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IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs OpenText ALM Octane comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 30, 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 Engineering Lifecycle M...
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
13th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OpenText ALM Octane
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is 3.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText ALM Octane is 6.1%, up from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

Harold Pogue - PeerSpot reviewer
A complex deployment that is not stable, but is cloud-based
The team of 15 to 20 software engineers uses IBM Rational ALM and Jira for testing. They coupled different online packages together because the Duration Enterprise was impossible to use IBM Rational ALM did not help the organization and we ended up moving to another solution. The most valuable…
GeorgNauerz - PeerSpot reviewer
Makes team collaboration between IT and non-IT users easier with more transparency
The user experience is a lot better than any tool that I have used before. Overall, it is great. It has a smooth interface, which is very user-friendly. It makes it easier to work together and have more transparency and customization, which is very good. There are a lot of features where you can add fields, input individual fields, and input rules, like templated rule-based interaction between entities. The Backlog management is really interesting, because it is all in one place. You don't have a feature here and a feature there, instead you have the Backlog and testing using different backup items, like user storage features and tasks, all in one place. In addition, we are able to write documents, which we can transfer to backup items. Then, we can test them in the same solution without switching tools, or even switching from one part of the tool to another part, because it is all in one place. We use the solution’s Backlog and Team Backlog capabilities. They make our DevOps processes easier through transparency and asset collaboration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can customize the board according to your needs."
"The tools for requirement capture we have found very useful."
"At the same time, if you're working from the architect or the designing team you, it's quite easy to manage the resources online."
"The solution is customizable."
"The integration with Git works well."
"IBM Rational ALM is a very good tool. I like the management and traceability features and the test management tool. The latter is not linked with the stories and fixed management. It is really useful, and we can create test plans. We can also test some metrics related to QA."
"The word emulation and importing is good."
"The cataloging is a very valuable feature. For a lot of enterprises, they end up not knowing which applications do specific features. The cataloging helps with this. It's not that verbose, but it still gives you allowances to put in more detail."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"A valuable feature is the pipeline, so that we can now connect to Jenkins and then have all the results from testing, from external, in the tool, so that we can see the whole approach from there. Also, We can work with labels so we have better filtering solutions than in ALM. And it's much smarter and leaner to use than ALM."
"We like Micro Focus ALM Octane because its performance is okay, and its stability is okay, so we use it a lot. The platform is easy to use."
"The ability to generate audit evidence with a single click saves ten days of work for ten people, enabling them to focus on other tasks."
"The key feature is the usability. It is fast to learn and easy to use. It's very intuitive to work with. Most of the important functions are available via a few clicks, compared to other tools where I have to open a sub-menu and then a sub-menu and another sub-menu, and then press a button."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"We looked at all the market-leading tools, but we did not find anything quite as comprehensive as ALM Octane. When I say comprehensive, it's not just a single tool for Agile planning, backlog management release, sprint planning, etc., but it also has a built-in, comprehensive quality management module. It also has pipelines where we can hook up with our DevOps ecosystem/toolchain."
"The filtering options are very good once you learn them. The document reports are also valuable. You can create reports in Word and PDF formats. That's very useful."
 

Cons

"The features should be more intuitive. If I'm looking for something, its location should be easy to locate."
"Of course it would be related to customer experience. The solution is not user friendly at all. It needs an expert to use it, although the reporting feature was okay."
"The stability of this solution can be improved."
"The stability of IBM Rational ALM could be improved."
"The user interface requires significant improvement as it is overly complex."
"One of the complaints from users is that they have to click buttons too many times for just a simple task. Changing this would lead to a better user experience."
"The reporting functionality needs to be improved."
"The product must be more user-friendly."
"We've only had a few stability issues. Generally, we have issues following any deployment they do, so if they do a deployment on a Sunday, then we may have a couple of issues on a Monday or Tuesday."
"I think the area of release management in the tool is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Improvements could be made by way of additional integrations across the lifecycle."
"Security and security management, meaning the integration of the security, could be enhanced. We know about Fortify, but it would be better to have security features in the original Octane platform without the need for another solution or another application."
"There is an opportunity for them to do a little more with the dashboarding. We still feel that HPE Quality Center/HPE ALM reporting is very powerful. We talked with R&D, and there are some things on their roadmap, but at the same time, their strategy is to connect Octane with visualization tools such as Power BI."
"Updating items, sorting, bulk updates—these things could have a bit more flexibility, but it's still possible to do them."
"Currently, Micro Focus ALM Octane is considered an old-world tool in the industry and lacks the perception of being a new-age tool among its customers."
"It could use just some small improvements. I would like additional features, like planning features, user story mapping, or connection to collaboration tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This product is a little expensive and we had to pay extra to have them set it up for us."
"The solution is not cheap."
"IBM Rational ALM has both monthly and yearly licensing options."
"The price of the solution could be reduced. Many of our customers are not using all the features and this could be why our clients feel the price is too high."
"We have a contract, but I am not aware of the details."
"The tool's price is extremely high."
"I would say that it is an affordable product. There is an annual service fee, which is one of the additional payments to be made apart from the standard licensing costs attached to the solution."
"In my opinion, it's good value for the price that you pay."
"For what it does, it's very reasonably priced. I like the licensing model as well, because it's very flexible. You can scale licenses up and down for short periods of time."
"There is a conversion fee for changing licenses."
"ALM Octane is very expensive."
"It's pretty pricey, one of the most expensive ones on the market... The value depends on if you use all the features that it has. It comes with a lot of features. The difference between the license structure of ALM and Octane versus JIRA, is that you get everything with ALM and Octane... For JIRA, you buy the pieces one piece at a time."
"The comparison is always with Jira, so the pricing of Octane is a bit on the higher side. But if you look at what you have to add to Jira, on the plug-in side, to have the same abilities you have with Octane, you're more or less even, or even ahead with Octane."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
25%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Rational ALM?
The user interface requires significant improvement as it is overly complex. For business users with no experience in IT, it can be particularly challenging to understand the UI and create test cas...
What is your primary use case for IBM Rational ALM?
We use IBM Rational ALM as part of our overall application suite for our manufacturing company. It is used by our engineering team to capture requirements, perform testing, and manage defects. Spec...
Is Jira better or would you go with Micro Focus ALM Octane?
Hi Netanya, Basically , it all depends on the use cases for your environment and the business needs. Hope the below data may be relevant to you for identifying your needs and deciding on the approp...
What do you like most about Micro Focus ALM Octane?
The platform's most valuable feature is pipeline integration or continuous integration services.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus ALM Octane?
OpenText ALM Octane is an expensive product. However, it offsets costs by saving time and money, thus creating a balance between expenses and benefits. Our organization with over 1500 users sees sa...
 

Also Known As

IBM Engineering Rhapsody, Rational ALM, MKS
Micro Focus ALM Octane, Micro Focus Octane
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tennis Australia, WeCloud AB, Port Otago Limited, Logicalis US, Valmer, The Chevrolet Volt, Ashurst
Orange, Airbus, Haufe Group, Kellogg's, Claro, Bon Secours, World Wide Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. OpenText ALM Octane and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.