Jira vs. Jira Work Management – Are They Really the Same Now?

[Luis Andino Rodriguez]

Hi Community!

I have a quick question to clarify some confusion I’ve had since the transition to the new Jira UI and the rebranding to just “Jira.”

I’ve noticed that when I create new projects, some of them still look and behave differently. My understanding was that with the new direction, Jira Software and Jira Work Management would work the same way and have the same features.

Is that not the case? Are there still different project types under the “Jira” umbrella? 

 If so:

• What are the main differences between them?

• What are the pros and cons of each? 

I’d really appreciate any insight to help me understand how these project types behave now and how I should decide which one to use!

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @Luis Andino Rodriguez,

Well - yes and no. They have a unified name and license model. So you cannot 'buy' Jira Software or Jira Work Management anymore.

But you still have business and software projects. They have different templates and features that are targeted to a different teams. e.g. a business team would not need a development panel in its work items with a link to code in bitbucket or github. Or software teams apparently don't get confetti when they complete a story, while business project users do.

To a large extent, they are fairly interchangeable, but with still some of these specifics in place.

Hope this helps! 

[John Elder]

Everything I have seen indicates they are one, unified 'product' now.  The main difference I have noted is that when setting up a project, you not only identify the 'type' of project but also select from the large list of available templates, which are no longer segregated.  In our "master" projects list, we have software AND business projects, where before we had to change products to Jira Work Management in order to see our business projects.

In addition, the product switch menu now only displays "Jira", instead of the older menu which displayed the options for Jira Software AND Jira Work Management.  I believe these changes have been around for some time now.

In terms of the pros and cons, I think you need to take the concept of "Jira Work Management" out of your mind and instead focus on the different available project types and templates.  Utilizing a template focused on business project delivery allows customization for our business teams who do not need scrum boards and agile metrics involved in their work. 

Hope this makes sense and helps... and again, this is just my experience.  :)