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Atlassian ALM vs Jira vs Polarion ALM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Atlassian ALM is 1.6%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jira is 21.4%, down from 23.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 8.2%, up from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Grigoriy Kneller - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful for agile management and project tracking
Setting up on Windows is very easy, while on Linux, it's a bit more complicated. I would rate it around a seven out of ten. It is possible to deploy it both on the cloud and on-premises. The deployment duration varied based on whether it was on the cloud or a server. If it was on the cloud, it took slightly less time, while installing it on a server took anywhere from ten minutes to an hour.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the Scrum board."
"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."
"When we run the Jenkins pipeline, the build is already automatically connected to Jira. We've been able to integrate the ecosystem we created using this automation tool."
"It's easy to use, and it also offers excellent notifications."
"Jira can track projects, time management of assignments, and keep everything on schedule. The performance of the solution is good."
"The most valuable features of this solution are workflow and reporting."
"I have experience with Jira's bulk tracking and issue management. We use it to add new features to our product, fix bugs, and address customer feedback."
"Jira is very useful for project management for internal projects."
"It is a complete solution. It has more features as compared to other tools, especially the open-source one that we use. It is also easy to administer."
"It helps me to use virtual Scrum boards across four locations, three time zones, and to plan my work. It fully supports the Scrum approach, and the Agile way of working, and it has Agile thinking behind it.."
"It is a very stable solution."
"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."
"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."
"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."
"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."
"It offers good performance."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the high-level project management."
"The automation for scheduling software and doing software tests should be simplified because it's complex and too rigid."
"The reports are not really customizable, which is something that they should improve on."
"It is not intuitive."
"As the solution is highly configurable, it has very poor governance."
"Something I would like to see improved is the traceability feature. When you have a user story, if you can see all the test cases, it would be an improvement if you could see any design documents or any change management."
"I have had problems with performance and unresponsiveness. All of a sudden, the performance slowed down, and I had a number of users that could not use the tool."
"My main concern is the administration of projects, especially user groups, and this requires root access rights but there is no concept of layered admin rights."
"In general, although we use JIRA, we never really learned how to use it properly. The learning curve of the solution is high. It has a lot of power, and yet we don't understand its capabilities."
"The stability could be improved."
"The solution can improve by including test management functionality in a native bundle without plugins."
"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."
"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."
"The solution's editing capabilities need improvement."
"The user interface is not yet optimized."
"The configuration aspect of the solution is not easy. A person needs a lot of programming knowledge in order to successfully handle the job."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
"We use PTC Windchill, and Polarion ALM doesn't have native integration, so we had to purchase the connector to integrate it with Polarion ALM. We still haven't implemented it."
 

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."
"Worth the extra cost."
"The cost is about $10 per user, per month."
"We are on an annual license to use Jira."
"The licensing cost for Jira is typically around seven dollars per user, though it may vary depending on regional variations. This cost is for a subscription-based model rather than a one-time purchase. I rate its pricing a seven out of ten."
"Its price is good and similar to other products. It is about five or six dollars per user."
"There are no additional costs to the standard licensing."
"We are on an annual license and could be less expensive."
"As a company, we get a subsidized price, and it's lower than what's quoted on their website."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"It is an expensive product."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
11%
Educational Organization
49%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
26%
Computer Software Company
14%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Atlassian ALM?
The most valuable feature is the Scrum board.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlassian ALM?
The pricing is on the higher side. I would give it an eight out of ten, where one is low, and ten is high.
What needs improvement with Atlassian ALM?
There is room for improvement in the high-level project management. In future releases, I would like to have a planni...
Is Jira better or would you go with Micro Focus ALM Octane?
Hi Netanya, Basically , it all depends on the use cases for your environment and the business needs. Hope the below d...
Which is better - Jira or Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Jira is a great centralized tool for just about everything, from local team management to keeping track of products a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jira?
We operate under a nonlimited license with Jira, allowing a number of users to access it with a single enterprise lic...
What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?
Polarion ALM ( /categories/application-lifecycle-management-alm-suites ) could see improvements in performance and sc...
What is your primary use case for Polarion ALM?
Polarion ALM ( /products/polarion-alm-reviews ) is a tool that delivers both document views and table views simultane...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Jira Software
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, NASA, Cisco, eBay, Redfin, Toyota, Kaiser Permanente, Gilt, CSIRO, Autodesk, The Daily Telegraph, CODE, Illumnia
Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian, Microsoft, Nutanix and others in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.