Atlassian renames Jira Project to Jira Spaces

After almost a decade of complaining about the misaligned term "Jira Project" that does not fit what it actually represents, Atlassian FINALLY announced that the term will change to Jira Spaces. I have known about this for a while, but now that it is finally revealed publicly, I can rejoice and celebrate this change fully.

For those of you that don't know what the fuss is about, the term Project has never really fit the work we do in Jira, as the majority of work for most organizations are continuous deliveries and not projects. If you don't know the difference, then I have a video for you here:

As Atlassian introduced Atlas with Goals and Projects, we also got two distinctively different features that caused additional confusion. Here is what Atlassian themselves say about this confusion:

The term ‘project’ has been a core part of Jira since its beginning, but over time, we've heard from you that it causes confusion.

For many teams, ‘projects’ are typically understood to have defined start and end dates, hierarchical structures, and clear scopes. However, Jira ‘projects’ function differently – they're containers for work, not tied to the traditional definition of a project.

This disconnect has created challenges, especially as Jira evolves to support a broader range of teams and integrates more deeply with the wider Atlassian ecosystem.

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-articles/Evolving-Jira-terminology-Projects-will-soon-be-Spaces/ba-p/3034977

So what is actually changing, and when will this change happen?

As with the other changes to namings, this will be a language change only.

This update is purely a terminology change. The functionality, behavior, and scope of your Jira containers remain exactly the same.

• What’s changing: The term 'project' will now be replaced with ‘space’ across all Jira Cloud products (including Jira Service Management and Jira Product Discovery) and the ‘projects’ icon will be updated to reflect this new terminology.

• What’s not changing: Everything else about how you use these containers remains the same. You’ll continue to scope your work, organize items, and collaborate in 'spaces' just as you did in ‘projects’.

The change to the new Space nomenclature will begin to roll out on:

October 2025

This will be a gradual rollout, so you can probably expect to have it in all Atlassian instances by the end of the year.

I absolutely love this change, how about you?