When researching project management software for tracking accessibility issues, you might consider Jira and our own Accessibility Tracker. Both are viable tools for managing your accessibility project, but there are big differences between the two.
Here’s a quick breakdown of Jira vs. Accessibility Tracker.
| Feature/Aspect | Jira | Accessibility Tracker |
|---|---|---|
| Platform Type | General-purpose project management tool (Swiss Army knife approach) | Specialized accessibility remediation platform built specifically for WCAG compliance |
| Setup Time | Hours, days, or weeks to learn and configure – requires setting up projects, workflows, boards, and team training | Easy setup in minutes – 20-minute demo available, intuitive interface with minimal configuration needed |
| Audit Integration | Manual setup required to import and organize accessibility audit data | Direct Excel audit report upload with automatic column mapping to extract data |
| AI Assistance | No built-in AI tools for accessibility issue translation | 5 AI tools that translate technical accessibility issues into plain English, with 4 pre-prompted tools for common questions plus 1 custom query tool |
| Issue Prioritization | Generic prioritization options that require customization | Built-in prioritization formulas: legal risk assessment and user impact analysis |
| Accessibility Focus | General project management – requires customization for accessibility work | Purpose-built for WCAG 2.1 AA and WCAG 2.2 AA conformance tracking |
| Pricing Model | Standard subscription plans with fixed feature sets | Flexible subscriptions with individual add-on features (e.g., additional AI tools) |
| Learning Curve | Jira is literally its own skill – requires significant training investment | Intuitive interface designed for immediate use by accessibility teams |
| Best Use Case | Teams managing multiple project types, software development with agile methods, need extensive customization and tool integrations | Accessibility audit remediation, WCAG conformance projects, teams needing immediate productivity, documentation for compliance purposes |
| Analogy | Pickup truck – versatile for many jobs (haul equipment, move furniture, family trips) | Race car – designed for one thing and excels at it (speed and efficiency on the track) |
| When to Choose | Multiple project types, extensive customization needs, software development teams, long-term organizational tool, time for setup and training | Accessibility audit remediation, WCAG conformance goals, legal risk prioritization, immediate start needed, compliance documentation required |
What is Jira?
Jira is like a Swiss Army knife for project management. Created by Atlassian back in 2002, it’s one of the most popular tools for managing all kinds of projects, but especially software development. Jira is a digital workspace where teams can:
- Track tasks and bugs
- Plan sprints and releases
- Create visual boards to see work progress
- Generate reports and dashboards
- Automate repetitive workflows
Over 300,000 companies use Jira because it’s incredibly flexible. You can customize it to work for almost any type of project – from launching a new app to planning a marketing campaign. It’s particularly loved by software development teams who use agile methodologies.
In short, Jira is great and because of its greatness, it’s been adopted by literally hundreds of thousands of companies as their go to project management tool.
What is Accessibility Tracker?
Accessibility Tracker is our brand new project management platform built specifically to make remediating the issues found in your audit report as efficient and effective as possible.
Here’s what makes Tracker unique to Jira:
- It’s built specifically for accessibility work – no setup or customization needed
- You can upload your Excel audit report and quickly map the columns to extract the data
- Includes 5 AI tools that translate technical accessibility issues (from the audit) into plain English
- Two issue prioritization formulas (legal risk and user impact) are built-in
- Customize any plan by purchasing individual add-on features (e.g., just add more AI)
Note that the AI tools inside of Tracker not only provide answers based on your audit report data, but 4 of the tools are pre-prompted based on the most common questions your team will have and 1 tools enables your team to ask a custom question. This is extremely helpful in terms of your team successfully remediating issues faster and saving time on validation.
Of course, Tracker and Jira share several features:
- All Excel spreadsheet data is unpacked and organized
- Assign issues to team members
- Set an issue status
- Comment and make notes on issues
- Project analytics and progress reports
The Big Difference: General vs. Specialized
The main difference comes down to this: Jira is a general, multi-purpose tool that you customize for your needs, while Accessibility Tracker is purposefully designed for digital accessibility projects. More specifically, Accessibility Tracker helps your team track the status of every single issue found in your audit report so that you can efficiently work towards full WCAG conformance.
As a loose analogy, think of it like choosing between a pickup truck and a race car. A pickup truck (Jira) can do many different jobs – haul equipment, move furniture, take the family on vacation, and get you from point A to point B. A race car (Accessibility Tracker) is designed for one thing – going fast around a track. You wouldn’t use a race car to move furniture, and you wouldn’t win races in a pickup truck.
If you already have Jira, but need to work an accessibility project, the sheer efficiency gains make temporarily using Accessibility Tracker worth it. What’s nice is Tracker’s subscriptions are completely flexible so that you can purchase a plan only for as long as you need it.
Another Difference: Setup Speed
If your team isn’t already using Jira, something you may not know is that Jira is it’s own skill. Literally.
Because it’s a general, all-purpose tool for all types of projects, it comes with a lot of built-in functionality and options. But that functionality and flexibility comes at a cost: you have to spend hours, days, or weeks learning how to use Jira and setup a project.
You’ll need to configure projects, create workflows, set up boards, and train your team. It’s powerful once configured, but expect to invest time upfront.
In comparison, Accessibility Tracker is an easy setup. We have a 20-minute step-by-step demo on the Accessibility Tracker Youtube channel, but most of the setup is quite intuitive and will only take a matter of minutes to figure out.
Just upload your accessibility audit spreadsheet and start fixing issues immediately. The AI tools are pre-configured for each type of accessibility issue.
When to Choose Jira
Choose Jira if you:
- Need to manage different types of projects
- Want extensive customization options
- Have a software development team using agile methods
- Need to integrate with many other tools
- Have the time and resources to set up and customize your workspace
- Want a tool that can grow and change with your organization
Jira shines when you need flexibility. Its strength is that you can make it work for almost anything – from tracking customer support tickets to managing a product launch.
When to Choose Accessibility Tracker
Choose Accessibility Tracker if you:
- Need to remediate the issues in an accessibility audit (spreadsheet format)
- Need to make your digital asset fully WCAG 2.1 AA or WCAG 2.2 AA conformant
- Want to prioritize accessibility fixes by legal risk
- Want to make it easier for your team to correctly fix the issues
- Need to documentation of accessibility for compliance
- Want to get started immediately
Accessibility Tracker shines when you are focused on fixing accessibility issues. And if you have multiple digital assets you’re working on, the value starts to scale.
The Cost Consideration
Comparing the pricing for the different plans in Jira vs. Accessibility Tracker is uneven because the offerings are different.
Jira is more expensive as you add more users, but it’s also for all types of projects and offers much more customization and many more features.
Accessibility Tracker has less features because it’s built only for digital accessibility projects. Despite having less features, the simplicity and ease of use is a positive difference-maker for customers who just want to get started.
Both offer free plans and both offer annual subscriptions at a discount over monthly subscriptions. Tracker is significantly less for adding incremental team members.
Can You Use Both?
Absolutely. Many organizations use Jira for their general project management needs and Accessibility Tracker can be used as a specialist platform.
For example, you might use Jira to manage your overall website redesign project, and then use Accessibility Tracker to specifically handle the accessibility remediation phase of that project.
Normally most organizations only want to choose one, but Tracker creates so much efficiency in managing accessibility projects, it warrants consideration as a standalone purchase.
Summary
Jira is the best overall project management platform. The market has chosen Jira for a reason and many organizations have used Jira for accessibility projects so it can work.
However, we know Accessibility Tracker creates so much efficiency that it’s worth talking about — especially for project managers managing multiple digital assets (e.g., 5 websites, 2 mobile apps, etc.).
We’re a digital accessibility company comprised of accessibility and compliance experts with literally decades of experience. We know how to streamline accessibility projects to reduce friction and move faster from accessibility issue present to accessibility issue fixed.
The objective is WCAG conformance and Tracker gets you there as fast as possible.
You can learn more at Accessibility Tracker.
