i just started using JIRA and I have loads of complaints about it. I have no doubts I can get used to it but a lot of the pain points on the page are pretty obvious, especially with the UI.
I have some issues with the current UI, though some of them may be because I've used JIRA on and off for the last 6 or 7 years and came to have a mental model of how things USED to work with previous generations of UI that the lack of it in this UI irks me.
However, I don't know how anyone could strongly dislike the UI. It's kind of dated, some things are not great for how I want to use it, but in general it's not bad, simply just not good in all places.
As for the workflows- if you don't like it blame your implementors. You can have pretty much any type of workflow that you want. It's kind of like complaining you didn't like your plate at a Mongolian Grill- you've got no one to blame but yourself.
Speed is also generally not a problem. If your company is using a ton of extras the plugins could cause performance issues with each other. Indexing your data on a regular basis is pretty key- but a properly configured/provisioned server should be able to handle plenty. Cloud hosted JIRA definitely has speed issues if you don't have a super active user base, as your data will get cold pretty quickly and it'll be a few minutes until your back in the warm cache.
I've used a lot of other bug trackers/work planners and there isn't one that has given me the combination of flexibility, performance, and UI acceptability. Plus the integration with other Atlassian products makes it pretty easy to just buy all in.
Atlassian products can definitely get spendy, especially when you're self hosting. The Cloud hosted when you're small-ish is very reasonable.
Finally, as a company I feel like Atlassian does many things right by their customers. Maybe because I'm in Seattle, but there seems to be something being hosted by Atlassian for their user groups at least every quarter, their support has never left me frustrated, and every technical resource I've fired off random deeply technical questions to has been extremely knowledgeable about their product and threw ideas back and forth on a path to a hypothetical solution.
However, I don't know how anyone could strongly dislike the UI. It's kind of dated, some things are not great for how I want to use it, but in general it's not bad, simply just not good in all places.
As for the workflows- if you don't like it blame your implementors. You can have pretty much any type of workflow that you want. It's kind of like complaining you didn't like your plate at a Mongolian Grill- you've got no one to blame but yourself.
Speed is also generally not a problem. If your company is using a ton of extras the plugins could cause performance issues with each other. Indexing your data on a regular basis is pretty key- but a properly configured/provisioned server should be able to handle plenty. Cloud hosted JIRA definitely has speed issues if you don't have a super active user base, as your data will get cold pretty quickly and it'll be a few minutes until your back in the warm cache.
I've used a lot of other bug trackers/work planners and there isn't one that has given me the combination of flexibility, performance, and UI acceptability. Plus the integration with other Atlassian products makes it pretty easy to just buy all in.
Atlassian products can definitely get spendy, especially when you're self hosting. The Cloud hosted when you're small-ish is very reasonable.
Finally, as a company I feel like Atlassian does many things right by their customers. Maybe because I'm in Seattle, but there seems to be something being hosted by Atlassian for their user groups at least every quarter, their support has never left me frustrated, and every technical resource I've fired off random deeply technical questions to has been extremely knowledgeable about their product and threw ideas back and forth on a path to a hypothetical solution.