IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs Microsoft Azure DevOps comparison

IBM and Microsoft are both solutions in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category. IBM is ranked #13 with an average rating of 6.5, while Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.2. IBM holds a 3.7% mindshare in ALM, compared to Microsoft’s 10.3% mindshare. Additionally, 77% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...

Read 20 IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) reviews

1,744 Views
1,727 Comparison Views

77% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure DevOps

Read 137 Microsoft Azure DevOps reviews

14,953 Views
5,682 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...

Microsoft Azure DevOps

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 18, 2026

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management and Microsoft Azure DevOps are competing products in software development lifecycle management. IBM ELM has the upper hand in traceability and regulatory compliance, while Azure DevOps excels in continuous integration and deployment capabilities.

Features: IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management focuses on requirements management, change control, and traceability. It offers robust features essential for regulated industries. Microsoft Azure DevOps emphasizes integration capabilities, agile planning, and continuous deployment pipelines, providing a developer-friendly environment with flexibility and adaptability.

Room for Improvement: IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management could improve by enhancing its integration capabilities, improving user interface, and offering more flexible deployment options. Microsoft Azure DevOps should focus on expanding regulatory compliance features, improving tailored support for industries with stringent requirements, and enhancing traceability for regulated environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management deployment requires comprehensive planning and offers strong support for initial setup. Microsoft Azure DevOps benefits from flexible deployment options, facilitated by its cloud-native approach, with easier deployment across diverse IT environments and relying on the extensive Microsoft ecosystem.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management tends to have higher initial setup costs, justified by specialization and compliance strengths, resulting in strong ROI for industries with stringent requirements. Microsoft Azure DevOps offers competitive pricing, attractive for businesses leveraging the Microsoft ecosystem, with a faster ROI due to cloud-based efficiencies and integration options.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Microsoft Azure DevOps Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Microsoft Azure DevOps

February 2026

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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

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Azure DevOps

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

137

Ranking in other categories

Release Automation (1st), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is 3.7%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure DevOps is 10.3%, down from 19.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Azure DevOps	10.3%
IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)	3.7%
Other	86.0%

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

Featured Reviews

Juergen Albrecht

Managing Director at CCC Systems Engineering Suisse GmbH

Combining tools for effective data analysis while customization and integration need improvement

The most valuable feature is how IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) allows me to present to the customer what the actual software, even hardware, will do. It helps them gain an impression of the complexity of the functionality and find an easier way to decide whether to implement it. A picture says more than one thousand words, which is why I work with the combination of ELM and the specification of DOORS. The automation capabilities I built use column-based scripts for analysis to search, fetch, and transfer information. When I open modules, it automatically analyzes the changes since the last opening by me.

Read full review

Bharadwaj Deepak Mohapatra

DevOps Engineer at ENTERPRISE SYSTEM SOLUTIONS LIMITED

Have built reliable end-to-end pipelines and streamlined cloud provisioning through consistent collaboration practices

I am currently working with open-source tools such as Jenkins for my main CI/CD pipeline, and for enterprise clients, I am using Microsoft Azure DevOps CI/CD pipeline. For other clients, I have also implemented CI/CD YAML pipelines through GitLab CI/CD workflow and GitHub Actions. I am creating the end-to-end CI/CD pipeline from development to deployment and monitoring all of this. Azure Boards is easier than Jira for my understanding because there are very easy points to manage the Agile methodology which we work on. Because it is a GUI, sometimes the process may take a few minutes more than the CLI process since the backend is running the exact CLI, but we are commanding through the GUI. There is definitely a time lag, but it is more secure. Microsoft Azure DevOps pipelines work very seamlessly rather than other CI/CD pipelines, as of my understanding. The downside is that the process may take more time when deploying some clusters, Kubernetes, Azure AKS service, or some vast microservice architecture deployments. There may be a little bit of lag I feel, though I cannot tell very strictly that this is a disadvantage, but sometimes it takes a little more time than other cloud infrastructures. All the major things are done by GUI, which is somewhat a little slow. However, if considering automations, process, monitoring, and provisioning, then it is the best cloud service across all the other service providers. Our implementation is a hybrid cloud. Microsoft Azure DevOps is definitely easily scalable. I have worked on many Kubernetes infrastructures and microservice deployments, and I have seen that replication is very good because it is very easy. The replication process is very straightforward. I definitely advocate for using less code because it is very time-consuming. If using GCP or Amazon Web Service, there is more interaction related to work over the CLI process. In terms of Microsoft Azure DevOps, there are many things done by the GUI, which is the best part.

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

"The planning feature is rich with Scrum concepts: Sprint, Sprint retrospective, the rules in the Scrum framework."

"It's easy to use."

"I would rate the stability of this product a nine out of ten."

"You can customize the board according to your needs."

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

"The integration with Git works well."

"It is relatively easy to use and user-friendly once the setup is complete."

"The solution is customizable."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) pros

"We can forecast tasks and the number of hours a task will take and can compare it with how long a task actually takes."

"This platform provides a large span of tools and technologies."

"We can track everything from the requirements stage to the production stage."

"Two of the most valuable features include the integrated project management suite, which consolidates source code and project management in a single location, and its powerful reporting capabilities."

"Azure DevOps is complete and meets all of your expectations. You can develop your own plugins to customize it however you want, so it's highly flexible. We develop personalized plugins or use ones that other programmers create for the Azure Marketplace."

"Everything that's related to the pipeline has been very good."

"I definitely like the pipelines and the ease of management once you're in an enterprise."

"What I like the most is the DevOps Boards. It's easy to create a hierarchical project structure, assign tasks to people, and to track their tasks."

More Microsoft Azure DevOps pros

Cons

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

"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."

"The GUI is a little bit outdated."

"The product must be more user-friendly."

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

"In the next release, we expect a traceability metrics configuration where we can configure the user stories. We also expect them to improve or simplify the query process."

"The features should be more intuitive. If I'm looking for something, its location should be easy to locate."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) cons

"I think that the integration is to some extent, immature."

"It should have security features for scanning the code and checking it for vulnerability and security. Currently, I am using other tools for this. It should also have integration with other tools to improve security."

"The ability to extend work items was more flexible than it is now. Talking version control, one of our customers had some issues because they found it very difficult to manage more than 1000 repositories for one team project."

"There is room for improvement on the UI side, especially with merge requests. If we compare Azure DevOps to GitLab when it comes to branches and PRs (pull requests), GitLab has a better interface."

"We are facing some problems because the capacity can only be measured within a project. It cannot be measured across multiple projects. So, the reporting needs to be enhanced, and there should be more graphs to be able to easily give the upper management insights about all the employees from different departments. It will be helpful for employee management. Currently, the managers over here are using Power BI for insights because the functionality of Azure DevOps Boards is not enough. So, we have to export the data into another visualization tool and get the results."

"We would like some bidirectional synchronization. It's the requirement if you want to analyze it to software requirements, et cetera. That's something that most of the tools aren't that good at."

"We are currently in the process of moving all of our on-prem to the cloud platform. We are trying to make that move and host the majority of our DevOps services in the cloud because the cloud is where most of the things are going nowadays. However, the process of this transfer is not straightforward, and it could be a lot easier. Microsoft hasn't provided the maturity for migration tools. It could be a lot easier in that respect. I want to see them continue to advance the API capabilities. They could add some more robust functionality to the administrative layer within ADO services. There are a lot of configuration elements that you need to take care of at the organization level and the project configuration level from an administrative capacity. When you're dealing with process templates and things of that nature, you have to do them all manually. Being able to automate some of that using scripts or API functionality would be really nice."

"The tool was developed for Agile project methodology, but I've noticed that there has also been a try to incorporate what is typically done in MS Project, which is for more sequential Waterfall projects. The problem with that is that it is half-baked for Waterfall projects. If you're going to do it, then either go all the way and allow us to use the tool for both or don't do it at all."

More Microsoft Azure DevOps cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"The solution is not cheap."

"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."

"The cost is quite affordable."

"I don't know what we pay, but I do know what I've seen online. If we switched to JIRA, we will basically have to double our costs because we still have to pay for the DevOps licensing. We're probably spending $100 a month on it. It has only standard licensing fees."

"It has an annual subscription. It can be cheaper for partners. Many open-source products are available in the market, and it would be great if they can be a little bit more competitive in terms of pricing. A lot of startups are looking for an open-source, free, or cheap solution. If they can accommodate such requirements, it will be good for the product in the long run."

"The price of this solution is fair."

"It is the least expensive product in this class."

"The reason that customers are going to the cloud is that it provides the ability to reduce the license cost. For example, when purchasing Office 365 it is bundled with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and many other applications. In the past, purchasing a license was approximately $600. Today it's only $35 or $45 per customer, per client, or per user, plus the storage. It's less expensive for companies today, to use something, such as Microsoft Azure DevOps, and provide the software to all the employees needing a license. It's better to go with the cloud than just to buy the licenses by themselves."

"With Azure, you have to pay for every user."

"When compared to other vendors, it is cheaper."

More Microsoft Azure DevOps pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

22%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

14%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	42
Midsize Enterprise	28
Large Enterprise	69

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?

I think usability should be improved in IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) as the top priority. If you look at the UI, it was literally designed ten years ago, and even at the time it was i...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IBM Rational ALM?

For companies in heavily regulated industries who are doing product development, IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is a good tool. It helps them create documentation that satisfies auditors.

See all answers

Which is better - Jira or Microsoft Azure DevOps?

Jira is a great centralized tool for just about everything, from local team management to keeping track of products and work logs. It is easy to implement and navigate, and it is stable and scalabl...

See all answers

Which is better - TFS or Azure DevOps?

TFS and Azure DevOps are different in many ways. TFS was designed for admins, and only offers incremental improvements. In addition, TFS seems complicated to use and I don’t think it has a very fri...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure DevOps?

Valuable features for project management and tracking in Azure DevOps include a portal displaying test results, check-in/check-out activity, and developer/tester productivity.

See all answers

Comparisons

Jira vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 18% of the time

Codebeamer vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 15% of the time

Jama Connect vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 9% of the time

OpenText Application Quality Management vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 9% of the time

Polarion ALM vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 9% of the time

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) Competitors

GitLab vs Microsoft Azure DevOps

Compared 59% of the time

Jira vs Microsoft Azure DevOps

Compared 6% of the time

Rally Software vs Microsoft Azure DevOps

Compared 4% of the time

OpenText Application Quality Management vs Microsoft Azure DevOps

Compared 3% of the time

Codebeamer vs Microsoft Azure DevOps

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Azure DevOps Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

January 2026

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) report

Download IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure DevOps

January 2026

Download Microsoft Azure DevOps product report

Also Known As

IBM Engineering Rhapsody, Rational ALM, MKS

Azure DevOps, VSTS, Visual Studio Team Services, MS Azure DevOps

Overview

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) offers an integrated platform with customizable workflows, Scrum planning tools, and resource management features, enhancing project execution and collaboration.

ELM supports Agile and Scrum project management through its integration with tools like Git and IBM Doors, providing cataloging, traceability, and reporting capabilities. While users benefit from requirement management and dashboard functionalities, the interface and reporting could be improved for better navigation and customization. Its cloud-based architecture facilitates compliance and auditing, making it a valuable tool for engineering teams focusing on configuration and version control.

What are the essential features of IBM ELM?

Customizable Workflows: Tailor project processes to specific needs for adaptability.
Scrum-Based Planning: Facilitate Agile project management with Scrum tools.
Resource Management: Efficiently allocate and track resource usage.
Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly integrate with Git and IBM Doors for enhanced traceability.
Global Configuration: Manage configurations across locations for consistency.

What benefits should users consider?

Compliance Support: Provides tools essential for meeting industry regulations.
Collaboration: Streamlines team communication for smooth project execution.
Stakeholder Alignment: Enhances visibility and alignment with personalized dashboards.
Traceability: Ensures complete tracking of requirements and changes for accountability.

ELM is widely used in the automotive and manufacturing sectors for managing requirements and monitoring performance. Engineering teams leverage ELM for Agile methodologies, with central teams deploying it for end-to-end development processes including requirement gathering and backlog management. Stability and improved integration support remain critical implementation areas, along with enhanced governance features for comprehensive application.

IBM

Microsoft Azure DevOps is a cloud service that enables developers to collaborate on code development projects and create and deploy applications quicker than ever before. The service helps unite developers, project managers, and software development experts through a collaborative experience while using the application. For the users' convenience, Azure DevOps offers the user cloud services through Azure DevOps Services or an on-premises service using Azure DevOps Server. In addition, it supports integration with additional services and adding extensions, including the ability for the user to create their own custom extensions.

Azure DevOps provides a variety of unified features that can be accessed through their web browser or IDE client, such as:

Azure Pipelines - Develop and deploy services to support ongoing application integration and delivery. Azure pipelines, which work with almost every project type and most languages, will automatically test code projects in order to make them available to others.
Azure Artifacts - Share packages and integrate package sharing between teams. Packages include NuGet, npm, and Maven, in addition to other private and public sources. Developers can now share and consume packages with other developers from different public registries.
Azure Repos - Offers source control of your code through Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) or Git repositories. Developers can now keep track of any changes that are made in their code over the course of their project.
Azure Test Plans - Offers continuous and manual/exploratory app testing through several tools. Test Suites, or a collection of Test Cases, are grouped together in a container called a Test Plan.
Azure Boards - Provides a suite of Agile tools to track work, support planning, code defects, and general issues while using Kanban and Scrum software. Teams are in need of tools that are flexible and will help them grow. Azure Boards is a service that helps developers manage their software projects.

Benefits of Microsoft Azure DevOps

Microsoft Azure DevOps offers many benefits, including:

A quick setup and easy deployment
An elastic scale
Exceptional security
No-maintenance operations
Effortless collaboration through domains
The ability to create and deploy products faster than traditional software

Reviews from Real Users

Microsoft Azure DevOps stands out among its competitors for a variety of reasons. Two major ones are its ability to forecast how long each task will take and the ability for users to follow the entire development process.

PeerSpot viewers note the effectiveness of this solution. An executive chief operating officer for a cloud provider notes, “We can forecast tasks and the number of hours a task will take and can compare it with how long a task actually takes.”

Carlos H., a product and system director at SPCM, writes, “I think the most usable thing is that you can follow the whole progress of the development process. This makes it very useful for us.”

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Tennis Australia, WeCloud AB, Port Otago Limited, Logicalis US, Valmer, The Chevrolet Volt, Ashurst

Alaska Airlines, Iberia Airlines, Columbia, Skype

Buyer's Guide

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Microsoft Azure DevOps

February 2026

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