Guide
Jira & Confluence Data Center End of Life: March 28, 2029, your options
Atlassian is sunsetting Data Center: no new licenses after March 30, 2026, everything read-only in 2029. The timeline, the three real options, and when moving to an EU-hosted tool makes sense.
Atlassian has officially ended Data Center. If your Jira (or Confluence) runs self-hosted in your own data center, you have three years, and exactly three decision points. This page collects the facts and says honestly which option fits whom. And whom it does not fit.
The timeline
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| March 30, 2026 | New customers can no longer buy Data Center subscriptions or Marketplace apps. |
| March 30, 2028 | Last day for existing customers to buy new DC licenses, apps, or license expansions. |
| March 28, 2029, 11:59 PM PST | End of life. All Data Center products become read-only. No more security updates, no more compliance updates. |
(Source: Atlassian's announcement.)
What end of life means in practice
A read-only instance is not a pause; it is a risk that compounds. Every vulnerability discovered after the cutoff stays unpatched. GDPR requires appropriate technical and organizational measures (Article 32); an unpatched, end-of-life system is the opposite of that. ISO 27001 audits and customer contracts with security requirements become very hard to defend. If you are still running Data Center in 2029, you do not have a feature problem. You have a compliance problem.
Your three options: honestly assessed
1. Atlassian Cloud
The only Atlassian-supported path, and for many teams the right one: least effort, full feature set, no second migration looming. Three things to check first: where your data sits (data residency settings, the data processing agreement), what licenses cost per user over five to ten years, and whether your processes fit the cloud model. If you run Data Center today because your data may not leave your building, this does not answer your question.
2. Another on-premises suite
The market has reacted: Perforce (P4 Plan) and OpenProject (open source, self-hosted) position themselves directly as DC successors. For organizations that must self-host (public sector, compliance-heavy industries), they are credible candidates, with the usual costs: you run it, you migrate it, you maintain it. And for classic portfolio management with Gantt charts and cross-department resource planning, OpenProject is honestly the better fit than we are.
3. An EU-hosted development platform (e.g. Zuuna)
If your Data Center Jira is, in essence, the board your development team works on, you do not need a DC replacement. You need a tool that solves the same problem without making you run a server again:
- EU hosting, GDPR-compliant, data processing agreement included: no servers of your own, no end-of-life clock ticking.
- Boards, sprints, backlog, capacity planning, the part of Jira your team touches every day.
- Git and releases built in: branches, commits, and pull requests appear on the board automatically; releases tie to tags. What the board says is what the repo says, not whatever someone last dragged around by hand.
- Time tracking and reports in the same tool instead of three.
- 2FA and an audit log on every plan, Free included; SSO from Business Pro, not gated behind enterprise.
What Zuuna is not: a Confluence replacement, a service desk, or a portfolio suite with Gantt charts across twenty departments. If you need those, options 1 or 2 are better answers. We would rather write that here than find out after you migrate.
Who should move where?
| Your profile | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Large organization, many departments, portfolio/PPM needed | Evaluate Atlassian Cloud; OpenProject for portfolio parts |
| Public sector / strict self-hosting mandate, own IT department | On-premises suite (e.g. OpenProject, Perforce) |
| Dev team or agency, 5–200 people, EU/GDPR requirements | Zuuna: EU-hosted, board + git + time tracking, migration is free |
| "We just want things to keep working" | Atlassian Cloud: the path of least resistance |
Migrating to Zuuna: how it works
- Export Jira or connect it: either a CSV export from Jira imported through our import profile (with column mapping), or the Jira REST import, which reads projects, issues, and statuses live.
- Boards and sprints carry over, custom fields come along as fields.
- Connect git (GitHub, GitLab): from the first commit, the board maintains itself.
- Or don't do it yourself: we migrate your board for free as a concierge migration, usually within a day. Book a slot, done.
The bottom line
Data Center's end is not an emergency. Three years is time, and Atlassian Cloud is the right answer for many. But it is not a decision for the last quarter either: wait until 2028 and you can no longer buy new licenses, and you will migrate in the same window as everyone else. Dev teams with EU requirements can use this move to switch to a tool that does less than Jira, but does exactly what your team actually uses, and is honest about the rest.
FAQ
When exactly does Atlassian Data Center end?
March 28, 2029, 11:59 PM PST. From that moment all Data Center products (Jira, Confluence, Jira Service Management, Bitbucket) are read-only. New customers can no longer buy DC licenses after March 30, 2026; existing customers can add new licenses, apps, or expansions only until March 30, 2028.
Can we keep running Data Center after 2029?
Technically your instance keeps running as a read-only copy, but with no security updates and no compliance updates. Every vulnerability discovered after March 28, 2029 stays unpatched. GDPR obligations, ISO 27001 audits, and customer security requirements are hard to defend against an unpatched, end-of-life system.
Does this affect Confluence and Jira Service Management too?
Yes. The entire Data Center line is affected: Jira Software, Confluence, Jira Service Management, and Bitbucket Data Center.
What does Atlassian recommend?
Migrating to Atlassian Cloud: after end of life, it is the only Atlassian-supported path. If you have strict data residency requirements, read the hosting terms and data processing agreement carefully first.
Can Zuuna replace Confluence or Jira Service Management?
No, and we would rather say so upfront: Zuuna replaces Jira Software for development teams: boards, sprints, git, releases, time tracking. It does not include a wiki or a service desk.
How long does a migration to Zuuna take?
Most boards move in a day, either yourself via our Jira import (REST import or CSV export) or for free by us: concierge migration, book a slot, done.