The blasts were centred around Thamrin Street, a major shopping and business district close to foreign embassies and the United Nations offices.
Police say the situation is now under control, with five suspected attackers among at least seven people killed.
So-called Islamic State (IS) said it carried out the attacks, a news agency linked to the militant group said.
Separately, Indonesian police said they suspected a local group allied to IS was to blame.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo described the attacks as an "act of terror".
A few hours later, police said four attackers had been killed, then shortly after revised the number to five, including a foreigner.
National Police Deputy Chief Commander Gen Budi Gunawan said two had been killed in a shootout outside a theatre and two others blew themselves up at the police post in front of Starbucks.
Police spokesman Col Muhammad Iqbal said the situation was "under control", with no suspects hiding inside the shopping centre.
Police had initially said there could be up to 14 assailants. Three attackers have been arrested, reports say.
Today's attack on the Indonesian capital is sadly part of a pattern that has been repeating itself in several cities around the world in recent months.
Istanbul, Paris and now Jakarta have all experienced what counter-terrorism officials classify as a 'Marauding Terrorist Firearms Attack', or 'MTFA' for short.
In other words, police forces have had to react quickly to the sudden appearance of an unknown number of gunmen rampaging through the heart of an urban area, intent on killing as many people as possible and securing themselves maximum publicity.
The aim for the authorities in each case is to bring the situation under control as fast as possible with minimal loss of life, something that UK and other forces have been rehearsing for ever since the disastrous Mumbai siege of 2008.
But preventing such attacks requires better intelligence and needs more effective sharing of information among the people who need to know it.
Indonesia has been attacked by Islamist militant groups in the past and was on high alert over the new year period after threats from the so-called Islamic State (IS).
There has been no confirmation of the group's claim it carried out the attack, but National police spokesman Anton Charliyan said the group had earlier warned of a "concert in Indonesia" which would be international news.
He said the attackers had tried to imitate the co-ordinated attacks on Paris and there was a "strong suspicion that this is an Isis (Islamic State)-linked group in Indonesia".
Up to 200 Indonesians are estimated to have gone to Syria to fight with IS.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation but by and large is secular, although in recent years the threat of radicalism has remained high as small networks of militants are still thought to be operating in the country.
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