Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Jira vs OpenText ALM Octane comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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

Jira
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
274
Ranking in other categories
Application Requirements Management (2nd), Project Management Software (3rd)
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 Jira is 22.6%, down from 23.3% 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

Saroj Ekka - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good repository integration, sprint board and easy to set up
There are some features and reports we need that are not there. For example, if I have to find out the capacity of the current sprint by user and compare it with the previous sprint, that visibility isn't there. We can know the capacity and what happened with the whole sprint, but not for an individual person to see where it's falling and how it's tracking. Report and analytics capabilities are important for a product manager. That visibility is important, so we use Jira. Some of the features are there, and I use my own Excels or other data things to compensate for that.
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

"It has enabled us to keep track of features or projects. Previously, we used to manually keep track in Office. We now have a centralized repository for all the information."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the configuration, being able to configure it to suit your own needs."
"I enjoy working with (and can recommend) Jira for a number of reasons. The best features are that it is friendly and provides good visibility. It's to the point and very effective."
"I like that all of the team members on an agile team can use it. No one is in a separate application."
"The pricing of the product is very good. It's not too expensive"
"Work management software that has the flexibility to be configured for any company. It's stable, scalable, and offers responsive support."
"It was easy to use. The consultants that we had on board were familiar with it. So, obviously, having a community that had used it before or was familiar with it was a positive thing."
"The way it interfaces with Bitbucket and other things like that is valuable. Reporting and being able to link various issues or stories together are also valuable. We call them stories, and they're general reports."
"The most valuable feature of Micro Focus ALM Octane is the reports. We are able to do customization."
"The key feature is the usability. It is fast to learn and easy to use. It's very intuitive to work with. Most of the important functions are available via a few clicks, compared to other tools where I have to open a sub-menu and then a sub-menu and another sub-menu, and then press a button."
"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."
"It's brought our entire team into a single tool. We're all looking at the same real-time data. Our project management office has been able to set up dashboards for individual teams, and do comparisons by teams, of integration, and cross-team integration, burn-up, burn-down, and cumulative flow..."
"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."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"Backlog management is the most valuable feature. This was a capability that was missing or difficult to achieve in ALM Quality Center."
"It's more streamlined because we have it all under one umbrella. And once the business requirements and rules have been created, we can do test cases and apply them to the business rules."
 

Cons

"The work items structure is not hierarchical and that needs to be changed. It's too flat."
"This solution could be improved by including a different model for the overall planning perspective. There's a Jira portfolio that we aren't using. The only challenge we're facing is that we cannot see the overall planning."
"There could be an improvement in loading files and images for more than 50 MB. It would be good if it allowed more than 100 MB."
"It lacks features to cover all testing aspects, so we often integrate it with other plugins or tools like X-ray."
"Jira's collaboration and integration with other apps and tools could be improved."
"It is a bit harder for management or the business partners. I used to search the Atlassian Community online for some troubleshooting issues and I think there were some issues that seemed to not be a big problem for other similar applications, like Microsoft Teams, that were not considered by Jira."
"The stability could be improved."
"The help desk and services management features are in need of improvement."
"There's a trend in our requests to have the ability to export data, en masse, out of Octane. There are capabilities within Octane to export data, but there are specifics around test suites and requirements and relations, as well as certain attributes, that we would like to be able to export easily out of Octane and into a database or Excel."
"They don't support all IDEs yet. We have Visual Studio code, which is not supported, and loved by our developers. This integration is missing. We also had to do our own in-house integration with the Confluence. That is also something that they could add."
"I like their smart analytics; perhaps they should continue to expand and improve there because it's a fantastic start."
"It would help us if ALM Octane got FedRAMP-certified, so our government departments could use the cloud solution. That way our external consultants could access it. We've created a URL to get to it, but if it were FedRAMP-certified and service and had support in the continental United States, that would be better."
"There are some challenges when we want to integrate the tool with other products, and it takes time for a team to figure out how to do it."
"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 biggest problem with ALM Octane is that it's very complex, so it's difficult to use and scale."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"JIRA's pricing is very economical. I would say that JIRA is a great deal more economical than Microsoft."
"We are on an annual license to use Jira."
"We are on an annual license and could be less expensive."
"We have an enterprise license that includes cloud service and support."
"The license is yearly. It is a large, long-running program."
"It is subscription-based, and we probably pay yearly. I would rate it a four out of five in terms of price."
"There are other solutions that are free making this solution seem expensive in comparison."
"I don't have the number, but I sure wish Jira was less expensive. Its price point should be a little lower, and it should be more flexible for users who are just ticket viewers."
"Microsoft is a big challenge for Micro Focus when it comes to pricing because they are much cheaper. But it definitely depends on the complexity of the environment. If it has multiple technologies, at that point, looking at other options and Microsoft would be a feasible approach."
"Pricing is the weakest point. It is expensive, but the tool has plenty of features. The main problem we have is that the pricing is very high compared to some other solutions."
"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 solution has reduced our testing costs."
"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."
"There is a conversion fee for changing licenses."
"Going forward, I think we will want to explore adding more licenses."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites solutions are best for your needs.
838,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

HV
Apr 19, 2023
Apr 19, 2023
ALM Octane integrates easily out of the box with Jira, additionally, once you DevSecOps users are onboard to Octane, they will realize Octane does more, so they can reduce their dependence on Jira. Several of my customers have come to this realization. Octane is an Enterprise solution, but Jira is not.
See 2 answers
EB
Nov 16, 2021
Hello @Vishwa-Reddy, @GeorgNauerz, @Agne Gecevice ​and @reviewer1154316, Can you please help @Harshal Vora ​with their question?
reviewer1933914 - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 19, 2023
ALM Octane integrates easily out of the box with Jira, additionally, once you DevSecOps users are onboard to Octane, they will realize Octane does more, so they can reduce their dependence on Jira. Several of my customers have come to this realization. Octane is an Enterprise solution, but Jira is not. 
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
53%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
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

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...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jira?
We operate under a nonlimited license with Jira, allowing a number of users to access it with a single enterprise license.
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.
What needs improvement with Micro Focus ALM Octane?
The tool's price is high, making it an area where improvement is high.
 

Also Known As

Jira Software
Micro Focus ALM Octane, Micro Focus Octane
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Orange, Airbus, Haufe Group, Kellogg's, Claro, Bon Secours, World Wide Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Jira vs. OpenText ALM Octane and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.