Top 10 Atlassian Marketplace Apps: Cost Analysis and Alternatives

Why Top 10 App Analysis Matters

Enterprise Atlassian spend is highly concentrated in a small number of Marketplace apps. In most environments we audit, the top five apps represent 60 to 70 percent of total Marketplace spend, and the top ten account for 80 to 90 percent. Understanding the cost structure, renewal terms, and alternatives for each of these high-impact apps is where Marketplace spend optimisation delivers the most value.

The analysis is also urgent. The Atlassian Data Center end-of-life timeline — with all DC app licences expiring on March 28, 2029 — means that every app in a DC environment needs a Cloud migration assessment or a replacement decision. The top 10 apps are the priority because they carry the most workflow dependencies and the most commercial risk if a Cloud equivalent is unavailable or mispriced at migration time.

The broader Atlassian Marketplace apps licensing and EOL guide provides the full governance framework and EOL impact assessment for the complete app portfolio.

1. Tempo Timesheets

Category: Time tracking and project finance. Deployment: Extremely widespread in professional services, IT, and any Jira environment where time-to-project billing is required.

Tempo Timesheets is the dominant time-tracking solution in the Atlassian ecosystem. It tracks time against Jira issues, provides manager approval workflows, integrates with payroll and invoicing systems, and generates project cost and capacity reports. For organisations that bill clients by the hour or track engineering time against internal budgets, Tempo is often mission-critical.

Pricing: Tempo implemented a 15 percent price increase effective September 2025. Current Cloud pricing for Tempo Timesheets runs approximately $10 to $14 per user per month depending on tier. At 500 users, annual Tempo Timesheets cost is approximately $60,000 to $84,000. Data Center pricing is comparable but declining investment in DC-specific features reflects Tempo's Cloud-first repositioning.

Alternatives: Toggl Track and Harvest provide standalone time-tracking alternatives at $9 to $18 per user per month for mid-market tiers, with Jira integration via API rather than native Marketplace installation. For Jira Cloud specifically, Atlassian's native time-tracking fields and Automation rules cover basic time logging use cases at no additional cost. Organisations that use Tempo primarily for simple time entry (not complex billing or approval workflows) should evaluate whether the Jira Premium native features meet their needs before renewing at the post-increase rate.

2. ScriptRunner for Jira (Behaviours and Scripts)

Category: Advanced automation, scripted workflows, custom field behaviours. Deployment: Near-universal in mature Jira environments with complex process requirements.

ScriptRunner (developed by Adaptavist) provides Groovy scripting capabilities within Jira, enabling custom workflow conditions, validators, post-functions, scheduled jobs, REST endpoints, and dynamic field behaviours that are impossible to achieve with Jira's native automation engine. In complex enterprise Jira environments, ScriptRunner code is often deeply embedded across dozens of workflows.

Pricing: ScriptRunner for Jira Cloud is priced at approximately $5 to $12 per user per month depending on tier. For a 500-user deployment, annual ScriptRunner cost is approximately $30,000 to $72,000. The Data Center version carries similar pricing.

Alternatives: Jira Automation (native in Premium and Enterprise) has progressively absorbed functionality that previously required ScriptRunner, particularly for standard workflow triggers and conditions. For organisations running ScriptRunner primarily for basic automation that Jira Automation now covers natively, ScriptRunner removal is viable after a usage audit. The risk is that legacy ScriptRunner scripts represent accumulated institutional process logic that is expensive to validate and migrate — a cost that is hidden from the annual licensing decision.

3. Zephyr Scale (Formerly Zephyr for Jira)

Category: Test case management, QA workflow, test execution tracking. Deployment: Standard in engineering organisations with formal QA processes running within Jira.

Zephyr Scale (now owned by SmartBear) provides test case management directly within Jira — test plans, test cycles, test execution tracking, defect linking, and reporting. For software development teams that manage their entire engineering workflow in Jira, Zephyr Scale avoids the need for a separate test management tool.

Pricing: Zephyr Scale Cloud pricing is approximately $5 to $10 per user per month. For a 200-user development team (typical deployment scope — not all Jira users require Zephyr), annual cost is approximately $12,000 to $24,000. Note that Zephyr Scale is typically deployed for a subset of Jira users (QA engineers, developers) but the Atlassian Marketplace mandatory full-count rule means it must be licensed for all Jira users regardless.

Alternatives: Xray Test Management is a strong Zephyr alternative with competitive pricing. For teams using Jira Software and already invested in the Atlassian ecosystem, Xray is the most comparable alternative. Standalone test management tools (TestRail, Qase) offer the option of licensing only QA users — which can be significantly more cost-effective for large Jira deployments where QA engineers represent 10 to 20 percent of total users. The full-count licensing rule makes Zephyr scale awkwardly expensive for large user bases with small QA teams.

4. BigPicture (Portfolio Management for Jira)

Category: Portfolio management, Gantt charts, resource planning, programme management. Deployment: Common in PMO environments and organisations managing complex multi-project portfolios in Jira.

BigPicture (developed by SoftwarePlant, acquired by Apwide) provides portfolio-level Gantt charts, dependency mapping, resource management, and programme planning overlays on top of Jira project data. It is the most widely deployed portfolio management solution in the Atlassian ecosystem.

Pricing: BigPicture Cloud pricing is approximately $5 to $10 per user per month. The mandatory full-count licensing applies — all Jira users are charged even though BigPicture is typically used by PMs and team leads, not individual contributors. For a 1,000-user Jira deployment, BigPicture adds approximately $60,000 to $120,000 per year.

Alternatives: Atlassian's own Advanced Roadmaps (included in Jira Software Premium) provides programme-level roadmap and dependency management. For organisations on Jira Premium, Advanced Roadmaps covers a significant proportion of BigPicture's use cases at no incremental cost. The question is whether BigPicture's deeper Gantt and resource management capabilities justify the incremental spend versus what Premium natively provides.

5. Structure for Jira (Hierarchical View)

Category: Hierarchical Jira issue management, custom structured views. Deployment: Popular in engineering and project management contexts requiring multi-level hierarchy beyond Jira's native Epic-Story-Subtask model.

Structure for Jira (ALM Works) provides customisable hierarchical views of Jira issues — creating multi-level aggregations, cross-project views, and structured programme breakdowns that the Jira backlog does not natively support. It is used heavily in SAFe and other scaled agile implementations.

Pricing: Structure Cloud pricing is approximately $4 to $8 per user per month. For a 500-user deployment, the annual cost is approximately $24,000 to $48,000.

Alternatives: Jira Product Discovery and Advanced Roadmaps in Jira Premium increasingly cover the hierarchical view use cases that Structure was originally installed to address. For organisations that adopted Structure under an earlier Jira version where these native features did not exist, a formal review of whether Jira Premium's built-in capabilities have made Structure redundant is worthwhile before the next renewal.

6. Insight / Jira Assets

Category: IT asset management, CMDB. Deployment: Primarily in JSM Premium deployments where CMDB and asset tracking are required.

Insight (rebranded as Jira Assets after Atlassian's acquisition) is now included natively in JSM Premium, so it no longer represents a separate Marketplace app cost for JSM Premium subscribers. However, organisations that installed Insight as a standalone Marketplace app before the rebundling may still have a separate Insight app licence in their portfolio. Reviewing whether these legacy Insight licences are now redundant due to JSM Premium inclusion is a direct cost removal opportunity.

7. Confluence Whiteboards / Gliffy Diagrams

Category: Diagramming, architecture visualisation, flowcharting. Deployment: Nearly universal — every Confluence environment that requires diagramming beyond simple page formatting.

Gliffy Diagrams for Confluence has historically been the dominant diagramming app in the Atlassian ecosystem. It provides Visio-compatible flowcharting, UML, network diagrams, and BPMN visualisations within Confluence pages.

Pricing: Gliffy Cloud pricing is approximately $3 to $7 per user per month. For a 500-user Confluence deployment, annual cost is approximately $18,000 to $42,000.

Alternatives: draw.io (Diagrams for Confluence, now rebranded as Diagrams.net) provides equivalent diagramming functionality at comparable or lower price points. Atlassian has introduced native Whiteboard functionality in Confluence Cloud, which covers basic diagramming use cases at no incremental cost. For organisations using Gliffy primarily for simple diagrams (flowcharts, basic architecture diagrams), Atlassian native Whiteboards may eliminate the Gliffy cost entirely.

8. Refined for Confluence (Portal Customisation)

Category: Confluence portal customisation, branded intranet themes. Deployment: Common in organisations using Confluence as their primary intranet or internal knowledge portal where native Confluence styling is insufficient.

Refined provides drag-and-drop theme and navigation customisation for Confluence, enabling branded intranet portals with custom layouts, navigation menus, and visual design that goes beyond Confluence's standard templates.

Pricing: Refined Cloud pricing is approximately $3 to $6 per user per month. For a 500-user Confluence deployment, annual cost is approximately $18,000 to $36,000.

Alternatives: Confluence Cloud has progressively improved its native theming and customisation capabilities. For organisations whose primary Refined use case was branding the Confluence home page and top-level navigation, the native Confluence home page customisation in Premium-tier deployments may provide adequate functionality. For organisations that have built extensive Refined-based intranets with complex navigation, migration to native Confluence features requires a design migration exercise that may not justify the cost saving.

9. Jira Misc Workflow Extensions / Automation for Jira

Category: Workflow automation extensions, custom field conditions, advanced transition controls. Deployment: Common in Jira environments with complex workflow requirements that exceed native Jira Automation capabilities.

Multiple Marketplace apps in this category address the same gap — expanding Jira's native workflow automation with additional triggers, conditions, validators, and post-functions. As Atlassian has significantly invested in Jira Automation (native in Premium), many organisations that installed workflow extension apps in earlier Jira versions may now be paying for capabilities that Jira Premium provides natively.

Pricing: Workflow extension apps typically range from $2 to $5 per user per month. The hidden cost is the operational complexity of maintaining multiple automation systems running in parallel.

Alternatives: Jira Automation (native in Premium) should be evaluated as a replacement for any workflow extension app before the next renewal. A structured review comparing the installed app's active workflow rules against what Jira Automation can replicate typically identifies 60 to 80 percent of rules that are migratable, reducing or eliminating the workflow extension app cost.

10. EazyBI for Jira / Jira-Native Analytics Extensions

Category: Advanced reporting, analytics, BI visualisation. Deployment: Common in engineering leadership, PMO, and IT management contexts requiring reporting beyond Jira's native dashboards.

EazyBI provides OLAP-style multidimensional analytics on Jira data — custom report creation, historical trend analysis, cross-project aggregation, and data export to downstream BI tools. It is widely used for engineering velocity reporting, sprint analysis, and capacity planning.

Pricing: EazyBI Cloud pricing is approximately $5 to $10 per user per month. For a 500-user Jira deployment, annual cost is approximately $30,000 to $60,000.

Alternatives: Jira Premium's native reporting capabilities have expanded significantly, covering sprint burndown, velocity tracking, and cumulative flow diagrams. For organisations using EazyBI primarily for standard agile engineering metrics, Jira Premium native reporting may provide adequate coverage. Organisations that have built custom EazyBI reports with complex multi-source data models have higher migration cost to native tools but should validate current adoption before committing to another annual EazyBI cycle.

The EOL Migration Challenge for These Apps

Each of the ten apps above has a Cloud equivalent, making DC-to-Cloud migration for this specific portfolio generally feasible. However, the migration is not trivial for organisations that have deeply embedded these apps into their workflows. ScriptRunner code in particular — often representing years of accumulated process automation — cannot be migrated automatically; it requires a code review, rewrite in some cases, and extensive testing.

The Atlassian cloud migration planning guide documents the specific migration considerations for each major app category, including the skills required, the testing scope, and the sequencing of app migrations relative to the Atlassian data migration.

Our Atlassian Cloud contract negotiation advisory covers how to use the app migration complexity as commercial leverage during the DC-to-Cloud transition negotiation — particularly the argument that high-dependency app portfolios justify migration credits and introductory Cloud pricing.

Spend Reduction Actions by App Category

Immediately removable (zero workflow impact): Any app not used in 90 days. Review all installed apps against last-usage data before the next renewal cycle.

Replace with Jira/Confluence Premium native features: BigPicture (Advanced Roadmaps), basic Gliffy usage (native Whiteboards), basic automation apps (Jira Automation), basic analytics (native Jira dashboards). A Premium tier evaluation is the prerequisite for identifying which app costs Premium natively eliminates.

Negotiate renewal pricing: For mission-critical apps with no viable alternative — Tempo Timesheets for billing-dependent organisations, ScriptRunner for deeply scripted environments — negotiate the renewal rate explicitly. Vendors are responsive to competitive positioning and renewal volume. Multi-year commitments typically unlock 10 to 20 percent pricing improvement.

Replace with standalone alternatives: Zephyr Scale (replace with Xray or standalone test management where licensing is per-QA-user rather than per-Jira-user), Tempo (replace with standalone time tracking for simpler time entry needs).

Our Atlassian Marketplace cost advisory specialists conduct the full app portfolio analysis, identify removal and replacement opportunities, and negotiate with vendors on your behalf — always on the buyer side, with no vendor affiliation. The Atlassian pricing changes 2026 context is essential reading for any organisation approaching a Marketplace app renewal in the current market.