Polarion ALM vs TFS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (8th)
TFS
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Test Management Tools (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2024, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Polarion ALM is 7.5%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TFS is 4.2%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
Unique Categories:
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
3.5%
Test Management Tools
9.1%
 

Featured Reviews

NK
May 28, 2024
Offers very good integration with many features available in a single tool
Our customers use ALM for different product implementations and tracking product activities. We are service providers of Polarion. I'm an administrator of ALM and we implement this solution for our customers.   Polarion is  The solution offers good integration.  Test management could be improved…
SJ
May 5, 2023
Has good performance, but the initial setup process needs to be simpler
We use the solution to store all the code and designs for software version control The solution helps us store multiple software versions as it evolves and develops. All the essential functions of the solution perform well. The solution's pricing and setup process needs improvement. I have…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"We had a nice experience with technical support."
"The technical support is quite good."
"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."
"It offers good performance."
"The solution offers good integration."
"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."
"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."
"Microsoft's technical team is supportive."
"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."
"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 feature is simplicity."
"For what I need TFS for, I have never run into any limitation."
"Complete integration with VS IDE and Office tools: This give us a possibility of high-level automation, thus minimizing human error."
"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."
 

Cons

"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."
"The planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
"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."
"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."
"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."
"The user interface is not yet optimized."
"TFS's CI/CD, project pipelines, and management development could be improved."
"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."
"Since it is Microsoft, it is technology agnostic, thus it does not really fit into various different technologies in the organization."
"Access and permissions are confusing when attempting to include basic manual testing functionalities."
"There are many things that I cannot do, and I have a lot of bugs."
"There should be management of the project built-in."
"As an end-user, I expect the solution's performance to be faster while staying as stable as possible."
"I would also like a true command prompt like Git."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"It is an expensive product."
"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."
"TFS is not cheap."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"It is an expensive solution."
"I am not in a position to comment on the licensing terms, as we are talking about an enterprise arrangement."
"We pay subscription fees on a yearly basis and the price is reasonable."
"Use the Microsoft recommended “seat-based” licensing model. This allows a single developer with multiple machines to consume only one client license."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Educational Organization
53%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?
At the moment, I haven't looked in-depth into what needs improvement in the product. Based on my understanding, the tool's integration capabilities with multiple tools is an area of concern that Po...
What is your primary use case for Polarion ALM?
I work in an industry where I mainly look after the requirements, for which I use Polarion ALM.
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?
There is a yearly licensing fee that needs to be paid.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Team Foundation Server
 

Learn More

 

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: May 2024.
787,779 professionals have used our research since 2012.