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IBM DOORS vs IBM DOORS Next 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
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
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
6.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Application Requirements Management category, the mindshare of IBM DOORS is 34.1%, down from 34.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DOORS Next is 8.4%, up from 7.7% 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

"The shell scripting is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"IBM DOORS has a well-refined ASPICE template"
"What I like about DOORS is baselines, it's easy and I use the capability of multiple users. The traceability or links between different levels are very nice. Additionally, it is used by all of our suppliers, which brings us commonality."
"I like the user interface with regard to creating links between requirements and tracing links to requirements."
"The most valuable feature is the management verification and login."
"Rational DOORS' most valuable feature is that you can write any kind of requirement you want."
"IBM Rational DOORS keeps everything organized."
"Very customizable and can be as powerful as you want it to be."
"My company contacts the solution's technical support, and they are good and responsive."
"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."
"It's web-based, so you don't have anything to install."
"The most valuable features are the versioning of requirements and the possibility to reuse them."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the baselines and links."
"One of the most valuable features is how you can tailor the modules."
"As far as maintaining our requirements so that we can have copies of them, it's good. I can print it out if necessary."
 

Cons

"Enhancing security measures, particularly when handling multiple projects simultaneously, would be beneficial to prevent data loss within DOORS."
"IBM should integrate some solutions they already own toenhance the utility of the product further. Specifically import and export to Office products is more difficult than it needs to be."
"The kind of dashboard is not very convenient."
"The web application DOORS Web Access doesn't have the same functionality as the standard client, so it's not a real substitute. For example, web Access only provides writing requirements, but you can't do much more with it."
"The software and GUI is very outdated."
"It used to be very clunky."
"IBM DOORS should cover all engineering functions seamlessly, not just requirement engineering."
"One thing that I would like to see is a lower-cost version of it that we could use for smaller projects. Sometimes, we do projects for commercial customers who would benefit from something like DOORS, but it's just so expensive. It's just a monster, so a lower-cost version would be the thing that we'd like to see."
"IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation is not a very user-friendly product."
"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."
"Be very careful how you load your DNG server. There are limits to the number of artifacts a server can handle."
"As a web tool, DNG can be difficult to use if the server is loaded or your network connection to it is saturated."
"It offers a bad user experience and the usability is poor."
"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."
"The only additional feature would be if it had dynamic linking to other MBSE tool sets or industry-leading tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It's expensive."
"I think it's expensive because you have to pay for the licenses to IBM and all that and maintain them."
"I am not sure why it is so expensive, but one license will cost approximately $15,000 in US dollars."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being very affordable and ten being quite expensive."
"IBM DOORS is available at a reasonable price"
"It is expensive to onboard additional users."
"The price of this solution is very high, and it increases year after year."
"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."
"The cost of maintenance is €20,000 to €30,000 ($22,000 to $33,000 USD) and there are no additional fees."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
26%
Computer Software Company
10%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
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?
I cannot discuss the product's price since it is meant to be confidential and kept between our company and IBM. If the product price were not reasonable enough, our company would not use IBM Ration...
What needs improvement with IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation?
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 ...
 

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: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.