Compare Atlassian Cloud and Data Center
Explore the feature and functional differences between Atlassian Cloud and Data Center products to find the right fit for you.
Which option is best for you?
Changes to our Server licensing, upgrades, and apps will be happening from now until support ends on February 2, 2024. You can stay supported by migrating to our Cloud or Data Center products. This guide helps you compare what’s included in each offering:
Cloud Recommended
(Software as a service)
We offer Atlassian products as always-on, continuously updated, highly secure services, doing the heavy lifting so you can focus on your business priorities. Our SaaS products are built on best-in-class cloud technologies, providing you with a scalable, secure, reliable, and performant offering. With one underlying Cloud platform, you’ll also have more connected experiences across Atlassian products and leading third-party SaaS tools, making it easier and faster for teams to get work done.
Built-in security, privacy, compliance, and reliability
Reduced operational, IT maintenance, and hardware costs
Better collaboration and innovation from the latest features and functionality
Flexible pricing plans to meet your teams' size and budget cycles, from Free to Enterprise
Vast majority of Atlassian’s R&D investment
When to consider cloud
Cloud products are the best fit for most organizations. Choose Cloud to:
- Eliminate manual upgrades and software maintenance, reducing your total cost of ownership
- Benefit from real-time security updates, and a team of Atlassian experts working around the clock to keep your data secure
- Enable globally distributed teamwork with products that can be accessed securely from any browser and mobile apps, and don’t require VPN
- Accelerate digital transformation and enable business agility with continuous functionality improvements
Data Center
(Self-managed)
You host Atlassian’s products on your own infrastructure or through cloud providers like AWS and Azure. This allows you to keep your data within your network, if you’re mandated to do so. Hosting on your own infrastructure requires necessary internal resources and technical expertise to effectively implement, run, and maintain Atlassian software yourself.
Robust admin controls to help you maintain high performance, security, and compliance in a self-managed environment
Can be deployed as a single node or clustered, on your own physical hardware or IaaS
Cleanup features to help you optimize the data you want to bring to Cloud in the future
When to consider data center
Cloud will be ready for the majority of our customers by 2023. However, if you have a business requirement that prevents you from moving to Cloud and is not planned to be delivered on our Cloud roadmap before then, we recommend moving to Data Center.
Data Center will continue to be a performant and reliable offering to support your growth with Atlassian.
Choose Data Center if:
- Your product must comply with a regulatory standard that’s not on our Cloud roadmap
- Your product data is mandated to remain in a self-managed environment
Need help choosing?
Take our cloud readiness assessment to get a personalized recommendation, or contact us to schedule a Cloud consultation with our team of migration specialists.*
*Available to customers with Commercial or Academic licenses over 25 users or agents.
Compare features
Explore the capabilities and features of Atlassian products available for both Cloud and Data Center: Jira Software, Jira Service Management, Confluence, and Bitbucket.
If a feature isn't available yet, we’ve added the labelOn the roadmap. Check our Cloud and Data Center roadmaps for the latest estimated release dates.
Features apply to Jira Software, Jira Service Management, Confluence, and Bitbucket unless we’ve specified otherwise.
Jump to a specific section
Pricing and billing
We offer different Cloud plans to suit teams of all sizes, from startups to enterprises, with features and support levels to match. You can choose to pay annually by user tier, or monthly on a per-user basis, which means you’re only charged for people using the tools.
Want more pricing advice? Get a personalized cost estimate
Cloud
Data Center
Product plans
Multiple plans (Free, Standard, Premium, and Enterprise)
Single plan
Billing and invoicing
Monthly or annual subscription
Annual subscription
Pricing structure
Per-user (monthly) or tiered (annual)
Centralized per-user licensing, allowing users access to all enterprise instances with a single license (Enterprise)
Tiered
Support
Varying support levels depending on your plan.
Enterprise support coverage is equivalent to our Data Center Premier Support offering
Varying support levels depending on your package: Priority Support or Premier Support (purchased separately)
Total cost of ownership (TCO)
TCO includes your subscription fee, plus product administration time
TCO includes your subscription fee and product administration time, plus:
- costs related to infrastructure provisioning or IaaS fees (for example, AWS costs)
- planned downtime
- time and resources needed for software upgrades
Security and data management
With Cloud, Atlassian’s dedicated security team manages security for you. Cloud offers built-in security features to help safeguard your data, with minimal admin effort required. With Data Center, securing your environment is managed by your organization. Learn more about Atlassian security practices
Cloud
Data Center
Data encryption
Encryption in transit and at rest (Jira Software, Jira Service Management, Confluence)
Encryption in transit (Bitbucket)
Encryption at rest (Bitbucket) On the roadmap
Managed by your organization
Data residency
Data residency for US and EU primary data (Standard, Premium, Enterprise)
Additional data types and regions (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan) On the roadmap
Data residency for apps On the roadmap
Managed by your organization
Audit logging
Organization-level audit logging available via Atlassian Access (Jira Software, Confluence)
Product-level audit logs (Jira Software, Confluence)
Advanced audit logging
Device security
Mobile device management support (Jira Software, Confluence, Jira Service Management)
Mobile application management On the roadmap
Mobile device management support (Jira Software, Confluence, Jira Service Management)
Content security
IP allowlisting for Premium and Enterprise (Jira Software, Jira Service Management, Confluence)
Web session duration management
BYOK encryption for Jira issue fields (Jira Software, Jira Service Management) On the roadmap
BYOK encryption (Jira Software, Jira Service Management, Confluence) On the roadmap
Managed by your organization
API and app security
API token controls (Jira Software, Jira Service Management, Confluence)
Personal access tokens
Compliance
We design our Cloud products with regulatory frameworks in mind, and offer configuration options that allow you to comply with a number of the most common industry standards. We’re also working to meet the compliance requirements of some of the most strictly-regulated industries, like finance, government, and healthcare. With Data Center, ensuring the compliance of your products is your responsibility. Learn more about compliance at Atlassian
Cloud
Data Center
GDPR
Atlassian’s internal data handling processes are GDPR compliant, and we provide tooling to help you fulfil GDPR requirements. Learn more
Managed by your organization
We provide tooling to help you fulfil GDPR requirements
PCI DSS
PCI DSS
Managed by your organization
CSA
CSA (Cloud Security Alliance) member
Managed by your organization
SOC
SOC 2 Type II
SOC 3
Managed by your organization
ISO/IEC
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27018
Managed by your organization
WCAG
Cloud products are designed to align with WCAG 2.1 standards On the roadmap
We’re working to achieve WCAG 2.1 AA compliance soon.
Data Center products are designed to align with WCAG 2.1 standards On the roadmap
We’re working to achieve WCAG 2.1 AA compliance soon.
VPAT
VPAT statements for Cloud products
VPAT for Section 508
FedRAMP
FedRAMP Moderate ATO (Jira Software, Confluence) On the roadmap
Managed by your organization
HIPAA
HIPAA ready (Jira Software, Confluence) On the roadmap
Managed by your organization
NIST 800.53
NIST 800.53 controls – low impact level (Jira Software, Confluence) On the roadmap
Managed by your organization
US FINRA
Financial services industry compliance – US (Jira Software, Confluence) On the roadmap
Managed by your organization
EU BaFin
Financial services industry compliance – Germany (Jira Software, Confluence) On the roadmap
Managed by your organization
AUS APRA
Financial services industry compliance – Australia (Jira Software, Confluence) On the roadmap
Managed by your organization
Scale, performance and availability
With Cloud, we handle reliability, performance, and uptime for you, so your users have uninterrupted access to Atlassian tools. We’re also continually increasing our scale capacity in Cloud to meet the needs of our largest customers. With Data Center, you’re responsible for implementing and maintaining scalability, high availability, and disaster recovery strategies. Learn more about reliability at Atlassian
Cloud
Data Center
High availability (HA) and reliability
Built on best-in-class core technologies for elastic scale, multi-level redundancy, and failure options
Financially-backed 99.9% uptime SLA (Premium)
Financially-backed 99.95% uptime SLA (Enterprise)
High availability application deployment
Support for high availability database (Aurora)
Upgrade without downtime options
Data health and management
Project archiving (Jira Software Premium and Enterprise)
Space archiving (Confluence)
Project and issue archiving (Jira Software, Jira Service Management)
Optimize custom fields to improve performance (Jira Software, Jira Service Management)
Automatically decline stale pull requests (Bitbucket)
Space archiving (Confluence)
Page and file management (Confluence)
Data storage limits
2 GB (Free)
250 GB (Standard)
Unlimited storage (Premium and Enterprise)
Managed by your organization
Performance
Continuous performance updates to improve load times, search responsiveness, and attachments
Cloud infrastructure hosted in six geographic regions to reduce latency
Rate limiting
CDN support
Smart mirrors and mirror farms (Bitbucket)
Backups and disaster recovery
We leverage multiple geographically diverse data centers, have a comprehensive backup program, and gain assurance by regularly testing our disaster recovery and business continuity plans. Learn more
Backups are generated daily and retained for 30 days to allow for point-in-time data restoration
Managed by your organization
Minimum user tier
1–10 users (Jira Software, Confluence)
1–3 agents (Jira Service Management)
1–5 users (Bitbucket)
500 users (Jira Software, Confluence, Crowd)
50 agents (Jira Service Management)
25 users (Bitbucket)
Maximum users per instance
Up to 20,000 users per instance (Enterprise)
50,000 users per instance (Enterprise) On the roadmap
Unlimited users (Jira Software, Jira Service Management, Confluence)
30,000 users (Bitbucket)
User management
In Cloud, you manage user accounts centrally through an organization, rather than product by product. We also offer Atlassian Access to improve or expand on your user management capabilities. With Data Center, user management can be handled in a variety of ways: via each product, through Jira, or by connecting to Atlassian Crowd, an LDAP or other external user directory, or identity provider (IdP). Learn more about user management differences in cloud and self-managed products
Cloud
Data Center
Authentication
Available to all customers:
- Centralized user security controls for new customers
- Managed user accounts with verified domains
- Enforced password strength, expiration and reset
- Enforced idle session durations
- Optional two-step verification (2SV) for end users
Requires Atlassian Access:
- SAML SSO
- Enforced two-step verification (2SV)
- Multiple authentication policies per organization
- External user security On the roadmap
- Delegated authentication via external LDAP and Active Directory
- SAML SSO
- OpenID Connect SSO
- Support for multiple IdPs (Jira Software, Jira Service Management, Bitbucket)
Requires Atlassian Crowd:
- Manage users from multiple directories - Active Directory, LDAP, OpenLDAP or Azure AD - and control application authentication permissions in one single location
- Centralized user management controls
- SSO capabilities
Provisioning
Available to all customers:
- Simple licensing with invitation links, approved domains, and access requests
Requires Atlassian Access:
- Just-in-time provisioning with SAML SSO
- Directory sync with cloud IDPs through SCIM user provisioning
- G Suite integration (Jira Software, Jira Service Management, Confluence)
- User provisioning (Bitbucket)On the roadmap
Public signup options
Just-in-time user provisioning with SAML and OpenID Connect
Directory sync with LDAP, Active Directory, and Azure AD
Authorization & access management
Organization-level user and group directory for new customers
Azure AD support with user and group filtering (via Atlassian Crowd)
Group level administration (via Atlassian Crowd)
OAuth 2.0 for application integrationOn the roadmap
Deployment and administration
Atlassian hosts your Cloud products for you, which means we manage security and maintenance. With Data Center, you control how you host your products, which also means you’re responsible for maintenance and version upgrades.
Cloud
Data Center
Containerization and orchestration
We handle this for you
Docker images
Kubernetes supportOn the roadmap
Change management and upgrades
We handle software and security upgrades for you automatically
Sandbox instance to test changes (Premium and Enterprise)
Release track options for Premium and Enterprise (Jira Software, Jira Service Management, Confluence)
Managed by your organization
Upgrade without downtime options
Long Term Support releases
Direct access to the database
No direct access to change the database structure, file system, or other server infrastructure
Extensive REST APIs for programmatic data access
Direct database access
Insights and reporting
Organization and admin insights to track adoption of Atlassian products, and evaluate the security of your organization. Learn more
Confluence analytics
Data Pipeline for advanced insights
Confluence analytics
Site names (URLs)
Atlassian provides a secure, configurable site name
Ability to host your product on any domain you controlOn the roadmap
You host your products under any domain you control
Apps, integrations and customization
You can extend the functionality of Cloud products with a growing number of Atlassian Marketplace apps and SaaS product integrations, or build your own customizations using APIs or with Forge, our Cloud developer platform. With Data Center, you can use Data Center approved apps from the Marketplace, or build your own apps and integrations using robust APIs.
Cloud
Data Center
Marketplace apps
Thousands of apps and integrations
Cloud Fortified app program to ensure enterprise-grade security and reliability
Thousands of apps and integrations
Data Center approved app program to ensure reliability and performance at scale
APIs
Use Atlassian Connect framework, APIs, and Forge to develop apps, customizations, and integrations
Use server APIs to develop apps, customizations, and integrations
Mobile apps
Mobile apps for Jira Software, Jira Service Management, and Confluence, with additional functionality not available with Data Center apps
Mobile device management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM)
Secure collaboration, without signing in to a VPN
Mobile apps for Jira Software (8.3+), Jira Service Management (4.12.2+) and Confluence (6.8+)
Mobile device management (MDM) support
Products
Our flagship products, Jira Software, Confluence, Jira Service Management, and Bitbucket, are available for both Cloud and Data Center. Cloud offers a growing suite of additional products for incident management, task tracking, collaboration, and more.
Some apps that were once available from the Marketplace are now native features of our Cloud or Data Center products.
Cloud
Data Center
Plan, track and support
Jira Software
Jira Software
Jira Service Management
Jira Service Management
Jira Work Management
Jira Work Management
Jira Align
Jira Align
Statuspage
Statuspage
Opsgenie
Opsgenie
Halp
Halp
Collaborate
Confluence
Confluence
Trello
Trello
Code, build and ship
Bitbucket
Bitbucket
Sourcetree
Sourcetree
Bamboo
Bitbucket Pipelines included with Bitbucket Cloud
Bamboo
Fisheye
Fisheye Server only
Crucible
Crucible Server only
Security and identity
Atlassian Access
Atlassian Access
Crowd
Crowd
Atlassian apps
Advanced Roadmaps
Included with Jira Software Premium and Enterprise plans
Advanced Roadmaps
Included with Jira Data Center 8.15+
Questions for Confluence
Questions for Confluence
Team Calendars for Confluence
Included with Confluence Premium and Enterprise plans
Team Calendars for Confluence
Included with Confluence Data Center 7.11+
Analytics for Confluence
Included with Confluence Premium and Enterprise plans
Analytics for Confluence
Included with Confluence Data Center 7.11+
Migration process and support
Your migration pathway will be different depending on whether you’re moving to Cloud or Data Center, and the migration strategy you choose.
Cloud
Data Center
Migration process
Your journey from Server to Cloud will depend on a few factors: the products and apps you want to migrate, the size and complexity of your data, as well as your budget and time frame. In general, enterprise migrations require more time and planning, whereas smaller migrations can be fast and simple.
The complexity of a Data Center migration depends on your choice of architecture and infrastructure, and your overall migration goals.
- Migrating to a non-clustered Data Center deployment is simple – since your underlying infrastructure doesn’t change, you just need to upgrade your product license, as well as any app licenses.
- Migrating to a clustered Data Center deployment (needed for high availability) requires additional infrastructure, and a more complex deployment topology. Additional costs and planning are required.
- Migrating from physical hardware to Data Center on a cloud service such as AWS or Azure, or moving to an orchestrated deployment using Kubernetes or Docker, takes more time and planning, similar to the effort required for a cloud migration.
Atlassian support available
Our team offers varying levels of support throughout your journey, depending on the size and complexity of your migration. We also provide free tools and resources to make your move as smooth as possible:
- Cloud Migration Trial: a free Cloud trial that matches both the duration and user tier of your self-managed license to help you evaluate and migrate to Cloud over time.
- Cloud Migration Assistants: free Marketplace apps for Jira Software, Confluence, and Bitbucket to help assess your apps, and migrate your product data and users to Cloud through an easy, guided user interface. A Cloud Migration Assistant for Jira Service Management will be available soon.
- Guides: step-by-step guides to walk you through the migration process.
- Atlassian’s migration team: Cloud Migration Managers and Support Engineers are available to resolve technical issues and provide varying levels of planning and guidance depending on your size and complexity. If you’re migrating over 1,000 users, we offer additional support to help you plan your move.
Learn more about how we support Cloud migrations
We provide a range of tools and resources to support your move to Data Center:
- Priority Support (Jira Software, Jira Service Management, Confluence, and Crowd Data Center, as well as Bitbucket Data Center for customers with 251 or more users)
- As a new Data Center customer, you may be entitled to support from a Customer Success Manager as an ongoing resource throughout your first year.
- Guides: step-by-step guides to walk you through the migration process.
Needs hands-on help?
If you need more support, or you’re managing a large and complex migration, you can enlist the help of an Atlassian Solution Partner. Solution Partners can help with planning, or run your full migration end-to-end.
What's next?
Take our Cloud readiness assessment to find the right path for you, and get tailored resources to help you take the next step.