What's the difference between JIRA Software server and JIRA Software datacenter?

[Óscar Montero]

Is it just the quantity of users that it could manage? Or there is something about functionality?

[Chelsea C · Accepted solution]

Features/functionality-wise, they are virtually identical. The key difference is in Data Center's ability to scale while maintaining performance through access to more resources. Plus, by deploying to a hosting service like AWS, you can offload much of the system administration required with Server. Data Center is also optimized for AWS deployment, offers SAML 2.0 support, and comes with Atlassian-supported disaster recovery — none of which is available with the Server version.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

A minor point - there are a number of add-ons for Server that do not function properly on data-centre (mostly down to caching stuff).  If you're considering a more to DC, check your add-ons.

[brijeshSchElec]

Is this issue with add-ons applicable now as well? Or are there any measures taken to address this problem now? 

We are looking to move from server to DC as we start our scaleup. One of the main reasons for us to move it wrt high availability. 

On the other hand, I see a significant cost increase while we move to DC assuming 2k users.

Any suggestions or precautions we need to take. Thanks

[Chelsea C]

@brijeshSchElec Apps in Atlassian Marketplace marked as "Data Center approved" go through a vetting process (as of 3 Sept 2018). Check out this blog post for all the details.

[Mark Finta]

I want to clarify this.  Does jira datacenter handle avatars the same as jira server?  I know when I installed jira datacenter, in the JIRA_Home/data folder, there was an attachments folder but no avatars folder.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Not quite.  Parts of the data directory have to be located on shared storage, so the file structure is a bit different, but that's the only significant difference.