What would be the ideal front/back-end technology for developing plug-ins for JIRA?

[Shivam Barthwal]

Hello experts,

Based on your knowledge and experience, which front and back-end technology would you recommend for JIRA plug-in development?

JIRA is used in my organization as a project management software. Now they want me to develop additional functionalities to app realized as project management needs.

From the standpoint of development ease, and support in online community, which would be an ideal option to choose from: 

Backend -  Springboot, hibernate, NodeJS/Express

Frontend - React, Angular, Angular JS 

I have no experience in plugin development, so your suggestions would be very helpful to me. Also are there any tutorials to get started in JIRA plug-in development?

Thanks

Shivam! 

[DPKJ · Accepted solution]

@Shivam Barthwal  Welcome to the community!

First you need to give/find what kind of Jira you are using? Jira Server/Data Center or Jira Cloud

If you are using Jira Server/Data Center

• Plugin are created using Atlassian SDK
• This is based on Java (for back end)
• For front-end you can use any JS framework
• Start here - https://developer.atlassian.com/server/framework/atlassian-sdk/

If you are using Jira cloud

• Choice of back-end is upto you
• For front-end you have to emmit HTML+CSS+JS, so you are open to choose any thing.
• Atlassian itself used React
• Start here - https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/platform/integrating-with-jira-cloud/

If you can provide information I can be more precise with my answer!

[Shivam Barthwal]

Hi @DPKJ

Thank you for your sharing your knowledge, your suggestions are very insightful, and would definitely help me.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that 'JIRA cloud' is being used in my company.

I have more into front end development and I do not have much experience in back end development. If you could provide me some suggestion which back-end technology would work the best that will be very helpful    

[DPKJ]

@Shivam BarthwalHere are my suggestions,

For front-end use ReactJS, reasons

• This is what Atlassian uses
• Support is strong
• Ready-made module / UI library by Atlassian is available - https://atlaskit.atlassian.com/packages

For back-end (as you have knowledge of JavaScript) use Express (with Atlassian Connect Express), reasons,

• ACE is maintained by Atlassian itself
• Good getting started guide - https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/service-desk/build-a-jira-app-using-a-framework/

Now, some insights,

• In case you are building an app that will only consume data directly from Jira's rest API you won't need ACE backend, in this case you will just need static server to serve your plugin static resources
• In case you want to process data from Jira or save some other data, go with ACE

[Shivam Barthwal]

@DPKJ  JavaScript would do it entirely, that's a nice know. I have never been a fan of web development with Java. Thank you again for providing me insights, it will help me to march on the right track

[Nhac Tat Nguyen]

Hi @DPKJ 

As you said, we can use any JS Framework for Jira Server Plugin frontend, so can you show me where can I find the documentation on how to apply any JS framework to my Jira Server Plugin development?

[DPKJ]

@Nhac Tat Nguyen 

You can take a look at this old archived session - https://www.atlassian.com/atlascamp/2017/archives/build-addons/server-add-ons-for-front-end-developers

[Carlos Garcia Navarro · Accepted solution]

Hi @Shivam Barthwal

I hope you find good tips here but in case you're looking for additional resources there is also this Atlassian Communitity for developers that you may find interesting:

https://community.developer.atlassian.com