Migrating off Jira with one command: radial import --from jira

Most Jira migration guides are about moving from one Jira to another: Server or Data Center to Cloud, run the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant, plan the maintenance window, pre-load users. That is a real project, and Atlassian's tooling handles it. This guide is about the other migration: the one where you are leaving Jira for a faster, focused tracker and the only thing standing between you and the switch is your data.

For Radial, that part is a command. You export your Jira project, run radial import --from jira against the file, and your issues, projects, labels, comments, and history come across in a single run. Dry-run it first so you see exactly what lands before you commit.

#The two-minute version

If you already have a Jira export on disk, the whole move is two commands:

npm i -g radial.build
radial import --from jira export.json --dry-run

The --dry-run flag does everything except write. It reports how many issues it would create, how many would fail, plus the relations, comments, and new labels it would build, and it surfaces warnings for anything it cannot map cleanly. When the dry run looks right, drop the flag and run it for real:

radial import --from jira export.json -t ENG

The -t ENG puts the imported issues on your ENG team. That is the entire migration for a single project. No assistant app, no maintenance window, no overage to budget for.

#What actually comes across

The import is a deep import, not a flat issue dump. In one run it brings:

• Issues, with their titles, descriptions, and status mapped to Radial's workflow.
• Projects, so the structure you had in Jira is not flattened into one bucket.
• Labels, created as needed (the dry run tells you how many are new).
• Comments, preserved on the issues they belong to.
• History and relations, so the links between issues survive the move.

When the run finishes, you get a one-line summary of what landed: issues created, any that failed, plus relations, comments, and new labels created, followed by up to ten warnings for anything that needed a judgment call. Because every command takes --json, you can also pipe that summary straight into a script if you are migrating several projects in a loop:

radial import --from jira export.json --dry-run --json

One honest caveat worth stating up front: the import is single-run. Re-running the same file imports it again rather than reconciling, so there is no cross-run idempotency yet. Dry-run first, run once, verify. If you are moving many projects, do them one file at a time and check each summary.

#Why teams make this move, and why some shouldn't

People do not leave Jira because it is bad. They leave because they adopted it for engineering work and never needed its enterprise breadth, and the weight became a tax they pay every day. If a board that takes seconds to load and a workflow you configured for a week is your pain, a fast tracker fixes it.

But the reason that the usual alternatives miss is the bill. Jira is per seat per month, and its AI layer, Rovo, ships a monthly credit allowance per seat with overage billing, and Rovo Dev is a further charge per developer. The subscription is the base; the AI is a meter. Switch to another per-seat-plus-meter tracker and you have changed the logo, not the trajectory.

Radial is a fast, keyboard-first issue tracker priced at one flat number: $50 per user, per year, billed annually, locked at the rate you join. There is no AI credit balance, no usage meter, and no overage line, because there is no AI in the product to meter. Your agents ride free: every agent credential is a client of the API, not a billed seat. The commitment behind that is the Plain Software Pledge, written down: the day Radial ships a copilot, meters your usage, or charges you for AI you didn't ask for, your subscription is free.

This is not anti-AI. Your agent doing real work is great. The point is that the tracker is not where that intelligence should live or get billed; it is the fast system of record your agent writes to over a real CLI, REST API, and MCP server.

A fair guide names the gaps, too. Radial does not have Jira's breadth: no portfolio or initiative layer, no burndown or velocity dashboards, no Gantt roadmap, no thousand-app marketplace, no cross-department workflow engine. If you genuinely run fifty teams with fifty workflows and a compliance audit suite, Jira is built for that and Radial is not. Better to know before you export than to discover it after.

#FAQ

#What will replace Jira for my team?

There is no universal replacement, because teams leave Jira for different reasons. If the pain is speed, a fast focused tracker is the fix; if it is data ownership, the self-hosted field (Plane, OpenProject) is real; if it is the bill that keeps moving, you want a tool with one flat price and no AI meter. Pick by the reason you are leaving, not by whichever tool tops a listicle. We sorted the full field in the best Jira alternative depends on what made you leave.

#Is Jira being phased out?

No. Jira remains dominant in enterprise, and Atlassian is migrating Data Center customers to cloud rather than retiring the product. What is shifting is narrower: teams that adopted Jira for engineering but never needed its enterprise breadth are increasingly moving to faster, focused trackers. That is a fit problem, not obsolescence.

#How do I export my data from Jira?

Jira can export project data to JSON (and individual issue lists to CSV) from its own admin and search-export tooling. Once you have that file, point Radial at it: radial import --from jira export.json --dry-run. The dry run reads the file and reports exactly what it would create without writing anything, so you can confirm the mapping before the real run.

#Will I lose my comments and history?

No. The import preserves comments on the issues they belong to and brings history and relations across, not just bare issue titles. The dry-run summary counts the comments, relations, and labels it would create, so you can verify the totals against Jira before you commit.

#Can my coding agent run the migration?

Yes. The import is available over the REST API (POST /v1/import) with a scoped API key, so an agent you authorize can run the move, or script it across several projects, without a human at the keyboard. Agents are clients of the API, not billed seats, so wiring one up costs nothing extra. Once you are on Radial, your agent files, triages, and closes issues over the MCP server at mcp.radial.build too.

#The short version

Moving off Jira is usually gated by the export, not the decision. Radial makes the export the easy part: radial import --from jira brings issues, projects, labels, comments, and history across in one run, and --dry-run shows you the result before you commit. What you migrate into is a fast tracker with one flat locked price, no AI meter, and a pledge that pays you if we ever add one.

See the one number on pricing, or read why is Jira so slow for the engineering reason the weight is not free.