Cloud is the default path, not the only one
Atlassian Data Center end of life arrives on March 28, 2029. Every organization running Jira, Confluence, or Jira Service Management on Data Center now has to choose a destination. For most teams, Atlassian Cloud is the natural next step, and we covered that path in Why Now Is the Time to Prepare for Cloud Migration.
Some teams have good reasons to look elsewhere. An engineering organization that already runs GitLab for source control and CI/CD may be better served managing its work there. A company standardized on Microsoft 365 may want its documentation in SharePoint, governed alongside the rest of its content.
The right answer depends on your requirements, existing investments, and risk tolerance. This post covers when switching makes sense, what the alternatives look like, and how to move without losing the history your teams depend on.
Five factors that should drive the decision
Start with requirements, not tools. These factors usually decide whether Cloud or a switch fits better:
- Data residency and sovereignty. Some contracts or regulations limit where data can live. Check whether Atlassian Cloud’s residency options meet them, or whether a self-managed GitLab instance is a better fit.
- Regulated workflows. If Jira or Confluence holds design controls or quality records, any move requires validation. That cost applies to every destination, so weigh it equally.
- Existing platform investment. Teams already paying for GitLab Premium or Ultimate, or for Microsoft 365, may be paying twice for overlapping capabilities.
- Marketplace app dependence. Heavy reliance on apps for test management, time tracking, or reporting can make a switch harder. Some app data has no clean equivalent outside Atlassian.
- Total cost. Compare full costs, not license prices. Include apps, security add-ons such as Atlassian Guard, migration services, retraining, and validation.
Moving Jira work to GitLab or GitHub
For engineering teams, GitLab is often the strongest alternative to Jira. Issues, epics, boards, milestones, and iterations cover most agile planning needs. Work items sit next to the code, merge requests, and pipelines that deliver them, so developers stop switching between tools. Self-managed GitLab also keeps data on infrastructure you control.
GitHub Issues and Projects offer a lighter option. They suit software teams that want simple planning close to their repositories and do not need complex workflows.
Be realistic about what does not map cleanly:
- Highly customized workflows with many statuses and transition rules
- Large numbers of custom fields
- Jira Service Management service desks, which need a separate ITSM destination
- Data stored by Marketplace apps
Teams with heavy requirements or test management needs may pair GitLab with a dedicated tool such as Codebeamer rather than forcing everything into one platform.
Moving Confluence to SharePoint
SharePoint makes the most sense for organizations already standardized on Microsoft 365. Documentation sits alongside Word files, Teams conversations, and existing retention and access policies. IT manages one platform instead of two.
The tradeoff is structure. Confluence is built around linked pages and spaces. SharePoint is built around sites, libraries, and permissions, so it takes more design work up front. Plan the site structure and navigation before moving any content.
Expect these problem areas:
- Confluence macros, which have no direct equivalent and must be rebuilt or flattened
- Links between pages, which often break unless they are remapped
- Attachments and embedded files
- Page version history, which may not carry over
Run a pilot on one representative space first. It will show quickly how much cleanup the rest of the migration needs.
What gets lost in a migration
Open source projects have been moving from Jira to GitHub for years, and their experience shows what to expect. When the Spring Data team migrated to GitHub Issues, it moved almost 15,000 tickets from 14 Jira projects. The team used the move to rethink conventions, including how commit messages reference issues.
Other projects reported gaps. Some could not carry over attachments, status transition history, or assignee mappings, and that information was lost when Jira shut down.
The lesson for enterprises is to decide early which history matters. A regulated team may need every transition and approval. A software team may only need open issues and recent history. That decision drives the tools, the effort, and the cost.
A Phased Approach to Leaving Atlassian Data Center
A phased migration limits disruption. The Apache Maven project documented a three phase switch from Jira to GitHub Issues that works well as a model:
- Stop new work in the old system. Turn on the new platform and route all new issues or pages there.
- Migrate history. Move existing records in batches, testing each batch before moving the next.
- Archive. Set Data Center to read only and keep it available for reference until retention requirements are met.
Add one more step: redirect old links. Jira issue keys and Confluence URLs appear in commit messages, documents, and emails. Mapping them to their new locations keeps that history usable.
What Regulated Industries Must Plan For
For medical device, aerospace, and automotive teams, changing a system of record is a validated change. Whether the destination is Atlassian Cloud, GitLab, or SharePoint, plan for:
- Validation of the new system for its intended use, following your computer system validation or CSA approach
- Audit trails that show who changed what and when, as 21 CFR Part 11 expects for electronic records
- Traceability between requirements, design, verification, and change records, which a migration can easily break
- Retention of historical records in the archived Data Center instance for as long as your quality system requires
Build these into the timeline from the start. Validation often takes longer than the data migration itself.
Alternatives to Atlassian Cloud when Data Center reaches end of life?
The main alternatives are GitLab or GitHub for Jira work and Microsoft SharePoint for Confluence content. GitLab fits engineering teams that want planning, code, and CI/CD in one platform, including a self-managed option. GitHub Issues and Projects fit lighter software workflows. SharePoint fits organizations standardized on Microsoft 365.
Many organizations will land on a hybrid: Atlassian Cloud for some teams and functions, and GitLab or SharePoint for others. A hybrid can work well, as long as you define which system owns each type of work and integrate them where needed.
SPK Helps You Choose And Execute
SPK is an Atlassian Gold Solution Partner, a GitLab Professional Services Partner, and a Microsoft partner. That gives us a practical view of each path rather than a stake in only one.
We start with a platform decision assessment built on our Atlassian Cloud Readiness Assessment. It reviews your environments, apps, integrations, and compliance needs, then compares Cloud, GitLab, SharePoint, and hybrid options on cost and risk. From there, our team carries out the move, whether that means an Atlassian migration, a GitLab implementation, or a move into Microsoft 365.
The 2029 deadline is fixed, but your destination is not. Contact SPK to talk through which path fits your teams.
