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Polarion ALM vs TFS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

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
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (7th)
TFS
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Test Management Tools (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Polarion ALM is 7.8%, up from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TFS is 4.5%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Pmurki@Micron.Com Praveen - PeerSpot reviewer
Version control is excellent and good for code review, branching, merging strategies and more
I've worked with TFS for source control and Agile project management. We also used TFS for seamless team collaboration and tracking.  I used TFS for a couple of years. Now, we use Azure DevOps. It's a wonderful tool for source control and CI/CD pipelines It's a really valuable tool for…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Scalability is good...The integration is quite good."
"It is a very stable solution."
"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."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."
"It offers good performance."
"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 interface is easy to navigate."
"A notable feature of TFS is its ease of creating user stories and tasks, which simplifies the process of adding and editing them."
"The most valuable feature of TFS is its compatibility with Microsoft Windows systems. We have predominantly Microsoft solutions and TFS work well."
"What I like the most is that you can set permissions on just one folder."
"The most valuable feature of TFS is the central repository, and you can see what changes other developers did from which branch."
"The most valuable features are related to source code management. Using TFS for source code management and being able to branch and have multiple developers work on the same projects is valuable. We can also branch and merge code back together."
"It's an integrated system that includes all the information that we need to deliver our products smoothly and to track the progress of each piece of code."
"I like the build management features and the integration with Jenkins and many other tools."
 

Cons

"The ease-of-use could be improved a little."
"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."
"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."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
"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."
"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."
"The interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."
"The product access management features and connectivity need improvement. Rights management is also complex and could be simplified."
"The dashboard needs more enhancements."
"They have room for improvement in merging the source code changes for multiple developers across files. It is very good at highlighting the changes that the source code automatically does not know how to handle, but it's not very good at reporting the ones that it did automatically. There are times when we have source code that gets merged, and we lose the changes that we expected to happen. It can get a little confusing at times. They can just do a little bit better on the merging of changes for multiple developers."
"The usability of TFS is not that great."
"The user interface could be improved to make it simpler and increase usability."
"I would like to see the reporting features expanded so that I can see details on the users connected to all of the projects."
"TFS should allow more integration with different platforms."
"The execution of test cases could stand improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"It is an expensive product."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"It's just as expensive as HPE ALM, without many of the features, best used for development tool only to avoid higher costs."
"Use the Microsoft recommended “seat-based” licensing model. This allows a single developer with multiple machines to consume only one client license."
"TFS is not cheap."
"The overall price of TFS is good."
"TFS is expensive, and the licensing costs are yearly. I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"There are different prices depending on the configurations. There is a free version available. There is no extra cost for the solution. However, the hardware could be something that needs to be considered."
"We pay subscription fees on a yearly basis and the price is reasonable."
"I would like to see TFS improve its web interface as there are some limitations with IDs and the integration behind it and with open source tools like VS Code."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
25%
Computer Software Company
15%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Educational Organization
67%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Manufacturing Company
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Which is better - TFS or Azure DevOps?
TFS and Azure DevOps are different in many ways. TFS was designed for admins, and only offers incremental improvements. In addition, TFS seems complicated to use and I don’t think it has a very fri...
What do you like most about TFS?
Microsoft's technical team is supportive.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TFS?
While I do not know the exact pricing, TFS is likely more expensive than GitLab.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Team Foundation Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Vendex KBB IT Services, Info Support, Fujitsu Consulting, TCSC, Airways New Zealand, HP
Find out what your peers are saying about Polarion ALM vs. TFS and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.