This Tuskr vs Xray comparison covers licensing, storage, BDD, automation formats, API limits and list prices so you can see whether tests should be Jira work items or live in a separate application. Xray keeps tests inside Jira and bills on every user in the instance; Tuskr stores cases in its own cloud and licenses named testers who push failed runs to Jira. By the end you will know where list price breaks at your Jira size and which product documents Data Center, Gherkin and regional hosting.
Roundups often quote Xray’s lowest tier without your Jira headcount. Eight testers in a 100-user Cloud site list at $7,280 a year for Xray Standard and $720 for eight Tuskr Team seats; shrink Jira to ten users and the order reverses to $100 for Xray against Tuskr’s $450 five-seat minimum. The sections below work through scenarios, integrations and migration limits using the vendors’ published documentation.
Tuskr vs Xray for Jira: Which Test Management Tool Should You Choose?
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Jira user tier versus named testers. Xray’s licence follows your whole Jira instance. Tuskr bills only the people who log in to test.
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Jira work items versus a separate app. Xray stores tests inside Jira. Tuskr keeps tests in its own hierarchy and connects through an integration.
Tuskr vs Xray Side-by-Side Comparison
| Tuskr | Xray | |
|---|---|---|
| Best For | QA teams that are a small share of a larger Jira site, or that do not run Jira | Jira sites where most users test, Gherkin/BDD teams, and Jira Data Center customers |
| Starting Price | Team — $90 per user per year, or $9 per user per month; 5-user minimum | Standard — $10/month or $100/year flat for a Jira Cloud site of up to 10 users; $7,280/year at the 100-user tier |
| What the Licence Counts | Named Tuskr logins | Every user in the Jira instance |
| Free Plan / Trial | Free plan for up to 5 users; 15-day trial, no credit card | No free plan published; Cloud evaluation of at least 30 days, Data Center trial of 30 days |
| Deployment | Cloud only, hosted in the United States | Jira Cloud or Jira Data Center; Cloud data residency in the US, Germany or Australia |
| Where Tests Live | In Tuskr: project, test suite, section, test case | In Jira, as the work item types Test, Precondition, Test Set, Test Execution, Sub-Test Execution and Test Plan |
| Jira Relationship | Integration: creates Jira issues from failed tests, flags the test for retest when the bug is fixed | Xray is the Jira app; it does not run without Jira |
| API | REST; 1,200 / 2,400 / 4,800 calls per hour by paid plan; not on Free | REST and GraphQL; 60 / 100 / 200 calls per minute (Standard / Advanced / Enterprise) |
| Automation Result Formats | JUnit XML through the Tuskr CLI | Xray JSON, Cucumber JSON, JUnit, NUnit, xUnit, TestNG, Robot Framework, Behave |
| BDD / Gherkin | .feature import is on the roadmap backlog, not shipped | Native: Cucumber, SpecFlow, Serenity BDD, Behave |
| Key Differentiator | Cost follows tester headcount, whatever the size of your tracker | Tests are Jira work items, covered by one licence for the whole instance |
| Main Limitation | Cloud-only, JUnit XML only, SSO on the Enterprise plan only, plan caps on test cases and requirements | Price tracks Jira’s user tier, and versioning requires the separately priced Xray Enterprise app |
Quick verdict
If most of your Jira users test, you write Gherkin, or you need Jira Data Center, Xray is the better buy; otherwise — testers who are a small share of a Jira site above ten users, or no Jira at all — Tuskr costs less.
Key Differences Between Tuskr and Xray
- Xray bills on the Jira user tier; Tuskr bills named testers. Atlassian’s pricing FAQ on the Xray listing says apps for Jira Cloud “are priced based on the maximum users of the Jira app on your instance”. Tuskr sells named licenses: five licences means five login accounts, transferable when someone leaves. Filled to the top of the 25-, 50- or 100-user annual tier, Xray Standard works out to $72.80 per Jira user per year, against $90 per tester on Tuskr Team. Xray therefore costs less only when roughly four in five Jira users would otherwise need a Tuskr seat.
- Annual Xray Cloud licences round up to a tier; monthly ones bill per head. On monthly billing, Xray is a flat $10 up to 10 Jira users; above that it is billed per user, starting at the first user, so 11 users cost $80.08 a month on Standard. On annual billing the Marketplace calculator prices 11 users at the 15-user tier, so an eleventh Jira user takes Xray Standard from $100 to $1,092 a year. Tuskr has no tiers: after its five-seat minimum, each tester adds $90, $150 or $290 a year by plan.
- Tests are Jira work items in Xray and records in a separate app in Tuskr. Xray’s Cloud documentation says it works by using special Jira work item types, which lets you customize screens, workflows and attributes. Its Marketplace listing calls this native Jira issue types, not synced or duplicated data, although the privacy tab states that Cloud test data such as test steps is stored outside of Atlassian apps and services. Tuskr keeps tests in its own hierarchy and reaches Jira through an integration. Without Jira, Xray is not an option.
- Xray reads eight result formats and speaks Gherkin; Tuskr documents JUnit XML. Xray Cloud’s REST API has import endpoints for Xray JSON, Cucumber JSON, JUnit, NUnit, xUnit, TestNG, Robot Framework and Behave. Tuskr’s CLI has one import command, import-junit-xml. For a Playwright or Cypress pipeline that already emits JUnit XML, the gap does not matter. For a Cucumber, SpecFlow or Robot Framework team it decides the purchase.
- Xray’s versioning and 24/7 support sit in a second Marketplace app. Xray Enterprise is its own Marketplace listing with its own price: $13,200 a year at the 100-user Cloud tier against $7,280 for Standard. It adds test case versioning, the Test Case Designer, dynamic test plans built from JQL, unlimited storage and 24/7 support. Tuskr gates features by plan inside one product: single sign-on is Enterprise-only ($290 per user per year), two-factor authentication and audit trail start at Business, and caps on test cases and API calls rise with each plan.
What Are Tuskr and Xray?
Tuskr Cloud Test Management
Tuskr is a cloud test management application hosted on Google Cloud in the United States. It is sold per named user per year, with a free plan for up to 5 users and three paid plans. Paid plans include a REST API and an npm CLI, and Tuskr states ISO 27001 certification and a SOC 2 audit. Tests sit in a project, test suite, section and test case hierarchy, and the product covers test plans, test runs with bulk result entry, requirements whose status updates from test results, and built-in issue tracking. Tuskr is not a Jira app: it lists integrations with Jira and ten other trackers.
Xray for Jira
Xray is a test management app for Jira, published on the Atlassian Marketplace by Xblend and listed in the Sembi product portfolio alongside TestRail and Testmo. Its documentation calls it a complete test management tool for Jira that does not require any other software to run, Jira itself being the prerequisite. It installs on Jira Cloud and Jira Data Center. Cloud comes in Standard and Advanced editions, and Xray Enterprise is a separate listing. It handles manual, automated and BDD tests, requirement coverage, REST and GraphQL APIs and AI test case generation.
Tuskr vs Xray: Feature-by-Feature Comparison
Deployment and Where the Data Sits
Xray wins for any team that must self-host or choose a region. It runs on Jira Data Center as an annual subscription from $3,306 for up to 50 users, and its Cloud listing offers data residency in the United States, Germany and Australia. Tuskr is cloud-only: it publishes no self-hosted option, states United States hosting on Google Cloud, and offers no region choice.
Test Design: Reuse, Parameters and Structure
Xray documents more reuse machinery. Preconditions can be shared between tests, tests group into Test Sets, and parameterised tests take datasets of up to 1,000 iterations and 20 parameters. Its shared step library holds 10 steps on Standard and 100 on Advanced. Tuskr offers suites and sections, a rich-text editor with tables, custom fields by paid plan and test plans that create multiple runs from one plan. It does not document shared steps or parameterised tests.
BDD Flows and CI Tooling
Xray documents two Cucumber flows: write the scenario in Jira and export .feature files, or keep .feature files in Git and synchronise them into Xray. Its Jenkins plugin handles both the export and the result upload, and the Cloud documentation has integration pages for TeamCity, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket Pipelines, Azure DevOps, CircleCI, Maven and Gradle. Tuskr’s route is one CLI installed with npm. It uploads JUnit XML with attachments and creates the run, suites, sections and cases if they do not exist. Tuskr documents no named CI plugins and no BDD flow.
Requirements Coverage and Traceability
If your requirements are Jira stories, Xray has the shorter path. Any Jira work item type can be configured as coverable, coverage status shows on the work item itself, and cross-project reporting and traceability from requirement to defect are part of Standard. Tuskr has its own requirements records with caps by paid plan; an External ID field can hold a Jira key, but that is a reference, not a documented two-way sync.
API Allowances and Storage
Xray Cloud allows 60 API calls a minute on Standard, 100 on Advanced and 200 on Enterprise. Tuskr allows 1,200, 2,400 or 4,800 calls an hour by paid plan with a ceiling of 10 requests a second, and no API on Free. Sustained, Xray Standard’s 3,600 calls an hour exceeds Tuskr Business; Tuskr’s limit is hourly, so short bursts of up to 10 requests a second are allowed. Storage is 100 GB on Xray Standard and 250 GB on Advanced; Tuskr allots 5, 15 or 30 GB per user.
Tuskr vs Xray Pricing Comparison
Prices for this Tuskr vs Xray comparison were read on 17 September 2026 from tuskr.app/pricing and from the Atlassian Marketplace pricing calculator and pricing API for both Xray listings, in USD.
| Tuskr | Xray | |
|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | Free forever: up to 5 users, 5 projects, 1,000 test cases, 1 GB, no API | None published |
| Trial | 15 days, no credit card | Cloud: at least 30 days; Data Center: 30 days |
| Entry Paid Tier | Team — $90 per user per year, or $9 per user per month | Standard — $10/month or $100/year flat, up to 10 Jira users |
| Mid Tier | Business — $150 per user per year, or $15 per month; adds two-factor authentication and audit trail | Advanced — $12/month or $120/year flat, up to 10 Jira users |
| Top Tier | Enterprise — $290 per user per year, or $29 per month; adds single sign-on | Xray Enterprise (separate app) — $27.50/month or $275/year, up to 10 Jira users |
| Self-Hosted | Not offered | Data Center: $3,306/year up to 50 users, $7,274 up to 100, $9,919 up to 250, $18,515 up to 500 |
| Minimum | 5 users on paid plans ($450/year or $45/month on Team) | None; the whole Jira user tier is licensed |
| Unit Billed | Named Tuskr users | Jira users: per head monthly above 10, in tiers annually |
Xray Cloud annual list prices by Jira user tier, with the number of Tuskr Team seats the Standard price would buy:
| Jira Cloud User Tier | Xray Standard | Xray Advanced | Xray Enterprise | Tuskr Team Seats for the Standard Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | $100 | $120 | $275 | Below Tuskr’s 5-seat minimum ($450) |
| 15 | $1,092 | $1,311 | $1,980 | 12 |
| 25 | $1,820 | $2,185 | $3,300 | 20 |
| 50 | $3,640 | $4,370 | $6,600 | 40 |
| 100 | $7,280 | $8,740 | $13,200 | 80 |
| 200 | $10,980 | $13,180 | $19,310 | 122 |
| 500 | $18,130 | $21,750 | $31,590 | 201 |
List-price arithmetic, not a quote
Take a QA team of eight. On Tuskr it costs $720 a year on Team, $1,200 on Business or $2,320 on Enterprise. On Xray Standard the same eight people cost $100 a year in a 10-user Jira site, $3,640 in a 50-user site, $7,280 in a 100-user site and $18,130 in a 500-user site. Xray’s figures exclude the Jira subscription it requires. Xray’s licence covers every Jira user, so developers and product owners can open tests without another seat; each Tuskr login is a named licence.
Pros and Cons of Tuskr vs Xray
Tuskr
Pros
- Cost follows tester headcount: $90, $150 or $290 per named user per year
- Free plan for up to 5 users, and a 15-day trial with no credit card
- Works without Jira: eleven issue trackers are listed, plus built-in issue tracking
- One CLI command creates runs, suites and cases from JUnit XML
Cons
- Five-seat minimum; in a Jira site of ten or fewer, Xray’s $100 a year is cheaper
- Cloud-only with United States hosting; no region choice published
- JUnit XML is the only documented result format, and .feature import is still in the backlog
- SSO is Enterprise-only, 2FA and audit trail start at Business, and Team stops at 50,000 test cases
- Not a Jira app, so JQL and Jira workflows do not reach its tests
Xray
Pros
- Tests are Jira work items with customisable screens and workflows, plus dedicated JQL functions
- Eight result formats and native Cucumber, SpecFlow, Serenity BDD and Behave support
- Runs on Jira Cloud and Jira Data Center, with Cloud data residency in three regions
- $100 a year covers a whole Jira site of up to 10 users
Cons
- The licence tracks Jira’s user tier: eight testers in a 100-user site pay $7,280 a year
- Annual tiers round up, so an eleventh Jira user moves Standard from $100 to $1,092
- Requires Jira; no version that runs without it is published
- Test case versioning and 24/7 support need Xray Enterprise, a separately priced app
- DOCX, XLSX and PDF exports run through Xporter, a separate product
Who Should Use Tuskr vs Xray?
Choose Tuskr If…
- Your testers are a small share of a Jira site with more than ten users
- Your defects live in GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps, Linear or another non-Jira tracker
- Your automation already emits JUnit XML, for example from Playwright or Cypress
- You want a free plan to pilot on before any purchase
Choose Xray If…
- Your Jira site has ten or fewer users, or most of its users take part in testing
- You write Gherkin and run Cucumber, SpecFlow, Serenity BDD or Behave
- Your pipelines produce NUnit, xUnit, TestNG or Robot Framework results
- You run Jira Data Center, or need test data held in Germany or Australia
Look elsewhere if…
You need self-hosted test management and do not run Jira Data Center: Tuskr is cloud-only and Xray cannot run without Jira. Our TestRail vs Xray and TestRail vs Zephyr comparisons cover other pairings.
Migration and Switching Considerations
Both tools move test cases through files, with the same batch limit.
Into Xray. The Test Case Importer accepts a CSV or JSON source file with a maximum of 1,000 issues per import, and it appears only for users holding Jira’s Make Bulk Changes permission. Xray publishes a TestRail importer guide; none was found for Tuskr, so the route is Tuskr’s CSV export mapped onto the importer’s columns.
Into Tuskr. Import is UTF-8 CSV only, and a maximum of 1,000 test cases can be imported at a time. Tuskr’s one direct migration connects to TestRail, so Xray data arrives as CSV. A 12,000-case library means twelve batches in either direction. Neither vendor documents a way to carry execution history across.
Is Tuskr the Right Fit for Your Team?
Several teams reading this page are better served by Xray. If your Jira site has ten or fewer users, Xray costs $100 a year and Tuskr’s paid minimum is $450. If you write Gherkin, import NUnit, TestNG or Robot results, run Jira Data Center, need data held in Germany or Australia, or want tests to be Jira issues, Xray does those things and Tuskr does not document them.
Tuskr fits when the licence arithmetic is the problem. Eight testers cost $1,200 a year on Business whether the company’s Jira has 50 users or 5,000; Xray Standard starts at $3,640 for a 50-user site. It also fits teams whose bugs live outside Jira. Check plan caps on the pricing page before you buy.
Free plan for up to 5 users and a 15-day trial
No credit card required on the trial.
Tuskr gives us a well-structured test case database that makes quality coverage visible and measurable. When our Azure pipeline completes a run, the results are automatically sent through the Playwright integration and uploaded to Tuskr as a Test Run, giving our team a clear and centralized view of test execution and product quality.
Tuskr or Xray: Which Is Better?
Tester-to-Jira Ratio: Do the Math
Above roughly 80% of Jira users testing, Xray is cheaper; a site of ten or fewer pays only $100 a year on Standard. Below that ratio, eight testers in a 100-user site pay $720 on Tuskr Team against $7,280 on Xray.
BDD and CI Formats: Xray
Cucumber, SpecFlow, NUnit, xUnit, TestNG and Robot Framework are documented on Xray; Tuskr documents JUnit XML only.
Data Center and Regions: Xray
Jira Data Center and Cloud residency in the US, Germany or Australia; Tuskr is US cloud only.
No Jira Required: Tuskr
Tuskr is the only option of the two for teams that do not run Jira, with integrations to eleven trackers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Xray licensed by the number of testers or the number of Jira users?
By Jira users. Atlassian’s FAQ on the Xray listing says apps for Jira Cloud are priced on the maximum users of the Jira app on your instance. Data Center follows the same rule: the app tier should match the Jira licence tier. Tuskr licenses named users instead.
Which is cheaper for a 10-person QA team, Tuskr or Xray?
It depends on the size of your Jira site. Ten Tuskr Team seats cost $900 a year. Xray Standard costs $100 a year if Jira has 10 users or fewer, $1,092 at the 15-user tier, $3,640 at 50 and $7,280 at 100. These are annual list prices, and Xray’s exclude Jira itself.
Does Tuskr store test cases in Jira the way Xray does?
No. Xray creates tests as Jira work item types such as Test, Test Set and Test Execution. Tuskr stores test cases in its own application and integrates with Jira: a failed test can create a Jira issue, and when that bug is fixed Tuskr marks the test for retest.
Can Tuskr import Cucumber feature files or Cucumber JSON results?
Not according to its published documentation. Tuskr’s CLI documents one result format, JUnit XML, and its roadmap lists Import “.feature” Files in the backlog. Xray documents native support for Cucumber, SpecFlow, Serenity BDD and Behave, with a dedicated Cucumber JSON import endpoint.
Is there a standalone version of Xray that works without Jira?
None is published. Xray’s documentation describes it as a test management tool for Jira, and both Marketplace listings install on Jira Cloud or Jira Data Center. Xray Enterprise adds versioning and 24/7 support, and still runs inside Jira.
