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🏆 Which Atlassian Associate Exam Was the Hardest? My Personal Ranking 👀

Mark Sayo

Hi Atlassian Community! 👋

After completing all 6 Atlassian Associate certifications in March 2026, I thought it would be helpful to share my personal ranking of the exams from easiest to hardest based on my own experience.

This post is a follow-up to my previous discussion where I shared how I completed all 6 certifications in 3 weeks:

👉 🚀 6 Atlassian Associate Certifications in 3 Weeks (All in March 2026) 🔥

Just to be clear, this is not an official difficulty ranking from Atlassian. This is purely based on how I experienced each exam, considering:

Topics covered
Question style
My familiarity with each product
How much hands-on experience helped

📌 Certifications I completed

All certifications were completed within March 2026 (around 3 weeks):

ACA-915 Atlassian Cloud Foundations — March 11, 2026
ACA-900 Jira Essentials — March 13, 2026
ACA-925 Jira Service Management Agent Essentials — March 18, 2026
ACA-910 ITSM with Jira Service Management Foundations (now ACH-815 Jira Service Management with AI Fundamentals) — March 19, 2026
ACA-920 Confluence Essentials — March 26, 2026
ACA-905 Jira Software Board Configuration — March 26, 2026

🔢 My ranking (easiest → hardest)

6. ACA-915 Atlassian Cloud Foundations

For me, this was the easiest exam.

The topics are more foundational and focus on understanding the Atlassian Cloud ecosystem, users and general concepts.

👉 If you already work with Atlassian Cloud tools, this is a great starting point.

5. ACA-920 Confluence Essentials

This exam was straightforward if you are already using Confluence.

It focuses on pages, spaces, permissions and collaboration features.

👉 If you use Confluence regularly, many concepts will feel familiar.

4. ACA-925 Jira Service Management Agent Essentials

This one felt practical and user-focused.

Topics include queues, requests, SLAs and agent workflows.

👉 Easier to understand if you have experience in support or as a JSM agent.

3. ACA-910 ITSM with Jira Service Management Foundations
(now transitioned to ACH-815 Jira Service Management with AI)

This exam is not just about Jira.

You also need to understand ITSM concepts, such as:

Incident, problem and change management
How JSM supports service management practices

👉 Much easier if you already have ITSM or support experience.

2. ACA-900 Jira Essentials

Still a foundational exam, but broader compared to the others.

You need to understand:

Work items
Projects
Boards and workflows
Navigation and filters

👉 Not extremely difficult, but it can feel overwhelming if you’re new to Jira.

The Final Boss

1. ACA-905 Jira Software Board Configuration

For me, this was the hardest Associate exam.

It focuses heavily on configuration and behavior, including:

Board filters
Columns and statuses
Swimlanes and quick filters
Scrum vs Kanban behavior

👉 Hands-on experience with Jira boards makes a big difference here.

📊 Suggested order if you're starting

If I were to recommend an order, I would suggest:

ACA-915 Atlassian Cloud Foundations
ACA-920 Confluence Essentials
ACA-900 Jira Essentials
ACA-925 Jira Service Management Agent Essentials
ACA-910 ITSM with Jira Service Management Foundations
ACA-905 Jira Software Board Configuration

This progression builds from foundation → product usage → configuration-heavy topics.

💡 Final thoughts

This ranking is based on my personal experience, so your experience may be different depending on your background.

For example:

If you are new to Jira, Jira Essentials (ACA-900) may feel more challenging due to the broad range of topics.
Even if you use Jira Software every day, Jira Software Board Configuration (ACA-905) can still be tricky because of how board configuration behaves behind the scenes.
If you are in ITSM, ITSM with Jira Service Management Foundations (ACA-910) or its newer version ACH-815 (Jira Service Management with AI Fundamentals or Jira Service Management Agent Essentials (ACA-925) may feel more natural

👉 For me, the biggest factor was hands-on experience.
The more I used a feature in real work, the easier the exam felt.

Since my previous post focused on completing the certifications, I wanted this follow-up to focus more on the actual exam experience and how each one felt from a difficulty perspective.

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👀 Curious to hear from you

If you’ve taken any Atlassian Associate exams:
👉 Which one felt the easiest for you?
👉 Which one was the most challenging?

Comments

Rinjini Poddar

Great read! Thanks for sharing your experience. I enjoyed reading your perspective.

I've completed both Jira Essentials (ACA-900) and ITSM with Jira Service Management Foundations (ACA-910), which has now evolved into Jira Service Management with AI Fundamentals (ACH-815).

From my experience:

ACA-900 was a great starting point. It builds a solid understanding of Jira fundamentals—projects, work items, workflows, boards, and navigation. The exam is straightforward if you have hands-on Jira experience, but it can be tricky if you're new to Jira terminology.
ACA-910 / ACH-815 felt more challenging because it goes beyond using the tool. It combines Jira Service Management concepts with ITSM best practices, requiring you to understand why processes like Incident, Problem, Change, and Service Request Management exist—not just how to perform them in JSM. The addition of AI fundamentals in ACH-815 also makes it more relevant to today's platform.

If I had to compare the two, I'd say ACA-900 tests your Jira fundamentals, while ACA-910/ACH-815 tests both your JSM knowledge and your understanding of ITSM principles. For me, the latter was definitely the more challenging—but also the more rewarding—learning experience.
they serve different purposes and complement each other nicely.

Thorsten Letschert _Decadis AG_

Thanks for sharing and first of all congratulations on this success! Gotta catch 'em all!

Your post reminded me that I wanted to tick a few off as well. Like @Rinjini Poddar already mentioned, the ITSM one seems to have been reworked into an Atlassian Certificate Holder version (ACH-815). The same applied to Loom, which was ACA-930, but now runs as ACH-810.

Mark Sayo

Thank you! 🙌

Haha “Gotta catch ’em all!” 😄

gotta catch em all.gif

Great point on the updates, I’ll update my post to include the newer certification codes as well. Really appreciate you sharing that! 👍

Mark Sayo

Thank you! 🙌

I really like how you explained the difference between ACA-900 and ACA-910, that matches my experience as well.

ACA-900 builds the foundation, while ACA-910 (now ACH-815) really pushes you to understand the why behind ITSM practices.

That extra layer definitely made it more challenging for me too. And I agree, they complement each other nicely 👍

Jason Krewson

This is great, thanks for the list and congratulations on knocking these all out!

I agree that Jira Software Board Configuration (ACA-905) was the most challenging of the ACA certifications (at least out of the ones I took so far), but I will say its the one I think I learn the most from.

Jay

I agree with Jira Software Board Configuration (ACA-905) being challenging. Which is why I do not understand why Atlassian is retiring it? I am not quite ready for ACP-620 but this is a really good start for someone like myself that doesn't have any working experience with Jira event though I am working toward it outside of (ACA-900).

Mark Sayo

Thank you so much! 🙌

I agree with you 100%. ACA-905 was the toughest for me, but also the most rewarding.

It really pushes you to understand how board configuration works behind the scenes, not just what you see on the surface. That’s where a lot of the real learning happens 👍

Mark Sayo

Thank you! 🙌

I see your point. ACA-905 is challenging, but it’s also a really good way to understand board configuration in depth, especially if you don’t have full hands-on experience yet.