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IBM DOORS Next vs Polarion Requirements 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM DOORS Next
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
5th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Polarion Requirements
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
3rd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Application Requirements Management category, the mindshare of IBM DOORS Next is 8.6%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion Requirements is 15.0%, up from 14.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Requirements Management
 

Featured Reviews

Roger Trackwell - PeerSpot reviewer
An industry-leading tool to demonstrate traceability between requirements, with valuable features for tailoring modules and managing several thousand requirements
The biggest thing is that it shows cradle to grave traceability between the initial parent requirement and the lowest level, or what we call a CID, a critical item development spec. You can establish your verification plans in DOORS, and then as you get test results, you can put them in DOORS as a link or as a pointer to where that specific test resides on a company database. Then you can also write compliance rationale and add a column for coding, like pass, fail, green, yellow, red, meets, does not meet, partially meets, or whatever scoring criteria you want to use. Like I said, the best thing about it is that it provides you that visibility of your verification, allowing you to know how close you are to your pre-production activities, prototyping, go ahead, or whatever it is.
Michael Sanchez - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for Application Lifecycle Management and has good collaboration features
In my opinion, Polarion Requirements' most beneficial feature is the ability to manage specifications within a work-like document that functions as a work item. Its collaboration features have worked very well and have been very useful. We can easily exchange information with the testing team, the business, and with DevOps.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The "Link by Attribute" feature is useful for making links without needing to use the web interface manually."
"One of the most valuable features is how you can tailor the modules."
"IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation is easier to expand to build a backend with several servers, so you can also use it to scale up to several hundreds of users without major problems."
"The most valuable features are the versioning of requirements and the possibility to reuse them."
"The most valuable features are the baselines and links."
"As far as maintaining our requirements so that we can have copies of them, it's good. I can print it out if necessary."
"The tool's most valuable feature is displaying requirements in a tabular format. This means you can see everything laid out in columns and rows. It is more aesthetic compared to other tools. The traceability matrix helps to view things better. It comes with different linking rules."
"It's web-based, so you don't have anything to install."
"We can easily customize it because of the web services and open APIs. Also, the APIs are available. We integrated Polarion with one of Siemens' products, Teamcenter, which is especially useful for automotive industries. There is an open API for integration with Jira as well, so for me, customization is a strong point."
"A valuable feature from my side would be the comparison corporization."
"The solution is especially great for organizing folders effectively."
"The biggest improvement would be in the transparency we have now. We have very complex products. We make whole systems with difficult and diverse areas such as hardware, software, mechanical and printing, etc. To get the overview of all the requirements into a system, at that sizing, is the main advantage we have in the organization now."
"I would say there is value in how powerful, configurable, and user-friendly it is."
"In my opinion, Polarion Requirements' most beneficial feature is the ability to manage specifications within a work-like document that functions as a work item. Its collaboration features have worked very well and have been very useful. We can easily exchange information with the testing team, the business, and with DevOps."
"My company mainly utilizes the product for documenting internal standards, guidelines, and requirements. Currently, we're focusing on using it for internal purposes, but the vision is to expand its usage to include contract requirements and tracking functionalities. While we're not there yet, it has proven effective for managing our internal documentation needs."
"We worked with the web interface."
 

Cons

"IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation has room for improvement compared to other tools like Polaris and Jama Connect. These tools offer more flexibility and options for developers, which IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation lacks. For example, you can define your link rules in Jama Connect, but you can't do that in IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation."
"There is room for improvement in the APIs that they have exposed for integration."
"IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation is not a very user-friendly product."
"It offers a bad user experience and the usability is poor."
"It does have a tendency to condense the requirements. It kind of puts them in a tree format. Sometimes those trees are a little difficult."
"I have come to the conclusion that if you are considering migrating from DOORS to DNG, don't! Instead of spending 100's to 1000's of hours doing migrations, invest those hours in a DXL programmer to make DOORS do what it isn't doing for you now."
"When you are in Jira or Confluence, you have some freedom in how you type in text. That's also a weakness of Confluence, however, as it opens the doors to sloppy work. In DOS Next Generation, the text is very rigorous, but it might be difficult for people who don't have the discipline. Having a way to quickly enter requirements could help. It might already be in there, but I don't know. I don't have enough experience with the tool yet."
"The only additional feature would be if it had dynamic linking to other MBSE tool sets or industry-leading tools."
"One thing to consider is increased flexibility in terms of workflow configuration."
"It is not a stable solution, as we had issues with shared licenses."
"Its user interface could be more user friendly. In addition, a lot of features are missing for test management. It should have the test case ordering feature."
"The one thing I would mention is the license policy is a little bit difficult. For different roles, you will need different license models. That seems a little bit difficult for us. Especially when you introduce such a complex system, you want to know the right way is to do licensing. It's not clear what that best way would be. The solution will be here for a long time, and I just think it could be more clear."
"The platform's review process for the documents could be better."
"Polarion Requirement needs to have a feature where we can track changes and compare documents. Currently, we do it manually."
"If we have more than one thousand work items in one live-book then it becomes almost unusable."
"The usability of the solution should also be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of maintenance is €20,000 to €30,000 ($22,000 to $33,000 USD) and there are no additional fees."
"Users can buy a three-year license for about 12,000 Euros."
"The price of this solution is very high, and it increases year after year."
"You are going to need a beefy server and a fat network pipe to it in order to make DNG and its companion tools work well for users."
"If the product price were not reasonable enough, our company would not use IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation."
"I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"The product's price is high."
"Polarion Requirements is a little pricey."
"The pricing model is flexible. You don't have to pay for the full functionalities. And it's a one-time investment for the licenses. You purchase what you need and then can work with that."
"I believe the cost is subjective. It seems a bit pricey, but it depends on your perspective. To provide some context, I compared the prices with GitLab and Jira. Unfortunately, I couldn't find Jira's prices. However, GitLab costs around 40 euros, and DeepLab, which I recently discovered, also falls in a similar price range. I'm not sure about DeepLab's features or interface improvements, as they might have been implementing requirements management over the past six months. In contrast, Polarion costs around 50 to 60 euros based on the 2021 prices I have. While it may seem a bit expensive, it's worth considering whether the additional investment, perhaps around 68 euros per user, is justified. It might appear costly at first glance, but it's essential to acknowledge that it can greatly streamline your work processes."
"It is expensive but not for what it is. It is just the right price for what it is. Its price is also similar to other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
23%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
31%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
7%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation?
The tool's most valuable feature is displaying requirements in a tabular format. This means you can see everything laid out in columns and rows. It is more aesthetic compared to other tools. The tr...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation?
The pricing is considered unreasonable, and there is speculation that IBM may not be putting much effort into further development, possibly treating it as a cash cow.
What needs improvement with IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation?
There is a need for improvement in user experience, as the UI is too complex and outdated. Updates should be more frequent to ensure security and functionality, especially in addressing vulnerabili...
What do you like most about Polarion Requirements?
In my opinion, Polarion Requirements' most beneficial feature is the ability to manage specifications within a work-like document that functions as a work item. Its collaboration features have work...
What needs improvement with Polarion Requirements?
In my opinion, the main area for improvement in Polarion Requirements is its user interface. It should be easier for engineers to understand how it works, as many features are not very easily under...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Rational DOORS Next Generation, RDNG, Rational Requirements Composer and IBM RRC
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Major health insurer
NetSuite, Ottobock, Zumtobel Group, Kªster Automotive GmbH, Sirona Dental Systems, LifeWatch, U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), PHOENIX CONTACT Electronics GmbH, Metso Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DOORS Next vs. Polarion Requirements and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.