JIRA SD cloud vs server

[Amy Perdiew]

How do customers choose between the cloud version of JIRA Service Desk and the server version?  Can you point me at any documentation that says that one is more appropriate than another?  We are a medium sized company (1,500 - 2,000 employees) with a fairly large (80 person) global IT team.  Not sure if this would impact the decision or not.

We currently have server versions of Confluence and JIRA.  What are the issues (if any) of having a cloud version of JIRA SD and a server version of Confluence (which will contain our knowledge base) and JIRA (which will integrate with JIRA SD for certain ticket escalations).

Please let me know if there's any recommendations knowing that both options can technically work for us.

Thanks,

Amy

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Start with https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloudkb/pros-and-cons-of-cloud-vs-server-691011844.html

But they do leave out some stuff:

• If you want >2,000 users (not service desk customers, but actual JIRA / Confluence users), you need Server. 
• If you have a huge installation, you'll need Server on Data Centre
• If you want to store personal data on it, you need Server (Cloud is hosted in the US, making it illegal to store quite a lot of types of personal data on it for EU users)
• There is mention of the limited list of add-ons you can use on Cloud, but frankly, that lack of flexibility is the main driver we see for people migrating off Cloud and on to Server (whether they self-host the server or get a third-party to do it).  People need Script Runner, the integrated reporting add-ons, the PPM tools, etc

You should still be able to integrate JIRA on Cloud and confluence on Server (or vice versa)

[Amy Perdiew]

 Thanks for this -  can you describe "flexibility is the main driver.."  a little more?  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

We get a lot of people saying "JIRA is great, but I need it to do X, and I can't see how to do it on Cloud", to which the response is always either "you need some code to do that" or "there's an add-on that does that".  You can't add most of the add-ons to Cloud and you can't make code changes.  The flexibility to do so on Server makes JIRA and Confluence viable for a lot of people.

[Fr0zt]

I am not sure about one thing: does Jira Service Desk Server and Cloud have Language Support Support for Customer Portal? I am asking this because I am trying to find some information about it in Atlassian site but I still didn't found anything. I am running JSD 3.5.3 and I don't have that option in Project settings (Language Support). So, I am not sure if this is happening because language support is only available to some version of Jira ou maybe only to Jira cloud. Can you give me an answer on this issue please?

[Maren]

Hi there,

We're excited to share recent updates to Atlassian's cloud products since this question was originally posted.

Comparing cloud and server

Atlassian’s cloud and server products provide the same benefits – planning, tracking, collaboration, code repository management, and more – but differ in features and functionality. Check out more features and use cases for Atlassian Cloud and server comparisons.

Scalability

With cloud, you get instant access to new feature releases and automatic upgrades, alleviating the need for manual work to your internal systems. Additionally, cloud now supports increased user and storage limits which can support most enterprise teams. At the time of this writing, cloud sites can support up to 5,000 users (including unlimited customers in Jira Service Desk) and 250 GB of data.

Hosting and security

Atlassian's cloud hosting infrastructure is designed to meet the product performance and reliability standards that our global customers need. At the time of this writing, Atlassian hosts data for Jira Cloud in six different AWS regions: US (East and West), Europe (Ireland and Germany) and Asia Pacific (Sydney and Singapore). Atlassian will optimize where customer data is located based on how it's accessed around the world. Learn more about our cloud hosting infrastructure, including any new updates to hosting sites.

Apps and extensibility

The Atlassian Marketplace offers nearly 1,000 apps and integrations that extend the functionality of Atlassian Cloud products. These include free integrations with leading SaaS productivity and collaboration tools like Slack and Dropbox, and subscription-based licensing of some of the most beloved server apps. In some cases, you may discover that the cloud version of a product includes functionality that is fulfilled through an app on server.  

We also have a robust set of cloud APIs, so you can build your own custom apps and integrations.

Language support

Jira Service Desk Cloud has several languages that you can choose from out of the box that you can view on our Languages page. You can review instructions on setting the default language and translating resolutions, priorities, statuses, and issue types.

With Jira Service Desk Server, you can also choose the default language out of the box as outlined in choosing a default language. You can also choose to translate resolutions, priorities, statuses, and issue types.

More resources

For more info to help you decide if moving from server to cloud is a good option for you, check out our Atlassian Cloud Migration Center.