Jira Data Center end of life: plan beyond March 2029

Jira Data Center end-of-life timeline

Dates from Atlassian's official Data Center end-of-life announcement, last verified September 2, 2026: sales to new customers ended on March 30, 2026. On March 30, 2028, existing customers lose the ability to add affected Data Center products, Marketplace apps, or license expansions, but can renew existing quantities until March 28, 2029.

On March 28, 2029, affected Data Center subscriptions and associated Marketplace apps expire and become read-only. Atlassian provides technical support and critical security fixes through that date.

Move to Atlassian Cloud, or keep self-hosting?

The end-of-life date does not remove the reasons your organization chose Data Center. Decide which operating model fits your constraints, then compare platforms.

• Move to Jira Cloud: Choose Atlassian's managed path if cloud hosting, continuous releases, and Atlassian's migration tooling fit your requirements.
• Keep self-hosting: Choose a replacement if data location, infrastructure control, or your operating model still requires software you run yourself.

Compare the self-hosted operating model

Start with deployment, licensing, upgrades, product direction, and total cost.

• Deployment: Windshift — Single binary, run anywhere; Jira Data Center — JVM + database + search index stack
• License: Windshift — Free, open source; Jira Data Center — Annual commercial license, seat-tiered
• Upgrade path: Windshift — Swap binary, restart; Jira Data Center — Staged upgrades, plugin compat checks
• Scaling: Windshift — Horizontal, stateless instances*; Jira Data Center — Data Center clustering, shared storage
• Extensibility: Windshift — Open WebAssembly plugin system, any language; Jira Data Center — Java plugin model; marketplace in maintenance mode as Atlassian pushes Cloud and Forge
• Product direction: Windshift — Self-hosted is the product; Jira Data Center — Cloud-first roadmap, DC increasingly a compliance-only holdout
• Total cost: Windshift — Hosting + your time; Jira Data Center — License + hosting + plugin budget
• Vendor dependency: Windshift — None, you have the source; Jira Data Center — Atlassian roadmap and policy

Know what your platform team will operate

Self-hosting keeps control in-house. Windshift reduces the application stack, but your team still owns backups, HTTPS, monitoring, identity, and upgrades.

What you keep, and what you leave behind

• No annual license invoice, no seat counting exercises at renewal
• Run one binary with SQLite or connect PostgreSQL; Docker is also supported
• Your team can read and modify the source if something does not fit
• Keep familiar boards, fields, statuses, workflows, sprints, and milestones

The operating work is smaller, not gone

Jira Data Center combines an annual subscription with infrastructure, database, search, clustering, and Marketplace app decisions. Windshift runs as one application binary or official Docker image with embedded SQLite or PostgreSQL. Current releases run as a single node; multi-node support is scheduled for 2027. Your organization still owns backups, HTTPS, monitoring, identity, and upgrade testing, but the application footprint is smaller.

Start with a Jira project your team knows

Import a representative project and validate its workflows, permissions, fields, comments, attachments, worklogs, boards, sprints, and Assets context. Record any apps or automations that need separate treatment before you plan a production move.