The alterntive for companies with many departments is usually using a variety of tools that all need to be in sync. Jira can be the one point that handles all workflows for all projects.
Latest versions of YouTrack come with a knowledge base and pretty flexible workflows support. I'm curious why YouTrack never seems to be listed as a Jira+Confluence competitor, given the similar target markets.
even within one group I've seen some teams use gitlab issues rather than jira. It made a little extra work for someone I'm sure, but it worked fine. I think there are plenty of tools that do what a developer needs. Jira also does what the manager needs. If there were some good alternative for them, I think we'd see jiras hold slip.
