June 2, 2026 · 7 minute read

BigGantt alternative for Jira: an honest comparison

BigGantt (now part of Appfire’s BigPicture family) is one of the most established Gantt apps on the Atlassian Marketplace, and for good reason — it has years of track record, a deep feature set, and enterprise references. So why do teams go looking for a BigGantt alternative? Usually one of three reasons: the per-user price adds up fast, they want a Runs on Atlassian (Forge) app so their data never leaves their Jira tenant, or they simply do not need the full enterprise toolbox and want something lighter that installs in two minutes. This article is an honest side-by-side: what BigGantt does well, where a lightweight free option wins, and which one is right for your team. If you just want to try the free option, skip to the 2-minute install.

What BigGantt does well

Let us start with credit where it is due, because a comparison that only lists the other side’s weaknesses is not worth reading. BigGantt is a mature product. Its resource-management and workload views are more advanced than most of the field. As part of the BigPicture suite it plugs into genuine portfolio and program management — multiple boxes, roadmaps, risk modules, and governance that large organizations actually need. It supports Jira Data Center as well as Cloud, which matters if you are not on Atlassian Cloud. And it has the one thing a new app cannot manufacture: a decade of case studies and a large installed base. If you are an enterprise standardizing on a portfolio platform, BigGantt/BigPicture is a serious, defensible choice.

Where a lightweight free alternative wins

The flip side of “mature enterprise platform” is that most teams use a small fraction of it while paying for all of it. If your actual need is a Gantt chart on top of your Jira project — task bars, dependencies, critical path, baselines, and the ability to drag a bar to reschedule — then a focused tool gets you there faster and cheaper. GanttBoard for Jira is a native Forge app built for exactly that 80%. Three concrete differences stand out.

• Price. GanttBoard is free for teams of 10 or fewer, forever, and free for any team size through October 1, 2026. BigGantt is free up to 10 users too, but at the 11–100 tier it is roughly $1.82/user/month versus GanttBoard’s $1.20. On a 40-person team that is the difference between about $873/year and $576/year.
• Runs on Atlassian (Forge). GanttBoard carries the Runs on Atlassian badge: it runs entirely inside Atlassian’s Forge platform, so your Jira data never leaves your cloud tenant and there is no third-party server to vet. BigGantt is a Connect app, which means data is processed on the vendor’s infrastructure. For security and procurement teams, that data-residency distinction is often the deciding factor.
• Time-to-value. GanttBoard installs in about two minutes with zero configuration — it reads the Start and Due date fields straight off your existing issues, and moving a bar writes the date back to Jira. There is no separate database to populate, no box hierarchy to set up before you see a chart.

BigGantt vs GanttBoard: feature & price comparison

Pricing reflects the Atlassian Marketplace 11–100 user tier as of mid-2026. Feature rows are about the core Gantt workflow most teams use day to day.

The pattern is clear: on the core Gantt workflow — dependencies, critical path, baselines, auto-scheduling — the two are at parity. BigGantt pulls ahead on enterprise-scale resource and portfolio management. GanttBoard pulls ahead on price, data residency, and setup speed. You are not choosing between “capable” and “not capable”; you are choosing how much platform you actually need.

Trying the free alternative (2-minute install)

The lowest-risk way to decide is to install GanttBoard alongside whatever you use now — it reads your existing issues, so there is nothing to migrate and nothing to lose.

1. Open the Marketplace listing and click Get it now. You need Jira admin on the target site.
2. Open any Scrum or Kanban project — a new GanttBoard tab appears in the sidebar.
3. Click it. Issues with Start and Due dates appear on the timeline immediately. Drag a bar to reschedule; the date writes straight back to Jira.

Because your Jira issues stay the source of truth, you can run GanttBoard and BigGantt side by side during an evaluation and uninstall whichever you do not keep — with one click, and no data left behind.

When BigGantt is still the right call

Honest section. Choose BigGantt (or the wider BigPicture suite) if you need enterprise portfolio management across many programs with governance and risk modules, if you depend on advanced resource leveling with capacity bars, if you are on Jira Data Center rather than Cloud, or if your procurement process specifically values a long enterprise track record. GanttBoard launched in 2026 and does not pretend to replace a full portfolio platform.

Choose GanttBoard if you want a focused, fast, free-to-start Gantt for one or several Jira projects, you care about data staying inside your Atlassian tenant, and you would rather not pay enterprise per-user rates for features you will not use. For the full feature list see the features page, and the pricing page for every tier.

Conclusion

BigGantt is a strong enterprise product, and for large organizations standardizing on a portfolio platform it remains a sensible choice. But “established” is not the same as “right for every team.” If what you actually need is a clean Gantt chart on your Jira project — with dependencies, critical path, and baselines — at a lower price, on Forge, with a two-minute setup, a lightweight alternative covers it. The best part: trying it costs nothing and risks nothing, because your data never leaves Jira.

Try GanttBoard free →