to create, organize, execute, and report on test cases within Jira.
Q2: Why do teams need a test management plugin for Jira?
Jira lacks key testing capabilities—like test steps, test plans, execution cycles, and reporting. A plugin fills these gaps by adding structured test entities, workflows, traceability, and dashboards that support end-to-end testing.
Q3: Can Jira be used for test case management without a plugin?
Only for very simple or small-scale testing. Teams can create test-like issues, use labels for grouping, and build basic dashboards. However, as testing grows, this approach becomes hard to maintain, leading most teams to adopt a dedicated plugin.
Q4: How do I choose the right Jira test management plugin?
Consider your team’s testing needs (manual, exploratory, automated), reporting requirements, pricing, ease of adoption, and whether AI features would benefit your workflow. Free trials are available for most tools, making it easier to evaluate options.
Q5: Which Jira plugins offer AI features for test management?
Some plugins now include AI-powered capabilities. AgileTest can generate complete test cases and steps from requirement descriptions, while QMetry’s GenAI helps with smart search, detecting flaky tests, and improving test coverage insights.
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Kayson Phan
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