GitLab vs Polarion ALM comparison

GitLab and Siemens are both solutions in the Enterprise Agile Planning Tools category. GitLab is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6, while Siemens is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.3. GitLab holds a 28.9% mindshare in EAP, compared to Siemens’s 4.0% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Siemens users who would recommend it.

GitLab

Read 82 GitLab reviews

10,458 Views
8,512 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Polarion ALM

Read 21 Polarion ALM reviews

1,311 Views
889 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

GitLab

Polarion ALM

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Polarion ALM and GitLab are competitors in the application lifecycle management and development operations sectors. While Polarion ALM is favored for its traceability and compliance features in regulated industries, GitLab's superior DevOps capabilities and CI/CD integration provide substantial benefits for agile environments.

Features: Polarion ALM offers customizable traceability, compliance management, and robust version control. GitLab excels in continuous integration, seamless deployment, and provides an all-in-one platform that simplifies workflows.

Room for Improvement: Polarion ALM could enhance its ease of use, reduce the complexity of its setup, and improve out-of-the-box functionalities. GitLab might expand its feature set, streamline its advanced settings, and enhance user onboarding processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Polarion ALM requires expert configuration and longer setup times, though its customer service is reliable. GitLab offers easier deployment with cloud-based options and responsive support, facilitated by comprehensive documentation.

Pricing and ROI: Polarion ALM incurs higher initial costs but yields strong ROI in regulatory-focused environments. GitLab's scalable pricing model caters to various teams, offering faster ROI through integrated functionalities readily available upon setup.

To learn more, read our detailed GitLab vs. Polarion ALM Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Polarion ALM

March 2025

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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

GitLab

Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (9th), Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (12th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (3rd)

Polarion ALM

Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Enterprise Agile Planning Tools category, the mindshare of GitLab is 28.9%, down from 31.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 4.0%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

Featured Reviews

Gaurav Chandel

AWS DevOps/ Site Reliability Engineer at Tata Consultancy

Boosted productivity with automated pipelines and seamless collaboration

There are some challenges with repository file management as GitLab may struggle to manage larger files. Improvements could be made regarding size management and file partitioning. Also, the UI has remained the same for a couple of years and could benefit from an update with AI features and better customization.

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Dina Bindi

Information and Communication technology at CNH Industrial

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The CI/CD pipeline with Helm has significantly improved deployment speed and efficiency."

"Continuous integration with deployment is very powerful, which is a significant reason for migrating from TFS to GitLab."

"GitLab's source control is excellent."

"GitLab has better support, and its features are superior compared to Jenkins."

"I recommend GitLab for DevOps engineers."

"The best thing is that as the developers work on separate tasks, all of the code goes there and the other team members don't have to wait on each other to finish."

"GitLab offers a good interface for doing code reviews between two colleagues."

"When a developer checks in code, it is automatically built and deployed, and automated test cases are also run. We have extensive integration with GitLab, which helps us with source code management. We run the static code analysis using SonarQube."

More GitLab pros

"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."

"We had a nice experience with technical support."

"The technical support is quite good."

"Polarion ALM helps us better structure our customer requirements, and we can also validate the specs of our products against those. If anything changes on our side, we see the impact, and we can see the effect If a customer changes requirements."

"It meets with everybody's needs without having to grab plugins."

"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."

"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."

"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."

More Polarion ALM pros

Cons

"I don't really like the new Kubernetes integration because it is pretty focused on the on-premise environment, but we're in a hybrid environment."

"The solution does not have many built-in functions or variables so scripting is required."

"I would like more Agile features in the Premium version. The Premium version should have all Agile features that exist in the Ultimate version. IBM AOM has a complete Agile implementation, but in GitLab, you only have these features if you buy the Ultimate version. It would be good if we can use these in the Premium version."

"You need to have a good knowledge of the product in order to use it."

"There is room for improvement in GitLab Agents."

"The licensing model could be improved to be more accommodating in terms of user numbers and costs."

"I'm new to GitLab, so I would appreciate more documentation about the code and commands."

More GitLab cons

"The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing features that are common in web-based applications."

"We use PTC Windchill, and Polarion ALM doesn't have native integration, so we had to purchase the connector to integrate it with Polarion ALM. We still haven't implemented it."

"I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system."

"The planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."

"Technical support needs some improvement."

"Test management lacks an automated process."

"The interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."

"Integration requires a lot of effort. You typically need to work with an implementation partner to get it done. Most connectors available for Polarion ALM are paid. Unlike other vendors offering several standard connectors for free, integrating third-party software with Polarion ALM involves discussing and coordinating with the third-party software providers, which requires effort."

More Polarion ALM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"GitLab is a free solution to use."

"The solution's standard license is paid annually. They have changed the pricing model and it used to be better. There is a free version available."

"I'm not sure if they have some kind of discount. I've been negotiating with them on prices before, and I believe they weren't too happy to give discounts, but list prices are $19 per user, per month for Premium and $99 per user, per month for Ultimate. So, the difference between Premium and Ultimate is a bit bigger, and in most companies, you need to build some type of business case."

"My company uses the free version of GitLab, which is GitLab Community Edition. There is a licensed version also available for GitLab."

"This is an open-source solution."

"The price is okay."

"As I work in a vast enterprise, I'm unsure about the licensing cost for GitLab. It's the management team that takes care of that."

"The price of GitLab could be better, it is expensive."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

"Software for medical devices is always expensive."

"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."

"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."

"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."

"The solution is expensive."

"It is an expensive product."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

26%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

26%

Computer Software Company

15%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about GitLab?

I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?

The pricing of GitLab is reasonable, aligning with what I consider to be average compared to competitors.

See all answers

What needs improvement with GitLab?

Certain features in Jira are not available in GitLab, such as the functionality to have weights at the milestone and epic levels. Hopefully, these features will be resolved with work items in GitLa...

See all answers

What do you like most about Polarion ALM?

It is a very stable solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?

Polarion ALM ( /categories/application-lifecycle-management-alm-suites ) could see improvements in performance and scalability. The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing f...

See all answers

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 simultaneously. It organizes configurations according to norms and standards, making it s...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GitLab

Compared 29% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 13% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

Compared 8% of the time

AWS CodePipeline vs GitLab

Compared 6% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

More GitLab Competitors

Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM

Compared 28% of the time

Jira vs Polarion ALM

Compared 27% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM

Compared 16% of the time

Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM

Compared 8% of the time

TFS vs Polarion ALM

Compared 2% of the time

More Polarion ALM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

March 2025

Download GitLab product report

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM

March 2025

Download Polarion ALM product report

Also Known As

Fuzzit

No data available

Overview

GitLab is a complete DevOps platform that enables teams to collaborate and deliver software faster.

It provides a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle, from planning and development to testing, deployment, and monitoring.

With GitLab, teams can streamline their workflows, automate processes, and improve productivity.

GitLab

The world’s first 100% browser-based ALM enterprise solution, which enables seamless collaboration across disparate teams, multi-directionally linked work items, full traceability, accelerated productivity and automated proof of compliance.

Siemens

Sample Customers

1. NASA 2. IBM 3. Sony 4. Alibaba 5. CERN 6. Siemens 7. Volkswagen 8. ING 9. Ticketmaster 10. SpaceX 11. Adobe 12. Intuit 13. Autodesk 14. Rakuten 15. Unity Technologies 16. Pandora 17. Electronic Arts 18. Nordstrom 19. Verizon 20. Comcast 21. Philips 22. Deutsche Telekom 23. Orange 24. Fujitsu 25. Ericsson 26. Nokia 27. General Electric 28. Cisco 29. Accenture 30. Deloitte 31. PwC 32. KPMG

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Polarion ALM

March 2025

Free Report: GitLab vs. Polarion ALM

Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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