Atlassian has announced that Jira Data Center will reach end of life on March 28, 2029. After this date, Data Center licenses and apps will expire and become read-only, leaving cloud hosting as the only supported option.
Teams around the world are looking for alternatives to Jira, whether due to changing project requirements, a preference for open source solutions or rising costs. However, switching tools is often easier said than done – especially if a seamless migration solution is not readily available. We at OpenProject are currently developing a Jira migration tool to meet this need. With version 17.2 in February 2026, it has been released under feature flag – meaning it is in its final testing phase and soon to be released to our users.
The challenge: Migrating from Jira to OpenProject
For many teams, Jira has long been the project management tool of choice. In many cases, simply out of habit and a lack of time to start over. Especially since Atlassian continues to raise prices and “lock-in” users into their cloud offering, more and more organizations are rethinking their options and looking for cost-effective open source alternatives that are trustworthy and feature-rich.
However, switching from Jira to OpenProject presents challenges:
Time constraints – teams often don’t have the resources to manually migrate their projects.
Technical complexity – a migration tool must be able to handle issues, work logs and custom fields.
Lack of ready-made solutions – until now, there was no specific importer tool that guides the user through a migration process.
The solution: The Jira Migrator, official migration wizard from OpenProject
In current beta version, the Jira Migrator is able to import the following basic data:
Projects
Issues (name, title, description, attachments)
Users (name, email, project membership)
Statuses
Types
With upcoming releases, we aim to also include importing:
Workflows
Custom fields
Issue relations
Permissions
Currently, we only support Jira Server/Data Center versions 10.x and 11.x. Cloud instances are not supported at this time.
Please be aware that right now (March 2026), this feature is still under active development. We know that many users are eagerly awaiting the release, and we are working hard to provide a high-quality migration tool soon.
Watch this video to learn how the OpenProject Jira Migrator will support teams in their Jira exit:
We at OpenProject want to help finding migration solutions
At OpenProject, we want to support solutions that make migration easier. Many teams want to make the switch but don’t have the time or technical skills to do so. Which is why, in the past months, the OpenProject core team was quite busy working on a Jira Migrator.
To support the development of the official migration tool, we are collecting anonymized data samples. This data helps test and validate import capabilities across different JIRA and Confluence configurations. Please reach out to us if you want to donate your data, we will sign an NDA to ensure confidentiality.
OpenProject 17.2 has been released and introduces several improvements across the platform. This release opens new possibilities for integrating AI into your project workflows, improves transparency on the Project Overview page, and continues our work on usability and accessibility.
One highlight of this release is the introduction of the MCP Server, which enables secure connections between OpenProject and AI systems while keeping full control over how project data is accessed.
In this article, we highlight the most important changes and what they mean for your daily work. As always, please see our release notes that contain the complete list of features, changes, and bug fixes.
Bring AI to your projects with secure MCP Server (Professional plan and higher)
Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming part of everyday work. Teams are exploring AI assistants that can answer questions, summarize information, and help analyze project data.
Many organizations are therefore asking the same question: How can we bring AI into our project workflows without losing control over our data and systems?
With OpenProject 17.2, we introduce the MCP Server, a new capability that enables secure connections between OpenProject and AI systems.
The MCP Server implements the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and exposes OpenProject’s APIv3 resources as MCP-compatible endpoints. This allows external tools, including large language models (LLMs) and other MCP clients, to access structured project data from OpenProject in a controlled way.
With this connection in place, AI assistants can interact with real project context. For example, they can summarize project status, analyze dependencies between work packages, or support planning workflows based on up-to-date information from OpenProject.
At the same time, control remains fully in your hands. The MCP Server integrates with OpenProject’s authentication mechanisms, including OAuth2, API tokens, and external OpenID Connect providers. Administrators can configure the server directly in OpenProject and control aspects such as response formats and response volume.
The MCP Server was sponsored and developed with the support of Mercedes-AMG, who are actively using it in their OpenProject environment. Their collaboration helped shape the feature based on real-world requirements and demonstrates how large organizations can benefit from securely connecting AI workflows to their project data.
Administrators can configure the MCP Server directly in the OpenProject administration interface and control aspects such as response formats and response volumes. This allows organizations to decide how their project data is exposed and how external tools interact with it.
The MCP Server is available as an Enterprise add-on in the Professional plan and higher. See our pricing page and contact us for more information on upgrading to a higher plan.
Reusable meeting templates (Basic plan and higher)
Preparing meetings often involves recreating the same agenda structure again and again. With OpenProject 17.2, administrators can now define reusable meeting templates that provide a predefined agenda layout for their teams.
Instead of starting from scratch, users can select a template when creating a meeting. The agenda will automatically include predefined sections and items.
This saves time when preparing meetings and helps teams reuse proven formats for discussions and decision-making.
Note
The reusable meeting templates are available as an Enterprise add-on in the Basic plan and higher. See our pricing page and contact us for more information on upgrading to a higher plan.
Project Overview improvements with budget widgets and improved accessibility
OpenProject 17.2 enhances the Project Overview page to provide clearer financial insights, easier editing, and improved accessibility.
Budget widgets for financial insights
Project managers and stakeholders can now see key financial indicators directly on the Overview page.
New widgets display information such as:
planned budget
actual costs
spent budget
remaining budget
Visual breakdowns by cost type and recent monthly actuals help teams understand financial trends directly within the project context.
Inline editing for project description and status
The project description and project status widgets on the Overview tab can now be edited directly inline. Authorized users can update information directly where it is displayed.
Improved accessibility of Project Overview and dashboard widgets
We have significantly improved the accessibility of widgets on both the Project Overview and Project dashboard pages. Widgets are now fully operable via keyboard, provide clearer structural semantics for screen readers, and follow WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines for focus management, labeling, and navigation order.
These improvements ensure that project information and controls are accessible to all users, including those relying on assistive technologies.
Comment fields for project attributes
Project attributes often require additional explanation. For example, a chosen value may depend on assumptions, governance decisions, or project-specific context.
With OpenProject 17.2, administrators can now enable comment fields for project attributes. This allows users to document the reasoning behind selected attribute values directly where the attribute is maintained.
Comments follow the same permission logic as the attribute itself and are:
displayed alongside the attribute on the Project Overview page
tracked in project activity
included in exports
accessible via the API
This provides additional transparency and helps teams better understand important project decisions.
PDF export improvements
OpenProject 17.2 enhances PDF exports to provide more comprehensive reporting.
Work package queries can now include relationship columns, which are exported as structured tables in the PDF report. This ensures that dependencies between work packages remain visible in exported documentation.
In addition, WebP images embedded in work package descriptions are now supported in exported PDFs.
Require login before opening external links (Premium plan and higher)
Following external links inside collaboration platforms can sometimes pose security risks.
Building on the external link safety options introduced in OpenProject 17.1, OpenProject 17.2 adds the option to require users to be logged in before opening external links.
When this setting is enabled, users must authenticate before they can follow external links.
Note
This feature is available as an Enterprise add-on in the Premium plan and higher. See our pricing page and contact us for more information on upgrading to a higher plan.
UX/UI updates with the Primer design system
OpenProject continues the transition to the Primer design system, helping unify the user interface across the application.
Backlogs module update
The Backlogs module has been updated using Primer components. This results in a cleaner layout and more consistent interaction patterns.
Work packages can now also be viewed in a split screen, allowing teams to manage backlog items while reviewing work package details.
Improvements in administration interfaces
Administrative interfaces for Custom Fields, Versions, and Groups have also been aligned with the Primer design system.
OpenProject 17.2: Migration, installation, updates and support
You will find more information about all new features and changes in our Release notes and in the OpenProject Documentation.
If you need support, you can post your questions in the Community Forum, or if you are eligible for Enterprise support, please contact us and we will be happy to support you personally.
New to OpenProject? To test all features of OpenProject 17.2 right away, create a 14 days free trial instance for our OpenProject Enterprise cloud.
Prefer to run OpenProject 17.2 in your own infrastructure? Here you can find the Installation guidelines for OpenProject.
A very special thank you goes to Mercedes-AMG for sponsoring the MCP server feature and supporting its development. Your collaboration and real-world feedback helped shape this functionality and demonstrate how large organizations can benefit from securely connecting AI workflows to their project data in OpenProject.
We would also like to thank Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, City of Cologne, Deutsche Bahn and ZenDiS for sponsoring released or upcoming features. Your support, alongside the efforts of our amazing Community, helps drive these innovations. Also a big thanks to our Community members for reporting bugs and helping us identify and provide fixes. Special thanks for reporting and finding bugs go to Alexander Aleschenko, Gabor Alexovics, Jörg Mollowitz and Александр Татаринцев.
Last but not least, we are very grateful for our very engaged translation contributors on Crowdin, who translated quite a few OpenProject strings! This release we would like to particularly thank the following users:
Adam Siemienski, for a great number of translations into Polish.
Mehmet Coşkun, for a great number of translations into Turkish.
Liangzdz, for a great number of translations into Chinese Simplified.
Would you like to help out with translations yourself? Then take a look at our translation guide and find out exactly how you can contribute. It is very much appreciated!
As always, we welcome any feedback on this release.
Login
