We performed a comparison between Jira Align and Rally Software based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Enterprise Agile Planning Tools solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The most valuable features of Jira Align are its product roadmap and reporting."
"The most valuable features are the ability to customize the entries and to update them quickly. Since the new version they released, we started utilizing the customization features to create specific codes and symbols for our teams that were not available before. For example, in team A each person had their own symbols and we had our own demarcation. When our project or task was completed, we had a code that we could enter online that let the main project managers know that it was time to remove it."
"Jira Align's most valuable feature is the view of strategic control reports for high-level directors."
"I joined the company because they had a large project, and as a startup company, they needed to scale up efficiently. My task was to review the current baseline, assess the team's capabilities, and propose solutions to increase production capacity. Upon observing the process in Jira Align, I realized we didn't need to invest heavily in expanding capacity."
"Jira Align has been quite a helpful tool for us because, without it, we would be juggling with all our story points or our backlog items, which would be difficult to manage."
"The most valuable feature of Jira Align is the overall team vision."
"The most valuable feature is that engineers can access the Jira database and just search for the tasks that are assigned to them. They can then update the status on their own in those records that are assigned to them."
"In our workflow, we utilize a dashboard. Our product development backbone relies on two-week sprints. At the beginning of each sprint, we conduct a planning meeting to discuss and challenge the backlogs. Throughout the sprint, we conduct daily sessions to review code, ensure alignment with coding standards, and address any issues. Once all tasks are completed, we proceed with the deployment process."
"The most useful part is how it breaks down tasks into parents and children, manageable tasks. It has a whole project as an initiative, and then it breaks it down further and further. And then you get to actual user stories and tasks that you can sit and develop."
"Having that view into features and roadmap from product to delivery teams, and where they are going, then execute on."
"What I like most about Rally Software, in terms of using it for the agile process, is that it's clear, useful, and user-friendly. I also like that it has every field you can use for the Scrum process."
"Tech support is very responsive, helpful, and available."
"Reporting is much easier and faster than Micro Focus ALM, with CA AC built on web services... Also, the data is more granular when it comes to tasks, iterations, sprints, and releases."
"The main ways that I used it when I was in it day to day was keeping up with the burn rate within the teams. Also, to track at the feature level too, as far as how we were doing with actually being able to deliver that feature."
"We've actually used it for virtual PI planning. We have teams in different locations, and we actually virtually do PI planning, big-room planning, using the tools."
"The configurable Portfolio Management and parent-child relationships."
"The product should improve its communication. My English proficiency is not high, but writing in English is another skill that you need. Maybe AI can help here. Because I can see in some other applications, they have AI helpers. So when you write something and you want to do something, it can help. For example, Google Cloud Platform has it. They have a helpdesk for it. When you want to create a cluster, it can help you."
"Someone who is new to Jira or doesn't have many years of working experience in Jira Align gets easily lost because everything looks the same in the product."
"We have experienced errors with the internal server that occurs frequently."
"The tool must provide better bulk editing features."
"The tool's corporate pricing is expensive."
"Jira Align should reduce the many information fields we need to provide while closing defects."
"There are fewer customization options in Jira Align due to how it was designed."
"There is no linkage between the Jira records and the overarching schedule. We maintain the overarching schedule in Microsoft Project, and there is no linkage back and forth with the Jira tasks. They are independent of each other."
"One problem I see is that if there is a dependent user story - for example, if my team is working on one thing and there is a dependent user story from another team - we can have a dependency created but we don't know if there is a change of status from the other team. That is something which is very important for Agile Central to look into so that if the other team makes any changes we will be notified as well."
"What I don't like about it is that it is really hard to find old work to reference information and use the reporting section of the application in terms of trying to analyze trends. If I am trying to find out which interfaces took this long and I want to compare and measure improvement from one quarter to another quarter, the reporting mechanism within Rally is very troublesome. They have an Excel plugin that you're supposed to use, but you literally have to pull the raw data out before you can do the analysis. You can't do it within Rally, and if you can, it is a secret, and I don't know how to do it. It should have better, easier, and user-friendly reporting without having to use the Excel add-in. It is very clunky. There is a lot of data in there, but it is not organized in such a way that makes it intuitive. You really have to kind of look for where do you put your documentation or dates. Some customization is available, but it is not plug-and-play like Jira. When I switched from TFS to Jira, I just went and started using Jira, whereas with Rally, you kind of have to really get in and figure out what you need to do before you set stuff up, or you're going to get yourself stuck. You can just start using Jira and be successful."
"We want Rally to generate OKRs, to allow teams to record the OKRs, and then the OKRs can be mapped to the epics and there is organizational alignment."
"The navigation within the tool sometimes is a little tricky for me. I'm sure with more use, more practice, I'll become accustomed to it, but some of the things just aren't intuitive."
"As it is right now, it does not support automation of the quality assurance process. It just supports manual testing."
"In terms of improvement, perhaps some more metrics. If they could add some additional, that would be cool."
"I wish there was a view, like the Kanban view, where you could see the parent, and see all the children visually, so you could drag and drop where you want it to go. Something like that might help."
"Rally Software is highly complex, and it takes some effort to get everything tied together. But once you do, it's a satisfying experience, and the result looks beautiful. Azure, ServiceNow, and Jira do not have all the features that Rally Software provides in one place, making it an exceptional tool for project management."
Jira Align is ranked 3rd in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools with 37 reviews while Rally Software is ranked 6th in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools with 116 reviews. Jira Align is rated 8.0, while Rally Software is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Jira Align writes "Creates visibility, has lots of reports, and removes silos". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Rally Software writes "Good discussion and note-taking capabilities but hard to track the changes". Jira Align is most compared with OpenText ValueEdge, ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management, JIRA Portfolio, Planview AgilePlace and Targetprocess, whereas Rally Software is most compared with Microsoft Azure DevOps, Jira, TFS, OpenText ALM / Quality Center and GitLab. See our Jira Align vs. Rally Software report.
See our list of best Enterprise Agile Planning Tools vendors.
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