Jira Align vs. Rally Software

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Jira Align
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
A solution to bridge the gap between strategy and execution for portfolio, product, and program management teams, used to manage idea intake, prioritize your feature backlog, and track progress with live roadmaps.
$27,000
per year
Rally Software
Score 6.8 out of 10
N/A
Rally Software headquartered in Boulder, Colorado developed the Rally agile software development / ALM platform which was acquired by CA Technologies and rebranded as CA Agile Central. After CA's acquisition by Broadcom the software was once again rebranded as Rally.N/A
Pricing
Jira AlignRally Software
Editions & Modules
Starting Price
$27,000.00
per year
Maximum Price
$3,987,600.00
per year
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Jira AlignRally Software
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Jira AlignRally Software
Considered Both Products
Jira Align
Chose Jira Align
Jira Align is the more superior tool as compared to others. With the kind of integrations Jira has made with Slack and email, it is straightforward to use and keep track of the things happening within the team.
Chose Jira Align
Jira Align has better integration with Confluence for documentation and Jira.

The workflow can be customized for support SAFe and various agile frameworks
Chose Jira Align
I think there is nothing like this out there. The point is nobody can have a second thought about it and it will be the first choice of anybody for the quantum of things it has to offer and as a whole what it brings to the table. Acts as a solid database of things done in the …
Chose Jira Align
Microsoft Azure Devops won't have the major functionality of software management like Jira. The customization provided by Jira is having a cutting edge over any project management tool. Adds-on and Plugins feature in the Jira Tool make it as perfect as desired task management …
Chose Jira Align
I would prefer to use Jira over ServiceNow or Rally. Not only am I most comfortable with Jira, but I think most teams are due to its historical use. Jira's workflow capabilities, although complex, really allow for a lot of customization that is sometimes needed for extremely …
Chose Jira Align
Atlassian Jira Align (formerly AgileCraft) is formatted in a way that's conducive to software development and Agile methodology. These other programs have their own, different uses in tracking, and are typically clunkier than Atlassian Jira Align (formerly AgileCraft).
Chose Jira Align
Jira provides a large advantage over some competitors, such as Harvest which is more of simple time tracking software, but without the connectivity provided between team members. Furthermore, Asana is a close competitor, but does not provide the same level of integration with …
Chose Jira Align
Atlassian Jira Align (formerly AgileCraft) has an excellent suite of tools that integrate well with other tools and offers full support for various agile frameworks, including SAFe. It's just a complete integrated package, whereas some other tools seem to be lacking in …
Chose Jira Align
Atlassian Jira is packed with features, though it costs more to have Jira compared to its competitors still it performs well for a large organization which depends a lot on digital channels for retail. For us, during product evaluation, Jira was the first choice compared to …
Chose Jira Align
This is a great alternative for many companies. It is especially helpful and beneficial if you have non-technical workers that need to interact with the software platform. This is a much simpler platform to have those employees use given their lower technical knowledge. In the …
Chose Jira Align
We actually had Smartsheet evaluated after we began use of Jira and determined that even though Jira serves a better purpose for our tech teams, all other teams found it much better to use Smartsheet as it continues with the project and Excel type feel that most are used to. …
Chose Jira Align
Jira is very easy to use and is very flexible. You can use Jira to easily fit your company's needs. It is perfect for Agile methodology and allows for easy communication between teams. Basecamp is more rigid and does not have as much road mapping or ticketing capabilities as …
Rally Software
Chose Rally Software
Rally and Asana have comparable features and are both valuable project management tools, but Asana's user interface is well-organized and highly intuitive. It's easy to add tasks and collaborators, edit due dates, indicate progress on tasks, close out projects, etc. However, …
Chose Rally Software
Overall, Rally Software is a better and more powerful tool than Jira for the same exact purposes. Jira cannot function as a requirements repository so it needs plugins or separate tools to do the same thing. There is no space or option to see all defects or user stories or …
Chose Rally Software
We have used Jira in the past. Jira is easy to use and seems to be an industry standard. Rally is clunky and expensive. The dev side did not pick it, the business did due to its reporting capabilities.
Chose Rally Software
I did not select Rally; it was chosen by the organization. If I were choosing what to use within my own team, I would use Trello. It's free, very simple to use, and has a much nicer user interface. My company previously used VersionOne however, and I prefer Rally over that …
Chose Rally Software
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) & through Test Management were two critical factors that lead to selection of CA Agile Central (formerly Rally).

Executives want to maintain trace-ability & detailed test management options like we get in ALM along with SAFe implementation support. …
Chose Rally Software
It was a close race between JAMA, JIRA and Rally. We decided to go for JAMA as a requirements management tool and use Rally for Agile projects. The cost was another factor that made us select Rally.
Chose Rally Software
Our evaluation was done many years ago, but at the time Rally provided the best mix of SCRUM-driven features, visibility and economy for our product engineering teams.
Chose Rally Software
Selected because the others seemed worse two years ago when the decision was made. VersionOne seemed ugly and too restricted. Might look better now. Microsoft TFS, now VSO, looked limited but also might look better now. Microsoft is improving it at a remarkably rapid pace. Jira …
Chose Rally Software
The process we used to select a tool was to create a scorecard of IT and Business stakeholder needs. We then reviewed seven tools and graded them against the scorecard requirements. We took the top two products and had a one day hands on demonstration with selected IT and …
Chose Rally Software
We used CA Agile Central (formerly Rally) before but recently switched to Jira. I used jira before Rally too, and I think it was easier to manage defects in Jira. Also, I think Jira is better for teams and companies that want to implement agile/scrum life cycles. It's easier to …
Chose Rally Software
We started exploring new tools, and found better adaptation of our team toward Jira. Jira provided engineers with simpler interfaces and more reliable service, even though less unnecessary features. Also the managers found in Jira better ability to eliminate noise and focus on …
Chose Rally Software
I've also evaluated the following agile solutions: ActiveCollab, Agile Bench, Agilo for Scrum, Atlassian JIRA, Pivotal Tracker, SpringGround, Targetprocess. Telerik Teamprocess, VersionOne, ZebraPlan etc.
If it’s time to transition to software that’s specific to your Agile …
Chose Rally Software
Rally has much more features with regards to the the traditional Agile methodology and has more extensive tracking features for the project managers. Pivotal tracker was used for a smaller company and smaller teams but since my current company is larger in scale and has more to …
Best Alternatives
Jira AlignRally Software
Small Businesses
Craft.io
Craft.io
Score 8.3 out of 10
GitLab
GitLab
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
ProductPlan
ProductPlan
Score 9.5 out of 10
Planview AgilePlace
Planview AgilePlace
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Roadmunk
Roadmunk
Score 9.0 out of 10
Planview AgilePlace
Planview AgilePlace
Score 9.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Jira AlignRally Software
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
5.2
(0 ratings)
7.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
5.7
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Jira AlignRally Software
Likelihood to Recommend
This product is useful for a team/company working with multiple customers. Employee count anywhere larger than fifty or sixty will be benefited [from] this. Considering this product is expensive(as I’ve heard) this will not serve [many] purposes to smaller companies and startups who are having a very less customer base and [fewer...] employees.
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If your organisation is planning to adopt Scaled Agile Framework Methodology (SAFe) without being worried about cost, CA Agile Central is one of the best tools. Here, you can look at various release trains and how that then flows up to the overall program budget. You can look holistically across all the release trains with minimal effort and have it flow up to the program office’s budget. It also helps by easily maintaining backlogs and integrating more seamlessly into software developers releases, iterations, and features. It has no conformance issue as it supports almost all the browsers like IE from version 8.0, Firefox from 3.6 and the newest versions of Chrome (from 6.0) and Safari (from 4.0).
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Pros
  • Jira is a great project management tool when it comes to tracking the progress of deliverables and milestones. Each member of the team can track individual deliverables and milestones. Jira comes with filters and search functions to perform these tasks.
  • Jira is highly flexible when it comes to maintaining tasks and deliverable backlogs. You can plan and organize your sprints in such a way that you include your previous backlogs in them.
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  • structuring teams separately in a clean way. You can add as much teams as you want, and guarantee each team's work would stay separate in browsing, graphs and analytics.
  • detailed menus and drop-downs listing of features - technically it covers all there is of agile aspects and some more
  • ability to set your email notifications on/off
  • ability to split user stories into the next iteration if work isn't done in the previous one - no need to duplicate your user story manually
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Cons
  • The initial ticket creation screen lacks some important features, such as assigning "point values" (a measure of effort needed for the ticket).
  • The browser needs to be manually refreshed to see new tickets, which can make things confusing when several people in a meeting are simultaneously creating tickets.
  • The interface on some smaller portions of the software are sometimes difficult to understand.
Read full review
  • It is overly complicated in some views.
  • Project Filtering seems buggy. Pinning a project does not always seem to help. Seems to default back to previous projects.
  • Whereas it is great for project reporting, it is not nearly as easy as Jira for devs to use.
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Likelihood to Renew
There is nothing that can be better than Jira but it needs to keep improving certain areas especially the attachment size area.
Read full review
Assuming we were paying - right now my group gets it for free as the broader engineering organization pays for it. There would be switching costs. There would be pretty minimal data migration, but the biggest cost is getting people to learn a new tool and starting off on the right footing. Evaluation and identification of the right product is a big part of switching too
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Usability
Most of the things are easily manageable except certain things that are hidden and you need to ask teammates who are aware of how they can link attachements in the comment section and so on.
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Great UI, recent refresh was terrific. Great graphs and metrics, inline editing for updates, and a multitude of views on sprint progress make for a great team collaboration experience. There is also an active community and forums so that if you do need help, it is readily available
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
Don’t recall ever being unavailable.
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Performance
No answers on this topic
The screens render relatively quickly but many actions that you would expect to require a single click require multiple clicks and pop-up windows. The extra windows and clicks make the product feel ponderous.
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Support Rating
It is average. It needs to improve overall if you are paying the amount of money it costs. For now, it does the job, but with so many new features being added it would be very helpful to kick this up a notch.
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I've had to use support only one time and my issue was eventually resolved but not because of my ticket--because others complained about the functionality taken away so they brought it back. My ticket was never answered or addressed. So I can't really say much for the support factor for Rally.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
It more or less confirmed that we are using it the way they had in mind. We were hoping for a epiphany in terms of how we could use it better.

They also want to be a go to source for agile processes and have an online resource center. It’s not that great but had a couple of nuggets. It hasn’t really helped us too much and we are not too far off from the classical interpretation of agile.

I would recommend training, in particular for organizations that multiple on-going projects. The product seems optimized for larger, more complex teams and getting proper training on how to configure, administer and use the system would be beneficial
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
Implementation of RALLY services and program satisfaction among various group,... 1) Dev Outcomes: How were our resiliencies, development, learning & practitioners “make them do the work,” but that they ask you to do it “in a way like before. 2) The Ops group: Just wish to make sure any change won't break current production envirements All the stake holders has to be on the same page
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Alternatives Considered
Atlassian JIRA Align (formerly AgileCraft) has an excellent suite of tools that integrate well with other tools and offers full support for various agile frameworks, including SAFe. It's just a complete integrated package, whereas some other tools seem to be lacking in different areas. Several plug-ins can be integrated to help with pro serv invoicing and integration with GitHub, Jenkins, Confluence, and other tools that we use.
Read full review
Rally and Asana have comparable features and are both valuable project management tools, but Asana's user interface is well-organized and highly intuitive. It's easy to add tasks and collaborators, edit due dates, indicate progress on tasks, close out projects, etc. However, Rally's interface is somewhat cluttered and difficult to navigate. My team ended up choosing Asana over Rally due to these concerns.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Able to forecast & plan releases well using agilecraft leading to quality on time delivery.
  • Distributed teams are able to collaborate well, be it be daily scrum, retrospective, estimation though this. Also team members love the gamification part & they have fun using this tool. Earlier we use to face challenges due to distributed teams but after AgileCraft, collaboration & communication was no longer a challenge & we are able to see improvement not only in team velocity, but also team satisfaction.
  • Simplest tool to implement safe, scaling is always a problem with most of the agile tools but agilecraft helps in smoother implementation of safe practices & principles.
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  • Moving from Waterfall to Scrum or Kanban has been a big win for us. The adaptability and customization of CA Agile Central has aided in our success.
  • Agile methodologies and CA Agile Central has made it easier to integrate business product owners into an agile team.
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