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

IBM and OpenText are both solutions in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category. IBM is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.8, while OpenText is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 2.9% mindshare in ALM, compared to OpenText’s 6.3% mindshare. Additionally, 75% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of OpenText users who would recommend it.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...

Read 18 IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) reviews

1,384 Views
992 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

OpenText ALM Octane

Read 40 OpenText ALM Octane reviews

4,876 Views
2,689 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...

OpenText ALM Octane

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 23, 2024

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management and OpenText ALM Octane compete in application lifecycle management. OpenText ALM Octane holds the upper hand with a broader feature set and innovation, making it a preferred choice among tech buyers despite strong competition from IBM ELM.

Features: IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management offers comprehensive requirement management, integration capabilities, and customizability, which facilitate seamless coordination across various project disciplines. OpenText ALM Octane provides extensive test management functionalities, predictive analytics, and CI/CD integration, delivering advanced insights into project health, making it suitable for fast-paced development environments.

Room for Improvement: IBM ELM could improve in simplifying its complex setup process and enhancing cloud capabilities for better scalability. It would benefit from more intuitive interfaces and faster deployment. OpenText ALM Octane can enhance its user interface to improve navigation, expand automated reporting features, and offer deeper integration with third-party tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: OpenText ALM Octane offers flexible cloud-based deployment options for quick, adaptable implementations, supported by responsive customer service that ensures smooth transitions. IBM ELM provides robust on-premises and hybrid models, offering substantial support for complex enterprise environments, though it may involve more comprehensive initial setup due to its depth.

Pricing and ROI: IBM ELM typically involves a significant initial investment due to its comprehensive range of capabilities, aligning with long-term project needs and complexities for a calculated ROI. OpenText ALM Octane offers cost-effective solutions with scalable pricing structures, providing quicker ROI and appealing to organizations balancing performance with budget considerations.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. OpenText ALM Octane Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

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

March 2025

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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

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

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is 2.9%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText ALM Octane is 6.3%, 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

Global IT Director of Digital Platforms. Digital and Connected Commerce at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

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…

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GeorgNauerz

Managing Partner at Georg Nauerz Consulting

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Everyone in a team can work on the same platform and share the same information."

"The solution is customizable."

"We have something called the GC (global configuration), which is a unique feature compared to any other competitor we have in the ALM space."

"One of the key advantages of IBM Rational ALM is its workflow capabilities, which enable seamless collaboration between development and production teams and ensure that all stakeholders are aware of the progress and readiness of the solution. Additionally, the solution is good for integration."

"It helped us contain critical things, like source code and several documents, which is very important to us."

"The integration with Git works well."

"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."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) pros

"We are seeing some real improvements in the way we do things. We are becoming more agile in the way we do it because of that and in a way that stories are managed. Stories are given lifecycles as opposed to just being entities within a tool."

"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 interface is user-friendly."

"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"Octane works well with the Jira portfolio to track the project with two methods: Agile and Waterfall. We can track all the testing in Waterfall or Agile and synchronize it with Agile tools."

"Current version of the solution is fairly stable."

"The dashboards and metric reporting are valuable features."

"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."

More OpenText ALM Octane pros

Cons

"I would like to see better reporting features. The out-of-box reporting is - I don't want to say limited - but the focus is on the Scrum and Sprint reports. We need more reporting features regarding the history of the work, tracking it more deeply."

"The reporting functionality needs to be improved."

"The user interface requires significant improvement as it is overly complex."

"IBM Rational ALM should remove the features not used by the customers and keep this product as lightweight as possible."

"The directory designer manager is uncivil. The design manager is clearly really unstable."

"The GUI is a little bit outdated."

"Some improvements to the user interface (UI) would be helpful, such as exposing more services to make it easier to customize to the needs of each customer."

"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."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) cons

"What could be improved in Micro Focus ALM Octane is its integration with Jira."

"Globally, I don't see many major points of improvement. It's mostly plenty of little things, and it's weird to me that they are not in the product yet. They are really details, but they're annoying details... Today, in the tool, we've got plenty of assets we can handle, like requirements, user storage, defects, tasks and so on. And to all of those elements, we can add comments. We can add comments to any asset in Octane but not to tasks. It's just impossible to understand why it's not available for the tasks because it's available everywhere else. Similarly, for attachments, you can attach files absolutely everywhere except on automated runs, which is, again, awkward. I don't understand why on this element, in particular, you cannot do it. It's little touches like that."

"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."

"The tool's price is high, making it an area where improvement is high."

"Promoting it more could help a lot of projects."

"It could use just some small improvements. I would like additional features, like planning features, user story mapping, or connection to collaboration tools."

"The cluster architecture that we implemented was server to server communication: Octane application to Elasticsearch and Elasticsearch to another Elasticsearch service. Recently, we found this is a security gap. The Octane application is interacting with Elasticsearch server, but that was missing from the requirements and prerequisites in the setup. The Micro Focus team has not given advice on how to implement authentication-based communication between Octane to Elasticsearch, and we found it as a gap later, then our security team asked us to fix that gap. So, there was a lot of time spent on rework."

"We have some requests to beef up the manual testing abilities and the ability to report on testing progress. All the basics are there, but there's an issue of maintainability. For example... once you plan a test and it creates a run, more particularly a suite run, you can't edit the suite run afterward... That that is not realistic with how people work. Mistakes are made and people are humans and we change our minds about things. So the tool needs to allow for a bit more flexibility in that testing area, as well as some better widgets to report on progress."

More OpenText ALM Octane cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not cheap."

"We have a contract, but I am not aware of the details."

"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."

"IBM Rational ALM has both monthly and yearly licensing options."

"This product is a little expensive and we had to pay extra to have them set it up for us."

"If you compare the price with the functionality, it is pretty much the same as other solutions. If you compare it to Jira, for instance, it has a lot more functionality. You don't need any plug-ins, but it's also more expensive. Once you start adding your different plug-ins to Jira, you'll probably end up with the same amount or more. There is also a yearly support cost, which is usually 25% of the initial cost of the license."

"The cost of this product is very high."

"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."

"The senior management of my company handles the purchases of the solution. However, the price per developer was a major reason we switched from Jira. Apart from the complexity and the support, the price was a major reason that a team of 20 people unanimously decided that we would prefer to go with Micro Focus ALM Octane rather than Jira. The senior management had seen some benefit in it and they preferred it over Jira because the per developer cost was less and the support was superior."

"There is a conversion fee for changing licenses."

"In my opinion, it's good value for the price that you pay."

"In terms of pricing, it's comparable to what we had previously. It's not priced at the higher end of the scale by any means. It's priced nicely, in the middle of the market. For what you're getting, it's a very good tool."

"The price of Micro Focus ALM Octane is too high compared to other solutions."

More OpenText ALM Octane pricing and cost advice

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841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

23%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

27%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Rational ALM?

The solution is customizable.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Micro Focus ALM Octane?

The platform's most valuable feature is pipeline integration or continuous integration services.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus ALM Octane?

The tool's price is extremely high. When I was using Micro Focus, there were ten licenses, costing around 1,38,000, which was outrageous.

See all answers

Comparisons

Jira vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 29% of the time

Codebeamer vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 21% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 18% of the time

Polarion ALM vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 13% of the time

PTC Integrity vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 10% of the time

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) Competitors

Jira vs OpenText ALM Octane

Compared 51% of the time

OpenText ALM / Quality Center vs OpenText ALM Octane

Compared 27% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs OpenText ALM Octane

Compared 10% of the time

TFS vs OpenText ALM Octane

Compared 3% of the time

Rally Software vs OpenText ALM Octane

Compared 3% of the time

More OpenText ALM Octane Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

February 2025

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) report

Download IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) product report

Buyer's Guide

OpenText ALM Octane

February 2025

Download OpenText ALM Octane product report

Also Known As

IBM Engineering Rhapsody, Rational ALM, MKS

Micro Focus ALM Octane, Micro Focus Octane

Overview

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management stands out for its robust Agile Scrum planning, lifecycle traceability, and tool management, offering cloud-based configurability and strong collaboration features.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management provides rich capabilities for Agile project management, facilitating requirements and test management, configuration management, and version control. Its integration with IBM Doors supports comprehensive requirements handling, and the cloud-based platform enhances collaborative efficiency across teams. Despite needing advances in user-friendliness and reporting, ELM's global configuration and compliance features make it invaluable in demanding environments.

What are the key features of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management?

Scrum-based planning: Supports Agile methodologies with rich planning tools.
Lifecycle traceability: Offers complete traceability across development stages.
Customizable workflows: Adaptable workflows with Kanban for flexibility.
Git integration: Supports efficient version control and collaboration.
Global Configuration: Manages complex configurations globally.
Compliance and reporting: Ensures robust auditing and comprehensive reporting capabilities.

What benefits should be evaluated in reviews?

Collaboration: Enhanced sharing across platforms for seamless teamwork.
Cost-effectiveness: Delivers efficient tools that optimize project spend.
Comprehensive requirement handling: Facilitates detailed requirement management through IBM Doors integration.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management is vital in sectors like automotive and manufacturing, where it implements Agile frameworks to manage requirements, conduct testing, and handle defects. It integrates into development pipelines ensuring live traceability and visibility, supporting critical engineering processes efficiently.

IBM

OpenText ALM Octane helps organizations implement a “quality everywhere” approach and improve Agile and DevOps development and testing processes to improve the flow of work across the software delivery value stream. You can tightly align quality efforts from development to release, employ a broad range of tests anchored by automation, and continuously monitor and improve for increased throughput. OpenText fosters an open approach so that quality is visible, traceable, and continuously improved. By synchronizing quality and testing with Agile and DevOps processes, risks are mitigated early in the software delivery value stream – speeding the way for faster delivery and improved customer satisfaction.

ALM Octane facilitates a tailored and scalable approach for large enterprises. You can deploy your way and minimize infrastructure needs with deployment options spanning on-premises, SaaS, and public cloud (Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure Marketplaces). Similarly, various licensing options can tailor the features to meet specific needs with support for thousands of concurrent users in geographically disperse locations.

OpenText

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

Buyer's Guide

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

March 2025

Free Report: IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. OpenText ALM Octane

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