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Jira vs Polarion ALM 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 (2nd)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Jira is 21.9%, down from 23.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 8.1%, 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.
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

"The most valuable feature of Jira for sprint planning is the timeline feature, which allows for better visualization and planning of releases."
"The solution's most valuable features revolve around the dashboard view, which has a burndown chart indicating progress."
"The most valuable features are that it is good for tracking the issues and it provides for the usage of Confluence."
"In our organization, we use Jira for project management and usually use the Scrum project type. We might adjust the workflows and stages to better suit our needs, but we mostly use the default functionalities it offers to manage our projects."
"Jira is user-friendly and offers many features."
"Overall, the solution is very nice and has a variety of great features."
"The most valuable feature is the full integration between Work management, Source code management, and Test Automation."
"It's very simple to change the workflow and adapt it. Jira is very user friendly for the agent and the user."
"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."
"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."
"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."
"It is a very stable solution."
"You can see the work ticket and you can circulate that within the teams. You can define your flows, customize according to your needs, and you can create dashboards and create the reports according to your needs."
"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."
"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."
"It meets with everybody's needs without having to grab plugins."
 

Cons

"In Jira, say on the team, no matter the methodology, it doesn't matter what I'm practicing, if I am using the tool for a while and I've compiled some sort of history. If I want to change my workflow, say my team is today using to-do in progress done, and tomorrow, I decide I want to use to-do in review and done, and I apply that new workflow, I have just now effectively lost all of my histories in terms of reporting."
"Once the solution is deployed, it's not easy to configure."
"The challenge which I frequently see from Jira is the label. When you search for a label sometimes, it suddenly disappears. If there's a mismatch due to all-caps or lower case, you won't be able to find it. It won't even come up as a recommendation or suggestion. That's something that can be really frustrating, as people create labels in their own specific ways and then no one else can find anything."
"Sometimes the screens can be a bit too busy. There's often a lot of information on the screen. I think paring things down and applying some UX improvements might enhance the look and feel of the interface."
"The release of a MailServer feature within Jira would be beneficial."
"They are not supporting in-house servers anymore and I think I've got until January to port this to something else."
"The automation feature needs to be more user-friendly."
"There needs to be a way to export a user story."
"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 solution's editing capabilities need improvement."
"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
"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."
"Based on my understanding, the tool's integration capabilities with multiple tools is an area of concern that Polarion needs to focus on more."
"The user interface is not yet optimized."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the starter pack of three users, up to five users, is free. So you can try it out."
"We used to be on a perpetual license provided by our clients."
"I understand JIRA is quite expensive."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis, and it is based on what you use."
"As a company, we get a subsidized price, and it's lower than what's quoted on their website."
"The pricing for Jira is reasonable, although I think they can bring it down because the plugins cost extra."
"It is very cheap if you forego the local instance and stick to the cloud."
"The price of Jira could be lower."
"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."
"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."
"It is an expensive product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
53%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
26%
Computer Software Company
15%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

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 needs improvement with Polarion ALM?
Polarion ALM ( /categories/application-lifecycle-management-alm-suites ) could see improvements in performance and scalability. The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing f...
What is your primary use case for Polarion ALM?
Polarion ALM ( /products/polarion-alm-reviews ) is a tool that delivers both document views and table views simultaneously. It organizes configurations according to norms and standards, making it s...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Jira Software
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Jira vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.