TFS Reviews

The solution was used for software development.

It is very user-friendly.

Since the TFS was an on-prem solution, the private network accessibility was restricted. 

I have been using TFS for a year. 

It is a stable solution. I rate the stability an eight out of ten. 

It is a scalable solution. Presently, twenty to thirty users are using the solution. 

The technical support team is good and supportive. 

Positive

The IT team deployed the solution. 

There is a yearly licensing fee that needs to be paid. 

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

Work item management integration with source control. I value it as the most valuable feature since it provides seamless integration with your TFS source control which makes it easy to drill down the requirements from the source control, and vice versa.

It has improved a lot over the years with newer versions, Build is one such area which has been significantly simplified, making it very easy for the users to use than the previous XAML and pre TFS 2010 build infrastructure.

Also, the introduction of Release Management has made TFS a complete ALM tool.

I think the integration with SharePoint. Microsoft should discontinue the use of SharePoint as I don’t really see any value add to TFS, document management features can be included in TFS web portal itself, if required!

11+ years, using TFS right from the first version (TFS 2005).

I have rarely faced any stability issues, except for some minor notification/alerts issues, etc., which can be easily ignored, as Microsoft is quick to provide fixes for them as well as there are quarterly updates for TFS.

The technical support has always been up to the mark in my case. Also, there are multiple posts online which help you in difficult times.

Yes, I previously used VSS, but since it was just a source control solution, I moved to TFS, which offered much more features in one package.

The previous version of TFS (TFS 2005) were a bit messy during setup due to the different installers required for different components, but with newer versions the installation and setup has been simplified to a great extent.

Yes, the pricing and licensing for TFS is on the higher side, but if you intend to use the tool as a complete ALM tool, it will reduce your costs in the long run.

As of now, there are no products in market which you can compare with TFS which provides you complete integration with different components required in ALM hemisphere, I have tried various Open Source tools, but none of them can match the functionality TFS provides. They are GIT, JIRA, Octopus Deploy, etc.

If you need a complete ALM tool for Microsoft applications and have the budget, please go ahead with TFS.

My primary use case for TFS is to track source code changes, including branching, merging, and comparing changes. I also use it to check in and out code, track changes, and maintain a history of modifications. 

The solution has been valuable in managing source control and tracking code changes, improving code management and development efficiency. However, it has not significantly impacted project delivery timelines or cost efficiency.

The product's most valuable feature is the ability to view and track the history of changes. It allows me to see previous modifications and helps develop similar features by referencing past work.

The product access management features and connectivity need improvement. Rights management is also complex and could be simplified. 

Additional automation features would be beneficial. 

I have been using TFS since the early 2000s.

The solution is generally stable, though connectivity issues have occurred, often related to VPN usage.

I have used a similar solution sparingly.

The initial setup was straightforward: creating a new project, importing code, and setting up branches.

The setup was done in-house.

TFS is effective for code management and tracking but could benefit from improved automation and simplified user management.

Overall, I rate it a seven out of ten. 

At my previous company, I was using TFS for managing projects and code.

The most valuable feature is the backlog.

The reporting has improved over time, with the addition of Power BI reports.

There are a lot of places that Microsoft can improve this product, as well as their support.

The program and portfolio planning facility can be improved. As it is now, you can't do portfolio program planning functionality across multiple project Areas (vs. Team areas within a project area) because you cannot link items across projects. Reporting can be done using Power BI, but real time connections are difficult.  You can use connectors and external integrations but you cannot do it with the tool. It needs to be better. 

It is difficult to customize.

I had been using Team Foundation Server for between four and five years.

This is absolutely a stable platform. It is highly available and follows on the environment.

It is possible to scale, albeit tricky. There are between 2,000 and 3,000 users.

Technical support is a challenge. It is a pain to get anything from Microsoft done. For example, working on patches and queries is slow. There was a lot of functionality that we wanted to embed that we had trouble with.

They changed the entire application lifecycle management suite, so it was a challenge to understand and navigate through how things would be done.

It is not a buggy product, but for new functionality, it is really a challenge. Especially in cloud-based deployments, it is even more challenging.

I was using TFS at my previous company and my current organization uses JIRA. I would say that TFS is the more scalable of the two. With JIRA, you really need connectors and things like that. You have to have external addons to make it more scalable.

In terms of usability, JIRA might provide a better user experience but from an organizational and stability point of view, TFS wins hands-down.

Price-wise, TFS is better than JIRA.

Out of the box, the initial setup is easy. However, it is difficult to customize, especially if it is on a cloud. 

TFS is more competitively priced than some other solutions.

My advice to anybody who is implementing this solution is to use as much as possible, out of the box. Customizing it is difficult. It may not necessarily fit everything perfectly and it can be tricky to scale, but not impossible. There are definitely challenges scaling it. That said, the tool from Microsoft does allow you to do things very differently but try to do it in a standard way first.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

My company uses the product for some of our developers who develop software on a server, after which they need to import it before collaborating with their teams. In general, the development team in our company uses the product.

The manageability and performance of the product are areas of concern where improvements are required.

I have experience with TFS, which is now called Azure DevOps Server. I have experience with the product for four or five years. My company is a customer of Microsoft.

Microsoft's support team is big, and we get help from the technical team while being able to use Office 365 and Azure Cloud, considering the licenses my company has purchased. Microsoft's technical team is supportive. Microsoft's technical team is supportive. With the licenses that my company has purchased from Microsoft, our organization gets the technical support to fix our problems directly from Microsoft.

The product's initial setup phase was difficult. It was difficult to control the software version we were using in our company. The tool doesn't offer a program or software to manage it.

I rate the overall tool a six out of ten.

We are using TFS for source control.

The most valuable feature of TFS is its compatibility with Microsoft Windows systems. We have predominantly Microsoft solutions and TFS work well.

The user interface could improve and test management was not useful in TFS.

I have been using TFS for approximately three years.

The support from the vendor was good.

We switched from TFS and now we use Jira.

The initial setup of TFS was complex.

We did the implementation of the solution in-house using our own knowledge and we did some training courses in TFS.

We evaluated GitLab and Github for source control and Jira for ticketing handling. The newer versions of TFS are better but at the time we found Jira to be more user-friendly and TFS was more technical which is why we switched to Jira.

The effectiveness of TFS depends on the specific use case. It's a suitable solution if the user primarily operates with Microsoft tools, such as Azure DevOps and others.

I rate TFS seven out of ten.

I use this solution in my organization as a product owner who manages backlogs in DevOps. I manage the backlogs items and use it to collaborate with my developers.

There are less than 100 people using this solution in my company.

The solution is deployed on-cloud.

It's user friendly. We haven't had any issues so far. It's flexible. If we need something, we can always contact the owner in our headquarters to make a configuration.

I only use 1% of the functionality, so I am not familiar enough to know what needs to be improved.

I have been using this solution for a couple of years.

It's stable.

It's scalable.

I would rate this solution five out of ten.

We are using the core repository for the complete development life cycle. 

The solution helps with pretty much all aspects of the development cycle. This includes using it for QA, testing, development, and the release. It's useful for every aspect of the development cycle.

The initial setup is fairly easy.

The continuous integration and continuous delivery should begin with DSS. It doesn't right now. That needs to be changed.

The phased release process could be better. Instead of shelving the call and unshelving the call, it should be done in phases. In an updated version, this should be something they adjust. It needs a more effective release process. 

There should be management of the project built-in.

I've been using the solution for more than five years.

The stability of the solution is good. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze on us. It works. It's good. We haven't had any issues when it comes to stability.

The scalability of the solution is very good. If a company needs to expand outwards and grow they should be able to fairly easily. We've had not trouble with that aspect of the solution.

We don't have technical support for this solution, therefore I can't speak to how knowledgeable or responsive they are.

We are still using TFS, however, we're considering switching to Microsoft Azure DevOps.

The initial setup is not complex. It is very much straightforward. It shouldn't give an organization too many problems.

I didn't deploy this solution, so I can't speak to how long it actually took to do so.

We had the help of consultants from Microsoft. The implementation was five years ago, so I can't recall too many details, however, I believe we were pleased with their work.

Overall the solution is good. It's scalable and stable and has been working well for us. Of course, the phased release could be smoother, and it's something they need to improve upon.

I'd recommend this solution, even though we do plan to move to Microsoft Azure DevOps.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.