Jama Connect vs. productboard

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Jama Connect
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Jama Connect® is a Requirements Management software and Requirements Traceability solution. Jama Software enables teams to manage product requirements and enable Live Traceability™ across the development process, in order to reduce cycle times and improve product quality.N/A
productboard
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
productboard, from the company of the same name in San Francisco, is a product management system designed to help product managers understand what users need, prioritize what to build, and rally everyone around a roadmap.
$25
per month
Pricing
Jama Connectproductboard
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Essential
$25.00
per month
Pro
$60.00
per month
Scale
$120.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Jama Connectproductboard
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Jama Connectproductboard
Considered Both Products
Jama Connect
Chose Jama Connect
It's not on the list but at a previous employer, I've used IBM Rational DOORS, it is extremely good at requirements management and traceability but extremely difficult to use for the casual user. Nothing is intuitive. We didn't utilize it for risk management so I'm not even …
Chose Jama Connect
JCA is an extraordinary tool that is very simple to use and brings efficiency to the creation of requirements. It is particularly good at highlighting improvements to requirements which, when done properly and done up front in the engineering development process, will save …
Chose Jama Connect
Microsoft Excel provides only barebone capability when it comes to requirements development, since it is not primarily designed for that purpose. It is therefore not a serious contender to the capabilities of Jama Connect
Chose Jama Connect
It’s easier to use, easier to trace requirements and verification and has a better UI

These other tools feel more like glorified excel sheets whereas Jama actually feels intentional with being an ALM tool.
Chose Jama Connect
Jama Connect had been selected because it offered an approach that could meet 61508. User-friendly and web-based
Chose Jama Connect
Was not involled in product selection.
Chose Jama Connect
Focused on Requirements Engineering.
Intuitive
User Interface
Chose Jama Connect
- Ease of use
- Straightforward set of features
- Cost-effective (due to the fact that we've been customers of Jama Connect for nearly 15 years)
Chose Jama Connect
in terms of features they were similar. The difference was due on the architecture of Jama Connect which apperas more simple and effcient. Polarion was relying to an SVN database.
Chose Jama Connect
easier to use with better UI and versioning etc.
Chose Jama Connect
Jama Connect was the perfect balance between cost, usability and scalability that our company desired. Helix was definitely cheaper but didn't offer the usability or scalability perks. Codebeamer missed the mark on cost and was designed more for a software centric requirement …
Chose Jama Connect
Cannot give an answer as since I have taken over this application and I don't know how we did it before.
Chose Jama Connect
Functionlity is there and ease of use
Chose Jama Connect
Jama Connect is more straightforward than these systems but not quite as versatile or comprehensive. I would choose those other systems if I were at a very large company working on very complex systems (which I am not).
Chose Jama Connect
Better online access, risk traceability, and impact analysis
Chose Jama Connect
Need to force users to review and approve requirements on time.
Chose Jama Connect
I really liked Cradle as it seemed to be very full-featured. BUT, my liking for it was predicated on my being a daily user of the tool; it took me a while to get familiar with the tool. What was certainly true of Cradle in my experience was that it was VERY challenging to get …
Chose Jama Connect
Jama Connect 100%. Don't burden yourself any longer in local files.
Chose Jama Connect
Polarion did not have the outside sales support that Jama Connect has. Polarion seems better suited for an Agile development lifecycle rather than an evergreen repository of requirements, design features, and verifications.

Excel is the low-cost/low-feature requirements …
Chose Jama Connect
The major sellingpoints of Jama were the review-system for internal and external reviewers and the inclusion of (Use Case) modelling tools, while keeping the core requirements-centric. Ability to synchronise with currently in use test-tooling and the low learning curve were …
Chose Jama Connect
JAMA can navigate between them, as far as it generates reports accessible through MS Project, Word, and Excel. Moreover, very likely it can be embedded into Confluence as well however, we have not yet implemented this feature.
productboard
Chose productboard
I have previously used Aha another product road mapping/ insights driven software.

Aha had great features for the userbase of my previous products. They were allowed to create their own suggestions for the products and other users could then like or dislike the suggestion. …
Chose productboard
Productboard is more feature-rich. It has very intuitive to use and can be connected to various applications. Showcasing your roadmap is very easy and collaboration is very easy as well.

Productboard has great UX features where you can see the roadmap in multiple ways with …
Chose productboard
Productboard has a modern interface with a great user experience that will help you get onboard really fast especially if you are looking for one place to handle customer insights that are coming from different places and be able to score and report under value vs effort …
Chose productboard
productboard is geared directly towards receiving, organizing, and evaluating product ideas.
Chose productboard
Productboard is leaner, easier to use, and cleaner than Aha! I switched from Aha! to productboard and did not regret the decision. Aha! may be better suited to larger operations or teams, but productboard is perfect for smaller teams and solo product managers.
Best Alternatives
Jama Connectproductboard
Small Businesses
Polarion ALM
Polarion ALM
Score 9.9 out of 10
Craft.io
Craft.io
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Polarion ALM
Polarion ALM
Score 9.9 out of 10
ProductPlan
ProductPlan
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Polarion ALM
Polarion ALM
Score 9.9 out of 10
Roadmunk
Roadmunk
Score 5.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Jama Connectproductboard
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
7.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.2
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
6.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Jama Connectproductboard
Likelihood to Recommend
Jama connect has the best UI compared to DOORS, Codebeamer, and PTC Integrity. It’s the clearest to use with the best usability. For example make traces between all requirements is as straightforward as clicking a button. The trace matrix view is highly configurable to get you to show anything you need. It has extensive filtering where every index in your requirement is indexed. Same with their export features, you can use default templates or create custom templates to export to PDF for all your regulatory needs like submitting documentation to FDA. This has helped us a ton without requiring much edits and letting us create up to date reviewed documents.
Speaking of review system, it’s well organized and you can set required approved and optional reviewers. Track your redlines in the tool and also view and resolve comments.
The one issue I’ve experienced is that with a large system the web app can take some time to load everything.
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The best feature of productboard is organized features, it has a very simple structure and can be read and understood by anyone. If your roadmap is very dynamic and the executive team needs to be on top of it, productboard is the best application out there. But if you have a small product and features do not change very often, then maybe you can look at other alternatives since productboard is expensive.
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Pros
  • Requirements Management in general
  • Focus in the content without loosing the track of the evolution of the items by maintaining the exchange of information between the users inside the Tool.
  • The possibilities to integrate this tool within our IT-landcape and with our other engineering tools is for us a leverage to success.
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  • Flexibility - organize your products and features in any way you like
  • Input - give your teams a way to make suggestions and provide feedback
  • Integrations
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Cons
  • The 'filtering' capabilities in Jama are not as good as they could be. In particular, the ability to "nest" filters is quite limited. I have certain seen much better capabilities in other tools. ('Cradle' is an example of a tool with excellent "nested filters" capabilities.)
  • From an administrative point of view, the 'License' admin view is pretty disappointing. The particular thing that I'd like to be able to find out from it is the peak number of 'Float Creator' licenses in concurrent use on each day. If there's a way to get to that information, I haven't found it yet.
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  • The interface could be improved
  • Input field options could be less restrictive to the capture of data
  • Better notifications / updates on where insights have got to
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Likelihood to Renew
Jama is really easy to use and operate compared to other tools. This allows a process owner to get easier buy-in from the organization to see value early. My experience with this tool was very positive and we were able to see value early in its introduction
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No answers on this topic
Usability
The requirements and baseline parts are easy to use. The review centre is very useable and understandable, once you understand/set up the moderation. (This last part could use some refinement.) Integration/connectability (the Connect part of Jama) is quite possible, but the useability could use some love as well.
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No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
It has always been available, except for preventative maintenance which is announced beforehand. Nonetheless, we experienced one day shortage over a miscommunication about payment.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
With performance compared to JIRA, I do recommend Jama in this case. Jama provides very good performance, it loads immediately for any of the items and searches any item immediately. Performance is really good in all of the operations including creating stories, epics, item types or other support operations or report generation.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
They typically answer within minutes of posting a ticket, and then you have a clear expectation of what the issue is, how to diagnose it, how long will it take to get resolved, and in which version a given problem is resolved, or if there is a patch for hosted services. They have a number of support people, and all of them are top-notch.
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Easy to contact right through their Intercom app and incredibly fast to respond.
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In-Person Training
Helpful and exhaustive and tailorable for our needs. Instructor was well versed and engaged. Material was a good reference and was up to date with tool. Overall, in person training was valuable for tool introduction. Trainer was an active user of the tool and worked closely with other clients. So, very knowledgeable.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
Easy to reference and understand. Updated routinely to include new topics. Online training evolves to include more advanced topics and how to guides. Online training includes videos and reference guides that make it easy to perform more complex tasks. Online training is free and can be accessed from any computer.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Jama 2015.5 implementation is very smooth and no need for much manual work. Jama 8 has many challenges and we can not install it as smoothly as Jama 2015.5. Initially, Jama didn't provide the Jama 8's installer files or zip files and they were just providing docker files to everyone (which was really strange). It is the worst that they don't provide all the files at a time. Why should they tell us where we should deploy, and why only a dockerfile? I am not very satisfied with Jama implementation.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
JCA is an extraordinary tool that is very simple to use and brings efficiency to the creation of requirements. It is particularly good at highlighting improvements to requirements which, when done properly and done up front in the engineering development process, will save significant time and prevent confusion downstream in the development process. It's difficult to quantify how much of a positive impact JCA would have on any individual project, but I would say it could easily save an organization more than its cost in terms of improving efficiencies and the traceability integrity throughout the entire portfolio of projects when applied correctly. This additional product from Jama is highly recommended.
Read full review
I have previously used Aha another product road mapping/ insights driven software. Aha had great features for the userbase of my previous products. They were allowed to create their own suggestions for the products and other users could then like or dislike the suggestion. This created a real reflection on need for product enhancements. productboard handles this slightly differently. Each user creates their own suggestions and doesn't necessarily have visibility on other users suggestions. The product/ R&D team can then tag suggestions together into the same overall suggestion. This requires more input from product/R&D with productboard. I would however, suggest that productboard is better than Aha. Aha is great for an external user point of view; however, there may be case for users to not have visibility on wider user requirements. productboard keeps more of this element hidden and would perhaps stir up less negative correlation to seeing a system requirement/suggest having had a lot of traffic and no action, compared to a more closed system that would individually update each user on the enhancement progress.
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Scalability
There is no horizontal scalability available in Jama, we have only one choice to scale it vertically. But vertical scalable applications always have limitations to grow. In this case, Jama doesn't support horizontal scalability functions like multi-node architectures with a shared drive for the home directory.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • One experience that converted an engineer to using Jama Connect was an electronics engineer that was writing test plans. I showed them about how to write "unit" or very discrete tests and then showed them an automatic export to get the document. Thus the authoring of the document effort was taken away, they could focus on defining the test
  • Unfortunately I have very much struggled to embed systems engineering, requirements management and Jama Connect as part of the 'ways of working' outside the systems and electronics teams.
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  • Helps to save us a lot of time collecting feedback.
  • Increased efficiency.
  • Product prioritization can be done in a faster and more robust way.
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ScreenShots

Jama Connect Screenshots

Screenshot of Jama Connect - Live TraceabilityScreenshot of Jama Connect - Project Dashboard ViewScreenshot of Jama Connect - Requirements ManagementScreenshot of SOC 2 Type II Compliant