Favorite self-hosted alternatives? Bonus points if they can import from Jira preserving issue numbers?
I also think that this is the true reason why Atlassian is doing this. The complexity of Jira has become to much, so now they will fix the problem by forcing smaller customers into a more defined workflow, while ensuring that those who require customization are also able to pay for training and consultance.
Why not use Phabricator?
There is a catch though - we use it only as a code review platform. It always seemed to be focused on that part more than in any other. I'm not saying everything else is bad, it just a gut feeling that code review always got the maximum attention.
And another catch is that it seems they lost their momentum even in this area. I recall times when we waited for weekly status update to see if there is something we'd have as excuse for an upgrade. Now it's even not a weekly update and speed of development seems to be slow.
I did a pretty thorough evaluation once which included Phrabricator, it came out very well, especially the work flow around code review. It wasn't chosen for unrelated reasons.
I don't know why it isn't more popular than it is. It seems to be very mature, certainly better than a lot of tools that organizations pay good money for.