Should I use Connect or Forge

Jira Development Jira Cloud
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Hi, please I am new to development in Jira and I want to know, is it better for me to use Forge or Connect to build apps… are there any major advantages as to what you can do with one or the other aside from the topic of management of infrastructure or handling of authentication

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As always… it depends.

I think it is important to realise that Forge is the preferred platform by Atlassian. Although Connect is officially still supported, it is a public secret that Atlassian will be sunsetting it eventually.

However, Forge is currently far from production ready for any complex app. This is mostly related to the quotas and limitations, but most importantly, there are two specific issues that are important for commercial exploitation of Forge:

  1. Forge does not support data residency. It is currently only available on US east region AWS infrastructure, meaning that all data will travel through US. From a GDPR/privacy perspective, this is an important limitation for commercial exploitation, as many customers will ask questions about this

  2. Atlassian does not provide any warranty with regard to the security, reliability and availability of Forge. You are running on Atlassian infrastructure, but Atlassian will not take responsibility for any data loss / outage. Atlassian also discourages off-site back-ups of customer / end-user data, which is also one of the primary reasons to use Forge / unique selling points of Forge (that end-user data does not leave Atlassian infrastructure).

In addition, it is also very unclear what Atlassian will be charging for Forge. It is currently still free, but eventually it is expected that developers will have to pay for Forge resource usage.

In the end, all limitations of Forge will probably be resolved, but it will take some time. If you want to start monetising on the Atlassian Marketplace, I would recommend using Connect. If this is a simple app, in-house app or if you are a start-up that just wants to get started and think about the legal/commercial aspects later, you might want to chose for Forge.

So basically… it depends.

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wow… thank you so much… I am just a beginner in building atlassian apps so this is really helpful