Probara vs. Zephyr

Zephyr, the app once called Zephyr Scale, is sold by Jira user tier: SmartBear’s FAQ notes there is no way to buy a lower tier for the app than for Jira, and Jira itself is billed on top. For a Jira site of up to 10 users, Zephyr Standard costs $10 a month, less than a paid Probara plan for the same team. As the site grows, so does the bill, however few people test: Zephyr Standard is $3,405 a year for 26 to 50 Jira users. Probara has no seat minimum and no packs: Pro costs $24 per user per month billed annually, and you pay only for the people who write and run tests. On Pro, read-only viewers never take a seat, so the rest of the company can follow results for free, and the Free plan covers 3 users.

Yes. Probara imports test cases from CSV and XLSX files laid out in its own template, or its JSON and XML formats, with suites and steps, so a Zephyr export arranged in that template moves your cases today. If you would rather have Probara read Zephyr’s export as it comes, or bring over something else, ask for it with Send feedback in your profile menu in the app, or through the contact page before you sign up, and the team adds support for it.

No. On the Pro plan, Probara works with Jira Cloud: create Jira issues from defects and failed results, with their steps and evidence, keep status in sync both ways, link issues to the test cases that cover them, and build coverage reports from Jira issues. Your test cases live in Probara rather than in Jira. Jira Data Center and Jira Server are not supported.

Yes, on Pro. Native reporters for Playwright, Jest, Cypress and Vitest send each CI run into a Probara test run, attachments included, and create the cases that do not exist yet. Any other framework that writes JUnit XML reports through the open-source Probara CLI. With GitHub, you can launch GitHub Actions workflows from a run and get one results comment on each pull request. Zephyr imports JUnit and Cucumber results, and adds no-code web and API automation that Probara does not offer.

Both have an MCP server. Zephyr’s SmartBear MCP is available on its Standard and Advanced editions, and Zephyr adds Rovo skills and AI step suggestions inside the app. Probara’s MCP server, with 270+ tools and operations, reached through up to 14 tools listed by default, lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients write test cases, start runs, record results and file defects on every plan, Free included, with the same permissions as the person who connected them.

Not for Probara. In Zephyr, test cases and cycles live inside Jira, so everyone who writes or runs them works in Jira, and every Jira user on the site counts toward both the Jira bill and the Zephyr tier. In Probara, testers sign in to Probara itself and no one needs a Jira seat to use it; Jira Cloud stays linked on Pro. Every new organization starts with a 14-day Pro trial, with no credit card.