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IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs Polarion ALM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 23, 2024

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
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (7th)
 

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 Polarion ALM is 7.8%, up from 5.3% 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…
Dina Bindi - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides traceability and compliance with high flexibility
It's extremely flexible. Configuring items is straightforward and doesn't require involving the supplier each time. We find the requirement management, test management, documentation, and dashboards very effective. However, we don't use DevOps-related features, such as integration with tools like SVN or Git, because we use Azure DevOps. The aspects related to requirements, testing, changes, tasks, and agile methodology are excellent, which is why we've been using it for a long time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 is relatively easy to use and user-friendly once the setup is complete."
"Everyone in a team can work on the same platform and share the same information."
"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 integration with Git works well."
"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 transition to a SaaS-based solution is a distinct advantage."
"It's easy to use."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"The tool helped us to more effectively and efficiently gather and structure the information (requirements, test plans, project management data, etc.), and share it with the involved stakeholders in a safe and change-controlled manner."
"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."
"It meets with everybody's needs without having to grab plugins."
"Polarion ALM helps us better structure our customer requirements, and we can also validate the specs of our products against those. If anything changes on our side, we see the impact, and we can see the effect If a customer changes requirements."
"It's extremely flexible. Configuring items is straightforward and doesn't require involving the supplier each time. We find the requirement management, test management, documentation, and dashboards very effective."
"The software is stable."
"The technical support is quite good."
 

Cons

"The features should be more intuitive. If I'm looking for something, its location should be easy to locate."
"IBM Rational ALM should remove the features not used by the customers and keep this product as lightweight as possible."
"The user interface requires significant improvement as it is overly complex."
"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 interconnectivity between packages is a major support problem and can be improved."
"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."
"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."
"The planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."
"The interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."
"The user interface is not yet optimized."
"I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system."
"The ease-of-use could be improved a little."
"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."
"The solution's editing capabilities need improvement."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"This product is a little expensive and we had to pay extra to have them set it up for us."
"We have a contract, but I am not aware of the details."
"The solution is expensive."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"Our license for Polarion ALM is yearly. And it's not the cheapest tool that we've looked at. So if we had made our decision purely based on the licensing cost, we wouldn't have selected Polarion."
"It is an expensive product."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
25%
Computer Software Company
15%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

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...
What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?
I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system. This could greatly enhance requirement checking, improve form, content, and clarity, an...
What is your primary use case for Polarion ALM?
We use Polarion ALM for software development, including requirements management, testing, change requests, and task tracking. We set up the environment by configuring items and reports based on use...
 

Also Known As

IBM Engineering Rhapsody, Rational ALM, MKS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tennis Australia, WeCloud AB, Port Otago Limited, Logicalis US, Valmer, The Chevrolet Volt, Ashurst
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.