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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
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (6th)
TFS
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Test Management Tools (3rd)
 

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 TFS is 4.2%, down from 6.4% 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

"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."
"It offers good performance."
"You can see the work ticket and you can circulate that within the teams. You can define your flows, customize according to your needs, and you can create dashboards and create the reports according to your needs."
"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"It is a very stable solution."
"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."
"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."
"It is easy to push our changes from quality to pre-prod and prod."
"I like the build management features and the integration with Jenkins and many other tools."
"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 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."
"It's is a very stable solution."
"Build definitions and releases within the product. allow us to put our latest applications in the field."
"The most valuable feature is the backlog."
"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."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"The interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."
"The tool needs to improve its planning. It also needs to add more integrations."
"The configuration aspect of the solution is not easy. A person needs a lot of programming knowledge in order to successfully handle the job."
"The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing features that are common in web-based applications."
"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."
"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."
"The ease-of-use could be improved a little."
"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!"
"The test management interface is not very handy."
"The interface can be improved and made more user-friendly."
"The overall reports in TFS could improve. Additionally, there should be an easier way to migrate from an older version to a newer one."
"Access and permissions are confusing when attempting to include basic manual testing functionalities."
"The tool needs improvement in stability."
"TFS on-premise does not support integration with SharePoint Online."
"TFS needs to be stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive product."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"I am not in a position to comment on the licensing terms, as we are talking about an enterprise arrangement."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"On a scale where ten is the highest and one is the cheapest, I rate the solution's licensing cost at one on a scale of one to ten."
"We pay subscription fees on a yearly basis and the price is reasonable."
"We pay for the license yearly."
"The solution is expensive."
"We are using the open-source version."
"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
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Educational Organization
36%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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...
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: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.