Yes, it’s happening again. Atlassian has introduced a new concept. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, Jira Projects are becoming Jira Spaces across Jira Cloud, while, separately, Atlassian Projects has become a thing, a high-level view of work progress across Atlassian apps. Keep reading to learn what’s changing, what's not, why these matters, and what you should consider.
Atlassian Projects is an executive-friendly project central that lives alongside the Goals, which allows C-Levels to be informed about all the work happening within the Atlassian Cloud platform. It’s important to be aware of and differentiate between this concept and the Jira Spaces concept. They are different on purpose.
Jira Spaces are available and rolling out!
And rolling out slowly until the end of 2025. As we commented a few days ago, Jira’s core container of work items is getting a new name: Jira Spaces. This change has been rolling across Jira Cloud; what we knew as Projects are now becoming Spaces, a language update intended to reflect how teams actually use Jira and to align with the other apps in the Atlassian Cloud platform.
Functionally, nothing about your data, workflows (JQLs), or permissions changes. Only the labels in the UI are the ones changing. Atlassian’s line of thought is simple: call the container what it is, a space to work, and keep Atlassian Projects (in Atlassian Home) as the place where organizations track big-picture initiatives, goals, timelines, and updates.
⚠️IMPORTANT⚠️This is just a name change. JQL keeps supporting the word “project” for better compatibility. Besides, Atlassian has also announced that it will introduce an alias for the word “space.” Also, and by now, Automation smart values still use as well.
What's a Jira Space?
A Jira Space, in Atlassian’s terms, is a configurable container for operational work, which comprises a collection of work items (stories, bugs, tasks, etc.) that a team uses to organize and track work for a product, project, or service. Each Space has a name and a key, and is highly customizable, so teams can adapt it to their needs.
What’s an Atlassian Project?
An Atlassian Project is a way for organizations with different Atlassian apps to keep the status of the work across them, at a high level. It’s the place to oversee aspects such as stakeholders, ownership, timeline, and overall project health.
Atlassian Projects provides clarity regarding work progress across different Atlassian apps, supporting consistent updates, admin-controlled access, and Data Residency controls across your whole set of Atlassian apps or collections.
Atlassian Projects differ from Jira Spaces in that one is high-level, and the other is a container for day-to-day work.
Distinguishing between changes: Atlassian Projects vs Jira Spaces
Importantly, as Atlassian has removed "Jira Projects," it has now introduced a separate concept in its platform: Atlassian Projects (previously known as Atlas). Atlassian Projects (accessible via Atlassian Home) are high-level containers for cross-team (and cross-tool) units of work with defined goals, updates, and timelines.
The concept of Atlassian Projects and Jira Projects has coexisted briefly. At that moment, the name overlap caused some confusion; hopefully, that's clear now, given that Jira Projects are now Jira Spaces.
Atlassian has made a clear separation between these two: Atlassian Projects (in Atlassian Home) represent an overall initiative with timelines and goals, and Jira Spaces represent the execution layer. They represent the structured work items and tasks to get the work done.
Atlassian Projects help teams communicate the “big picture” of their work, while Jira Spaces give them the structure to actually deliver it.
By having all these changes in the Atlassian Cloud platform, it’s also important to consider Data Residency and compliance aspects that will make it easier to manage Atlassian apps data. It’s possible to pin Atlassian Projects & Goals data to the same region as your Jira/Confluence data, and for most organizations, this is automatic.
An alternative: Jira Projects don't need to change
In the midst of this change, Projectrak for Jira comes as a great solution for those teams that feel impacted by this change. Especially those running a Jira-only stack.
If you need project portfolio governance in a simple way, Projectrak gives you project-level structure from day one, with a fast setup and the possibility to connect with third-party software, so your current way of working doesn’t miss a beat.
With Projectrak for Jira, teams collaborate on real project visibility: project properties, project templates, multiple purpose views (timeline, boards, lists), and project reporting that keeps everyone aligned. Stakeholders get the right attributes at a glance, risks surface earlier, and updates stay focused on project goals. A perfect workaround for those teams that still need projects within their Jira.
Summary of changes:
- Jira Projects ➜ Jira Spaces: A terminology change. Containers, workflows (JQLs), permissions, and APIs continue working.
- Atlassian Projects: It’s a status hub that connects goals, timelines, stakeholders, and updates. Available at Atlassian Home.
- Rollouts: Started September 1, 2025 (Free/Standard), October 20, 2025 (Premium/Enterprise), full by November 10, 2025 (except Release Tracks), with Release Tracks by December 9, 2025.
New name, same way of working
All these changes clean up a brief ambiguity for Atlassian in general: Atlassian Projects tell the story of progress, and Jira Spaces remain your execution engine.
Please consider that these changes might represent a solely communication exercise, not a tooling setting, given that actions are not necessary for this change. And if you or your teams are only using Jira, Projectrak for Jira is your way to go, in order to give visibility to the whole team, at all levels.
To introduce this change within your company, it’s only necessary to communicate this narrative within and verify access so your teams keep momentum through the change.
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