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Atlassian ALM vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 12, 2025

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

Atlassian ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
18th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
13th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Atlassian ALM is 2.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is 3.9%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)3.9%
Atlassian ALM2.2%
Other93.9%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

ZX
Scrum board feature is highly valuable and handles different user volumes
We have both small-sized and big-sized customers. The small ones generally have around 50 to 200 users. The larger ones, for example, in China, have around 15,000 platform users. So, the number of small companies is high, but the total business value comes from the big companies. Atlassian ALM can handle different user volumes. For customers with more than 500 users, we recommend deploying a high availability (HA) architecture. The solution supports both single-node and HA modes. I would rate the scalability a five out of ten. It could be better in terms of scalability with more users. It could be improved to better handle larger numbers of users. We have clients using Atlassian ALM both in China and globally. We have around 20 clients using this solution.
Juergen Albrecht - PeerSpot reviewer
Combining tools for effective data analysis while customization and integration need improvement
The most valuable feature is how IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) allows me to present to the customer what the actual software, even hardware, will do. It helps them gain an impression of the complexity of the functionality and find an easier way to decide whether to implement it. A picture says more than one thousand words, which is why I work with the combination of ELM and the specification of DOORS. The automation capabilities I built use column-based scripts for analysis to search, fetch, and transfer information. When I open modules, it automatically analyzes the changes since the last opening by me.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution fits very well into our agile product management environment."
"The main power of this tool is the integration between the different products of the Atlassian suite. We have good integration with work management with Java. This is the major strength from this provider."
"The most valuable feature is the Scrum board."
"IBM Rational ALM is a very good tool. I like the management and traceability features and the test management tool. The latter is not linked with the stories and fixed management. It is really useful, and we can create test plans. We can also test some metrics related to QA."
"We have something called the GC (global configuration), which is a unique feature compared to any other competitor we have in the ALM space."
"The cataloging is a very valuable feature. For a lot of enterprises, they end up not knowing which applications do specific features. The cataloging helps with this. It's not that verbose, but it still gives you allowances to put in more detail."
"Everyone in a team can work on the same platform and share the same information."
"The tools for requirement capture we have found very useful."
"It is relatively easy to use and user-friendly once the setup is complete."
"You can customize the board according to your needs."
"It helped us contain critical things, like source code and several documents, which is very important to us."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the high-level project management."
"The reports are not really customizable, which is something that they should improve on."
"The automation for scheduling software and doing software tests should be simplified because it's complex and too rigid."
"The product must be more user-friendly."
"The interconnectivity between packages is a major support problem and can be improved."
"The GUI is a little bit outdated."
"I think nowadays people are getting into Jira and other tools. What is happening is, this solution is becoming more traditional, whereas Jira and other tools are more attractive for the new users to learn and start using because of the graphical interfaces."
"The stability of this solution can be improved."
"One of the complaints from users is that they have to click buttons too many times for just a simple task. Changing this would lead to a better user experience."
"In the next release, we expect a traceability metrics configuration where we can configure the user stories. We also expect them to improve or simplify the query process."
"There is not enough beginner support material in the form of FAQs or simple training to help you get started."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a community edition available, but if the price were lower for the addons then more people would use the full version."
"This product is a little expensive and we had to pay extra to have them set it up for us."
"We have a contract, but I am not aware of the details."
"The price of the solution could be reduced. Many of our customers are not using all the features and this could be why our clients feel the price is too high."
"IBM Rational ALM has both monthly and yearly licensing options."
"The solution is not cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Educational Organization
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
23%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
12%
Transportation Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with IBM Rational ALM?
Improvement is needed in bridging DNG and Rhapsody and vice versa for better data exchange from both sides with some trigger technologies. This would provide a visual reminder of changes in a modul...
What is your primary use case for IBM Rational ALM?
Most of my primary use cases involve the combination of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) ( /products/ibm-engineering-lifecycle-management-elm-reviews ) and DOORS, including both Classic D...
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM Engineering Rhapsody, Rational ALM, MKS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, NASA, Cisco, eBay, Redfin, Toyota, Kaiser Permanente, Gilt, CSIRO, Autodesk, The Daily Telegraph, CODE, Illumnia
Tennis Australia, WeCloud AB, Port Otago Limited, Logicalis US, Valmer, The Chevrolet Volt, Ashurst
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian ALM vs. IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
870,623 professionals have used our research since 2012.