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IBM DOORS vs IBM DOORS Next comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM DOORS Next
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Requirements Management category, the mindshare of IBM DOORS is 32.5%, down from 35.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DOORS Next is 9.2%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Requirements Management
 

Featured Reviews

UweSeufert - PeerSpot reviewer
Old but capable of storing, organizing, and exchanging requirements
I use IBM DOORS because my customer wants it for managing their requirements IBM DOORS is a tool from the 20th century. It is very old but capable of storing, organizing, and exchanging requirements. It helps to manage requirements efficiently, which significantly improves the way requirements…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When you install DOORS locally, you have the flexibility to do what you want with the solution. You can add functionality and do many things that you can't do with other tools or do well enough to satisfy your users' requirements."
"I like the way we can simply link requirements with one another and with test descriptions and then automatically produce reports that are required to show compliance to our customers. It is a combination of requirements management and reporting that I like, but I really have very little to do with the reporting part of it. I don't know how easy or hard it is to create those reports."
"Starting to use the solution is pretty straightforward. There isn't too much of a learning curve."
"The platform's traceability capabilities are invaluable. They provide a solid foundation for certification processes and manage requirement changes across project lifecycles."
"Compared to other tools that I have used over the past 20 years, DOORS is the best of the best."
"The most valuable feature is the management verification and login."
"I like being able to sort and categorize the requirements and the exporting functions."
"Traceability on requirements for a huge project in an organization is a big gain."
"The usability of IBM DOORS Next is very good, and the features are very good."
"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."
"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."
"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 solution has easy operation, is user-friendly, easily understood, and has better tracking for requirement management."
"The most valuable features are the versioning of requirements and the possibility to reuse them."
"The "Link by Attribute" feature is useful for making links without needing to use the web interface manually."
"My company contacts the solution's technical support, and they are good and responsive."
 

Cons

"I would like to see them improve in agile management the Scrum/Kanban Board to work with overseas team members."
"It would have been ok ten years ago, but we are used to having better tools now."
"It would be nice if it could be scaled-down so that it could be installed and implemented without much learning or training."
"The low performance of the solution is probably because it is quite an old tool."
"It is complicated sometimes, such as the logic about updating, moving from one server version to another, and the communication between restricted and non-restricted servers."
"They need to provide users with information on what options would be best for their setup."
"IBM DOORS should cover all engineering functions seamlessly, not just requirement engineering."
"Not all Rational Team Concert operations are available from the web client. Certain operations, like creating streams or components, still require using the desktop application. They're not accessible through the web interface. And in my opinion, this limitation should be removed."
"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."
"Both the data storage and reporting for this solution need improvement."
"As a web tool, DNG can be difficult to use if the server is loaded or your network connection to it is saturated."
"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 solution is slightly high in terms of affordability. I give eight points only because the price is a bit high, which is the only problem since I am the purchasing person, but not the technical user."
"The only additional feature would be if it had dynamic linking to other MBSE tool sets or industry-leading tools."
"When you are not working on it every day it is not very intuitive."
"There is room for improvement in the APIs that they have exposed for integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not sure why it is so expensive, but one license will cost approximately $15,000 in US dollars."
"We have to pay for a license. I think it's a one-time payment as my company hasn't notified me about more charges. I don't think it's expensive for large corporations, but it will be costly for an average person."
"IBM Rational DOORS is highly expensive."
"IBM is a bit too expensive in terms of pricing. Customers are paying a lot for the license, and the price is quite high for this kind of environment. It is quite high as compared to what we can get today with other solutions."
"It is expensive to onboard additional users."
"Pricing can vary depending on the size of the organization and how contracts are negotiated."
"I don't personally know what the numbers are. I just know that one of the reasons we've limited it to three seats is a function of cost."
"The licensing costs for the product are quite high."
"Users can buy a three-year license for about 12,000 Euros."
"If the product price were not reasonable enough, our company would not use IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation."
"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."
"The cost of maintenance is €20,000 to €30,000 ($22,000 to $33,000 USD) and there are no additional fees."
"The price of this solution is very high, and it increases year after year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
26%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Rational DOORS?
The traceability matrix in DOORS improved our project outcomes. It helps ensure coverage of requirements at different levels, from user requirements to software requirements to test requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Rational DOORS?
Over the years, the first version cost something around 5800 euros.
What needs improvement with IBM Rational DOORS?
Compared to today, DOORS' competitors also excel in this discipline. Yet the price is too high. It's often not as generic as it used to be. IBM promised to find a way for a generic format that allo...
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 solution is slightly high in terms of affordability. I give eight points only because the price is a bit high, which is the only problem since I am the purchasing person, but not the technical ...
What needs improvement with IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation?
We are not interested in integration with lifecycle management tools. If required, we will connect to the local India team for dashboard reporting tools or additional features. I am not an exact us...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Rational DOORS
Rational DOORS Next Generation, RDNG, Rational Requirements Composer and IBM RRC
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Infosys, Chevrolet Volt
Major health insurer
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DOORS vs. IBM DOORS Next and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.