Installation options

Jira comes in two flavors—an executable installer and a TAR.GZ or ZIP archive. The executable installer provides a wizard-driven interface that will walk you through the entire installation process. It even comes with a Java installer to save you some time. The archive flavor contains everything except for a Java installer, which means you will have to install Java yourself. You will also need to perform some post-installation steps manually, such as configure Jira as a service. However, you do get the advantage of learning what really goes on under the hood.