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Jama Connect vs OpenText ALM Octane comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 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

Jama Connect
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Application Requirements Management (4th)
OpenText ALM Octane
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Jama Connect is 2.9%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText ALM Octane is 6.2%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

David Wilson - PeerSpot reviewer
Mainly used for requirements management, but its validation piece is not time-efficient at all
Like anything, Jama Connect relies highly on the company's culture because I found the whole review process to sound good, but it does not work in reality. Companies that use the tool are all pretty immature with requirements management, and therefore, they don't have the culture of doing that. You're always chasing them up and end up having review meetings, and no one pays attention to those review notices. The solution is very software-centric, and its validation piece is not time-efficient at all. It's very desktop verification and validation. You need to have it running and loading, which is not efficient. It's very cumbersome and overhead-intensive for verification management.
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 get full traceability with any other system. It also includes a test module, and you build the traceability matrix incrementally throughout the development process."
"The user experience is better than the competition."
"Provides suitable tools for managing regulatory requirements."
"I like Jama Connect because it's easy to use and understand. The widgets are great, and linking is straightforward. The solution is not complex compared to its competitors."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface."
"We use Jama Connect mainly for requirements management."
"The most valuable feature is the single identity provider capability, which simplifies the integration with various platforms, like Google App Store and Microsoft Azure, for providing user access."
"In Jama Connect, users have the capability to view and manage all test cases directly within the platform and execute them. The entire product specification, spanning various domains such as electrical, mechanical, software, and testing, is consolidated within Jama Connect."
"The feature I found most valuable in Micro Focus ALM Octane is its ability to integrate with the CI/CD stack."
"The solution natively supports Agile-Waterfall hybrid software development at an enterprise scale. This is very important to us. Because even though the company wishes to go Agile, we still have projects which follow a Waterfall methodology. In order for us to accommodate both, we needed some sort of hybrid system. Because if we are using a fully Agile system, then the reporting might not be correctly extracted."
"With an Octane project, we have our automation, our requirements, our tests, our pipeline into build-and-deploy, and the ability to identify problem areas. It makes things quicker because it's more along the lines of an automated process."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It’s easy to set up."
"An improvement on previous versions because it comes as preconfigured as possible."
 

Cons

"I have inquired about pricing for this solution but have not yet heard anything, so their response time in this regard is something that should be improved."
"More automation could speed up workflows, flag errors more timely, and eliminate manual steps."
"I think there's room for improvement, especially with the review process. Reviews should be integrated with requirement evaluation instead of being separate from it. The review should not run parallel to the requirement."
"There are a few areas where Jama Connect can improve. One suggestion is to enhance the built-in feature of profile generation."
"There are delays sometimes from the Jama Connect team in resolving issues."
"Test management can be improved. It's not so scalable. The user interface needs to split things into small projects."
"The solution is very software-centric, and its validation piece is not time-efficient at all."
"The user interface could be modernized and the product lacks project management functionalities."
"When I manage projects that are being created in ALM, I have a standard template, but I don't have a template for them in Octane. I literally have to create the project from the ground up every time, which for an administrator, is a nightmare solution"
"Promoting it more could help a lot of projects."
"The elements in filtering need to be improved, meaning the number of filters I can use in widgets or in the grid views in parallel. There's a limitation which bothers a lot of our users. Filtering in text, or having a complex filter is limited. In a given field, for example, I can use a filter only once. I cannot say, 'Include the values 1, 2, and 3, and exclude value 17.' This is not possible but we have requested it often."
"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."
"The biggest problem with ALM Octane is that it's very complex, so it's difficult to use and scale."
"Development of extensions or connections to GitHub actions could be better. Better integration with Azure DevOps would also help."
"I like their smart analytics; perhaps they should continue to expand and improve there because it's a fantastic start."
"The limitation of Octane is that we can't do a release outside of the sprint. We can only plan the release in the sprint. With Agile and JIRA tools, we can plan the release outside the sprint and do a global release of all the projects from the sprint."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you want to have creative licenses, pricing may be an issue with the licenses, as it can become quite expensive over time to serve many people."
"To have a single source for all the requirements and all the change requests our company gets is the most valuable feature. It has also helped us to keep track of reviews."
"The cost seems very competitive with other offerings."
"Jama Connect is a little pricy."
"The price of Micro Focus ALM Octane is too high compared to other solutions."
"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 product is highly priced compared to other tools."
"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. The product is neither cheap nor expensive."
"It will be as expensive as ALM.NET, if not more expensive. But here's a good tip: If you have ALM.NET, you are able to share your licenses from ALM.NET to Octane. You just have to define a dedicated number of licenses on ALM.NET and then you can share them with ALM Octane, with some configuration effort. This is something that you have to take into account, that there is a possibility of such license sharing that could decrease your costs. Compared to open-source tools, the price the ALM Octane is definitely higher, in terms of the licensing cost."
"The cost of this product is very high."
"ALM Octane is very expensive."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
27%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Jama Connect?
I like Jama Connect because it's easy to use and understand. The widgets are great, and linking is straightforward. The solution is not complex compared to its competitors.
What needs improvement with Jama Connect?
There are delays sometimes from the Jama Connect team in resolving issues. It's important to maintain and educate customers about the solutions they have.
What is your primary use case for Jama Connect?
Jama Connect is used to integrate solutions such as the Google App Store and Microsoft Azure. It provides single identity provider access, enabling Gmail access or Google access for users.
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?
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.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Micro Focus ALM Octane, Micro Focus Octane
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Deloitte, SpaceX, Omnigon, Delft University
Orange, Airbus, Haufe Group, Kellogg's, Claro, Bon Secours, World Wide Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Jama Connect vs. OpenText ALM Octane and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.