Atlassian is retiring Data Center – what does it mean and what are your options?

Why is Atlassian ending Data Center? 

Atlassian’s move is part of a clear strategy of focusing attention on the Cloud and AI to enable innovation with the aim of increasing customer productivity. By ending Data Center, Atlassian feel that they can better serve the needs of their customers to:  

• Deliver faster innovation and reduce costs 

• Enable scalability and resilience beyond on-premise or hosted solutions 

• Guarantee enterprise-grade security and compliance across global standards 

• Embed AI directly into workflows to empower teams and increase productivity 

But what does this mean for your business? In practice, you face three choices.  

Key dates to keep in mind 

Atlassian has provided a 3 ½ year timeline to get off Data Center. This might seem a reasonable amount of time to prepare, but it won’t be long coming round - if you’re running Data Center products, you must start planning ahead now. 

• March 30, 2026 – End of sales for new Data Center licenses and marketplace apps (new customers). 

• March 30, 2028 – End of new license purchases renewals, and marketplace apps for existing customers. 

• March 30, 2029 – Final end-of-life: licenses expire, products move into read-only mode, and marketplace apps stop working. 

Note that read-only mode means just that - you will not be able to use your Data Center products after your subscription has expired. Put simply, you need to be off Data Center by March 30^th, 2029. 

Your options 

1. Move to Atlassian Cloud 

For many, this is the most straightforward option. Having bet the farm that the future of work is in the cloud and that it will be AI-assisted, Atlassian have done everything in their power to make Cloud offering as compelling as possible. From automatic scaling and predictable costs to improved security and resilience, the Cloud will be the natural transition for most companies still stuck on the out-of-box experience. 

But the transition isn’t without challenges. Many organisations chose DC for a reason, be it cost control, data sovereignty or the ability to affect deep customisation. Also, migration can be complex, particularly if you rely on Marketplace or bespoke apps that are often more powerful and configurable on DC than Cloud.  

For some, this will mean an unacceptable reduction in functionality. 

2. Move to a competitor platform 

Forced change is not always a bad thing. Often, it will compel organisations to reconsider decisions that were previously delayed because the status quo, whilst not perfect, was “good enough” to justify the cost and effort of a change.  

If your organisation has been making do with Atlassian DC, then this could be the right moment to make the switch - particularly if competitor products are better suited to your needs. But even if the switch is incentivised by a competitor, the decision is still not that simple:  

• Maturity: Atlassian products are feature-rich and mature, and their popularity is no accident. If your teams rely heavily on the breadth of Atlassian’s functionality, finding a truly equivalent competitor may prove difficult.

• Complexity: If you only use a subset of features, that unused complexity may actually be slowing users down and hurting customer experience. In that case, a simpler alternative might be a better fit, but you still have the issue of finding a product that overlaps with your precise needs.

• Tailored: Many organisations depend heavily on Marketplace and in-house apps to customise their product experience. Do competitor products offer the same level of ecosystem depth?

• Hosted: If self-hosting is a requirement for your business, then you need to ask: do competitor platforms even support this? Most tend to be fully SaaS.

While switching to a competitor is an option, it requires a clear review of your exact needs — and potentially some tough business decisions about which features you are willing to trade. 

3. Build your own replacement 

At its core, Jira is essentially a workflow engine with issue tracking – it's not especially complex. The real (and essential) complexity comes from its need to serve everyone, which is why it often feels bloated or overly generalised. 

Building a bespoke, simplified Jira-like tool could be a viable option if it allows you to tailor a solution precisely to your users’ needs and deliver an operational or competitive advantage over your peers. 

It could also provide significant long-term savings compared to the, at times, eye-watering costs of licensing, hosting, and managing DC products (once you’re past the initial outlay). Of course, any ROI will depend on the complexity of the build and how much you’re currently spending with Atlassian, Oracle, et al. 

Related Insight

Thinking about building your own workflow replacement?

Learn how we helped Atlassian DC accelerate time-to-value by augmenting their engineering capacity

However, building your own is not a decision to be taken lightly. Whilst the benefits can be huge, you do need to ask yourself if the effort is worth the return: 

• Are your customers best served by your current solution, a simpler competitor product or a tailored solution? 

• Can you rationalise existing workflows, resolve issues more effectively and use your data better to deliver improved outcomes for your customers over any commercial offering? 

• Are your current processes constrained by the technology? Is there an opportunity to transform how you work, and in so doing, stay 2 steps ahead of your competitors? 

If your competitive edge is being eroded by outdated processes and tooling, or if you are failing to take advantage of advances in technology for the benefit of your customers, it may be time to rethink. 

A bespoke solution, optimised for you and your customers, could unlock gains that generic, one-size-fits-all software cannot deliver - provided you have the right strategy, expertise and support in place. 

What does this mean for you?

One way or another, Atlassian’s decision means you must take action soon. Staying on Data Center is not an option beyond March 2029. 

Your three paths (migrate to Atlassian Cloud, move to a competitor offering, or build your own) each come with risks and benefits. The right choice will depend on multiple factors, including: 

• Your reliance on Marketplace (and in-house) apps and their availability and efficacy in Cloud

• Your desire to build a better, more tailored solution for your users

• Your willingness to remain in the Atlassian ecosystem

• Your budget and business strategy

• Your data residency, security and compliance requirements

Atlassian is all-in on Cloud and AI. If you want to continue with them, you should start migration planning now. 

How can we help?

If you’re considering building a replacement for your DC stack, we can help turn that ambition into reality. Having spent 5 years as an Atlassian delivery partner, working on the internals of the Data Center, we understand workflow systems intimately.

That experience means we know how to strip away unnecessary complexity and build systems that are lighter, faster and better aligned to your business outcomes.

Whether you want to reimagine parts of your workflow stack or replace your entire DC footprint, we can partner with you to design, build, and support a solution that gives you control, flexibility and a sustainable competitive edge.