When does Jira Data Center reach end of life?

On March 28, 2029 at 23:59 PST, when Data Center subscriptions and their Marketplace apps expire and turn read-only. Two earlier dates matter: new customers could not buy Data Center after March 30, 2026, and existing customers cannot buy new subscriptions or expansions after March 30, 2028. Renewals stay possible until end of life, prorated so they end on March 28, 2029.

What will read-only Jira let us do?

Atlassian's end-of-life FAQ says you will be able to view your data but not add new data or perform new actions, and it states no time limit. Its current article on expired Jira licences describes a softer state, in which only creating issues is blocked, and Atlassian has not said which will apply in 2029. Plan for the stricter reading, and never keep an unpatched instance on the internet.

Does Bitbucket Data Center reach end of life too?

No. Existing Bitbucket Data Center customers get a Bitbucket Hybrid License covering both Data Center and Cloud, which Atlassian's page still described as coming in mid-2026 when we checked in September 2026. Without it, Bitbucket turns read-only on March 28, 2029 and users can no longer push code.

What does Atlassian offer to help teams move to its cloud?

A Cloud Migration Trial that runs for the rest of your Data Center subscription (60 days if it has expired), for up to 20,000 users; step-up credits for unused Data Center maintenance, from 201 users or 51 agents on an annual cloud plan; and dual licensing, up to six months of Data Center at no cost beside a large Premium or Enterprise cloud purchase. Extended maintenance past 2029 exists only by exception, at extra cost.

All comparisons

Roundup

The best Jira Data Center alternatives for 2026

Seven options for teams leaving Jira Data Center before it turns read-only on March 28, 2029, ours included, ranked by how much of your Jira comes across and where each one can run.

How we picked

Atlassian is ending Data Center. It stopped selling new Data Center subscriptions on March 30, 2026, existing customers cannot buy new subscriptions or expand them after March 30, 2028, and on March 28, 2029 Jira Software, Jira Service Management and Confluence Data Center subscriptions expire and turn read-only. Every Jira Data Center team has to decide where its work goes next, and the decision has two parts: where the new tool runs, and how much of the old one comes with it.

Atlassian's answer is its cloud, which carries the most across: its migration assistant moves projects, issues with their history, boards and sprints, workflows and automation rules. For many teams that settles it. For teams that chose Data Center to keep data on their own servers, the cloud is the one thing they cannot accept, and Atlassian's single-tenant Isolated Cloud, which Atlassian says does not support data sovereignty, may not change that.

The seven tools below are the options worth evaluating. We ranked them on three things, in this order: how much of a Jira Data Center instance comes across, including history, links, sprints and attachments; whether the tool can run on your own servers; and how much work the move is for administrators and users. We under-weight features you could live without on day one, because a migration is decided by what you would lose.

One of the seven is Stride, our own product, ranked by the same criteria as the rest and placed last, because it is a hosted service. Every fact about the other tools was checked on the vendor's own site in September 2026, and several of their importers have gaps that matter, which each entry names.

Whatever you choose, start with the data: a Jira Data Center CSV export stops at 1,000 issues by default, and the change history needs a different route, which the quick answers below explain.

At a glance

Disclosure: Stride is our product. We rank it by the same criteria as every other tool on this list, and its entry says where it falls short.

The best Jira Data Center alternatives for 2026: ranked picks with the best fit for each tool
Rank	Tool	Best for
1	Jira Cloud	The least disruptive move: Atlassian's migration assistant carries the most across, and the tool your teams know stays the same. The price is the cloud itself.
2	YouTrack Server	The closest self-hosted like-for-like, with the richest importer here: links, attachments, custom fields, work logs and history all come across.
3	Azure DevOps Server	The enterprise on-premises choice for Microsoft shops: boards, repos, pipelines and test plans in one self-hosted product, but with no Jira importer of its own.
4	GitLab Self-Managed	The natural pick when your code already lives in GitLab: planning moves next to it on your own servers, though its Jira importer brings only the basics.
5	Plane	A modern open-source tracker you can run yourself, with a broad Jira Server and Data Center importer in its self-hosted Commercial Edition.
6	OpenProject	The data-sovereignty pick: open source, self-hosted and aimed squarely at teams leaving Jira, though its Jira migrator is still a beta.
7	Stride(our product)	The narrowest fit here: for a Data Center team whose reason for Data Center was not self-hosting, and that wants AI across planning, design and testing.

Quick answers

What happens to Jira Data Center on March 28, 2029?

Jira Software, Jira Service Management and Confluence Data Center subscriptions expire, and the products and their Marketplace apps turn read-only. Atlassian says the data stays viewable, but support and security fixes stop, and it advises taking the instance off the internet and keeping a backup. New customers could not buy Data Center after March 30, 2026; existing ones cannot buy or expand it after March 30, 2028.

Jira Data Center end of life: the full guide

Can we keep Jira on our own servers after 2029?

Not Jira itself. Atlassian's paths are all Atlassian-managed: its cloud, Government Cloud for US government work, and Isolated Cloud, a single-tenant environment that Atlassian says does not support data sovereignty. Only Bitbucket keeps a self-managed route. To stay on your own servers, move to a tool with a self-managed edition: YouTrack Server, Azure DevOps Server, GitLab Self-Managed, Plane or OpenProject.

Which alternative keeps the most Jira history?

Jira Cloud, through Atlassian's migration assistant, which carries issue history, work logs, boards, sprints, workflows and automation rules. Among self-hosted tools, YouTrack's importer brings links, attachments, custom fields, work logs and history, and Plane's Commercial Edition carries sprints, links and history. GitLab's importer skips comments and assignees, OpenProject's is a beta for test setups, and Azure DevOps Server has no Jira importer of its own.

How do you export more than 1,000 issues from Jira Data Center?

Raise the limit in Advanced Settings (jira.search.views.default.max and jira.search.views.max.limit, which Atlassian says is safe from Jira 8.2), add tempMax to the export URL, export in batches, or page through the REST API. Change history is not in the CSV: take it from the REST changelog or the data pipeline, which needs a valid licence, so run it before Data Center expires.

Is Atlassian Isolated Cloud the same as running Jira yourself?

No. Isolated Cloud is a dedicated, single-tenant environment that Atlassian runs for you in its own AWS network, with outbound data blocked by default and customer-managed keys. You do not run the servers, Atlassian says it does not support data sovereignty, and it leaves out Rovo AI, Bitbucket and Atlassian Analytics. It answers an isolation requirement, not a need to hold the data yourself.

The ranking

1
Jira Cloud
The least disruptive move: Atlassian's migration assistant carries the most across, and the tool your teams know stays the same. The price is the cloud itself.
Jira Cloud is where Atlassian wants every Data Center customer to go, and its Jira Cloud Migration Assistant carries more across than any other route here: projects and issues with attachments, comments, work logs and history, boards and sprints, workflows, filters and schemes, automation rules, and Marketplace app data where the app's vendor supports it. Atlassian's offers soften the move: a Cloud Migration Trial for the rest of your Data Center subscription, step-up credits for unused maintenance and, for large customers, up to six months of Data Center at no cost beside the cloud. The trade-offs: it cannot run on your servers; Isolated Cloud is single-tenant but Atlassian-managed, and Atlassian says it does not support data sovereignty; Government Cloud is for US government work; and Atlassian itself says cloud costs more per user than Data Center.
By Atlassian · Atlassian-hosted, with Isolated Cloud and Government Cloud for stricter needs · Free for up to 10 users, then per user
2
YouTrack Server
The closest self-hosted like-for-like, with the richest importer here: links, attachments, custom fields, work logs and history all come across.
YouTrack Server is still sold and supported: free for up to 10 users and 3 helpdesk agents, and sold as annual user packs since June 23, 2026. Its Jira importer brings over projects, users and groups, issues with their links and attachments, custom fields, labels, logged work, comments, issue history, watchers and voters, and it can keep importing incrementally from a Jira Server installation while you move. Boards, dashboards, roadmaps and reports stay behind. The trade-off to check first: the importer signs in to Jira with a username and password, so it fails where the account needs two-factor authentication or the instance accepts only single sign-on.
By JetBrains · Self-hosted Server edition, free for up to 10 users · Annual user-pack subscriptions since June 23, 2026
3
Azure DevOps Server
The enterprise on-premises choice for Microsoft shops: boards, repos, pipelines and test plans in one self-hosted product, but with no Jira importer of its own.
Microsoft released the current Azure DevOps Server, with no year in its name, on December 9, 2025, and moved it to the Modern Lifecycle Policy, which supports customers who stay current and promises at least three years' notice before any retirement. It gives a Data Center team the breadth that Jira, Bitbucket and Bamboo covered together, on its own servers. The trade-off is the move itself: Microsoft offers no Jira importer of its own and points to Marketplace extensions and partners for migration, and its built-in CSV import takes 1,000 work items per file.
By Microsoft · Self-hosted · Server licence plus per-user access, on the Modern Lifecycle Policy since December 9, 2025
4
GitLab Self-Managed
The natural pick when your code already lives in GitLab: planning moves next to it on your own servers, though its Jira importer brings only the basics.
GitLab Self-Managed runs on your own infrastructure in every tier, and its built-in Jira importer works there against Jira Cloud, Server or Data Center. It maps titles, descriptions and labels and can match Jira users to GitLab members, while other Jira fields land in the issue description as plain text. The trade-offs: comments and assignees are not imported yet, Jira markup is not converted, and epics and roadmaps need Premium, at $29 per user a month billed annually, so a faithful migration usually means GitLab's professional services or your own scripts.
By GitLab · Self-managed Free, Premium and Ultimate tiers · Premium $29 per user a month, billed annually
5
Plane
A modern open-source tracker you can run yourself, with a broad Jira Server and Data Center importer in its self-hosted Commercial Edition.
Plane's self-hosted Commercial Edition includes Jira importers for Cloud and for Server and Data Center, and they carry a lot: work items with their types, states, priorities and labels, epics, sub-tasks and links, sprints as cycles, components as modules, story points, work logs, comments, attachments and change history, in imports that can resume. An Airgapped Edition serves networks with no internet access. The trade-offs: it is a younger product with a much smaller integration ecosystem than the incumbents, and attachment downloads fail when the Jira instance sits behind web single sign-on, unless you add a custom download endpoint.
Open source (AGPL-3.0) · Self-hosted Community, Commercial and Airgapped editions · Commercial Edition free for 12 seats per workspace
6
OpenProject
The data-sovereignty pick: open source, self-hosted and aimed squarely at teams leaving Jira, though its Jira migrator is still a beta.
OpenProject is open source and free to self-host in its Community edition, with Enterprise on-premises plans from €5.95 per user a month for at least 25 users. Its Jira Migrator connects to Jira Data Center 10.x or 11.x over the REST API and brings over projects, issues, basic custom fields, users and groups, statuses and types, attachments, comments and a coarser change history. The trade-offs: OpenProject says to use the migrator only in test setups for now; it does not yet move issue links, sub-tasks, versions, work logs or watchers; and migrated items take the migration date as their creation date.
Open source · Self-hosted or cloud · Community edition free; Enterprise on-premises from €5.95 per user a month, 25-user minimum
7
Stride
Our product
The narrowest fit here: for a Data Center team whose reason for Data Center was not self-hosting, and that wants AI across planning, design and testing.
Stride runs as a hosted service; its Enterprise plan lists private-cloud deployment through sales. From Jira Data Center, its import wizard reads a CSV export directly, up to 20,000 rows and 25 MB per import, shows a preview before anything is written, and carries epics, stories, sub-tasks, sprints, comments, story points and issue links; attachments come across as links back to Jira, so copy the files you need before you retire the instance. Its live two-way Jira sync works with Jira Cloud only. It ranks last because this list weighs where a tool can run. The trade-offs: no self-managed edition, single sign-on on Enterprise only, and a fraction of the integrations of any Atlassian product.
Our product · Starter $15, Pro $39, Enterprise from $69 per seat a month · No free plan
Stride vs Jira, side by side

Honourable mentions

LinearCloud only; its Jira importer drops custom fields and leaves non-image files as links back to Jira, which stop working once the old instance goes. A strong pick if you were leaving Jira anyway.
PolarionSiemens's ALM for regulated engineering, self-hosted or as SaaS; its bundled Jira connector syncs both ways rather than migrating once.
CodebeamerPTC's ALM for regulated product development, on-premises or in the cloud; it syncs with Jira tracker by tracker rather than importing a whole project.
TuleapOpen-source ALM, on-premises or in the cloud; one Jira issue type imports on any version, a whole Jira project only on the Enterprise edition.
RedmineFree and self-hosted, but its only Jira importer is an unsupported community script from 2008, so plan on its CSV import instead.

FAQ

When does Jira Data Center reach end of life?: On March 28, 2029 at 23:59 PST, when Data Center subscriptions and their Marketplace apps expire and turn read-only. Two earlier dates matter: new customers could not buy Data Center after March 30, 2026, and existing customers cannot buy new subscriptions or expansions after March 30, 2028. Renewals stay possible until end of life, prorated so they end on March 28, 2029.
What will read-only Jira let us do?: Atlassian's end-of-life FAQ says you will be able to view your data but not add new data or perform new actions, and it states no time limit. Its current article on expired Jira licences describes a softer state, in which only creating issues is blocked, and Atlassian has not said which will apply in 2029. Plan for the stricter reading, and never keep an unpatched instance on the internet.
Does Bitbucket Data Center reach end of life too?: No. Existing Bitbucket Data Center customers get a Bitbucket Hybrid License covering both Data Center and Cloud, which Atlassian's page still described as coming in mid-2026 when we checked in September 2026. Without it, Bitbucket turns read-only on March 28, 2029 and users can no longer push code.
What does Atlassian offer to help teams move to its cloud?: A Cloud Migration Trial that runs for the rest of your Data Center subscription (60 days if it has expired), for up to 20,000 users; step-up credits for unused Data Center maintenance, from 201 users or 51 agents on an annual cloud plan; and dual licensing, up to six months of Data Center at no cost beside a large Premium or Enterprise cloud purchase. Extended maintenance past 2029 exists only by exception, at extra cost.