Zammad vs. Jira

Many customers choose Zammad as an alternative to Jira. Why would they pick the smaller company? And how does Zammad compare to such a well-established tool? Find out all about the main differences and determine which one is the right solution for your team.

Zammad vs. the Jira Software:
What's the difference?

Jira Software was developed by the Australian corporation Atlassian. The software is designed as a collaboration tool and is widely known for its Kanban board structure. Comparing Jira to Zammad, the idea is clearly to bring teams an easy solution for organizing projects, giving everyone a clear overview of the current status of tasks at just a glance. Jira is very popular among IT teams that work with the Scrum system, as it helps with managing sprints.

Screenshot of a Kanban board in the Jira software

(Image via atlassian.com)

So what's Zammad, then? Well, it's not a Kanban board - it's a ticketing system! While many consider Zammad an alternative to Jira, it is actually meant less for project planning and more for communication. It brings together all your communication channels and turns every message and call you receive into a ticket, making it super easy to keep an overview of all your correspondences.

Screenshot of a ticket in the Zammad software

Zammad vs. Jira Software:
Feature overview

While Zammad is not a collaboration tool, it ticks similar boxes - and might just be what you're looking for.

Table comparing the features of Jira Software and Zammad

We compared several tools, including Jira. But it was clear: the tool had to be simple and stable, and shouldn’t need much maintenance. Zammad fulfills that, and even more: It also offers first-class support and comprehensible documentation that is always up to date. It's perfect!

Daniel Bollmann, Systems & Data, Adina Hotels

We use Zammad throughout our entire company: Support uses it for technical questions and returns. The Application team, on the other hand, uses it for queries from dealers. Internally, it is used for IT queries. The Back Office, Purchasing, and Logistics departments use Zammad to process warranty claims. It really is the only system that offers such high value for so little money!

The swissQprint Team

I actually know them all: Jira, OTRS, Zendesk, Freshdesk, RequestTracker... but Zammad, as an open-source solution, is ideal. It's functional, helpful, and offers a state-of-the-art interface!

Robert Lemke, Managing Director, Flownative

Zammad vs. Jira Service Management:
What's the difference?

Jira Service Management is an ITSM tool that aims to bring multiple teams of the same organization the option of creating an individual service desk to receive and handle their respective requests.

Screenshot of the Jira Service Management Software

(Image via atlassian.com)

But here's the good news: Zammad can be used in a very similar way. By integrating all your communication channels, every message and correspondence of your organization is handled through the same software - your Zammad helpdesk. Create individual groups, such as "Accounting" or "Marketing", and every team can handle their requests within their group. The knowledge base stores all the important information for your team members and, if you wish, even for external customers.

Screenshot of the Zammad dashboard

Zammad vs. Jira Service Management:
Feature overview

Not sure if Zammad can compete with Jira Service Management? Check out our overview, and you will find that it offers all your favorite Jira features - and then some!

Table comparing the features of Jira Service Management and Zammad

Why choose Zammad

You mean, besides the affordable pricing? Well, if you are looking for an alternative to Jira, there are many reasons why Zammad might be just it. Many teams rely on our solution because of its intuitive interface and the many helpful features: categorization, individual overviews, SLAs, and a mentions feature are just a few of the many options that Zammad has to offer.

Built by a small, passionate team of developers, Zammad is created and hosted in Germany. You can always rely on our secure servers and our belief in transparency. In fact, Zammad will be open-source forever!

Want to know how it's built? Our code is openly available for anyone to see and use. Feel free to host Zammad yourself and adjust it to your personal needs. Our Community is always there to help out and to embrace your suggestions and requests. Together we constantly taking Zammad from one level to the next. Care to join?

How about Zammad vs. Confluence?

Ah, good one! We get asked this question a lot, too - and the answer is simple. In fact, you can hardly compare Confluence and Zammad. That's because Confluence is a wiki, and while Zammad has a knowledge base, the two things aren't the same.

A wiki is a digital space to save information that anyone from your organization can contribute to.
Meanwhile, a knowledge base is maintained by a team of dedicated writers. It's less of a communal blackboard and more of a digital encyclopedia.

That's why the features of a wiki and a knowledge base usually differ. But there's good news, too: If you're looking for an open-source wiki alternative, head over to our friends at BlueSpice, and say Hello from us! Check out the list below for more open-source tool tips.

Zammad is the ideal compromise between all departments because it replaces the classic CRM system for the Sales team and perfectly complements Jira, which is used by the developers.

Denis Fedorov, Head of IT Operations

Missing something? Build your perfect OS package

We realize that Zammad cannot tick all the boxes (even though we do pretty well overall!) If you're looking for the perfect open-source solution that covers a very specific priority, we have a few suggestions for tools you can combine with Zammad. Find your ideal bundle among our combinations:

Find out more about the tools we use and recommend in our blog post on working from home.

Prefer it all in one place? Then we have some good news: if you host Zammad on-premise, you can adapt it to your needs and integrate your tools through our popular REST API.

Note:
We realize that a Jira Software and Jira Service Management integration for Zammad is a long-standing wish of many of our users. Be assured that we've heard you and that it is on our to-do list. However, since our resources are limited, we cannot estimate a delivery date at this point. Sit tight!

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