An Epic Sum Up (ESU) alternative for Jira

If you’re looking for an Epic Sum Up alternative, a bit has changed: the app was renamed to ESU (Progress Bars, Budget & Hierarchy Sum-Up). The main app is rated around 4★ on Cloud, while its separate free ESU Lite edition sits lower, around 3★. ESU is a capable, multi-surface suite — but if you only want simple progress on an epic, not budget and KPI tracking, a lighter app fits better. This guide compares the options honestly, including where ESU is still the right choice.

Why teams look past ESU

ESU does a lot: progress bars, budget and KPI tracking, and hierarchy sum-up across dashboards, boards and bulk-edit views. That breadth is genuinely useful for portfolio reporting. But it’s also why some teams look around:

• It’s more than many teams need. If you just want “how done is this epic?” on the epic itself, a budget-and-KPI suite is a lot of surface area to configure and pay for.
• Rating and the rename. The main app is rated around 4★ on Cloud, but its free ESU Lite edition sits lower, around 3★ — below the better-rated options in the category, worth weighing if reviews matter to you.

None of this makes ESU a bad app — it makes it a broad, multi-surface app, which is more than you need if all you want is a progress number where you already work.

The main alternatives, by what you need

• Need dashboards, boards and bulk-edit reporting? Structure (a full PPM suite) or Great Gadgets (a dashboard bundle) cover portfolio-wide progress — see the full best Jira epic progress apps comparison.
• Want a flexible calculated field? Formula engines like JMCF or sumUp (both well-rated) let you define rollups with an expression — powerful, but a small build-and-maintain project.
• Just want progress on the epic, no setup? A zero-config, issue-view app is the lightest option — progress appears on the parent or epic with no formula to write.

At a glance: Tally vs. ESU vs. the formula engines

Decision	Tally	ESU (APTIS)	Structure (Tempo)	JMCF (Appfire)	sumUp (Decadis)
Free tier, genuinely usable	✓ free, any site size	⚠ free only ≤10 users	✗ paid from the first user	⚠ free only ≤10 users	⚠ free only ≤10 users
Zero-config — no formula to write	✓	⚠ some setup	✗ build the hierarchy first	⚠ configure a calculated field	✓ no-code gadgets
Progress on the epic/parent issue itself	✓	✓	✗ lives in its own grid, not the issue screen	✓	⚠ built for dashboards, not the issue screen
Dashboard or board rollup	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓
Story-point / percent-complete rollup	⚠ paid tier	✓	✓	✓	✓
Multi-level hierarchy	⚠ paid tier	✓	✓	⚠ possible, not purpose-built	⚠ possible, not purpose-built
Budget / KPI tracking	✗	✓	⚠ OKR tracking only, no $ budget	✗	✓
Runs on Atlassian (Forge-native)	✓	✓	✗	✓	✓
Proven track record (Marketplace rating)	✗ new, 0 reviews	✓ ~4★ (Lite ~3★)	✓ 4.6★	✓ 4.8★	✓ 4.8★

Tally’s single ✗ — dashboard/board rollup — is deliberate: it’s the line between “I want a number on the epic” and “I want portfolio reporting,” which is exactly where ESU and the suites earn their keep. And the “free ≤10 users” apps use Atlassian’s standard small-team pricing — free while your whole site has 10 or fewer users, then priced for everyone once you grow past that. Tally’s free sub-task/child status rollup has no such ceiling; only its paid story-point and multi-level tier is priced per user like the rest. (For the full lineup including Great Gadgets, see best Jira epic progress apps.)

Pick Tally if you want free, zero-config progress on the epic itself; pick Structure/ESU if you need dashboards, boards, or budget/KPI reporting across the portfolio.

Where Tally fits as the alternative

Tally is Datum’s take on the lightest option: zero-config progress rollup on the issue or epic you’re already looking at. Free shows sub-task and child status and count; the paid tier adds story points, estimate, percent-complete and multi-level rollup. There’s no expression to configure — it works the moment you install it.

Being honest about the trade-offs:

• Tally is issue-view only. It shows rollup on the parent/epic issue — not as a board column or a dashboard gadget. If you need progress on a dashboard or board (which ESU does), Tally today doesn’t, and ESU or a suite is the better fit.
• Tally is new. No long review history yet, versus ESU’s installed base.
• No budget or KPI tracking. If you use ESU for budget/KPI reporting, that’s out of Tally’s scope — it measures progress, not cost.

Where Tally fits is the team that found ESU heavier than it needed and just wants an accurate, free, zero-config progress number on the epic itself — and that likes it being part of the Datum family (Prefab builds the epic→story→sub-task hierarchy; Tally measures it).

For the concepts, see how to get an accurate epic progress bar in Jira and how to roll up story points to an epic in Jira.

How to decide, quickly

1. Need multi-surface reporting, budget or KPIs? ESU or a suite still fits — don’t downgrade to a lighter tool.
2. Just want progress on the epic, free and zero-config? A lightweight issue-view app like Tally.
3. Want a flexible formula? JMCF or sumUp.
4. Whatever you pick: test multi-level rollup on your project type (team-managed vs company-managed handle parent links differently) before committing.

Match the tool to the job: if you only ever look at progress on the epic, you don’t need a budget-and-KPI suite to show it — but if you report across the portfolio, keep the breadth ESU gives you.