Short answer: Portfolio by HeroCoders gives you portfolio views and per-person capacity planning on any Jira plan, including Jira Standard. Jira Plans only comes with Jira Premium and Enterprise, and it plans capacity team by team. If you need to know who's overbooked, which work is at risk and who has the right skills free, Portfolio goes further. If you're already in Jira Plans, the Plan Migrator brings your plans across in a few clicks.
Jira Plans is a good roadmapping tool. But roadmaps answer "what are we doing, and when?" Most delivery problems come from a different question: "do our people actually have room to do it?" That's the question Portfolio by HeroCoders is built around.
When Jira Plans is enough
If you're already on Jira Premium or Enterprise, Jira Plans covers the basics of cross-team planning. It works well if:
- your main need is a timeline-based roadmap across several teams
- you want to model "what if" scenarios or plan releases across projects
- you only need capacity at team level, for example a Scrum team's sprint capacity
If that's you, Plans may be all you need for now. Teams usually look further when the questions shift from the roadmap to the people delivering it.
Where Portfolio by HeroCoders goes further
Portfolio by HeroCoders is our project portfolio management (PPM) and capacity planning app for Jira. It's built natively on Atlassian Forge, so none of your data is ever stored outside your Jira instance.
It works on Jira Standard
You don't need to move your whole Jira site up a tier to get portfolio views and capacity planning. Portfolio works on Jira Standard as well as Premium and Enterprise. For many teams, that's the deciding factor.
Capacity per person, not just per team
The Capacity Planner works out each person's workload from the estimates already on your Jira work items, whether that's a time estimate or story points. Availability comes from each person's working hours and days, the holiday calendar for their location, and their vacation and sick days.
Workload is colour-coded, so you can see at a glance who's overbooked, fully booked, partially booked or off. Group it by person, team, role or project, view it by day, week or month, and drag bookings to rebalance. Changes sync straight back to Jira.
Alerts that catch risk early
In the Table view, Capacity Alerts flag overbooked assignees. Delivery Alerts flag work whose dates don't add up, or that's past its start or due date with no progress. Jira Plans doesn't have either.
Plan by role and skill (Advanced edition)
With the Advanced edition, roles, skills and resource requests let you plan for demand like "a Java developer, 40 hours, in May" before you know who will do the work, then find someone with the right skills who's actually free.
More ways to see the same work
Build a portfolio from any set of Jira work items and see it as a table, graph, treemap or pie chart, with a Gantt chart and dependencies in the Advanced edition. Edit work items inline, add fields and values directly from your portfolio, and use custom formulas to roll numbers up your hierarchy.
Your hierarchy, your way
Portfolio's own custom structures and multi-level grouping let you organise work however you like, on any Jira plan. If you're on Premium or Enterprise, Portfolio also displays Jira's custom hierarchy levels above epic.
Portfolio by HeroCoders vs Jira Plans at a glance
| Portfolio by HeroCoders | Jira Plans | |
|---|---|---|
| Jira plan needed | Works on Standard, Premium and Enterprise | Premium or Enterprise |
| Capacity planned for | Each person, grouped by user, team, role or project | Teams |
| Capacity based on | Your Jira time estimates or story points | Team capacity settings |
| Holidays and time off | Holiday calendars per location, plus vacation and sick days per person | Team level only |
| Capacity Alerts | Yes | No |
| Delivery Alerts | Yes | No |
| Roles, skills and resource requests | Yes (Advanced edition) | No |
| Views | Table, Graph, Treemap and Pie Chart, plus Gantt (Advanced edition) | Timeline-based roadmap |
| Hierarchy | Custom structures and multi-level grouping on any plan, plus Jira's custom levels on Premium and Enterprise | Jira's hierarchy, including custom levels above epic |
| Moving between them | Plan Migrator brings Jira Plans across | n/a |
Moving from Jira Plans to Portfolio
You don't have to rebuild your plans by hand. The Plan Migrator copies each plan's scope, exclusions, columns, groupings, sorting, hierarchy nesting, sharing and owner into Portfolio. Pick the plans you want, click Migrate selected, and you're ready to start planning capacity. We walk through it step by step in How to Migrate from Jira Plans to Portfolio by HeroCoders.
You can also run both. Some teams keep Jira Plans for scenario planning and use Portfolio for capacity and portfolio health.
Do you need Jira Premium?
Not for Portfolio. Your Jira plan and your Portfolio edition are separate decisions, and Portfolio's capacity planning and portfolio views work on Jira Standard. We cover this in more detail in Do You Need Jira Premium for Capacity Planning?
Jira Premium and Enterprise also include a built-in per-person capacity view, separate from Jira Plans. To see how that compares, read How Do You Do Capacity Planning in Jira in 2026?
FAQ
What's the difference between Portfolio by HeroCoders and Jira Plans?
Jira Plans is a cross-team roadmapping tool included in Jira Premium and Enterprise, with capacity planned per team. Portfolio by HeroCoders is a PPM and capacity planning app that works on any Jira plan, with per-person capacity, holiday calendars, Capacity and Delivery Alerts, and planning by role and skill.
Does Portfolio by HeroCoders work on Jira Standard?
Yes. Portfolio's capacity planning and portfolio views work on Jira Standard, Premium and Enterprise.
Is Jira Plans the same as Advanced Roadmaps?
Yes. Jira Plans is the current name for what used to be called Advanced Roadmaps.
Can I migrate from Jira Plans to Portfolio by HeroCoders?
Yes. The Plan Migrator moves your plans into Portfolio with their scope, columns, groupings, hierarchy nesting and sharing intact.
Can I use Portfolio by HeroCoders and Jira Plans together?
Yes. Portfolio works alongside Jira Plans, so you can keep Plans for roadmaps and scenarios and use Portfolio for capacity and portfolio health.
Can Portfolio by HeroCoders plan capacity in story points?
Yes. The Capacity Planner can use Story Points or Story Point Estimate, as well as Original Estimate or Remaining Estimate.
Where does Portfolio by HeroCoders store its data?
Portfolio is built natively on Atlassian Forge, so none of its data is stored outside your Jira instance.
See who really has capacity
Jira Plans shows you the roadmap. Portfolio by HeroCoders shows you whether your people can deliver it, with per-person capacity, holidays, alerts and planning by skill, on the Jira plan you already have.
