Jira board lagging when tracking multiple game dev tasks — how to improve performance?

[Tahir Mehmood]

Hi everyone, I’m using Jira to manage a small indie game project, mainly tracking tasks like level design, bug fixes, and asset integration. Lately, I’ve noticed that my board is getting pretty slow and takes time to load or update when I switch between sprints or open detailed tickets.

The project has grown a lot recently, and I’ve added quite a few custom fields and automation rules, so I’m wondering if that might be affecting performance. I’ve also been working on smaller mobile-style projects inspired by games like Stick War: Legacy, including testing modded versions for gameplay ideas. Interestingly, when experimenting with mods from sources like stickwarmods, I’ve seen how unoptimized scripts and added features can slow things down — which makes me think something similar might be happening in Jira with too many automations or heavy configurations.

Has anyone else experienced Jira slowing down with game development workflows? Any tips on keeping it smooth while managing a larger backlog would really help.

[Korea]

I’ve had similar issues before, and in my case the biggest culprit was automation rules + too many custom fields. Jira starts feeling really heavy once every ticket triggers multiple automations, notifications, and field updates in the background.

What helped me:

removing unused custom fields
simplifying board filters/JQL queries
archiving old sprints and completed tasks
reducing real-time automations where possible
splitting huge boards into smaller project-specific ones

I’d also check if any marketplace plugins/apps are slowing things down, because some of them absolutely destroy performance once the project scales up.

For game dev specifically, I try to keep art, bugs, design, and QA separated a bit instead of throwing everything into one massive board. Makes navigation way smoother.

[Rilwan Ahmed]

Hi @Tahir Mehmood ,

Are you using Atlassian Cloud Jira or Jira data center ?

[Arkadiusz Wroblewski]

Hello @Tahir Mehmood 

The issue isn’t your JQL logic, but the Custom Field Contexts themselves. Jira Cloud evaluates fields with a "Global" context for every single project on your instance, which creates a massive metadata overhead that slows down board rendering as your project grows.

Go to your Custom Field configuration and restrict the context specifically to your game development project. If that isn’t an option, you’ll need to enable the "Store Jira data on your own device"toggle in your Personal Settings to utilize local browser caching via IndexedDB.