Top 11 Jellyfish Alternatives to Run Engineering with More Clarity

You’re here because you need more than numbers. You want something that actually helps you run faster, plan smarter, and lead with confidence. Maybe you’ve tried a few tools already, or you’re using Jellyfish and wondering if there’s something better.

You’re not alone. Many engineering leaders start looking the moment dashboards stop connecting with what’s really happening on the ground.

In this article, you’ll get a breakdown of proven alternatives that go beyond surface metrics. You’ll see what works, what doesn’t, and how each tool stacks up when it comes to real developer productivity and actionable insights. If you’re ready to make smarter decisions and lead your team with clarity, you’re in the right place.

But first...

What Is Jellyfish?

Jellyfish is a popular engineering management platform that helps you connect engineering investment with business outcomes.

You use it to track how much time your teams spend across roadmap work, infrastructure, support, or unplanned tasks. It’s built for measuring resource allocation, not execution.

If your main focus is budget justification or aligning engineering work to high-level goals, it still works well. You’ll get top-down reporting and clean visualizations, but the platform doesn’t dig deep into the actual development process.

Many engineering managers use it for executive reporting, especially when they want high-level insights into engineering efforts and budget allocations. But even after all of this, companies still need an alternative for their specific needs...

Why Find a Jellyfish Alternative?

At some point, you start to feel the limits. Jellyfish can be helpful, but it typically stops short of what you need to actually move faster, plan better, and support your team more effectively. If you're trying to improve how your engineering teams work day to day, these gaps become hard to ignore.

Here are the most common reasons you might look for a better fit:

• You’re stuck with rigid reporting, a clunky interface, and onboarding that feels slow and expensive.
• There’s a gap between the data you collect and the actual delivery process it’s meant to support.
• You can’t forecast well or shift quickly when priorities change.
• You need a tool such as Chrono Platform that turns insights into action across your full engineering workflow.

A good engineering analytics platform should support real-time insights, improve team efficiency, and give you a full view of what’s really happening across your engineering efforts.

Now that you know the gaps, let's go over our next point.

What to Look for in Jellyfish Alternatives

Jellyfish helped put engineering metrics on the map. It gave tech leaders a way to quantify team activity and link it to business outcomes. But as engineering orgs grow and evolve, so do their needs. Modern teams now require more than visibility – they need clarity, context, and cross-functional alignment.

Here’s what to look for in a next-gen software engineering intelligence platform (notice that you still need some of the metrics Jellyfish shows, but with deeper context and better execution):

• Real-time resource allocation by initiative, squad, or priority, so you can spot slowdowns before they spiral.
• R&D cost modeling and software capitalization support that helps you make your numbers board-ready.
• Forecasting tools to plan your roadmap and hire with confidence.
• Data unification across Git, Jira, calendars, and roadmaps, so you're not juggling tabs.
• Visibility into developer workload to keep an eye on burnout and bottlenecks.
• Insight layering built for both execs and team leads because you all need different views.
• Partner ecosystems that go beyond the tool itself, including fractional hiring and hands-on execution support.

The right engineering intelligence platform gives you numbers, but it also helps you tie those numbers back to decisions and team health. So, you should look for tools that make your engineering efforts easier to manage and more aligned with your organizational goals.

That brings us to this section:

Top 11 Jellyfish Competitors & Alternatives

You’ve got no shortage of options, but not all software development tools solve the right problems. If you're aiming to scale engineering productivity while staying aligned with your business objectives, it's key to invest in tools that offer you complete visibility and actionable metrics.

With the right setup, you can make faster data-driven decisions that support every individual team. Here are 11 Jellyfish alternatives that give you real control over developer experience and real-time visibility into your engineering efforts.

1. Chrono Platform: Best for R&D Audit Visibility and Capacity on Demand

Chrono Platform helps you stay on top of time, budget, and engineering output and all without the manual overhead. If you’re running an R&D-heavy team or juggling SR&ED claims, this platform gives you the structure you need.

You get clear tracking of engineering hours, project phases, and real-time reports built for R&D audits. 

Even better, Chrono supports real-time and retroactive data categorization. That way, you can organize engineering activities like code reviews, retrospectives, and refactoring cycles by initiative, team, or timeframe. That means faster audits, clearer ownership, and less digging through scattered data.

Basically, its comprehensive features support continuous delivery and progress over time.

Pro tip: Chrono can also bring in DevOps support or flexible hiring. That's great whether you need help with your day-to-day tasks or want to scale fast.

Pros:

• Made for CTOs and CPOs focused on business impact.
• Offers a free plan for up to 3 users.
• Covers cycle time analysis and project cost tracking for R&D.
• Has data categorization.
• Great for SR&ED and R&D tax reporting.
• Intuitive dashboards scale with growing teams.
• Strong DevOps and hiring add-ons available.

Cons:

• The free plan has limited retention.
• Pro and Enterprise features unlock deeper functionality.

Website: https://www.chronoplatform.com

Price (per user/month, in CAD):

• Free: $0 (Up to 3 users).
• Team: $15.
• Pro: $25.
• Enterprise: Contact sales.

Add-on services:

• Talent: $350/month + 7% commission for engineer-led hiring and vetting.
• Managed DevOps: From $1,150/month for CI/CD pipelines and 24/7 monitoring.
• Capacity On-Demand: $35,000/month for fully managed full-stack dev teams.

2. Allstacks: Has Predictive Analytics & Timeline Risk

Allstacks helps you forecast delivery risks before they turn into missed deadlines. It pulls in signals across your software development process and turns them into reports you can actually use.

If you're managing a growing software team and want tighter alignment between engineering and business outcomes, Allstacks gives you both performance tracking and R&D spend visibility. You also get customizable dashboards built for board-level conversations.

Pros:

• Strong forecasting tied to engineering metrics.
• Includes timeline risk tracking.

Cons:

• No Premium option above 500 contributors.
• Setup can feel manual, especially when adding new team members.
• Data isn’t always updated in real time.

Website: https://www.allstacks.com

Price:

• Premium: $400/year per contributor (up to 500 users).
• Enterprise: $550–$650/year (501+ users).
• R&D CAP add-on: $200 standalone or bundled up to $800.

3. DX: Has Developer Experience & Engineering Culture Insights

DX gives you a full view of how your team works and blends metrics with actual feedback from engineers. You’ll track more than just output.

With tools such as Core 4 and DXI, you can measure performance alongside developer experience, so you don’t have to guess where friction lives. It’s a great pick if you care about both delivery and culture.

Pros:

• Combines SPACE metrics with developer input for deeper insights.
• Supports custom dashboards, CapEx modeling, and AI reporting.

Cons:

• No public pricing models, so you’ll need to talk to sales.
• It may feel too broad if you just want a simple engineering analytics tool.

Website: https://getdx.com

Price: Custom pricing based on products and team size.

4. LinearB: Has Workflow Orchestration & Business Cost Mapping

LinearB gives you a way to connect day-to-day engineering work with business-level outcomes. It helps you automate parts of your development process while keeping an eye on delivery metrics such as cycle time and planning accuracy.

If you're working with larger teams and want to speed things up without adding chaos, LinearB gives you structure without too much overhead. It’s ideal if you're already deep into GitHub, Jira, or Slack workflows.

On the downside, LinearB accesses the full code repository to generate its metrics, which can pose serious security risks. In contrast, many other platforms limit data access to just pull request metadata, minimizing exposure. The need to scan an entire codebase may raise red flags for teams concerned about confidentiality or compliance, especially when sensitive or proprietary code is involved.

Pros:

• Good integrations
• Includes workflow automation with GenAI-based features.
• Strong metrics tracking for cycle time, pull requests, and delivery patterns.

Cons:

• Higher pricing tiers only available to larger teams.
• Dashboards are less flexible for custom tracking.
• Full repo access required, raising potential security and confidentiality concerns.

Website: https://linearb.io

Price:

• Business: $49/month per contributor (min. 50).
• Enterprise: Custom pricing (min. 100 contributors).

5. Swarmia: Has CI Visibility and Working Agreements

Swarmia helps you get clarity on how your team works, without overwhelming you with noise. It’s built around real-time data from your CI tools and lets you set working agreements that actually guide day-to-day habits.

If you're focused on tightening feedback loops and improving team collaboration, this one’s worth a look. You can keep an eye on things such as cycle time and work-in-progress without micromanaging.

Pros:

• Easy to use.
• Shows trends and outliers.
• Slack and CI/CD integrations give you instant context.
• Lets you track key metrics and set clear team norms.

Cons:

• Requires Jira process changes to align with its workflow, which can involve manual adjustments and guesswork.
• No public API, limiting integration with other tools and reducing opportunities for automation.
• Weekend time is counted in pull request metrics, skewing cycle time and review duration stats.
• Granularity is limited to full days. You can’t track in hours or fractions, making fast teams look slower than they are.

Website: https://www.swarmia.com

Price:

• Free: $0 (up to 9 developers; all modules included).
• Single Module: €20/month per developer (billed annually).
• Standard: €39/month per developer (all modules; billed annually).
• Enterprise: Contact sales for pricing and custom integrations.

6. GTMhub (now Quantive): Has OKR Alignment & Strategic Planning

Quantive helps you bridge the gap between high-level strategy and everyday execution. If your focus is OKR-driven planning, this platform gives you the structure and visibility to track how team outcomes map to company goals.

You’ll get AI-supported guidance to write stronger goals and connect them to real progress metrics across the tools you already use. It’s built for organizations aiming to stay aligned and outcome-focused at scale.

This is good for those managing complex software development life cycle stages, improving software delivery, and needing real-time analytics to stay on track.

Pros:

• Built-in goal tracking and executive reporting.
• Integrates with over 170 tools for full context.

Cons:

• Can’t clone an existing OKR.
• Needs more manual input.
• Not very intuitive.
• Very limited free tier.

Website: https://quantive.com

Price:

• Teams: $9/user/month (billed annually).
• Business & Enterprise: Custom pricing.

7. Glean: Offers Engineering Knowledge Retrieval at Scale

Glean helps you find what your team already knows – fast. If you're constantly switching between tools to locate past decisions, docs, or Slack threads, Glean pulls it all together with smart search powered by machine learning.

It’s built for scale, so even in large organizations, you can get the right information in seconds. Glean shines when your engineering team needs better context, faster onboarding, or fewer interruptions to ask, “Where was that again?”

Pros:

• Strong search across 100+ tools, including Google Workspace and Slack.
• Personalized results based on user activity and context.

Cons:

• Setup takes time, especially for big environments.
• No public pricing (you’ll need to request a quote).

Website: https://www.glean.com

Price: Custom pricing based on team size and features. According to Vendr, estimates range from $22K–$152K/year.

8. Athenian: Offers Mid-Market Forecasting & Workflow Visibility

Athenian helps you get a handle on how your engineering process actually runs. It’s built for growing teams that need better forecasting tools and a clearer view of where work is slowing down.

You’ll get real-time data across your workflows, with insights into code quality, cycle times, review phases, and delivery trends – all from a clean, accessible dashboard. If you’re leading a mid-sized software team and want to improve planning without adding more tools, Athenian makes that easier.

Pros:

• Strong visibility into workflow performance metrics and bottlenecks.
• Forecasting tools help with roadmap accuracy and team planning.

Cons:

• You may need to log in several times.
• Integrations may be limited compared to larger platforms.
• Pricing and feature breakdowns aren’t available upfront.

Website: https://www.athenian.com

Pricing: Pricing details are not publicly disclosed. If interested, you'll need to contact Athenian directly for a customized quote based on your specific needs.​

9. Uplevel: Good for Developer Workload & Burnout Prevention

Uplevel helps you keep your team productive without pushing them to the edge. You get visibility into meeting loads, after-hours work, and deep focus time, so you can catch burnout risks before they spread.

If you’ve got engineers stretched thin or struggling to stay in flow, Uplevel gives you clear, real-time data to rebalance the load. It’s especially useful for fast-growing teams trying to protect both delivery and well-being. With a dedicated dashboard for engineering leaders, it’s especially useful for fast-growing teams trying to protect both delivery and well-being.

Pros:

• Tracks focus time and detects after-hours patterns.
• Shows team dynamics across meetings, messaging, and contributions.

Cons:

• Integrations may be limited compared to broader engineering platforms.

Website: https://uplevelteam.com

Price: The pricing is not publicly listed, so you'll need to contact sales for a custom quote.

10. Propel (Product Ops): Great for Companies Doing CPO-Led Portfolio Planning

Propel is made for product leaders who need tight alignment across product development, quality, and go-to-market. If you’re leading portfolio planning from the CPO seat, this platform gives you full visibility into roadmaps, software development teams, team input, and execution, all in one system.

Built on Salesforce, it supports an end-to-end development workflow that keeps product and commercial teams on the same page. It’s a strong fit if your org is already running on Salesforce and needs more than basic planning tools with valuable insights built in.

Pros:

• Combines PLM, PIM, and QMS into a single platform.
• Customizable workflows to match your business processes.

Cons:

• Not ideal if you’re not using Salesforce.
• Feature depth may be too much for smaller teams.

Website: https://www.propelsoftware.com

Price: Propel offers custom pricing based on company size and use case. You’ll need to contact their sales team for a tailored quote.

11. Vareto: Finance-Side Headcount + Budget Modeling

If you’re looking for a strong finance-side partner to pair with execution tools like Chrono, Vareto fits the bill. It gives you detailed budget forecasting and headcount planning with an easy-to-use modeling engine.

You can collaborate live with finance teams using real-time data and AI-assisted planning. It’s especially helpful when you need visibility into financial variances and spending impact before making resourcing calls.

All of this while keeping your business goals in sight, improving time management, and supporting better delivery performance across your engineering organization.

Pros:

• Built-in multiplayer editing makes model updates quick and aligned.
• Supports AI-generated summaries and variance detection.

Cons:

• The setup may require technical help, especially if you're connecting multiple tools.
• Some users find the platform’s learning curve steep.

Website: https://www.vareto.com

Price: Vareto's pricing varies based on organizational needs and scale. According to Vendr, annual costs range from $19,500 to $40,000, with a median price of $30,000.

How to Choose the Right Jellyfish Alternative for Your Team

Not every platform will fix what’s slowing you down. The best choice will depend on where you need clarity or control. Here are the areas you should evaluate before committing to a switch:

• Map the tool to your blind spots, like hiring lag, roadmap slippage, and R&D investment alignment.
• For high-growth orgs, Chrono Platform closes the loop between delivery velocity and budget forecasting.
• Use it in PM/Eng prioritization meetings, board reporting, and headcount planning.

You’ll want a tool that gives comprehensive insights, works well across your collaboration tools, and supports real-time data for quicker decisions. Whether it’s about engineering efficiency or budget control, the right platform should help you act faster, not just see more.

Which Jellyfish Alternative Will You Pick?

The right engineering management platform doesn’t just help you visualize metrics. It gives you the power to act. If you want data-driven insights that actually help you guide decisions, you need more than just another dashboard.

Chrono Platform gives you the full picture. You get real signals around budget, headcount, and delivery speed, all in one place. Whether you're adjusting staffing plans or reporting to the board, Chrono helps you move with clarity.

CTOs and CPOs who care about operational efficiency and smart execution start here. Book a walkthrough or run a free engineering allocation audit in minutes.