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OpenText Software Delivery Management vs Polarion ALM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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

OpenText Software Delivery ...
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
10th
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
5th
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of OpenText Software Delivery Management is 5.2%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 5.9%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Polarion ALM5.9%
OpenText Software Delivery Management5.2%
Other88.9%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

PE
Senior Test Automation Specialist at APG
Generating audit evidence effortlessly saves time and money
OpenText ALM Octane is a new product with full development ongoing, where new ideas are launched regularly. Its ability to generate audit evidence with a single click is a significant advantage, as it saves considerable time and money compared to manual processes. This efficiency is especially valuable for audits required by financial regulators.
LasseMikkonen - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at byte
Has provided mature traceability and configuration features while supporting complex product development for mid-to-large companies
Polarion ALM can learn from Atlassian tools a lot, as the usability is not the best, and it is really narrowly focused on requirements management only. For example, if you want to do testing and test result management with it, it is very limited. Jama Connect has similar limitations, and both should really focus on developing the integrations and extendability. For example, Jama Connect does not even have an extension marketplace, whereas Polarion has a small one. However, compared to the Atlassian Marketplace where you can get whatever applications for whatever price, it is a totally different ballgame. I would highly recommend Polarion ALM add more AI features to it. I know they have started to do something, but for example, I have been developing widgets for IBM DOORS Next, AI widgets, so that you can write and analyze requirements with the AI, and I have also done the same for Jira, creating a couple of Jira applications in the marketplace as well.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"If you are looking for any Agile tool, I would definitely recommend ALM Octane, not only because it's a Micro Focus tool, but the way that they're investing in the tool and the ease of use."
"Overall, it's really good software; I haven't seen anything like this in a long time."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The benefits I've mentioned can be reflected as monetary benefits, which I would estimate at 35 percent annually."
"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."
"The feature I found most valuable in Micro Focus ALM Octane is its ability to integrate with the CI/CD stack."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its ability to manage test scenarios, test results, and test automation, which are its primary functionalities."
"My clients have seen a return on investment; they believe that because it is cohesive and can be used across the enterprise in a simplified manner, it reduces the total cost of ownership, which might be translated into a return on investment."
"This one tool incorporates almost all engineering tasks we need to do for one project."
"We had a nice experience with technical support."
"The technical support is quite good."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."
"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 software is stable."
"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

"Development of extensions or connections to GitHub actions could be better. Better integration with Azure DevOps would also help."
"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."
"I haven't been impressed with the reporting from a requirements matrix and a traceability perspective."
"The biggest problem with ALM Octane is that it's very complex, so it's difficult to use and scale."
"It could use just some small improvements. I would like additional features, like planning features, user story mapping, or connection to collaboration tools."
"Promoting it more could help a lot of projects."
"One of the things that a lot of our project teams have complained about is the simplicity of reporting that's available in Octane, and that they have to export data out of it in order to create the types of reports that their PMO or their client wants to see."
"Currently, Micro Focus ALM Octane is considered an old-world tool in the industry and lacks the perception of being a new-age tool among its customers."
"The planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."
"The ease-of-use could be improved a little."
"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."
"The weak point of Polarion ALM software is about reporting and time for extraction of the data...The quality of reporting needs to improve."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
"The most important thing for them to improve should be platform-independent features. They should also provide extensive pipelines and release pipelines that we can define and we can work on."
"Based on my understanding, the tool's integration capabilities with multiple tools is an area of concern that Polarion needs to focus on more."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a conversion fee for changing licenses."
"It's pretty pricey, one of the most expensive ones on the market... The value depends on if you use all the features that it has. It comes with a lot of features. The difference between the license structure of ALM and Octane versus JIRA, is that you get everything with ALM and Octane... For JIRA, you buy the pieces one piece at a time."
"The price of Micro Focus ALM Octane is too high compared to other solutions."
"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."
"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."
"If you compare the price with the functionality, it is pretty much the same as other solutions. If you compare it to Jira, for instance, it has a lot more functionality. You don't need any plug-ins, but it's also more expensive. Once you start adding your different plug-ins to Jira, you'll probably end up with the same amount or more. There is also a yearly support cost, which is usually 25% of the initial cost of the license."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"It is an expensive product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
31%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise32
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus ALM Octane?
OpenText ALM Octane is an expensive product. However, it offsets costs by saving time and money, thus creating a balance between expenses and benefits. Our organization with over 1500 users sees sa...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus ALM Octane?
There is room for improvement in OpenText ALM Octane's flexibility. While it aims to be as flexible as possible for a large enterprise application, sometimes there are limitations that may not meet...
What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?
Polarion ALM can learn from Atlassian tools a lot, as the usability is not the best, and it is really narrowly focused on requirements management only. For example, if you want to do testing and te...
What is your primary use case for Polarion ALM?
We are in our product development using Polarion ALM's functionalities. I am a power user, partly responsible for configuring the tool. We are using it for many things. The idea was to go for a req...
What advice do you have for others considering Polarion ALM?
The pricing of Polarion ALM and IBM ELM is pretty much aligned. They are not at the same level, but I would say aligned according to the capabilities of the tools, with DOORS being more expensive b...
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus ALM Octane, Micro Focus Octane
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Orange, Airbus, Haufe Group, Kellogg's, Claro, Bon Secours, World Wide Technology
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Software Delivery Management vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.