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 Skeptic
Assumes the marketing is lying until the evidence says otherwise. Hunts lock-in, dark patterns, hidden cost and dead changelogs. Exists to keep the rest of the panel honest.
Jira
This judge's pick
OpenProject
Criterion by criterion
Collaboration depth
Jira
Cross-project plans, per-person capacity management, approvals, and free guest access without burning a seat are all on record, which is genuinely first-class team planning. But dependency handling is nowhere in the evidence, and granular permissions are explicitly paid-only — a capability gate dressed up as a plan feature.
OpenProject
The only multi-user machinery this sheet evidences is fine-grained role-based access control at project level — permissions, not collaboration. Not one fact covers assignments, comments, dependencies, timelines, workload or guest access, and the pricing page itemizes tier features without ever naming a collaborative one. Absence is the finding.
Reporting
Jira
Atlassian Analytics with a low-code chart builder plus a Data Lake of fully modeled cross-product data is real reporting infrastructure, not board-gazing. But the evidence is silent on time tracking, budgets, utilization reporting, and any export path — the Data Lake implies query access, implies being the operative word.
OpenProject
The pricing page itemizes every tier's features and the security page itemizes admin capabilities; neither mentions a single report, time view, budget, dashboard or export. The only 'API' on record is a release-version checker for self-hosted installs. Nothing here can answer a question about the work.
Integrations
Jira
Thousands of marketplace apps, a CLI, and a Rovo MCP server wiring Jira into Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code is ecosystem-grade extensibility on its face. What the evidence never evidences: a documented public API, webhooks, or import paths off competitors — the exit story in particular is nowhere to be found.
OpenProject
A literal handful: Google SSO, iOS/Android apps (running on Google Firebase) and Nextcloud/openDesk hooks — the latter gated to the 250-seat, on-request Corporate tier. The sole API evidenced is a release-version checker; no calendar, Slack/Teams, storage, webhook or documented product API appears anywhere. Marquee names, no real API — the anchor-3 definition, minus even the partial API.
Onboarding effort
Jira
Free forever for 10 users with no credit card is the right self-serve posture. But there's zero evidence of guided setup, templates, or importers, and since permission settings only exist on paid plans, a newcomer's first free-tier project has security consequences they can't configure away.
OpenProject
Self-serve is real: a free Community edition with no minimums and a 14-day trial 'risk-free without cancellation', which at least implies no card upfront. But the evidence is silent on guided setup, templates and importers, and the paid ladder starts at 25 minimum users — a five-person team cannot buy in at all. Day-one value is asserted by trial length, not evidenced.
European sovereignty
Jira
An Australian company listed on NASDAQ is non-European control by definition, and 'no sovereignty attributes on record' means no DPA, no GDPR language, no subprocessor disclosure — nothing. Data residency exists only as an unspecified option somewhere in 'Atlassian's global cloud footprint,' which is a dropdown, not a guarantee.
OpenProject
The substance is there: OpenProject GmbH at a Berlin address, a named German DPO, BDSG, an Article 28 DPA with SCCs and external audits. EU-only is asserted, not documented — and this sheet marks jurisdiction and ownership unconfirmed.
Support & documentation
Jira
The support ladder is at least explicit — 24/7 at Premium and Enterprise with published uptime SLAs of 99.9/99.95% — but the Free plan gets community support only, which is below email. Documentation itself has no evidence in the evidence whatsoever, and no changelog is on record, so I can't credit what isn't shown.
OpenProject
The entire support record is four business-hours windows that literally scale with plan price, plus a security contact and advisory mailing list. Not one captured page evidences documentation, a help center, a changelog, chat, or any response-time commitment. Docs here aren't thin — they're unevidenced.
Pricing transparency
Jira
Free and Premium are publicly priced with a monthly/annual toggle, but 'SAVE UP TO 17%' never states which billing period the $14.54 headline reflects, tax treatment is silent, Enterprise is contact-sales annual-only, and the Standard tier's price never appears in the record. The hidden cost is SSO: below Enterprise it 'requires Atlassian Guard Standard subscription' — an unpriced mandatory add-on for table-stakes identity management.
OpenProject
Unusually concrete for a vendor: per-user prices, seat minimums stated on the page (25/100/250), a quantified BIM surcharge, a free tier and a worked $2,175/year example. But billing-period differences and tax treatment are never stated, and the Corporate tier — the only home of the Nextcloud/openDesk integrations — is 'on request'. The headline number is close to the invoice, not the invoice.
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.