GitProtect vs. Atlassian Backup: Comparison included

Atlassian’s Backup and Restore feature has recently transitioned from Open Beta (Atlassian BRIE backup) to General Availability (GA), marking an important step forward in SaaS data protection. The solution introduces native app-level backups for Jira and provides organizations with a built-in mechanism to respond to customer-owned disasters such as accidental deletions or configuration errors. 

However, for companies operating in regulated environments or simply needing disaster readiness beyond a marketing slogan, it has limitations that should be carefully considered. Let’s break down this feature step by step.…

Q: What is Atlassian Backup and Restore?

Atlassian released its built-in backup capabilities for Jira, Confluence, and Jira Service Management to empower customers with an effective response to customer-owned disasters, like accidental deletions, configuration mistakes, or data corruption. Moreover, Atlassian Backup and Restore is designed to help organizations meet internal and regulatory requirements. 

The solution is now generally available as a paid add-on for Premium and Enterprise plans. Open Beta participants can continue using the feature free of charge until April 29, 2026.

The feature allows Enterprise customers to define backup policies, including specifying what data to back up and the frequency of backups. 

So, with Atlassian Backup and Restore, you get:

• daily backups, which means a 24-hour RPO
• a target 12-hour RTO
• backup policy management
• backup audit logs
• Atlassian-managed backup storage with logical isolation
• backup scheduling (daily, weekly, and ad-hoc policies)

Backups are stored in Atlassian-managed storage with retention of up to 30 days and cannot be downloaded or exported, making the feature primarily a platform-native recovery mechanism rather than a portable backup solution.

At General Availability, Atlassian Backup and Restore supports:

• Jira sites up to 300 GB of application data
• Up to 7 million attachments per site

Organizations exceeding these limits must work with Atlassian support and may not receive guaranteed RPO/RTO targets.

Atlassian’s 3 layers of data protection

Atlassian now positions data protection as a three-layer model:

• Trash, which includes recovery of recently deleted items, quick self-service recovery, limited retention, and scope.
• Backup and Restore, including protection from logical failures, bulk deletions, data corruption, and configuration mistakes.
• Atlassian Disaster Recovery, which covers protection from infrastructure failures, platform-level availability protection, and is managed entirely by Atlassian.

These layers complement each other but do not replace the need for an independent backup strategy.

Q: Why is this Atlassian backup and restore capabilities release important? 

On the surface, Atlassian’s backup initiative signals recognition of a longstanding gap in SaaS data protection and resilience. The threat is very real. Data loss – two of the most feared words in modern business – can quickly turn from myth to costly reality.

The average cost of downtime reaches $9,000 per minute, and for larger organizations or those in heavily regulated industries, the price can be far higher. The true cost depends on scale, industry, and compliance obligations – but in every case, the impact is severe.

Outages, human errors, and ransomware attacks all have one thing in common – they can result in data loss. This is why data protection and backup aren’t optional checkboxes but essential safeguards.

According to the CISO’s Guide to DevOps Threats, Atlassian’s Jira services, including Jira Software, Jira Service Management, and Jira Work Management, suffered over 130 incidents in 2024, with 10 classified as major, causing roughly 17 hours of disruption. And let’s not forget one of the most notorious Jira outages in 2022, when a faulty script combined with internal miscommunication left more than 700 organizations unable to access their Jira data for weeks.

So, does SaaS data need protection? Does SaaS data need backup? The answer is obvious… 

Gartner predicts that by 2028, 75% of enterprises will prioritize backing up their SaaS applications. In other words, building a reliable backup strategy isn’t a short sprint – it’s a long-term marathon. 

Q: What about the Shared Responsibility Model?

Here, we shouldn’t forget about the Atlassian Cloud Shared Responsibility Model, which clarifies the duties of both Atlassian and its customers.

Atlassian’s duty is to guarantee its service availability and accessibility, and its customers’ obligation is to ensure their customer-owned data protection. 

Atlassian Backup and Restore provides an additional safety net but does not fundamentally change customers’ responsibility for data resilience.

Q: Are there any limitations to Atlassian’s backup and recovery capabilities?

Atlassian Backup and Restore provides a useful baseline capability but still includes important limitations.

Backups are stored only within Atlassian infrastructure and cannot be downloaded or restored outside Atlassian Cloud. And if you keep your backups with the Atlassian ecosystem and it suddenly goes down, what will happen to your backup copies? Well, if a given region is inoperable, your backup might go down as well. 

Retention is limited to 30 days, which may be insufficient for enterprise or compliance requirements, as well. 

Another critical limitation is the inability to meet the golden backup standard – the 3-2-1 backup rule: at least 3 copies, stored across 2 different storage instances, with 1 kept offsite. In Atlassian’s case, backups reside in the same environment as production data, violating this fundamental principle of resilient backup strategy.

Since Atlassian backups remain within Atlassian infrastructure, organizations cannot fully implement this model using native tools alone.

Coverage is also limited. Metadata support is incomplete, Automation Rules aren’t backed up, and Jira backups exclude attachments — storing only references or links to files in the Atlassian bucket. But what if a region goes down?

Perfect timing to address restore capabilities. With Atlassian’s new Backup and Restore, restores are restricted to a new, clean instance – and only within the same region and shard. You cannot restore to the same instance unless it’s fully wiped. Even then, the restore process is all-or-nothing, with no option for granular recovery of specific projects or work items.

Thus, organizations might find it difficult to address the most common risks and disaster scenarios:

• If your Jira project is deleted, you will need to restore the entire Jira instance to a new site.
• If your backups live alongside production data, ransomware or platform outages could take both down.
• If you need to pass a compliance audit, a 30-day retention might not be enough.

Q: Can Atlassian Backup and Restore Experience help with compliance?

According to PwC, 85% of organizations report that compliance requirements have become more complex in recent years. It means that more stringent requirements are presented regarding retention periods, resilience, audit trails, availability and accessibility, as well as incident response planning.

Any proof?

Retention

“Maintain the policies and procedures provided for in subsection (9) above in written or electronic form…. Retain the documentation required by this paragraph for six years from the date of its creation or the date when it was last in effect, whichever is later.” 

— HIPAA M.10.a

Availability and accessibility

“The measures referred to in paragraph 1 shall be based on an all-hazards approach that aims to protect network and information systems and the physical environment of those systems from incidents, and shall include at least the following: … (c) business continuity, such as backup management and disaster recovery, and crisis management…”

— NIS2 Directive

And it’s only the tip of the iceberg… 

Thus, due to some of the limitations, highly-regulated and compliance-driven industries might need a longer retention period than Atlassian Backup and Restore allow. Moreover, they might require having a few backup copies of their data to meet the 3-2-1 backup rule and having at least 3 copies in no less than 2 different storage instances, one of which is off-site. 

Q: What should I look for while building my backup strategy?

There are two kinds of people — those who have backups, and those who will.

While building your backup strategy for an enterprise, make sure that you have:

• full data coverage, including Assets, Jira Automation Rules, projects, work items, and their metadata,
• possibility to back up the full Jira organization or use granular backup to protect only specific sites or work items (Learn more about Jira Granular Backup),
• long-term, or even unlimited retention to keep your data not only for weeks or months, but for years,
• multi-storage compatibility and replication, so that you keep your critical data separate from the SaaS provider,
• immutability of your backups, so that attackers can’t compromise both your live data and backup one,
• granular restore of only selected data, like projects, or work items,
• every scenario-ready Disaster Recovery, so that you can access your data in any event of failure. 
• many data restore destinations – whether it’s a local device or both the same or a new Jira account. 
• all-in-one platform for all DevOps data protection – to manage all your DevOps data protection in one central management console, including data from tools such as Bitbucket, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps, and more.

Q: What’s the takeaway for IT leaders and Jira Admins?

Atlassian’s shared responsibility model is clear. Backup and data protection for user-generated content is on you. The new Atlassian’s native tool may cover daily backups, but it doesn’t cover full context or even long-term recovery scenarios.

The current implementation provides:

• No granular restore
• No backup export capability
• Limited retention
• No anti-ransomware features
• Limited compliance guarantees
• Restore restrictions to empty sites
• Size limits for supported environments

On the other hand, organizations still have the possibility to adopt third-party backup tools, like GitProtect backup and Disaster Recovery software for Jira, which offers a more comprehensive approach to building a defensive strategy. Immutable backups, full and granular backups, end-to-end encryption, multi-tenant support, zero-knowledge vaulting, and the ability to restore everything turn the tool into a true continuity layer for your Jira environment.

In critical systems, metadata is essential. Without it, backup is incomplete. Atlassian Backup and Restore adds meaningful value but should be viewed as a baseline protection layer rather than a complete enterprise backup solution.e. Atlassian’s BRIE backup adds value but should be viewed as a first step rather than a full enterprise-grade solution.  

Core differences at a glance

Feature/Capability	GitProtect	Atlassian Backup and Restore (GA)
Core Jira Data	✅ Full scope: projects, workflows, users, comments, boards, attachments, roles, and other metadata	✅ Core Jira data, users, configs, comments, attachments (coverage varies by entity)
Assets (JSM)	✅ Assets fully backed up and restorable with original object IDs (in Assets restore)	⚠️ Supported but still evolving; restore coverage may vary
Deployment flexibility	✅ Marketplace app or full self-hosted/on-premise version	🚫 Cloud-only add-on
Backup automation	✅ Policy-based automationMultiple schedulesCustom rotation schemes (e.g., GFS) True on-demand backups	⚠️ Scheduled and ad-hoc backups supported No custom rotation schemes Limited policy flexibility
RTO / RPO	✅ Test Restore and POC to measure and meet your expected RTO and RPO	⚠️ RPO = 24h, RTO = 12h, subject to strict data size guardrails
Retention	✅ Unlimited – compliant (compliance-friendly)Custom retention and settings of backup rotation schemesMeet Shared Responsibility Model and compliance needs (SOC 2, HIPAA, SOX)	🚫 Up to 30 days retention
Storage options	✅ Free unlimited cloud storage is included in every plan BYOS– Any S3 compatible cloud-AWS S3, Wasabi, Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze, On-premise storage support	🚫 Atlassian-managed storage only No export or download
Authentication and SSO	✅ SAML, SSO (Google, Microsoft, GitHub, Atlassian), token-based login	✅ Uses Atlassian Cloud authentication and SSO
Migration / Data portability	✅ Full migration between projects, sites, configs, and accounts, sandbox-to-production migration	🚫 No migration functionality
Security and compliance	✅ SOC 2 Type II compliance, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified AES-256 encryption (at rest / in flight), user-owned encryption key, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and advanced permissions settings Data residency of choice (US, EU, AUS, Custom) Advanced audit logs for activity tracking	⚠️ Compliance capabilities evolving (SOC 2 and residency on roadmap)
Ransomware protection	✅ Immutable WORM storage, Air-gapped backupsNon-executable data in copyLimited access to storage credentials	🚫 No immutability features
Password vault / Zero-knowledge	✅ Zero-knowledge encryption, SAML/SSO, Password Vault	🚫 Not available
Data Restore & Disaster Recovery	✅ Granular Restore (of any object, project, file, or rule independently) Disaster Recovery (full org restore) Many restore targets Any-time restore (no restrictions) Test Restore (with no-user restore option)Cross-instance restore (production -> sandbox)	🚫 Full instance restore only
Restore targets	✅ Restore into any existing or clean Jira instance (granular or full) Data migration between Jira Orgs No user recovery option (for both test restore or to avoid double costs) Restore to a local device (in case of Jira outages)	🚫 Restore only to the empty production site or sandbox
Attachment/data completeness	✅ Attachment and metadata included in backup – fully restorable outside Atlassian infrastructure	⚠️ Attachments included, but not exportable outside Atlassian
Automation rules backup	✅ Backed up and restorable, including global and project-specific	🚫 Not supported
Region/shard restore limitation	✅ Restore to the same/different region, shard, or instance	🚫 Restore is limited to the same region or shard; prone to shard-mismatch errors
Custom start day for backups	✅ Customizable schedules, including start day	🚫 The backup schedule start day cannot be changed
On-demand backup availability	✅ Truly on-demand; executes immediately or via policy	⚠️ Ad-hoc backups are available, but the execution window is controlled by Atlassian
Metadata coverage	✅ Rich metadata backup; fully restorable	⚠️ Partial metadata coverage
Size limit	✅ Flexible depending on storage	🚫 Jira sites of up to 300GB limit
Tier / Plan requirements	✅ Available to all Atlassian organizations and plans	🚫 Premium and Enterprise plans only

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