4 ms·

As to whether or not this is a Jira alternative the key points are: * made for managers, not engineers * app marketplace * self-hosting If one of the th

by timka 6y ago

As to whether or not this is a Jira alternative the key points are: * made for managers, not engineers * app marketplace * self-hosting If one of the three is missing, it's not really a Jira alternative.

config_yml 6y ago
That‘s a bit dismissive. I know plenty of teams using Jira without needing this, and they‘re all unhappy with Jira anyway.
- timka 6y ago
  Then they'd better stop torturing themselves because they don't need Jira. It's kind of product you use only when you have no other choice or maybe when it's the only tool you know how to use.
kevsim 6y ago
Thanks for the feedback! An app marketplace is something we absolutely aspire to. Our API is a modest start in that direction. Self-hosting is very interesting and something we hadn't thought much about but all the feedback here on HN has really gotten us thinking. Also interesting in light of the fact that Jira is pulling back from its own on prem offerings. Regarding being for managers vs. engineers, we're very much determined to be for the whole team. As managers ourselves we want to be 100% extra careful to not make yet another tool that the team thinks is "for us managers". We've never gotten much value from such tools ourselves.
- timka 6y ago
  Having such a product would be great but being realistic I doubt it would cover the cases I was talking about. Please see my long response to another comment in the thread. What do you think? Thanks
anaerobicover 6y ago
I'm not sure everyone would agree with you that "made for managers, not engineers" is a positive in the Jira column. I'd really like, as an engineer, to be able to use work tracking software that helped me and my manager do our jobs effectively.
- kevsim 6y ago
  Exactly! That’s one of the main goals we have with Kitemaker.
- timka 6y ago
  It's neither positive nor negative. That is it depends on one's point of view. We're talking about company wide project management where engineers are on the bottom. Engineer's workflow is usually quite simple and limited to assigned issues. They'll never be happy with Jira UI as it's indeed, um, crappy but something like a CLI app using standard REST API with zsh completion may be enough to make most of them happy. Engineers mostly don't use Structure, BigPicture, filters, reports, they don't make complex workflows etc. Oh, maybe the kanban board. And that's exactly the problem with Jira. It's unsexy, the REST API lacks important functionality (like adding a new option to select list custom field, but one can write custom endpoints in Groovy using ScriptRunner and Java API), it's relatively slow, the code base is old, some issues are never going to be fixed etc. But it has the app ecosystem and the community which is really what makes it, sort of, best in class as apps cover most users' cases. The question usually is 'what app can do this?' I think providing a viable alternative is quite a challenge as that means building an active community and ecosystem. Plus, imagine a company invested quite much into building their processes on Jira with some set of apps. They have scripted custom fields, workflow post-functions, custom events, event listeners, timesheets, planned vs actual reports, time to market reports, SLAs, Structure, custom REST endpoints, behaviors and other ScriptRunner stuff. An alternative would have to somehow provide all that either out-of-box or via extensions, plus a feasible migration path. What benefits would justify such migration? It seems that Atlassian know that and therefore reshape their business accordingly by raising the prices to cut away the small fish and move such customers to the cloud. They may loose many of them b/c there are better tools for simpler needs but it's really difficult to beat Atlassian on the on-premise cover all solutions market. They've been there for quite a long time.

by timka 6y ago

config_yml 6y ago

That‘s a bit dismissive. I know plenty of teams using Jira without needing this, and they‘re all unhappy with Jira anyway.

timka 6y ago
Then they'd better stop torturing themselves because they don't need Jira. It's kind of product you use only when you have no other choice or maybe when it's the only tool you know how to use.

kevsim 6y ago

Thanks for the feedback! An app marketplace is something we absolutely aspire to. Our API is a modest start in that direction. Self-hosting is very interesting and something we hadn't thought much about but all the feedback here on HN has really gotten us thinking. Also interesting in light of the fact that Jira is pulling back from its own on prem offerings. Regarding being for managers vs. engineers, we're very much determined to be for the whole team. As managers ourselves we want to be 100% extra careful to not make yet another tool that the team thinks is "for us managers". We've never gotten much value from such tools ourselves.

timka 6y ago
Having such a product would be great but being realistic I doubt it would cover the cases I was talking about. Please see my long response to another comment in the thread. What do you think? Thanks

anaerobicover 6y ago

I'm not sure everyone would agree with you that "made for managers, not engineers" is a positive in the Jira column. I'd really like, as an engineer, to be able to use work tracking software that helped me and my manager do our jobs effectively.

kevsim 6y ago
Exactly! That’s one of the main goals we have with Kitemaker.
timka 6y ago
It's neither positive nor negative. That is it depends on one's point of view. We're talking about company wide project management where engineers are on the bottom. Engineer's workflow is usually quite simple and limited to assigned issues. They'll never be happy with Jira UI as it's indeed, um, crappy but something like a CLI app using standard REST API with zsh completion may be enough to make most of them happy. Engineers mostly don't use Structure, BigPicture, filters, reports, they don't make complex workflows etc. Oh, maybe the kanban board. And that's exactly the problem with Jira. It's unsexy, the REST API lacks important functionality (like adding a new option to select list custom field, but one can write custom endpoints in Groovy using ScriptRunner and Java API), it's relatively slow, the code base is old, some issues are never going to be fixed etc. But it has the app ecosystem and the community which is really what makes it, sort of, best in class as apps cover most users' cases. The question usually is 'what app can do this?' I think providing a viable alternative is quite a challenge as that means building an active community and ecosystem. Plus, imagine a company invested quite much into building their processes on Jira with some set of apps. They have scripted custom fields, workflow post-functions, custom events, event listeners, timesheets, planned vs actual reports, time to market reports, SLAs, Structure, custom REST endpoints, behaviors and other ScriptRunner stuff. An alternative would have to somehow provide all that either out-of-box or via extensions, plus a feasible migration path. What benefits would justify such migration? It seems that Atlassian know that and therefore reshape their business accordingly by raising the prices to cut away the small fish and move such customers to the cloud. They may loose many of them b/c there are better tools for simpler needs but it's really difficult to beat Atlassian on the on-premise cover all solutions market. They've been there for quite a long time.