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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 (3rd)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (7th)
 

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 Polarion ALM is 7.4%, 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

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

"Jira's collaborative features, such as comments, notifications, and real-time updates, facilitate better communication."
"The board has been a very valuable feature because it can be very simple for teams that are not technical. It can also be highly technical and have lots of data for teams that are technical. So we use it for both instances."
"I have experience with Jira's bulk tracking and issue management. We use it to add new features to our product, fix bugs, and address customer feedback."
"Work management software that has the flexibility to be configured for any company. It's stable, scalable, and offers responsive support."
"It includes by default all the necessary tools for a project manager to work and make their work more efficient."
"Overall, the solution is very nice and has a variety of great features."
"One of the most valuable features is querying because the jQuery function is very good. Additionally, we can create good designs very easily."
"The most valuable feature is the feature of assigning. Whenever I have an issue, Jira doesn't stop at just letting me describe the issue. I can also assign the issue to a developer, and the developer gets notified about it. After he is able to work on it, he can update the status and revert back to me through the same platform. It really avoids a lot of communication over email and phone. This the feature that I really like about Jira. I always use Jira with my team."
"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."
"It is a very stable solution."
"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."
"The solution offers good integration."
"It meets with everybody's needs without having to grab plugins."
"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 initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"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."
 

Cons

"I find the dashboard to be Jira's most problematic feature."
"Out-of-the-box reporting is limited. It would be helpful if more customisation was possible."
"In the way it is deployed, I think Jira is too dependent on the third-party applications that are available in its marketplace. If we could get some of the basic functionalities which are offered by these third-party applications, that would be ideal because each time we need a new functionality, we have to purchase a new plugin as an add-on."
"I manage the progress of the stories in an Excel chart with dates on work progress or thing to do. I don't like the progress or the stage changing from the stories in Jira."
"Jira can improve by making methodologies better, such as scrum and agile. Additionally, improvements in Kanban boards are needed."
"The GUI should have much better features like more graphical illustrations. There are some cases or benchmarks that we are trying to capture into a dashboard GUI's graphical summary, but unfortunately JIRA is not able to do that."
"The work items structure is not hierarchical and that needs to be changed. It's too flat."
"Slow when integrating with other components."
"The interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."
"The solution's editing capabilities need improvement."
"The ease-of-use could be improved a little."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
"As Polarion ALM is a development-oriented tool, easy support or easy access is provided by default, but if I want to use detailed features, I need to write the script, particularly the VM script, and this is its area for improvement. I want Polarion ALM to have a graphical user interface that doesn't need scripting. In the next release of the tool, I'd like for it to not require scripting and programming because needing to run script language is time-consuming."
"The user interface is not yet optimized."
"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."
"Based on my understanding, the tool's integration capabilities with multiple tools is an area of concern that Polarion needs to focus on more."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you are using just Jira, it is cheap, but if you start to use it and you feel you need some more services or more functions, then you have to buy add-ons, which can make it expensive."
"One of my customers told me that they were receiving better pricing for a similar tool from Microsoft."
"I think the starter pack of three users, up to five users, is free. So you can try it out."
"We currently have ten users, and it is free for ten users."
"The price of the solution could be less expensive. We pay annually for the solution."
"It is an affordable tool."
"It is certainly a long-term solution for our company and for previous companies that I have worked for. They have these long-term term licenses, but I'm not sure if they really pay on a yearly basis. They are certainly using it for a really long period and for a lot of users."
"We feel that the product is a good value for the cost."
"It is an expensive product."
"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."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"The solution is expensive."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
53%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
25%
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?
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...
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...
 

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: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.