With the advent of Jira Align, searches, such as ‘jira align vs aha’ or ‘jira align vs portfolio’ has begun emerging on Google. While some organizations seem to reconsider their commitment to Aha!, or Advanced Roadmaps (Portfolio), let’s state it: Jira Align is distinctly different from proven project management apps, such as BigPicture, or the two previously mentioned. Which one of them should you choose then: Aha!, BigPicture, Jira Align, or Advanced Roadmaps (Portfolio for Jira)? Your budget, number of teams, and product diversification seem to be major decision-making factors.
On a related note: Jira Align may live on top of your Jira Software, quite similar to the other three. It’s not the case that Jira Align is an alias for Jira Software + some enterprise-level planning and reporting tools.
| Aha! Roadmaps for Jira | BigPicture | Jira Align | Advanced Roadmaps (Portfolio for Jira) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What do forums whisper? | It has some light features for tracking a project. But at its heart, it’s a roadmap tool for Product Management, not Project Management.
Aha presents things in a nicer format (than Portfolio). Aha! is a better tool for a Product Manager, and Portfolio makes more sense to the SCRUM master, dev manager, technical Project Manager, or Project Officer. |
BigPicture is the best option when you have many projects and many teams in which members are responsible for different tasks in more than one project. (…) Portfolio is for this same purpose, but it is more oriented on team and release.
(…) there is a higher level in the organization that wants to visualize cross-product initiatives in the Gantt chart. |
Jira Align has a larger feature set, compared to Portfolio. A separately managed solution that is cloud-based. A de-facto solution for Atlassian’s largest customers. |
(…) both powerful and simple to use.
(…) seamlessly integrates with Jira Software. Portfolio is useful for high-level planning and forecasting; it’s not as suitable for the day-to-day management of individual projects. It is an excellent tool to clearly understand the team velocity and capacity for each release. Not so much for roadmapping. Portfolio feels more like a project planning tool instead of a product planning tool. |
| The tightness of integration with Jira | moderate | high | moderate | high |
| Can I live on my own, without Jira? |  |
soon |
|
|
| What’s an app’s ‘Special’? | (…) it’s best suited for high-level roadmapping, not detailed implementation tracking. | For starters, BigPicture features best-in-class Gantt charts, which JIRA Portfolio does not even have. | Connecting top-level strategy to a large number of teams. | Automated scheduling is, to me at least, the one killer feature of Portfolio for Jira.
Test ‘what if’ scenarios to calculate what happens to your schedule, e.g. add another team member, reprioritize your work. You can see what your schedule looks like before committing the change. |
| # of users/teams | Especially medium and large organizations. If you have many teams, BP Enterprise edition might be worth it. | Above 500 users (not a hard-and-fast rule). | Focus on a limited number of teams (up to 20 ?). Up to 500 users (roughly). | |
| Business data | ||||
| Developer | Aha! Labs | SoftwarePlant | Atlassian | Atlassian |
| Hosting – Jira: | Server, Cloud | Server, Data Center, Cloud | Cloud | Server, Data Center, Cloud |
| Security – keep your business data on a server within your organization | |
|
||
| Atlassian Top Vendor | |
|||
| Trial version | 30 days | 30 days | Seven days, on request | 30 days |
| Price, Server, $/year | The plugins for Jira (Server and Cloud) are available free of charge, but you need to pay for Aha! Roadmap itself.
You pay $1188 times the number of workspace owners and contributors (~superusers). If there are five of them, you are looking at $5,940, annually, for the most popular Enterprise plan. If you have ten workspace owners and contributors, you might be charged $11,880, annually for the Enterprise edition. Smaller entities could go with the Premium plan, where you pay $708/user, annually. If there are 20 users, you are looking at $14,160/year. |
250 users tier: $4,000 | 250 users tier: $9,490 | |
| Price, Cloud, $/user/month | 500 users tier: $1.38 | $69, $99, or $129 / user / month | 500 users tier: $1.73 | |
| Functionality | ||||
| Strategy | ‘Strategy’ view. Graphical mindmap; personas; competitors, goals, and initiatives matrices |
|
Themes (in 2.x, Themes provide high-level strategic focus areas to show teams where they should devote their time) |
|
| Financial management | |
|
||
| Program-level view, track progress of projects in your portfolio | with Strategy roadmap and Initiatives |
further improved with Boxes, starting BigPicture 8 |
|
|
| Roadmaps: Program-, high-level roadmapping | |
|
|
|
| Board (a.k.a. agile board, program board) | Features board; based on releases and not iterations or program increments |
Program-level and iteration-level board, starting BigPicture 7.2 |
|
Boards in Jira Software are an issue source for Advanced Roadmaps plans. You can use Jira Software boards for program level and initiative level items as well as day-to-day planning. |
| Gantt chart | simplified Gantt chart (timeline) view within the Releases module; has work breakdown structure, task dependencies, and milestones |
including a resources pane |
Timeline view has basic functionalities of Gantt chart, especially with ‘Kanban’ selected in ‘Team scheduling methodology’ combo box. Alternatively, you could integrate Advanced Roadmaps with Gantt module of BigGantt/BigPicture. How? |
|
| Scope
a standalone work breakdown structure module, separate from the Gantt chart or Roadmap |
|
|
|
|
| Risks | |
|
||
| Resources | simplified, no skills |
|
|
the extra checkmark for the auto-scheduling feature |
| Teams | |
|
|
|
| Reporting | the extra checkmark for spreadsheet-style pivots and charts |
|
|
|
An effort was made to gather accurate data, but these apps are sometimes incomparable. Data current at the time of writing. Help improve the table – e-mail marketing (a) softwareplant.com.
In our opinion
BigPicture vs. Jira Align. BigPicture is way cheaper; Jira Align can synchronize a dozen or two fields with Jira Software while BigPicture can synchronize nearly any field. The agile board in BigPicture is more mature than in Jira Align.
However, Jira Align has tons of features not covered in the above table.
BigPicture vs. Advanced Roadmaps. BigPicture has better coverage of specific areas, namely scope, schedule, and risk management. The two apps are both great when it comes to roadmaps and resource management.
Aha! Roadmaps for Jira are, in a way, equivalent to Advanced Roadmaps (Portfolio). BigPicture is different since it penetrates project management areas than Aha! and Advanced Roadmaps don’t touch. Jira Align is a league of its own, both function- and cost-wise.
