What are the differences between JIRA Software, JIRA Service Management and JIRA Core

From JIRA 7 onwards, Atlassian has split JIRA into 3 different standalone products. This page compares their differences to let people know which JIRA edition they need

Web Page	https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/core	https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira	https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/service-desk
Before JIRA 7	JIRA	JIRA + JIRA Agile add-on	JIRA + JIRA Service Desk add-on
Use Cases	General team project collaborations Change Requests Workflow Approvals Task Management On-boarding of employees Tracking of advertising campaigns	Bug Tracking Product Management Basic Software Development Kanban Software Development Scrum Software Development	IT Helpdesk Helpdesk Ticketing Incident Management Change Management Problem Management
Targeted users	Non technical teams Business users Legal teams HR teams Marketing teams Finance teams Operations teams	Software developers Scrum Masters Project Managers Quality Assurance Engineers	Customers Helpdesk Agents Call Centre Managers Non Technical users
Keywords	Tasks Approvals Requests Forms	Backlogs Epics Sprints Boards Software development tool	Tickets Queues Service Level Agreements (SLAs) Knowledgebase integration
Bundled project templates	Business projects Project Management Process Management Task Management	Software projects Scrum software development Kanban software development Basic software development Business projects Project Management Process Management Task Management	Service Desk projects IT service desk Basic Service Desk Business projects Project Management Process Management Task Management
Pricing	Based on number of users	Based on number of users	Based on number of agents
Licensing	Users have access to  Business projects & features	All JIRA Software users can access JIRA core features Users have access Software projects & features Business projects & features	End users do not require any licenses End users also have free access to Confluence KB Agents do not require additional JIRA Software or JIRA Core licenses Users have access to Service Desk Projects & features Business projects & features
Additional notes	The software specific parts are removed to make it less confusing for users	Release hubs Integration with developer tools like BitBucket	Can integrate with Confluence for knowledge base End users won’t be able to access JIRA Service Desk specific features since they won’t be licensed for JSD editing tickets transit workflow status (only with 3rd party add-ons) searching dashboards
Recommended add-ons	Gauge Gadgets Out of Office Assistant Working Days Elapsed Plugin	BitBucket Portfolio for JIRA	Confluence Extensions (aka Service Pack for JSD)
Video Introduction
Screenshots	Standard JIRA issue view Activity streams for projects Dashboards on the fly	Scrum Boards  Backlog planning  Release Hub	Customer Portal End users will see this view instead Can be integrated with Confluence KB to suggest solutions SLA Queues SLA Reports

Features Comparison

Things you should know

• The 3 editions have the same look and feel to provide a consistent project experience
• The 3 new JIRA editions can be purchased separately, but they can be installed together to provide a unified
  JIRA instance for an entire organization
• The number of licensed users are accumulative. This means you don’t need to pay for features that are not needed
  by every users
• It is still possible to customise JIRA to tailor to your business needs
• The 3 JIRA platforms are available either self-hosted or Cloud. For a comparison on the different hosting
  options, check out our infographic: Atlassian Cloud vs Server

Other resources

• https://confluence.atlassian.com/migration/jira-7
• JIRA for every team

Our Popular Articles

• Best Practices in Jira Administration – Apps Management
• When do you upgrade Jira Server to Jira Data Center
• What are the differences between Jira Cloud Free/Standard/Premium/Enterprise
• How to integrate Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle with Atlassian Tools