This is a recurring question we see from users across the Atlassian ecosphere. For new Jira users especially, it can be quite confusing. A quick search on the web will return lots of articles and videos and graphics of all sorts. In this article, I will throw my two cents in, which hopefully you will find helpful.
Jira Components and Labels are two essential features used to organize and categorize issues in Jira. While they serve similar purposes, they differ in their scope, control, and usage.
Labels are essentially just an open text field. Meaning that there is really no control on the values that people type in them. And they are case sensitive and do not allow spaces!
So, if you search on the Label field the values of Cat, cats, cat, catt, Cats, catz, etc. would all be different values, and some issues would not show up depending on the typos or case used. This means you could easily end up with poor or unintended search results.
Components are created at the project level and appear in a drop down for users to select from. Much better for filters, queries, consistency, sanity, etc.
Our friends from the AI world have a good synopsis here:
Components
Labels
Key differences:
When to use each:
Having said all of that, I think you might find this previous response to a Community post by Nic Brough to be quite helpful:
And one more post with some good responses.
The bottom line is that you should use what works best for you and your organization. But be consistent and aware of the pitfalls and strengths of each.
For me, I avoid Labels like the plague (or Team-managed projects, which I also consider to be very plague-like). The frustration that comes with unavoidable typos and case differences WILL happen, and I just don't need that in my life. :-)
Let's hear YOUR thoughts in the comments below.
John Funk
Jira Systems Administrator
ProVision Systems
Dubai, UAE
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