How to locate the best Gantt chart plugin for Jira?

Is it features, price or perhaps a vendor’s reputation? How to select the best Gantt chart for Jira for your organization? Don’t fall into the trap of choosing a cheap plugin. To navigate to the best Gantt chart, look at features, but also prospects of an Atlassian vendor.

I cannot stress enough how important regular releases are. No matter how pretty a Gantt chart looks, plugins that don’t get updated a few times per year should be approached with caution. Consider this: what if a vendor has a pretty refined app, but they have switched to the harvest mode now? Once Atlassian upgrades Jira, or you need a custom-made feature for your Gantt plugin, you could get trapped.

	BigGantt	BigPicture Gantt chart + Scope + Roadmaps + Board + Risks + Reports	Gantt Cloud	GanttChart Project Jira Enterprise	GanttPRO	Polscheit’s Gantt-chart	Structure .Gantt extension for Structure	Timesheet and Gantt Chart for Jira	WBS Gantt-chart for Jira
Vendor	SoftwarePlant	SoftwarePlant	WISOFT	Soyatec	GanttPRO	Frank Polscheit	ALM Works	i4ware Software	Ricksoft, Inc.
Jira Cloud
Server
Data Center
# of active instances	7423	9417	2072	885		1352	2250	23	4041
Marketplace rating /# of reviews	3.1 /140	3.3 /226	2.1 /114	1.9 /156	3.9 /27	2.8 /121	3.5 /13	2.3 /3	2.8 /79
# of releases (I – III 2020) ~how actively an app is developed	8	9		0		0	3	4	1
Launched	2015	2014		2011		2010	2018	2012	2013
Atlassian Top Vendor
Price Cloud 100 users user/month	$1.25	$2.8	$0.45	$6 $1.5 – Professional Edition	$8.9 or less	$0.5			$1.25
Price Server 100 users annually	$1250	$2000		$8400 $1000 – Professional Edition. You can request a free license for Jira Server		$750	$2000 + $1000	$2200	$1000
Features
What-if scenarios before you commit changes to a schedule	in BigGantt 5	in BigPicture 8
Issue links (end to start, etc.) these ‘regular’ arrows have the power to influence the schedule
Soft dependency links an arrow between two tasks is evident, but it won’t interfere with the schedule
Baselines
Resource management								time management in My Timesheet tab
Customize column views
Filter views						when setting up a chart			when setting up a chart
Color tasks manually									on Cloud

An effort was made to gather accurate data, but these apps are sometimes incomparable. Data current at the time of writing. Help improve the table – e-mail marketing (a) softwareplant.com.

Subtle signs that indicate good Gantt addons

How to detect a decent Gantt chart plugin? Actively developed add-ons exhibit these subtle signs:

• Slides on Atlassian Marketplace show late Jira interface
• A plugin has been on the market for a relatively short period, but it is packed with features
• Keep a sharp eye on how fresh the user interface is
• Look for settled, multi-employee vendors

What does a model Gantt chart look like?

Pictured is what we consider the best, at least mature, Gantt chart for Jira. This interface is available starting BigGantt ver. 5 and BigPicture 8. This new Gantt chart (we call it Gantt 2.0 internally) has a sleek design, excellent user experience, and long-demanded new features:

• what-if scenarios – test before you commit changes to the schedule
• soft dependencies (issue links) – “soft” arrows are there, but they are not in power to reschedule anything
• and the hideable right-side panel sheds more light on a task

New Gantt chart in BigGantt ver. 5 and BigPicture ver. 8 has what-if scenarios, soft dependencies (they don’t affect the schedule), and the collapsible ‘See the context of a task’ panel.