When Jira Roadmap was first released in 2018 followed by Jira Advanced Roadmaps in 2020, it marked Atlassian’s first foray into offering Gantt-like features to its Jira users. While this was a step in the right direction for project managers worldwide, we have since received numerous inquiries about the differences between Jira’s offerings and WBS Gantt-Chart for Jira.
This article aims to address these differences and explain why choosing WBS Gantt-Chart for Jira is the better option for a roadmap tool. Read on, and we will illustrate how WBS Gantt-Chart for Jira sets itself apart from Jira when creating roadmaps in Jira.
What is Jira Roadmap and Jira Advanced Roadmaps?
Jira Roadmaps is part of Atlassian’s commitment to making it easier and more intuitive for users to set up projects in Jira.
By offering a bird’s eye view of projects along with an easy-to-use UI, it offered a way to manage large-scale issues. Users will be able to easily track progress, monitor the status of Epics, and ultimately stay on track with more internal alignment.
On the other hand, Jira Advanced Roadmaps, though similar, is a separate and more comprehensive solution accessible only to premium users that offers a number of more advanced features that expand upon Jira Roadmap’s basic offering.
This includes creating dependencies between issues, a greater degree of customization (e.g. query-based filtering), and resource and capacity planning capabilities, ultimately allowing users to deal with more complex projects.
What’s Missing from Jira Roadmaps? Why WBS Gantt-Chart for Jira is a Better Option
While Jira Roadmaps and Jira Advanced Roadmaps are excellent roadmap planning tools in their own right, they lack several key features that WBS Gantt-Chart for Jira offers.
When it comes to using Jira Roadmaps, some of these missing features include the ability to create baselines, a straightforward critical path view option, visibility of due dates, creating and editing dependencies, and even task delay alerts.
Likewise, when compared to Jira Advanced Roadmaps, users will find critical functionalities such as smart workload allocation, detailed Gantt chart customization, and a simple-to-use interface severely lacking.
Unfortunately, with all of the above missing in Jira’s offerings, WBS Gantt-Chart, in comparison, proves to be a far more suitable and trustworthy companion for project managers (PMs). In essence, it offers most of what Jira has to offer and then some. Additionally, while Jira Roadmaps and Jira Advanced Roadmaps are only suitable for large-scale projects, WBS Gantt-Chart for Jira is highly scalable for projects of any size, no matter how small or large.
Now, let’s compare Roadmap and WBS Gantt-Chart for Jira:
| Jira Roadmap | Jira Advanced Roadmaps | WBS Gantt-Chart for Jira | |
| Available on Server | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Available on Cloud | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Types of issues for which you can create a bar | ⚠️
Only Epic |
✅
Any Issue Type |
✅
Any Issue types |
| Defining a bar | Specified by Start dates and End dates | Specified by Start dates and End dates | Specify “Start date” and “Finish date” from the arbitrary date field |
| Moving a bar by drag-and-dropping | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Due date visibility | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Types of issues you can create as a child issue | ⚠️
Only Story |
✅
Any Issue types |
✅
Any Issue types |
| Build a parent-child relationship | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Create a baseline | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Percentage complete and progress line | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Critical path | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Display resource management | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Display Issue detail | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Sort Order | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Quick filter | ✅
Filter by Status |
✅ | ❌ |
| Create a Gantt chart | ⚠️
Offers a timeline view with extremely limited capabilities |
⚠️
Offers a timeline view with extremely limited capabilities |
✅
Gantt charts are fully customizable |
| Save | ✅
Real-time auto-saving |
✅
|
Manual saving
(though some sections are automatically saved) |
WBS Gantt-Chart Shines Through
Jira Roadmaps and Jira Advanced Roadmaps certainly have their own strengths. However, at the end of the day, for PMs looking for an effective and comprehensive roadmap tool that simplifies otherwise arduous tasks, WBS Gantt-Chart for Jira is the ideal choice. This is best seen in our comparison table above.
That being said, the best way to understand the benefits we’re claiming is to try WBS Gantt-Chart for yourself. Why not give it a try today to see how it can benefit your organization?
