No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

TFS vs Zephyr Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

TFS
Ranking in Test Management Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (8th)
Zephyr Enterprise
Ranking in Test Management Tools
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Test Management Tools category, the mindshare of TFS is 5.5%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zephyr Enterprise is 5.2%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Test Management Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
TFS5.5%
Zephyr Enterprise5.2%
Other89.3%
Test Management Tools
 

Featured Reviews

PS
Service delivery manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Ensures team collaboration with strong version control but could improve testing capabilities
Version control is the most basic feature in TFS. It has been there since the beginning. We use it primarily for that purpose. Basically ensuring that the code is not overwritten by other team members and maintaining the sanctity of the code. Bringing order to a disparate team which is virtual at different locations is very important, and TFS provides that control. Once you update a code, nobody can modify it until you are done working on it and check in. It is a great product that revolutionized the way teams work together on Microsoft pieces of code. The versioning part has unique features and capabilities which are unmatched with other products out there.
JM
Director - Quality Engineering at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Integration with tool streamlines test management but needs better exporting options
I use it for test management within Jira This tool boasts an incredibly user-friendly interface that integrates seamlessly with other Jira tools. I particularly appreciate its intuitive features for designing test plans, creating test cases, and executing test cycles. Some areas for improvement,…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I like the build management features, the integration with Jenkins and many other tools, the team rooms for team collaboration, and issue tracking are very valuable features."
"The initial setup was straightforward: creating a new project, importing code, and setting up branches."
"It has sped up the build and deployment process, and we can now deploy the same application version to each environment in a repeatable and automated fashion."
"It has great functionality: work items, backlogs, source code, build releases, and it's easy to use."
"The interface is easy to navigate."
"Basically, the capacity to construct various products is something I find handy."
"Version Control: TFS offers both the centralized “TFVC” version control technology as well as the distributed “Git” version control technology."
"I like the build management features and the integration with Jenkins and many other tools."
"The solution does its job well."
"It has 90% of the basic features you need without having to pay a lot of extra money."
"If anyone is looking for a good, lightweight, flexible and agile test management product, I think they would do very well with Zephyr Enterprise."
"It has integration with test automation tools."
"It has many features, but the main things that we need are the test cycles and integration with automation because we have automation for the web and mobile applications. We use it for test case management to run the test cases and get the results. At this moment, it is fulfilling our requirements. We are able to get the test execution report and the test pass and fail report. This summary is delivered to our management."
"Zephyr really improves the testing of the product on many levels - planning, test case creation, automation goals, test reporting, and verification of the testing."
"It has a very intuitive user experience."
"We use the solution for test case management."
 

Cons

"One of the areas that could be improved is to have an effective full life-cycle management."
"The interface can be improved and made more user-friendly."
"The solution should have better dashboards."
"Third party integrations could be improved to make it more flexible and easy to use with other platforms."
"Agile metrics/reporting (if you compare it to JIRA's functionality), as well as more/better customizable widgets to create richer dashboards."
"The record and play functionality needs some improvement."
"Scrum Board implementation and Backlog viewer require some improvements in order to make its usage simpler and interactive."
"The solution should have better dashboards."
"It's difficult to export the test cases in Zephyr, especially with screenshots or attachments, making sharing test cases not very easy."
"We are looking for advanced support with integration to CI tools. This is something which Zephyr does not have today."
"The reporting, and the ability to reorganize the test repository, which are a little stifling. There is definitely room for improvement there."
"For JIRA, in comparison to other solutions, such as TestRail, Zephyr is good, but it is not as good as DFS."
"Security needs improvement to protect customer information better."
"The solution is not really stable. Sometimes in the past, some pages wouldn't load due to issues."
"The only thing I have missed is an easy way to configure showing the latest execution results of all test cases linked in JIRA (story/epic), thus, receiving the state of a feature."
"We have a lot of automation for our products, and we require a utility for its integration with automation. Currently, we have to write this utility ourselves. It would be great if they can provide such a utility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"TFS is expensive, and the licensing costs are yearly. I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The price of the solution is cheaper than other competitors and it is a per-user license."
"If running TFS on-premise is expensive, maybe you could consider moving to the Cloud and use the Visual Studio Team Services."
"We pay for the license yearly."
"It's just as expensive as HPE ALM, without many of the features, best used for development tool only to avoid higher costs."
"There is a yearly licensing fee that needs to be paid."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is pretty expensive compared to other project management tools."
"DFS is more expensive than Zephyr. DFS is around $32 per person, whereas Zephyr is $10 per person. There is a major difference in the price, which is the main reason why we are trying to shift to Zephyr."
"It costs a couple of thousand dollars for a little more than 125 users, per month."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Test Management Tools solutions are best for your needs.
892,646 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
6%
Construction Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise64
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - TFS or Azure DevOps?
TFS and Azure DevOps are different in many ways. TFS was designed for admins, and only offers incremental improvements. In addition, TFS seems complicated to use and I don’t think it has a very fri...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TFS?
While I do not know the exact pricing, TFS is likely more expensive than GitLab.
What needs improvement with TFS?
From a testing perspective, while the build and deploy automation capability and pipeline integration are already present to a great extent, these are areas where TFS can improve further.
What needs improvement with Zephyr Enterprise?
Some areas for improvement, include its export capabilities. Exporting test cases, especially those with screenshots or attachments, can be cumbersome, hindering easy sharing and scalability.
What advice do you have for others considering Zephyr Enterprise?
I would recommend it mainly for manual testing and test management. Within Zephyrscale, they also have automated testing, however, I would recommend it only for test management. The overall rating ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Team Foundation Server
SmartBear Zephyr
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Vendex KBB IT Services, Info Support, Fujitsu Consulting, TCSC, Airways New Zealand, HP
Hyundai, Fujitsu, Google, David Jones, Burger King, Ingenico, Websense, Dow Jones, Harris, Saab
Find out what your peers are saying about TFS vs. Zephyr Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,646 professionals have used our research since 2012.