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 8.3, while Broadcom is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.2. Siemens holds a 8.1% mindshare in ALM, compared to Broadcom’s 6.8% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of Siemens users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Polarion ALM

Read 21 Polarion ALM reviews

4,114 Views
2,819 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Rally Software

Read 119 Rally Software reviews

6,892 Views
2,779 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: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM vs. Rally Software

April 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

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Rally Software

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

7th

Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

7th

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 April 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Polarion ALM is 8.1%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rally Software is 6.8%, up from 5.9% 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.

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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."

"The technical support is quite good."

"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."

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

"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."

"It is a very stable solution."

"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 most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."

More Polarion ALM pros

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

"CA Agile Central helps the entire organization run like one powerful team."

"The visibility it brings to the plan, the ability to capture tasks, and trace them all the way through the life cycle. Providing that visibility helps both me and the team, or teams, to be able to understand where we are in the development process."

"It's a good platform to keep track of all the user stories across all projects. So rather than having one off Excel spreadsheets with all of the requirements, it is a good place to have all of that."

"Gives me a dashboard where I can see what things are not being worked on, what things are blocked."

"The Defect feature. In one view you can see all your defects and you can push them into the different releases."

"The metrics - collecting metrics. It's because we've used several other tools in the past, and they don't give you a full indication of how well your teams are performing, at a portfolio level, at a product level, and at the team level."

"Having that view into features and roadmap from product to delivery teams, and where they are going, then execute on."

More Rally Software pros

Cons

"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."

"The tool needs to improve its planning. It also needs to add more integrations."

"I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system."

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

"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."

"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."

"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."

More Polarion ALM cons

"In Rally Software, the connection with GitLab and GitHub needs improvement."

"Customization features may not be exposed or unavailable, so people may be looking for them. So, customization is an area people have told me is more desirable."

"A lot of the features that we would be looking to add, I am learning may not be within Agile Central, but part of another CA tool set."

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

"As it is right now, it does not support automation of the quality assurance process. It just supports manual testing."

"I think there is a missing link with the development activity. Some developers are pushing in new versions of the code, but you cannot make the link from the user story to a specific application version."

"From a test management perspective, it should have the capability to give you both automation and manual integration in one place."

"One problem I see is that if there is a dependent user story - for example, if my team is working on one thing and there is a dependent user story from another team - we can have a dependency created but we don't know if there is a change of status from the other team. That is something which is very important for Agile Central to look into so that if the other team makes any changes we will be notified as well."

More Rally Software cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."

"It is an expensive product."

"The solution is expensive."

"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

26%

Computer Software Company

15%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

76%

Manufacturing Company

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?

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...

See all answers

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...

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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 29% of the time

Jira vs Polarion ALM

Compared 26% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM

Compared 16% of the time

Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM

Compared 8% of the time

ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management vs Polarion ALM

Compared 1% of the time

More Polarion ALM Competitors

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Rally Software

Compared 36% of the time

Jira vs Rally Software

Compared 32% of the time

TFS vs Rally Software

Compared 6% of the time

Jira Align vs Rally Software

Compared 5% of the time

Smartsheet vs Rally Software

Compared 3% of the time

More Rally Software Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM

March 2025

Download Polarion ALM product report

Buyer's Guide

Rally Software

March 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

April 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: April 2025.

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