Jitbit Helpdesk is a great alternative to JIRA Service Desk. This article outlines the main differences between the two apps as well as pros and cons of both. We did our best to be unbiased.

Jitbit is an established and popular ticketing software that is easy-to-use, yet very powerful. Our main focus is helping you do your job, not just adding another annoying tool that you have to learn. Almost 10 years in active development and still improving constantly.

JIRA Service Desk is a new-ish solution on the scene, but it comes from a very respectable company - Atlassian, makers of JIRA Software. According to their site, one of the main reasons to use Service Desk is its tight integration with the rest of the Atlassian ecosystem (JIRA, Confluence, etc.). Although, Jitbit also provides a basic JIRA integration out of the box, if that's what you are looking for.

You might also want to check the other ticketing systems price and feature comparisons.

Installation options (hosted & on-premise)

Both Jitbit and JIRA come with two set up options - hosted and on-premise.

The on-premise option in itself is not very common among help desk software providers. That makes it worthwhile to compare the two solutions.

JIRA offers two on-premise editions - one for small and medium teams and one for large enterprises. The Data Center edition starts at $12,000 per year for teams of 50 agents and offers a variety of high-availability features. The other version is also priced per-agent, but starts at as little as 3 agents and offers a perpetual license.

All Jitbit's on premise licenses are not priced per agent and come with a perpetual license as well. Unlike JIRA, you can get a license that allows you to install Jitbit on multiple servers as well. There is also an option to purchase the source codes from Jitbit so your customization options are infinite.

Hosted versions are similar. You just need to sign-up for a trial and you are all set within minutes. The only difference is that Jitbit offers 21-days trial period as opposed to JIRA's 7 days.

Feature comparison

Jitbit and JIRA both offer an array of standard help desk features like two-way email integration, ticket categories, etc. We'll start with features that JIRA doesn't have compared to Jitbit and then we'll look at what features, Jitbit lacks.

Jitbit features that JIRA doesn't have:

Mobile appJIRA Service Desk doesn't offer a mobile app although it has a mobile UI that works fine in your phone's browser. Jitbit has a native mobile app for iOS and Android as well as an optimized mobile UI. Our mobile app works for both techs and regular users.

Knowledge base Both solutions offer a Knowledge base although you will have to pay for additional Confluence licenses for every KB contributor in JIRA.

Customization Unlike Jitbit, JIRA doesn't let you add custom statuses for additional workflow customization. You also can't customize JIRA design. In Jitbit you can change the colors and upload your company logo and favicon, and even add custom CSS and JS logic.

You also can't change the email templates for email notifications that go out to customers and techs. Jitbit comes with full customization options.

Automation JIRA doesn't have any automation options either. Jitbit has Automation Rules - an incredibly powerful feature that let you cut your routine and do time-consuming things for you. Head here for more info: SLA and Automation Rules

Real-time Everything you see in Jitbit updates in real-time. You don't ever need to refresh the page - everything you see is always current. JIRA does not have real-time updates.

JIRA features not available in Jitbit:

As noted above, if you are using other Atlassian products, you might want to choose Service Desk. While Jitbit does have integrations with Atlassian products too (JIRA, Hipchat, Bitbucket etc), but it's pretty basic.

JIRA comes with various ITIL templates and features, as well as trouble and change management features. Jitbit requires additional setup to do that.

JIRA Service Desk has a marketplace where you can get around 500 various add-ins, paid and free, that add additional features. These add-ins come from third-party developers.

Pricing comparison

	Jitbit Self Hosted	Jitbit Hosted version	JIRA Self hosted	JIRA Hosted version
Pricing
3 Year Total (8 users)	$3,397	$7,488	$3,000	$6,000
3 Year Total (20 users)	$6,997	$16,992	$6,500	$13,500

One reason to pick JIRA over Jitbit is if you have three agents or less. It's a very valuable offer. However, if you have a bigger team the prices rise exponentially.

Overall, JIRA and Jitbit are both very good help desk solutions. We recommend trying them both before making a purchase decision.