The leans split by criterion, so we declare no overall winner. Jira holds the higher means on integrations (8.5 vs 3.2), collaboration depth (7.7 vs 2.2), reporting (7.2 vs 0.0), onboarding effort (6.5 vs 5.2) and support documentation (4.3 vs 3.0): six judges lean Jira on the first three, five on the last two, one tie apiece. OpenProject takes sovereignty (6.8 vs 3.0) and pricing transparency (6.7 vs 5.3), six judges leaning OpenProject on both. Pricing transparency rests on per-user prices, printed seat minimums and a worked $2,175/year example; sovereignty on German jurisdiction, EU-only data residency and EU-only subprocessor exposure. The benches split internally too: Jira's sovereignty runs 2 to 4; OpenProject's onboarding effort runs 4 to 6 and support documentation 2 to 4. Per-judge weighted totals favor Jira each time, from 4.8 vs 4.7 for the data protection officer to 6.7 vs 3.5 for the integrator.
Choose Jira if
You wire AI coding assistants and editors into planning: the Rovo MCP server connects Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code, and integrations runs 8.5 vs 3.2 with six judges leaning Jira.
You need cross-project plans, per-person capacity management, approvals and free guest access without a seat — collaboration depth runs 7.7 vs 2.2, six judges to zero.
You need built-in analytics: Atlassian Analytics and a fully modeled Data Lake, where reporting runs 7.2 vs 0.0 with six judges leaning Jira.
You are a team of 10 or fewer starting free: Jira is free forever for 10 users with no credit card, and onboarding effort runs 6.5 vs 5.2 with five judges leaning Jira and one tie.
You must choose your hosting region: Jira's data residency attribute reads EU optional and its verdict credits customer-selectable data residency across Atlassian's global cloud footprint; OpenProject's attribute reads EU-only.
Choose OpenProject if
You need EU sovereignty terms: jurisdiction Germany, EU-only data residency and EU-only subprocessor exposure on record — sovereignty runs 6.8 vs 3.0 with six judges leaning OpenProject.
You must budget before talking to sales: per-user prices, printed 25/100/250 seat minimums and a worked $2,175/year example; pricing transparency runs 6.7 vs 5.3, six judges to zero, while Jira's verdict notes a missing Standard price.
Your procurement needs GDPR paperwork before signing: a named German DPO, an Article 28 DPA signable in the cloud, and SCCs.
You want self-hosting as a full exit from the vendor's cloud, from OpenProject GmbH of Berlin under GPLv3.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Data Protection Officer
Reads the DPA before the feature list. Optimizes for GDPR posture: EU hosting, subprocessor exposure, deletion guarantees. Rejects anything that cannot answer where the data lives.
Jira
This judge's pick
OpenProject
Criterion by criterion
Collaboration depth
Jira
Cross-project plans, capacity management, free guest access and paid-only permission schemes make team-level planning first-class, matching the 8 anchor. Dependencies are not explicitly evidenced, so I won't push to 10.
OpenProject
Fine-grained role-based access at individual project level proves multi-user projects with defined places for a second user, so this is no personal list — but the registry evidences nothing about assignments, comments, shared timelines, dependencies, workload or guest access. The captured feature surface is all security and SSO, no collaboration.
Reporting
Jira
Atlassian Analytics and a fully modeled Data Lake give configurable cross-project dashboards, which is close to the 8 anchor. But nothing on exports, time tracking, budgets or utilization appears in the evidence, so I stop short.
OpenProject
No report, dashboard, time, budget, utilization or export capability appears anywhere in the registry — the feature pages captured (pricing and security) list none, so I score by the absence anchor. Tellingly, the privacy policy documents log retention more thoroughly than anything here documents reporting on work.
Integrations
Jira
Thousands of marketplace apps, a CLI, Rovo MCP server and third-party coding agents (Claude, Cursor, Copilot) make this ecosystem-grade and extensible per the 10 anchor's language. No documented public REST API or webhook evidence and no exit-export guarantee keep it below 10.
OpenProject
A handful at best: Google SSO, OpenID Connect to Nextcloud Hub and openDesk on the top tier, mobile apps, and a release-check API for self-hosters that covers a fraction of the product. No evidence of a documented product API, webhooks, calendar or Slack/Teams hooks, or import paths.
Onboarding effort
Jira
A free-forever plan for 10 users with no credit card required is a strong frictionless entry. Guided setup, templates and import paths are unevidenced, so it sits between rubric level 5 and 8.
OpenProject
Self-serve is real and clean: a free Community edition with no seat minimum, and 14-day cloud or on-premises trials 'risk-free without cancellation' — no payment-details hostage. But nothing evidences guided setup, templates or importers, and the permanent free path means operating your own server.
European sovereignty
Jira
The sovereignty record is empty: Australian vendor, NASDAQ-listed, and no DPA, subprocessor list or deletion guarantee anywhere in the evidence. Data residency exists only as a customer-selectable option within 'Atlassian's global cloud footprint' — a feature, not a contractual EU guarantee — and controlling ownership sits outside Europe under US market jurisdiction, so this is compliance-paperwork-free rather than compliant, landing below rubric level 3.
OpenProject
Substance over paperwork: OpenProject GmbH in Berlin, a named data protection officer, an Article 28 DPA signable in-product with SCCs, EU-resident Enterprise Cloud data, concrete deletion guarantees (90-day logs, instance purge six months after contract expiry), AES-256 at rest including backups, and a GPLv3 self-hosting escape hatch.
Support & documentation
Jira
Support is explicitly gated by plan: community-only on Free, business hours on Standard, 24/7 reserved for Premium and Enterprise — the opposite of support independent of plan. Docs, help center and changelog are entirely unevidenced, capping it at rubric level 5.
OpenProject
Support windows are published per plan (Mon-Fri, 9:30-4 ET on Basic) plus a security contact and advisories mailing list, which I credit. But no help center, documentation depth, chat channel or changelog is evidenced anywhere, and the free Community tier shows no support at all.
Pricing transparency
Jira
Free ($0, 10 users) and Premium ($14.54/user/month) are public, with a monthly/annual toggle and a stated up-to-17% discount. But Enterprise is 'Contact sales' billed annually only, the Standard price is absent, and tax treatment is never stated — a textbook anchor-5 pattern with the opaque tier doing real work.
OpenProject
Self-serve tiers carry public per-user prices with seat minimums stated on the page and even a worked example ($2,175/year for 25 Basic users), and the BIM add-on surcharge is public. Missing pieces: billing-period treatment (the example is annual with no monthly/annual split stated), tax treatment, and the Corporate tier doing real work behind 'on request'.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
Jira
OpenProject
Legal entity
Not determined
Incorporated in DE
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
Not determined
Subprocessors
Not determined
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.