IBM Rational ALM vs Polarion ALM comparison

IBM and Siemens are both solutions in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category. IBM is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.3, while Siemens is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.2. IBM holds a 2.5% mindshare in ALM, compared to Siemens’s 7.0% mindshare. Additionally, 75% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Siemens users who would recommend it.

IBM Rational ALM

Read 18 IBM Rational ALM reviews

1,377 Views
1,043 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

Polarion ALM

Read 20 Polarion ALM reviews

4,698 Views
3,167 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

IBM Rational ALM

Polarion ALM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Rational ALM and Polarion ALM based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Rational ALM vs. Polarion ALM Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Rational ALM vs. Polarion ALM

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Rational ALM

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

Polarion ALM

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of IBM Rational ALM is 2.5%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 7.0%, up from 5.2% 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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Dina Bindi

Information and Communication technology at CNH Industrial

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.

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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."

"The word emulation and importing is good."

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

"The tools for requirement capture we have found very useful."

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

"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 most valuable feature is the reporting of the CPU usage on the dashboard."

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

More IBM Rational ALM pros

"The solution offers good integration."

"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."

"It is a very stable solution."

"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."

"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."

"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."

"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."

"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."

More Polarion ALM pros

Cons

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

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

"The interconnectivity between packages is a major support problem and can be improved."

"The stability of this solution can be improved."

"The GUI is a little bit outdated."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More IBM Rational ALM cons

"Test management lacks an automated process."

"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."

"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."

"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."

"We use PTC Windchill, and Polarion ALM doesn't have native integration, so we had to purchase the connector to integrate it with Polarion ALM. We still haven't implemented it."

"The tool needs to improve its planning. It also needs to add more integrations."

"I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system."

"The interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."

More Polarion ALM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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 solution is not cheap."

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

"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."

"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."

"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."

"The solution is expensive."

"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."

"It is an expensive product."

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816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

24%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

25%

Computer Software Company

14%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

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

What do you like most about Polarion ALM?

It is a very stable solution.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Jira vs IBM Rational ALM

Compared 28% of the time

Codebeamer vs IBM Rational ALM

Compared 24% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs IBM Rational ALM

Compared 19% of the time

PTC Integrity vs IBM Rational ALM

Compared 7% of the time

Atlassian ALM vs IBM Rational ALM

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM Rational ALM Competitors

Jira vs Polarion ALM

Compared 29% of the time

Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM

Compared 21% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM

Compared 18% of the time

PTC Integrity vs Polarion ALM

Compared 7% of the time

GitLab vs Polarion ALM

Compared 4% of the time

More Polarion ALM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Rational ALM

November 2024

Download IBM Rational ALM product report

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM

November 2024

Download Polarion ALM product report

Also Known As

Rational ALM, MKS

No data available

Learn More

IBM

Siemens

Overview

Lifecycle management capabilities built on the open, unifying IBM Rational Jazz platform can help agile and traditional teams: see at-a-glance status, access better data for decisions, manage costs, reuse the most efficient processes across the organization, manage cloud, web, SOA and mobile application design and development. Teams can also gain real-time traceability, manage work across vendors, unify across a diverse set of lifecyle tools, and provide collaborative development for continuous delivery as part of the IBM DevOps solution.

The world’s first 100% browser-based ALM enterprise solution, which enables seamless collaboration across disparate teams, multi-directionally linked work items, full traceability, accelerated productivity and automated proof of compliance.

Sample Customers

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

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group

Buyer's Guide

IBM Rational ALM vs. Polarion ALM

October 2024

Free Report: IBM Rational ALM vs. Polarion ALM

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational ALM vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.

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See our IBM Rational ALM vs. Polarion ALM report.

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We monitor all Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.