Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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 September 2025, in the Application Requirements Management category, the mindshare of IBM DOORS is 30.1%, down from 35.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DOORS Next is 9.3%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Requirements Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM DOORS30.1%
IBM DOORS Next9.3%
Other60.599999999999994%
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."
"Traceability on requirements for a huge project in an organization is a big gain."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Rational DOORS is the full requirements development and testing."
"It's a very interesting tool. I like that it's simple. You have to create your document, add your templates, and have your headings and definitions, and it's done. You must attribute the discipline and fill out the comment field for requirements. It also provides you with unique IDs for each requirement. I like that it never duplicates IDs."
"Makes good work of prioritizing and planning product delivery."
"The most valuable feature for me is the ability to enter data into one table, or context, and link it across modules."
"The program is very stable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is traceability. We can track every requirement, including what the stakeholder must do and component-level requirements."
"One of the most valuable features is how you can tailor the modules."
"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."
"My company contacts the solution's technical support, and they are good and responsive."
"The most valuable features are the versioning of requirements and the possibility to reuse them."
"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 usability of IBM DOORS Next is very good, and the features are very good."
"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."
 

Cons

"The customer must also have the tool to import the changes and accept them as a part of the review."
"The interface is not very user-friendly and has not evolved in a long time."
"The solution should be more compatible with thin clients"
"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."
"There needs to be quicker access to tech support. When I have a two minute question that takes two minutes to answer, it shouldn't take me 45 minutes and/or a few days of callbacks to get to the right technical support person. It's unnecessary and frustrating for the user."
"It's difficult to set the code on the solution."
"Overall, the user experience should be enhanced."
"The only additional feature would be if it had dynamic linking to other MBSE tool sets or industry-leading tools."
"As a web tool, DNG can be difficult to use if the server is loaded or your network connection to it is saturated."
"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."
"When you are not working on it every day it is not very intuitive."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The licensing cost is too high."
"IBM DOORS is available at a reasonable price"
"I think it's expensive because you have to pay for the licenses to IBM and all that and maintain them."
"It's expensive."
"The licensing costs for the product are quite high."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being very affordable and ten being quite expensive."
"The price of this solution is very high, and it increases year after year."
"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."
"If the product price were not reasonable enough, our company would not use IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation."
"Users can buy a three-year license for about 12,000 Euros."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Requirements Management solutions are best for your needs.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
26%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
24%
Government
9%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise36
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
 

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: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.