Guest Accounts for Jira: Why Wait When You Can Collaborate Securely Today?
There’s been a lot of buzz lately around the possibility of Guest Accounts for Jira Cloud - a new way to invite external users into your instance without granting full licenses. It sounds great on paper. After all, Confluence already offers a Guest Account feature, and it’s natural to expect Jira to follow.
But here’s the truth: while Atlassian might eventually roll out some form of guest access, you don’t have to wait to collaborate securely with external stakeholders. There already exists a perfect solution - External Share for Jira .
Guest Access Sounds Promising… But It’s Still a Mystery
Atlassian may be considering creating the Guest Account for Jira feature, but the details are still vague. We don’t know when it will launch, what limits it will have, or how it will affect user management and billing.
If we take the Confluence model as a reference point, guest accounts may allow external users to access specific spaces or work items with restricted permissions, but still within a licensed, controlled structure. That means:
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limited flexibility (access only within certain scopes),
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additional admin setup,
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and possible licensing or access limitations per organization.
That might be fine for teams that only need a few external users to see a few tasks, but if you regularly collaborate with clients, vendors, or contractors, this model may quickly become impractical (and costly).
Why Wait When You Can Share Securely Now?
External Share for Jira is already solving this problem for hundreds of teams - long before a built-in Guest Account feature for Jira was even mentioned.
With it, you can:
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Share individual work items (issues), boards, filters, or timelines securely with people outside your Jira instance.
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Keep full control over access - limit by email or domain, add passwords, expiration dates, IP restrictions, and more.
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Collaborate effectively - external users can comment, attach files, or even edit the content without a Jira license.
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Customize the experience - apply your company branding over shared content.
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Work immediately - no need to reconfigure permissions, manage licenses, or wait for new features to roll out.
And the best part? External Share for Jira allows you to collaborate securely without increasing your Jira license count. In today’s pricing environment, that’s a huge advantage. ( If you missed our article on the Atlassian pricing model changes and their impact on Marketplace apps, it’s worth a read. )
A Look Back: Guest Accounts vs. External Share for Confluence
We’ve already compared Guest Accounts for Confluence with External Share for Confluence, and the differences were clear. While both - Guest accounts and External Share for Confluence - make it easier to collaborate with people outside your organization, they serve different purposes. Guest Accounts are great for giving a small number of external users continuous access to one Confluence space, ideal for long-term, low-change collaboration. External Share, however, takes flexibility much further. It lets you share individual pages or spaces securely, customize access settings, add branding, and do it all without increasing your Confluence license count.
If your setup is simple and static, guest access may be enough. But if you’re looking for dynamic, secure, and controlled collaboration that adapts to your workflow - External Share is built for you.
You can read that full comparison here: Guest Accounts for Confluence vs. External Share for Confluence . And when the Guest Account feature finally arrives for Jira, we expect the same conclusion.
The Bottom Line
If you need secure, flexible collaboration in Jira today, there’s no reason to wait.
Guest Access might come someday, but External Share for Jira is already here, proven, and packed with all the features and flexibility you might need to share work confidently. Try it for free , and experience external collaboration that fits your workflow, no waiting, no guessing, no license juggling.