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TFS pros and cons

Vendor: Microsoft

4.0 out of 5

97 reviews
88% willing to recommend

4,684 followers

Pros & Cons summary

TFS supports both centralized and distributed version control, integrating seamlessly with Visual Studio IDE and Office tools. It enhances productivity with features like comprehensive build management, test case linking, and task management that includes user stories and project oversight. However, access and permissions are complex, and the dashboard lacks features like those in JIRA, with limited collaboration with Microsoft Teams and missing Git-like artifact storage capabilities.

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

It integrates well with most Microsoft products, enhancing its compatibility and utility for users primarily using Microsoft platforms.

It offers comprehensive test management features and capabilities, streamlining testing processes and enhancing management of test cases and plans.

Version Control in TFS supports both centralized and distributed models, facilitating source code management with TFVC and Git options.

Its API is robust, allowing powerful programmable management of work items and listening to changes via TFS events.

It features a thorough integration with Visual Studio IDE and Office tools, promoting high-level automation and minimizing human errors.

CONS

TFS access and permissions are confusing, particularly for manual testing functionalities.

Resource requirements for TFS servers often exceed Microsoft's minimum specifications, leading to performance issues.

Users encounter challenges with TFS on-premise, such as integration limitations with SharePoint Online and external connections.

TFS's integration and collaboration with other Microsoft products like Teams and third-party tools is lacking.

The management and execution of test cases in TFS need improvement, particularly in test case management and merging changes.

TFS Pros review quotes

Vice President Engineering at Vertex Downhole Ltd

May 26, 2022

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.

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Principal Consultant at Wipro

Apr 6, 2022

I have found almost all of the features valuable because it integrates well with your Microsoft products. If a client is using the entire Microsoft platform, then TFS would be definitely preferable. It integrates with the digital studio development environment as well.

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AVP, DevOps Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Aug 13, 2017

Version Control: TFS offers both the centralized “TFVC” version control technology as well as the distributed “Git” version control technology.

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reviewer1727481

TitleSpecial Education Teacher at a educational organization with 201-500 employees

Nov 24, 2021

The traceability is valuable. While managing the workflows, it was always nice to have that traceability from requirements and all the way through design. It integrates with Microsoft Test Manager, and you can have everything that is related to a requirement attached to it.

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reviewer1171707

Asst. Vice president, Applications Architecture at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 13, 2020

The most valuable feature from my point of view is project management, which includes user stories as well as task management.

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AK

Project Manager at Duck Creek Technologies

Oct 11, 2021

Basically, the capacity to construct various products is something I find handy.

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Solutions Architect at Diyar United Company

Apr 6, 2023

Since it is a robust solution, I face no performance issues. Also, considering how well the implementation process of the solution was carried out, we never faced any issues while using the solution.

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PK

Product Owner at PerkinElmer, Inc.

Mar 7, 2021

The work item feature is most valuable. It allows us to store all product requirements. We can also link the test cases to those requirements so that we know which feature has already been tested, and which one is waiting for testing. We can also couple the code reviews, unit tests, and automated tests into these requirements. It is reliable. It has all the features and good performance. It also has reporting tools or analysis tools.

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HS

Senior Soft Engineer at SECP

Jun 6, 2022

The most valuable feature of TFS is that it keeps the code secure while working collaboratively in a team of four or five individuals.

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reviewer1517148

Program Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Mar 5, 2021

Some of the valuable features are version control and the ability to create different collections in terms of segregating the authorization for teams who connect to small projects.

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TFS Cons review quotes

Vice President Engineering at Vertex Downhole Ltd

May 26, 2022

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.

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Principal Consultant at Wipro

Apr 6, 2022

Overall, I think it would be useful to have something similar where Microsoft comes up with supporting concepts of scaling Agile in TFS so that clients don't have to look for a separate tool.

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AVP, DevOps Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Aug 13, 2017

Not all of the functionality, which is exposed by the command line interface (tf.exe) is available in the Visual Studio GUI.

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Free Report: TFS Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about TFS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.

816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

reviewer1727481

TitleSpecial Education Teacher at a educational organization with 201-500 employees

Nov 24, 2021

It has been really dated. When you start to work more in an agile environment, it is not really that flexible. They tried to replicate the look and feel of Jira, but it is not quite there. It was nice to use in the past, but it is not as flexible now with the changing development environments and methodologies.

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reviewer1171707

Asst. Vice president, Applications Architecture at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 13, 2020

The user interface could be improved to make it simpler and increase usability.

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AK

Project Manager at Duck Creek Technologies

Oct 11, 2021

I'm looking for specific options that aren't currently available, such as active status, new status, or what's currently in progress.

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Solutions Architect at Diyar United Company

Apr 6, 2023

As an end-user, I expect the solution's performance to be faster while staying as stable as possible.

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PK

Product Owner at PerkinElmer, Inc.

Mar 7, 2021

Currently, we are looking for a solution with which we can incorporate third-party development sites or third-party project teams into the system. Because it is on-premise, it is a bit problematic because we need to have a VPN or something else in the system. A cloud-based solution would be better for us, and that's what we are looking for. Our biggest problem is the external connection, which, of course, is limited by our own IT. It would be good to have some kind of publishing service for this external connection. It might be there, and it might be that our IT is making it impossible for us. Its template editor could be easier to use. Currently, customizing the project templates according to your needs requires some work.

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HS

Senior Soft Engineer at SECP

Jun 6, 2022

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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reviewer1517148

Program Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Mar 5, 2021

This solution is quite old and it is already being bundled as Azure DevOps Server.

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Test Management Tools

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

OpenText ALM / Quality Center vs TFS

Eggplant Test vs TFS

TestRail vs TFS

Tricentis qTest vs TFS

Zephyr Enterprise vs TFS

Visual Studio Test Professional vs TFS

Panaya Test Dynamix vs TFS

Broadcom Agile Requirements Designer vs TFS

ConformIQ Creator vs TFS

Cognizant ADPART vs TFS

Adaptavist Test Management for Jira vs TFS

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