Jira and Confluence to GitLab Migration Services
- Atlassian Gold Solution Partner
- GitLab Select Partner
- Delivering since 1999
- Public & private sector
ReleaseTEAM has spent more than 25 years helping engineering organizations get the most from their tools, and two of the platforms we know best are Atlassian and GitLab. We sell, implement, support and migrate both, for more than 300 Atlassian customers and more than 200 GitLab customers. We’re proud partners of both companies and big fans of both products.
We’re an Atlassian Gold Solution Partner and a GitLab Select Partner. Select is GitLab’s invitation-only partner track, for partners making a greater investment in GitLab sales and services.
That’s why we’re good people to talk to when you’re deciding where your planning and documentation should live. Some teams are best served by consolidating Jira and Confluence work into GitLab. Some are best served by staying on Atlassian and connecting it tightly to GitLab. We can help with either path, and we’ll tell you honestly which one fits.
The short answer: we start with a decision, not a migration. There are three good outcomes. You can stay on Atlassian and integrate with GitLab, consolidate planning and documentation into GitLab, or move in phases, with both platforms connected while teams transition. We help you choose based on your people, your compliance boundary and your roadmap, then deliver whichever you pick.
Two great platforms, one honest choice
Jira and Confluence are some of the most widely adopted planning and knowledge tools in the world. They are flexible and deeply configurable, with a large Marketplace ecosystem, and they work for teams far beyond software engineering. GitLab is a single DevSecOps platform, so source code, CI/CD, security scanning, planning and documentation share one data model and one permission system.
Neither is the “wrong” answer. The right one depends on what your organization needs most:
Staying on Atlassian often fits when…
Planning spans many non-engineering teams, such as HR, legal, marketing and service desks. You also rely heavily on Marketplace apps or Jira Service Management, and Atlassian Cloud or Atlassian Government Cloud meets your compliance needs.
Consolidating into GitLab often fits when…
Most of your planning users are engineers already working in GitLab. You want requirements, code, pipelines and security results in one audit trail, or you need everything inside a self-managed or air-gapped boundary that you control.
A phased path often fits when…
Different programs have different needs, or you want to move engineering first while business teams stay put. GitLab’s Jira integrations keep both sides linked during the transition, or permanently.
Facing Atlassian Data Center end of life? Atlassian has announced that Data Center products reach end of life on March 28, 2029, with new-subscription sales for new customers having ended on March 30, 2026. That is a good moment to review your options, and one of those options is Atlassian Cloud. We run Atlassian Cloud migrations too, and for government teams, Atlassian Government Cloud. See our Data Center end-of-life guide for the full timeline.
How Jira and Confluence concepts map to GitLab
Most Jira concepts have a direct counterpart in GitLab’s planning tools. The mapping below is where every migration plan starts. The details, like custom fields, workflows, and how history and attachments are carried across, are where our experience makes the difference.
| In Jira / Confluence | In GitLab |
|---|---|
| Jira project | GitLab project, with related projects organized into groups |
| Epic, and epic hierarchies in Advanced Roadmaps | Epics (Premium). Nested, multi-level epics (Ultimate) |
| Story, bug, task | Issues, broken down into child tasks with their own assignees |
| Sprint | Iterations and iteration cadences (Premium) |
| Fix version / release | Milestones |
| Workflow status | Status on issues and tasks, or scoped labels such as workflow::in-review (both Premium) |
| Scrum and Kanban boards | Issue boards, with lists by label, assignee, milestone or iteration, and epic swimlanes (Premium) |
| Timeline / Advanced Roadmaps | Roadmaps (Premium) |
| Development panel links to code | Native links between issues, merge requests, pipelines and deployments |
| Confluence space and page tree | Project and group wikis, stored as Markdown in Git |
What GitLab’s built-in importer does, and where we come in
GitLab includes a Jira issue importer on every tier. It is a solid starting point, but it is deliberately simple. According to GitLab’s documentation, it imports each issue’s title, description and labels, and places other Jira metadata into the description as plain text. Jira formatting is not converted to GitLab Flavored Markdown, and assignees and comments are on GitLab’s roadmap rather than in the importer today.
Confluence has no GitLab importer. GitLab’s Confluence integration adds a link from a project to an existing Confluence Cloud workspace, which is useful if you keep Confluence, but it does not move content.
For most organizations that’s not enough on its own, so our migrations add the pieces that matter:
- Field and workflow mapping agreed with your teams before anything moves, including custom fields, statuses, components and issue links.
- Carrying history across: comments, attachments, links and authorship, using the Jira, Confluence and GitLab APIs where the built-in importer stops.
- Confluence to wiki conversion, with an honest plan for macros and page layouts that have no one-to-one Markdown equivalent.
- Reconciliation: counts and spot checks proving what arrived matches what left, before you retire anything.
- Pilot first: one team or program moves end to end, and the lessons shape the full rollout.
Our Jira and Confluence to GitLab services
Platform decision workshop
A vendor-neutral review of your teams, integrations, compliance boundary and licensing, ending with a clear recommendation: stay, move or phase.
Migration planning & mapping
Inventory of projects, spaces, custom fields, workflows and Marketplace apps, with a mapping to GitLab and a cutover plan your teams sign off on.
Pilot & full migration
Issues, epics, history, attachments and documentation moved and reconciled, program by program, with minimal disruption to delivery.
Integrate instead of migrate
Keep Jira and Confluence and connect them to GitLab with the GitLab for Jira Cloud app or GitLab’s Jira integrations for Cloud and Data Center.
GitLab planning setup & training
Groups, epics, iterations, boards, scoped-label workflows and templates configured for how your teams work, plus hands-on training.
Licensing for both platforms
As a partner to both Atlassian and GitLab, we can quote and right-size either platform, or both, so the decision isn’t distorted by licensing.
Who we help
- Software and product companies consolidating their toolchain so planning, code and delivery share one source of truth.
- Regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare and manufacturing, where traceability from requirement to deployment has to hold up in an audit.
- Public sector, defense and secure environments running GitLab self-managed inside their own accredited boundary, including offline and air-gapped networks. See GitLab agile planning for secure and air-gapped environments.
- Atlassian customers planning their next step, whether that is Atlassian Cloud, Atlassian Government Cloud, GitLab, or a combination.
Frequently asked questions
Do we have to choose between Atlassian and GitLab?
No. Many of our customers run both. Jira and Confluence handle planning and knowledge across the business, and GitLab handles source code, CI/CD and security. GitLab’s Jira integrations connect the two so issues, commits, merge requests and deployments stay linked. We set up and support that model as readily as a full migration.
Does GitLab import Jira issues on its own?
Yes, on every tier. GitLab’s built-in importer brings in each issue’s title, description and labels, and adds other metadata to the description as plain text. It does not convert Jira formatting to Markdown, and it does not currently import assignees or comments. For a complete migration with history intact, we add mapping, API-based transfer and reconciliation around it.
Can GitLab replace Confluence?
For engineering documentation, often yes. GitLab project and group wikis are Markdown stored in Git, versioned alongside your code. There is no official Confluence importer, so content is converted, and Confluence macros and rich layouts need a plan. For company-wide knowledge bases used by non-technical teams, Confluence remains an excellent choice, and many organizations keep it.
Which GitLab tier do we need for Jira-style planning?
Issues, tasks, milestones and basic boards are available on every tier. Epics, roadmaps, iterations, scoped labels and epic swimlanes need Premium. Multi-level epics, requirements management and DORA metrics need Ultimate. We’ll match the tier to the features your teams actually use. Our GitLab licensing comparison has the detail.
We’re on Atlassian Data Center. Do we have to move to GitLab?
Not at all. Atlassian Cloud, and for government customers Atlassian Government Cloud, are the paths Atlassian provides, and we migrate customers to both. GitLab is another option worth weighing if your planning is mostly engineering work. We’ll help you compare them fairly.
How long does a migration take?
It depends on the number of projects and spaces, how customized your Jira workflows are, and how much history needs to move. A pilot of one team or program is usually the fastest way to get a reliable estimate for the rest. Contact us and we’ll scope it with you.
GitLab feature and tier details verified 24 September 2026 against GitLab’s documentation. Atlassian Data Center dates verified against Atlassian’s Data Center end-of-life page. Atlassian partner status per the Atlassian Partner Directory; GitLab Select track per GitLab’s Channel Program Guide. Both platforms evolve quickly, so confirm current terms before you budget. ReleaseTEAM is an Atlassian Gold Solution Partner and a GitLab Select Partner.
Stay, move or both? Let’s work it out together.
Talk to a team that has spent decades with both Atlassian and GitLab. We’ll help you make the right call, then deliver it.
Speak With An Expert