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What are "good" self-hosted alternatives to Jira? We are being forced to either go cloud or move to another product. Cloud is not option for us out of legal rea

What are "good" self-hosted alternatives to Jira? We are being forced to either go cloud or move to another product. Cloud is not option for us out of legal reasons and looking at this incident it is also not a good idea in general.

diordiderot 5y ago
A list of atlassian product alternatives here https://bye-bye-server.com/ https://bye-bye-server.com/
jacquesm 5y ago
Gitlab?
- willis936 5y ago
  Gitlab is a double edged sword. It has bugs, some of them are near untenable (don't you dare try to diff or MR commits with binaries larger than 10 MB). It also has a much smaller feature set than full-blown Jira. I'm not in a scrum setting right now, but if I was I would not want to have to use Gitlab as the one-stop shop.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Is anyone even using the full Jira featureset? People keep telling me that X doesn't have as many features as Jira, and I'm just genuinely trying to think of what those could possibly be to justify it? Like what does Jira do that Gitlab does not do that's absolutely vital?
    - dx034 5y ago
      Using all features isn't uncommon for large companies with very heterogen team structures. And there aren't many alternatives that allow companies to tailor the software as well as Jira.
    - tyingq 5y ago
      Probably the biggest one vs Gitlab is cross-team functionality. Jira is very configurable that way, allowing you to share issues, epics, etc, in a very granular way. Gitlab was designed to tie things to repos directly. It does have some cross-linking, but it's clunky. That's also the basis for the cross-org reporting that makes the MBA types happy. Yes, you can debate the usefulness, but that's who is signing the checks.
    - JBiserkov 5y ago
      See this from 2002: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/04/07/20020407/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/04/07/20020407/
  - mgbmtl 5y ago
    Jira is pretty weird too, where is never clear whether it's an intended behavior or bug. As a long time user of both, I'm much happier with Gitlab, but manager-types still struggle a bit, because too much technical clutter in their UI (they just want issues/boards, not CI/CD). I got used to less features, and kind of see it as a benefit. We tend to push a product to its limits, then throw it out the window when it becomes to complex.
  - jeltz 5y ago
    Jira is really buggy too, just a different ser of bugs so the bugginess is mostly a matter of which bugs annoy you the least.
  - ljm 5y ago
    My experience of gitlab hasn’t been completely positive. It tries to do too many things but the problem with trying to cover so much ground is that eventually you stop working with the product and start working around it. Not to mention how cluttered the UI is because of it. It still has many positives as an alternative to GitHub that also happens to be open source, of course.
mschuster91 5y ago
You can still get Jira for on-premises - the Data Center edition is still being sold and AFAIK there are no plans on discontinuing it. The downside is that DC is about twice as expensive.
- sschueller 5y ago
  From what I understand you need to license 500+ users. We are in the 50-100 range.
  - doubled112 5y ago
    Yeah, 500+ user minimum on the datacenter license at 42K USD per year. I believe the old licenses were forever, even if support wasn't. If you're using any paid add ons, you'll probably need to pay more for them as well. It turns it really expensive if you've only got 50 people. I can't see many businesses that size being very excited.
zentr1c 5y ago
https://www.jetbrains.com/youtrack/ https://www.jetbrains.com/youtrack/
- techdragon 5y ago
  I imagine if atlassian don’t bring back the self hosted options, they are going to hemorrhage customers in Jetbrains direction after this disaster
- sschueller 5y ago
  Jetbrains is moving into the cloud. Look at their new products and what they are doing with their IDEs.
willis936 5y ago
Jira used to have a self-hosted option that Atlassian is in the process of sunsetting. Stories like this highlight why it's a colossal mistake. If I can connect to my work's VPN then it is extremely likely I will also be able to connect to their Jira site. Moving to cloud adds risk without adding benefit. https://www.atlassian.com/migration/assess/journey-to-cloud https://www.atlassian.com/migration/assess/journey-to-cloud
- originalvichy 5y ago
  Correction: it still has a self-hosted version, they just got rid of the cheapest tier which didn’t support clustering. They still sell ”data center” licenses which enable clustering but don’t force you to use it as you can run it on a single node. With this change they now only have one flavour of self hosted Jira/Confluence/Bitbucket and then the cloud. Only the classic server license is sunsetting.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    The datacenter licenses start at eye watering and go up from there.
    - originalvichy 5y ago
      Not denying that at all. There is however some residual misunderstanding left from the time they announced the change towards server licensing. A lot of people who don't deal with administration of Atlassian products thought they were getting rid of the entire self-hosted suite.
      - bombcar 5y ago
        The server instances are licensed forever also, you just stop receiving security updates. Whether that's a risk people are willing to take is another question.
        rst 5y ago
jakey_bakey 5y ago
Since moving to post-its on the wall I haven't looked back. (We're a 1-dev startup so YMMV)
zozbot234 5y ago
Shouldn't Phabricator be a viable alternative for on-prem use? AIUI, it's used in at least one FAANG-level firm, and in lots of FLOSS projects.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  I thought Phabricator was not maintained anymore? Is there an active fork?
pmlnr 5y ago
Fossil could be one of them. https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki Before the JIRA days there was https://www.redmine.org/ https://www.redmine.org/ as well.

diordiderot 5y ago

A list of atlassian product alternatives here https://bye-bye-server.com/ https://bye-bye-server.com/

jacquesm 5y ago

Gitlab?

willis936 5y ago
Gitlab is a double edged sword. It has bugs, some of them are near untenable (don't you dare try to diff or MR commits with binaries larger than 10 MB). It also has a much smaller feature set than full-blown Jira. I'm not in a scrum setting right now, but if I was I would not want to have to use Gitlab as the one-stop shop.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Is anyone even using the full Jira featureset? People keep telling me that X doesn't have as many features as Jira, and I'm just genuinely trying to think of what those could possibly be to justify it? Like what does Jira do that Gitlab does not do that's absolutely vital?
  - dx034 5y ago
    Using all features isn't uncommon for large companies with very heterogen team structures. And there aren't many alternatives that allow companies to tailor the software as well as Jira.
  - tyingq 5y ago
    Probably the biggest one vs Gitlab is cross-team functionality. Jira is very configurable that way, allowing you to share issues, epics, etc, in a very granular way. Gitlab was designed to tie things to repos directly. It does have some cross-linking, but it's clunky. That's also the basis for the cross-org reporting that makes the MBA types happy. Yes, you can debate the usefulness, but that's who is signing the checks.
  - JBiserkov 5y ago
    See this from 2002: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/04/07/20020407/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/04/07/20020407/
- mgbmtl 5y ago
  Jira is pretty weird too, where is never clear whether it's an intended behavior or bug. As a long time user of both, I'm much happier with Gitlab, but manager-types still struggle a bit, because too much technical clutter in their UI (they just want issues/boards, not CI/CD). I got used to less features, and kind of see it as a benefit. We tend to push a product to its limits, then throw it out the window when it becomes to complex.
- jeltz 5y ago
  Jira is really buggy too, just a different ser of bugs so the bugginess is mostly a matter of which bugs annoy you the least.
- ljm 5y ago
  My experience of gitlab hasn’t been completely positive. It tries to do too many things but the problem with trying to cover so much ground is that eventually you stop working with the product and start working around it. Not to mention how cluttered the UI is because of it. It still has many positives as an alternative to GitHub that also happens to be open source, of course.

mschuster91 5y ago

You can still get Jira for on-premises - the Data Center edition is still being sold and AFAIK there are no plans on discontinuing it. The downside is that DC is about twice as expensive.

sschueller 5y ago
From what I understand you need to license 500+ users. We are in the 50-100 range.
- doubled112 5y ago
  Yeah, 500+ user minimum on the datacenter license at 42K USD per year. I believe the old licenses were forever, even if support wasn't. If you're using any paid add ons, you'll probably need to pay more for them as well. It turns it really expensive if you've only got 50 people. I can't see many businesses that size being very excited.

zentr1c 5y ago

https://www.jetbrains.com/youtrack/ https://www.jetbrains.com/youtrack/

techdragon 5y ago
I imagine if atlassian don’t bring back the self hosted options, they are going to hemorrhage customers in Jetbrains direction after this disaster
sschueller 5y ago
Jetbrains is moving into the cloud. Look at their new products and what they are doing with their IDEs.

willis936 5y ago

Jira used to have a self-hosted option that Atlassian is in the process of sunsetting. Stories like this highlight why it's a colossal mistake. If I can connect to my work's VPN then it is extremely likely I will also be able to connect to their Jira site. Moving to cloud adds risk without adding benefit. https://www.atlassian.com/migration/assess/journey-to-cloud https://www.atlassian.com/migration/assess/journey-to-cloud

originalvichy 5y ago
Correction: it still has a self-hosted version, they just got rid of the cheapest tier which didn’t support clustering. They still sell ”data center” licenses which enable clustering but don’t force you to use it as you can run it on a single node. With this change they now only have one flavour of self hosted Jira/Confluence/Bitbucket and then the cloud. Only the classic server license is sunsetting.
- bombcar 5y ago
  The datacenter licenses start at eye watering and go up from there.
  - originalvichy 5y ago
    Not denying that at all. There is however some residual misunderstanding left from the time they announced the change towards server licensing. A lot of people who don't deal with administration of Atlassian products thought they were getting rid of the entire self-hosted suite.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      The server instances are licensed forever also, you just stop receiving security updates. Whether that's a risk people are willing to take is another question.
      - rst 5y ago

jakey_bakey 5y ago

Since moving to post-its on the wall I haven't looked back. (We're a 1-dev startup so YMMV)

zozbot234 5y ago

Shouldn't Phabricator be a viable alternative for on-prem use? AIUI, it's used in at least one FAANG-level firm, and in lots of FLOSS projects.

mardifoufs 5y ago
I thought Phabricator was not maintained anymore? Is there an active fork?

pmlnr 5y ago

Fossil could be one of them. https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki Before the JIRA days there was https://www.redmine.org/ https://www.redmine.org/ as well.