Jira comes in three different flavors that we discussed briefly earlier. Now, if you're wondering whether you should be using Jira Core, Jira Software, or Jira Service Desk, then in this section we'll discuss how to choose which application is right for you.
Let's go through a high-level overview of these three applications:
- Jira Core is primarily Jira
- Jira Software is an application added to Jira Core; it provides Scrum and Kanban boards
- Jira Service Desk is an application added to Jira Core; it provides a customer portal, service requests, SLAs, and queues
The following table describes the potential uses of the three applications by various teams:
| Jira Core | Jira Software | Jira Service Desk |
| Business teams that need a tool to plan and track their activities. Teams that can use Jira Core: marketing, operations, HR, legal, and finance. Any other team can use Jira Core. | Software development teams building and shipping software. Methodologies supported by Jira Software: SCRUM83 and Kanban. Jira Software supports typical Agile concepts along with standard Agile-based reports. | Service desks and IT support desks helping customer issues. It can be used to implement ITSM or ITIL. Key features include: customer portal, integration with Confluence for self-service, SLAs, and queues. Jira Service Desk doesn't put restrictions on the number of customers raising tickets. |
The best part is that all three applications can be used together. You can have one Jira instance in your organization where a few teams can have their projects running on Jira Core without any Agile boards, the development team can have their projects with Jira Software, and the service desk team can have their project running on Jira Service Desk.
In most cases, it makes sense to have just one instance running all three applications, but these applications can be run on separate instances as well.