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Helix ALM vs OpenText ALM / Quality Center 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.1
Helix ALM improved traceability, collaboration, and efficiency, reducing project delays and costs, while enhancing project visibility, control, and defect detection.
Sentiment score
6.8
OpenText ALM enhances oversight, testing efficiency, and collaboration, offering cost savings and reduced defects, despite standardization challenges.
It acts as an enabler for effective test and program management.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Helix ALM's customer service is praised for being responsive, knowledgeable, and efficient, aiding users with excellent support and onboarding.
Sentiment score
6.2
OpenText ALM customer service varies from fair to excellent, but response times and expertise often need improvement.
Technical support has been excellent.
Quality is always high yet not perfect.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.0
Helix ALM is praised for its scalability, integration, and stable performance, making it ideal for large, growing teams and projects.
Sentiment score
7.3
OpenText ALM/Quality Center excels in scalability and flexibility, despite some licensing and performance challenges, meeting diverse organizational needs.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Helix ALM is praised for its robust performance, reliability, and high responsiveness, especially during complex tasks and updates.
Sentiment score
7.2
OpenText ALM/Quality Center is generally stable and dependable, though it faces occasional performance and crash issues under heavy use.
From a stability standpoint, OpenText ALM Quality Center has been pretty good.
 

Room For Improvement

Users find Helix ALM slow, unintuitive, with limited reporting, poor integration, and inadequate documentation.
OpenText ALM/Quality Center struggles with high costs, outdated features, poor integration, inadequate reporting, and limited modern methodology support.
Improvements are needed so that the system can continue running without creating a new run.
I see a stable tool that remains relevant in the market.
HPLM has one of the best UIs compared to other test management tools, allowing for efficient navigation between test pieces, test folders, test suites, and test execution.
 

Setup Cost

Helix ALM provides scalable, flexible pricing with per-user costs based on modules, and discounts for higher user counts.
OpenText ALM/Quality Center pricing is high, justified for large enterprises, but users seek more competitive pricing versus open-source rivals.
It would be cheaper to use a cloud model with a pay-per-use licensing model.
 

Valuable Features

Helix ALM excels in managing requirements, tracking issues, and test management with flexibility, customization, robust traceability, and integration capabilities.
OpenText ALM/Quality Center offers robust traceability, customization, tool integration, test management, automation support, and comprehensive reporting for effective project tracking.
The integration with internal applications and CollabNet is made possible through exposed APIs, allowing necessary integrations.
It creates constant visibility into the test process, showing the status, bugs, and automated test results.
We can create a requirement for stability metrics with the test cases to ensure all requirements are covered.
 

Categories and Ranking

Helix ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
19th
Ranking in Test Management Tools
13th
Average Rating
6.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Application Requirements Management (7th)
OpenText ALM / Quality Center
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
5th
Ranking in Test Management Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
207
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Harold Pogue - PeerSpot reviewer
Helix ALM is insanely configurable, with great traceability, and flexibility
The most valuable features of Helix ALM are traceability and flexibility. One thing that distinguishes Helix ALM from other solutions is that it is a hybrid cloud model. Helix ALM is not a full cloud implementation like Valerian, Jira Jama, or Atlassian, where we just go through a browser onto the cloud. In the case of Helix, we have code that goes on our computer and then that communicates to the cloud. We have the backup and distribution capability of the cloud, but we have code executing on our machine, and we don't need to worry much about speed and internet lag problems.
Paul Grossman - PeerSpot reviewer
Range of supported technology expands, but odd IDE design still leave newbies and pro users alike disappointed.
There are always new features and more support for new and legacy technology architectures with each release. But the bad news is a growing list of long-standing issues with the product rarely gets addressed. While I have a larger list of issues that make day to day work harder than it needs to be, these are the Top Five that I do wish would capture someone's attention in upcoming releases. All hit the tool's ROI pretty hard. #1) Jump To Source - The Silent Code Killer: In older QTP versions a double-click on any function in the Toolbox window would take the developer to the function's source code, while a drag from the Toolbox would add it to the code window. Since 12.0 a double-click on a function in UFT's Toolbox window now ADDS the function (same as drag) to the Code window - to whatever random location the cursor happens to be at - even if it is off screen, and it will replace sections of code if it is highlighted. We are not sure what the intention was, but our Best Practice is to avoid the Toolbox window entirely to avoid the real danger of losing days of work and needless bug hunts. Now Jump to Source is not all bad. A right-click on any function called from a Script takes us to the code source, which is great! But it only half works: in a Library, only for functions declared within the same library. Our advance designs have well over twelve libs so a whole lot of extra time is spent searching the entire project for a function's source on a daily basis. Lastly, while we can add custom methods to object, a Jump To Source from these methods is long overdue. So again our only option is to search the entire project. #2) Object Spy: It needs to have multiple instances so that you can compare multiple object properties side-by-side. It lacks a Refresh button, so that automation engineers can quickly identify the property changes of visible and invisible objects. Or HP could skip to option #3... #3) Add RegEx integer support for .Height or .Width object properties when retrieving object collections. If this were possible, our framework could return collections that contain only visible objects that have a .height property greater that zero. (Side Note: the .Visible property has not returned a False value for us in nearly five years - a recent developer decision, not a product issue) Eliminating the need to separate the non-visible objects from visible ones would decrease execution time dramatically. (Another side note: Our experiments to RegEx integer-based .Height properties found that we could get a collection of just invisible objects. Exactly the opposite of what we needed.) #4) The shortcut to a treasure trove of sample code in the latest release 14.0 has been inexplicably removed. This impeeds new users from having an easy time learning the tool's advanced capability. In fact the only users daring enough to go find it now will be you who is reading this review. #5) Forced Return to Script Code. This again is a no-brainer design flaw. Let's say we run a script and throw an error somewhere deep in our function library. Hey it happens. In prior QTP versions when the Stop button would be clicked the tool would leave you right there at the point where the error occurred to fix. Now in recent releases, UFT always takes us back to the main Script, far from that code area that needed immediate attention.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Healthcare Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
65%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Helix ALM?
I rate the product price a nine on a one to ten scale, where one is low price and ten is high price.
What needs improvement with Helix ALM?
Helix ALM should be able to integrate with other systems better. Helix ALM should also have an easier user interface, and the solution needs to have drag-and-drop tools included in it.
What do you like most about Micro Focus ALM Quality Center?
The most valuable feature is the ST Add-In. It's a Microsoft add-in that makes it much easier to upload test cases into Quality Center.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus ALM Quality Center?
The on-premises setup tends to be on the expensive side. It would be cheaper to use a cloud model with a pay-per-use licensing model.
What needs improvement with Micro Focus ALM Quality Center?
The extract format is not ideal, splitting expected results into three line items, making interpretation difficult. Issues with mapping multiple functional test cases to one automated test case nee...
 

Also Known As

TestTrack
Micro Focus ALM Quality Center, HPE ALM, Quality Center, Quality Center, Micro Focus ALM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Invision, Softing, CACI, Hunter Industries, ITSO, Itron, EEC, Database Consultants Australia, VirtualScopics, March Networks, WorkForce
Airbus Defense and Space, Vodafone, JTI, Xellia, and Banco de Creìdito e Inversiones (Bci)
Find out what your peers are saying about Helix ALM vs. OpenText ALM / Quality Center and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,615 professionals have used our research since 2012.