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Atlassian ALM vs Jira vs Polarion ALM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Atlassian ALM is 1.4%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jira is 21.9%, down from 23.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 8.1%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

ZX
Scrum board feature is highly valuable and handles different user volumes
We have both small-sized and big-sized customers. The small ones generally have around 50 to 200 users. The larger ones, for example, in China, have around 15,000 platform users. So, the number of small companies is high, but the total business value comes from the big companies. Atlassian ALM can handle different user volumes. For customers with more than 500 users, we recommend deploying a high availability (HA) architecture. The solution supports both single-node and HA modes. I would rate the scalability a five out of ten. It could be better in terms of scalability with more users. It could be improved to better handle larger numbers of users. We have clients using Atlassian ALM both in China and globally. We have around 20 clients using this solution.
Saroj Ekka - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good repository integration, sprint board and easy to set up
There are some features and reports we need that are not there. For example, if I have to find out the capacity of the current sprint by user and compare it with the previous sprint, that visibility isn't there. We can know the capacity and what happened with the whole sprint, but not for an individual person to see where it's falling and how it's tracking. Report and analytics capabilities are important for a product manager. That visibility is important, so we use Jira. Some of the features are there, and I use my own Excels or other data things to compensate for that.
Dina Bindi - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides traceability and compliance with high flexibility
It's extremely flexible. Configuring items is straightforward and doesn't require involving the supplier each time. We find the requirement management, test management, documentation, and dashboards very effective. However, we don't use DevOps-related features, such as integration with tools like SVN or Git, because we use Azure DevOps. The aspects related to requirements, testing, changes, tasks, and agile methodology are excellent, which is why we've been using it for a long time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the Scrum board."
"The main power of this tool is the integration between the different products of the Atlassian suite. We have good integration with work management with Java. This is the major strength from this provider."
"This solution fits very well into our agile product management environment."
"Jira provides substantial analytical aspects, especially in defect categorization and routing."
"It was very easy to learn Jira. As a scrum master, I run daily stand-ups, and they are run directly from Jira. The feature that I really love in Jira is called Issue Navigator. It allows me to customize how I want to show the user stories within Jira to my squad."
"I like the test cases in Jira. The orange dash items view was great, and I like the features and layout of the data. It's quite different, and people are now getting their items so quickly."
"Jira is great for story management."
"We have the best community to support any problems that we have."
"We use it for capacity planning. We need to gauge and assess whatever is coming to our pipeline and then everything comes to the pipeline, appears as a pic, and then based on that, we create the story points and we take it from there."
"There are many good things about Atlassian."
"It helps me to use virtual Scrum boards across four locations, three time zones, and to plan my work. It fully supports the Scrum approach, and the Agile way of working, and it has Agile thinking behind it.."
"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its browser experience. I rate its traceability feature a ten out of ten. From the initial stage to the release, you can manage everything through a single point."
"The tool helped us to more effectively and efficiently gather and structure the information (requirements, test plans, project management data, etc.), and share it with the involved stakeholders in a safe and change-controlled manner."
"Scalability is good...The integration is quite good."
"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."
"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the high-level project management."
"The reports are not really customizable, which is something that they should improve on."
"The automation for scheduling software and doing software tests should be simplified because it's complex and too rigid."
"The plugin management needs a lot of work."
"Of course, the price could always be cheaper."
"The permissions can be challenging to get right."
"Jira could be easier to use, especially for administrative tasks. It's quite complex, so it's important to understand it well. While the reporting and dashboards are good, there's room for improvement in some areas where extra features would be helpful."
"In JIRA, it's a bit complex in terms of what advanced search queries we use. Sharing them is also a problem. Because TFS is on the cloud, we can easily save that query and share it with our team members."
"If CI/CD is integrated with it, it would be better. I've used Azure DevOps before, and it's nice to have everything, such as CI/CD Repos and other things, integrated. Jira has fewer integrations. Azure DevOps has an easier interface, and it has got everything in one spot. I don't have to jump around in different applications."
"I don't know if it's the way it's deployed in the organization, but the interface we are provided is not as customizable as other tools. The multi-language report is not enabled in our installation. I don't really know if it's something related to the tool or our installation."
"The Jira dashboards could be more useful. The dashboards have good widgets but the comparison of data over time or extraction of trends from the data is not easy."
"Based on my understanding, the tool's integration capabilities with multiple tools is an area of concern that Polarion needs to focus on more."
"The configuration aspect of the solution is not easy. A person needs a lot of programming knowledge in order to successfully handle the job."
"The tool needs to improve its planning. It also needs to add more integrations."
"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."
"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."
"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
"The planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a community edition available, but if the price were lower for the addons then more people would use the full version."
"The price seems reasonable to me. It's very similar to Splunk."
"The standard package of Jira is for 100 users. They should offer more packages for other increments, such as 500 or 2,000. In my previous company, there was a free package that provided a minimal number of users."
"It is very cheap if you forego the local instance and stick to the cloud."
"Jira is expensive and a lot of people are choosing DevOps because they are cheaper, open-source, easy to use, and have basic licenses. Jira should decrease its price to be more competitive."
"It's not very cheap. It's also not very costly. I'd rate it a five out of ten in terms of pricing."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis, and it is based on what you use."
"It is an affordable tool."
"Worth the extra cost."
"Our license for Polarion ALM is yearly. And it's not the cheapest tool that we've looked at. So if we had made our decision purely based on the licensing cost, we wouldn't have selected Polarion."
"It is an expensive product."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Educational Organization
51%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
26%
Computer Software Company
15%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Atlassian ALM?
The most valuable feature is the Scrum board.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlassian ALM?
The pricing is on the higher side. I would give it an eight out of ten, where one is low, and ten is high.
What needs improvement with Atlassian ALM?
There is room for improvement in the high-level project management. In future releases, I would like to have a planni...
Is Jira better or would you go with Micro Focus ALM Octane?
Hi Netanya, Basically , it all depends on the use cases for your environment and the business needs. Hope the below d...
Which is better - Jira or Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Jira is a great centralized tool for just about everything, from local team management to keeping track of products a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jira?
We operate under a nonlimited license with Jira, allowing a number of users to access it with a single enterprise lic...
What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?
Polarion ALM ( /categories/application-lifecycle-management-alm-suites ) could see improvements in performance and sc...
What is your primary use case for Polarion ALM?
Polarion ALM ( /products/polarion-alm-reviews ) is a tool that delivers both document views and table views simultane...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Jira Software
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, NASA, Cisco, eBay, Redfin, Toyota, Kaiser Permanente, Gilt, CSIRO, Autodesk, The Daily Telegraph, CODE, Illumnia
Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian, Microsoft, Nutanix and others in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites. Updated: April 2025.
849,335 professionals have used our research since 2012.