Polarion ALM vs Rally Software comparison

Siemens and Broadcom are both solutions in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category. Siemens is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.2, while Broadcom is ranked #10 with an average rating of 6.8. Siemens holds a 8.2% mindshare in ALM, compared to Broadcom’s 6.4% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Siemens users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Polarion ALM

Read 23 Polarion ALM reviews

4,007 Views
3,646 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Rally Software

Read 119 Rally Software reviews

4,485 Views
4,216 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Polarion ALM

Rally Software

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Rally Software and Polarion ALM both compete in the application lifecycle management solutions category. Rally Software appears to have an edge in pricing flexibility, while Polarion ALM provides comprehensive features that suit compliance-focused industries.

Features: Rally Software offers robust project management, release tracking, and scrum support. It enhances its functionality through flexibility and integration capabilities, especially with JIRA. User-friendly interfaces improve team interaction tracking and reporting. Polarion ALM provides high traceability and management of requirements, tests, and releases, advantageous for industries focusing on compliance.

Room for Improvement: Rally Software needs to improve Kanban support and performance, focusing on metrics and integration. It also requires more intuitive reporting and analytics. Polarion ALM can enhance user experience, ease integration with external tools, and improve its interface, as well as enrich its test management and reporting capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Rally Software offers deployment in public cloud, on-premises, and hybrid cloud models. It is known for responsive customer service, although some users find initial navigation difficult. Polarion ALM provides diverse public and private cloud deployment options, with comprehensive but costly support.

Pricing and ROI: Rally Software is cost-effective for smaller teams with bulk purchasing discounts, showing significant ROI through streamlined processes. Though pricier, Polarion ALM justifies its cost for larger enterprises by offering features essential for traceability and compliance, balancing cost with functionality.

To learn more, read our detailed Polarion ALM vs. Rally Software Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM vs. Rally Software

July 2025

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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

Polarion ALM

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

6th

Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Rally Software

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

10th

Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

119

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Polarion ALM is 8.2%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rally Software is 6.4%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

Featured Reviews

Dina Bindi

Information and Communication technology at CNH Industrial

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.

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Deep Maini

Agile CSM - Sr. Scrum Master at Alliant Energy Corporation

Helps you collaborate on various effects and solutions from the top to the bottom of the organization

We use Rally Software extensively in our agile development processes. We have program boards set up where we write and break down stories. We assign story points and map dependencies between different stories, showing how stories from one team may depend on stories from another team. It integrates these functions well, especially compared to Jira, which has some limitations in this area. The tool keeps improving based on how teams actually work in Scaled Agile, continually upgrading their software versions to meet our needs. I find the whole Rally Software tool integrated very nicely. In Jira, we often go to Confluence for documentation using two separate tools. But in the product, it's not like that. The documentation is tightly integrated. I don't feel like switching to another tool, like going from Jira to Confluence. The tool is designed for collaboration. It shows your organization's view, showing different teams and verticals. It helps you collaborate on various effects and solutions from the top to the bottom of the organization. It has an ecosystem that supports this. All the dependencies between different teams can be easily mapped in Rally Software. They have a program board for that purpose.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's most valuable feature is its browser experience. I rate its traceability feature a ten out of ten. From the initial stage to the release, you can manage everything through a single point."

"Polarion ALM is excellent for tracking who is working on what and how many people are involved in a project."

"We had a nice experience with technical support."

"Polarion ALM helps us better structure our customer requirements, and we can also validate the specs of our products against those. If anything changes on our side, we see the impact, and we can see the effect If a customer changes requirements."

"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."

"The software is stable."

"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."

"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."

More Polarion ALM pros

"The product has excellent customizable reports."

"With this product, searching for historical information or the evolution of the requirement, detecting conflict between projects has helped a lot."

"CA Agile Central provides visibility into how teams are meeting business objectives."

"What I like most about Rally Software, in terms of using it for the agile process, is that it's clear, useful, and user-friendly. I also like that it has every field you can use for the Scrum process."

"The most valuable features of Rally Software are the executive dashboards, ease of use, and many other features. They have encapsulated everything that a GI can do, such as monitoring, maintaining, and then releasing. It's continuous integration and development."

"It allows us to work in a more dynamic fashion and track more of the development lifecycle."

"The effect of these kind of tools drives the way you organize things. It helps you shape the way you flow."

"It's designed around Agile, so it has all of the pieces that match up with the process."

More Rally Software pros

Cons

"The configuration aspect of the solution is not easy. A person needs a lot of programming knowledge in order to successfully handle the job."

"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."

"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 interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."

"Integration requires a lot of effort. You typically need to work with an implementation partner to get it done. Most connectors available for Polarion ALM are paid. Unlike other vendors offering several standard connectors for free, integrating third-party software with Polarion ALM involves discussing and coordinating with the third-party software providers, which requires effort."

"The planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."

"The user interface is not yet optimized."

"The weak point of Polarion ALM software is about reporting and time for extraction of the data...The quality of reporting needs to improve."

More Polarion ALM cons

"We'd like better dashboards to make visibility better."

"The product needs to have more integration capabilities."

"The navigation within the tool sometimes is a little tricky for me. I'm sure with more use, more practice, I'll become accustomed to it, but some of the things just aren't intuitive."

"The Reporting feature can improve, especially around executive summaries and dependency mapping."

"What I don't like about it is that it is really hard to find old work to reference information and use the reporting section of the application in terms of trying to analyze trends. If I am trying to find out which interfaces took this long and I want to compare and measure improvement from one quarter to another quarter, the reporting mechanism within Rally is very troublesome. They have an Excel plugin that you're supposed to use, but you literally have to pull the raw data out before you can do the analysis. You can't do it within Rally, and if you can, it is a secret, and I don't know how to do it. It should have better, easier, and user-friendly reporting without having to use the Excel add-in. It is very clunky. There is a lot of data in there, but it is not organized in such a way that makes it intuitive. You really have to kind of look for where do you put your documentation or dates. Some customization is available, but it is not plug-and-play like Jira. When I switched from TFS to Jira, I just went and started using Jira, whereas with Rally, you kind of have to really get in and figure out what you need to do before you set stuff up, or you're going to get yourself stuck. You can just start using Jira and be successful."

"I think there needs to be some simplification. The team-level side can be challenging and complicated."

"I'd like to be able to color code timeboxes, so I have an easy visual way to track the success of sprints."

"More customization capabilities would be helpful. Providing a little bit more structure around how the system should be set up in terms of the hierarchy structure might be helpful as well."

More Rally Software cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"Software for medical devices is always expensive."

"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."

"It is an expensive product."

"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."

"From a price point, it's a cost effective solution for our needs."

"We are always looking for a discount, if the solution was less expensive it would be a benefit."

"Rally Software costs $50 a month, and for a base account, that price is acceptable."

"Frankly, pricing is expensive and needs to be carefully planned for when budgeting."

"I understand it's a little more expensive. That is why many people prefer Jira."

"I don't know the exact pricing, but I think the tool is priced high. They provide quality workmanship, good software, regular upgrades, and they're always attentive and listen to users. Everything comes with a price. I think it's an expensive solution compared to Jira or other competitors, but it's a complete package."

"The license costs are fairly high as compared to some of the other solutions out there."

"It is expensive and may not be worthwhile for a small company."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

27%

Computer Software Company

13%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

24%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Polarion ALM?

It is a very stable solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?

The user interface of Polarion ALM needs improvement as it can experience changes that disrupt workflows, especially during major updates. Sometimes, database migrations take too long, spanning two...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Polarion ALM?

As a manual tester, I use Polarion ALM ( /products/polarion-alm-reviews ) for our weekly builds validation. These builds are crucial as they eventually lead to final release builds for customers. I...

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What do you like most about Rally Software?

Rally offers many features that help the management of activities, coordination, alignment and reports, which applies agility across the organization. If I were to highlight a particular feature, i...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rally Software?

I don't know the exact pricing, but I think the tool is priced high. They provide quality workmanship, good software, regular upgrades, and they're always attentive and listen to users. Everything ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Rally Software?

The product itself seems to have a lot of bugs. One issue is that it sometimes allows people to modify data inappropriately. For example, team members can change numbers at will. While we have a me...

See all answers

Comparisons

Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM

Compared 31% of the time

Jira vs Polarion ALM

Compared 22% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM

Compared 14% of the time

Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM

Compared 8% of the time

OpenText Software Delivery Management vs Polarion ALM

Compared 1% of the time

More Polarion ALM Competitors

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Rally Software

Compared 31% of the time

Jira vs Rally Software

Compared 30% of the time

TFS vs Rally Software

Compared 6% of the time

OpenText Application Quality Management vs Rally Software

Compared 5% of the time

PTC Integrity vs Rally Software

Compared 3% of the time

More Rally Software Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM

June 2025

Download Polarion ALM product report

Buyer's Guide

Rally Software

June 2025

Download Rally Software product report

Also Known As

No data available

CA Agile Central, Rally Enterprise, CA Agile Training, CA Agile Coaching, CA Agile Academy, CA Agile Management , CA ALM

Overview

The world’s first 100% browser-based ALM enterprise solution, which enables seamless collaboration across disparate teams, multi-directionally linked work items, full traceability, accelerated productivity and automated proof of compliance.

Siemens

With Rally Software, you can plan, prioritize, manage, track, and continuously improve your work so that you can deliver the value that your customers need with speed, quality, and efficiency. Our enterprise-class Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) SaaS platform provides visibility into progress, roadblocks, and dependencies across multiple teams, projects, and programs. This allows you to align to your strategic goals and create better business results, and to do it all in a single system of record.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group

Physicians Mutual, Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare, Editora Abril, Tata Communications, Level 3 Communications, Seagate, TomTom, Philips, Hiscox, Physicians Mutual, MYOB

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM vs. Rally Software

July 2025

Free Report: Polarion ALM vs. Rally Software

Find out what your peers are saying about Polarion ALM vs. Rally Software and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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