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Atlassian ALM vs Rally Software 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

Atlassian ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
16th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rally Software
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Atlassian ALM is 2.4%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rally Software is 5.0%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Rally Software5.0%
Atlassian ALM2.4%
Other92.6%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

BRIANJOHNSON2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Independant Consultant at B&H Designs Ltd
Long-term testing workflows have improved integration of test planning and defect tracking
The deployment depends on whether you are deploying it on your computer or across the program. Cloud-based system deployment takes some time, as it depends on your rights to your computer. I would rate the deployment as a seven on a scale of one to ten. It took a couple of hours to get it right. The IT department deploys it.
Amit Anand - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Technical Architect at HCLSoftware
Drilling into change lifecycles has given me clear end to end traceability for every item
Reporting is my main area of concern. Additionally, the migration activity and portability are important areas for improvement. If I needed to move from Jira to Rally Software, having built-in portability or migration utilities would be beneficial. At the time of my use, there was not an inbuilt capability to migrate applications from other third-party solutions to Rally Software. Currently, I am not using Rally Software.

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."
"In Bitbucket, the reviews are pretty good."
"The interface between the repository and test plan stands out as valuable, and I appreciate building the tests and scenarios in Test Lab and the ability to link defects throughout the system, which Atlassian ALM does better than any other testing products."
"The main power of this tool is the integration between the different products of the Atlassian suite, and we have good integration with work management and software build automation (Bamboo), which is the major strength from this provider."
"The Atlassian ALM suite consists at least of JIRA, Confluence, BitBucket and HipChat - just the tools you need for organizing your teams in a very efficient way."
"If you can spend the little effort to configure Jira to support your more complex requirements management, then you can concentrate everything in one tool."
"The most valuable feature is the Scrum board."
"As a general purpose tool, JIRA and Confluence are still ahead of the competition."
"Agile Central makes the transition easier and we don't have to think twice about how to implement this or keep track of features and user stories."
"I think it's a great tracking tool."
"This is a very helpful solution, especially for those who are planning to switch over to the agile environment."
"Helped us to organize team effort and keep the team on track by providing a burndown chart and team status breakdown at the task level."
"I would recommend using it without any doubt."
"We've actually used it for virtual PI planning. We have teams in different locations, and we actually virtually do PI planning, big-room planning, using the tools."
"In my opinion, visibility is the biggest benefit that we have received from implementing CA Agile Central."
"With this product, searching for historical information or the evolution of the requirement, detecting conflict between projects has helped a lot."
 

Cons

"However, it is not really scalable, so if you want to use it for anything larger or plan to use it for product portfolios, then it starts to be problematic."
"For project management, the scheduling of the project tasks should be simplified because it's complex and too rigid using the Atlassian Portfolio."
"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."
"However, it is not really scalable, so if you want to use it for anything larger or plan to use it for product portfolios, then it starts to be problematic."
"Frankly it's a really daunting exercise - challenging, problematic and very flaky."
"All Atlassian products are based on JAVA which makes it a bit difficult to trace problems if you don't have much JAVA skilled staff around."
"The automation for scheduling software and doing software tests should be simplified because it's complex and too rigid."
"I would like them to give me back the fields I used to have. We lost the release field because they mentored our scaled agile framework trainer to actually use the release field as what I would call a program increment."
"I would like to see greater ability to manage common teams that are working across projects and how that common team has tasks to do in both projects or in multiple other projects."
"There are few customisation options. For instance, the workflow for story cards cannot be changed out of the box from the standard (Defined, In-Progress, Completed and Accepted)."
"Workflow is not a strength, we've cobbled together our own workflows around changes in State and Ownership."
"In terms of improvement, perhaps some more metrics. If they could add some additional, that would be cool."
"The navigation within the tool sometimes is a little tricky for me. I'm sure with more use, more practice, I'll become accustomed to it, but some of the things just aren't intuitive."
"For the reporting side, it could have more options besides generating the chart."
"Being a Kanban team inside of SAFe, some of the fields that you have to fill out are a little awkward, because then you can't use the views the way you want to."
 

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."
"I understand it's a little more expensive. That is why many people prefer Jira."
"It is expensive and may not be worthwhile for a small company."
"We are always looking for a discount, if the solution was less expensive it would be a benefit."
"From a price point, it's a cost effective solution for our needs."
"The license costs are fairly high as compared to some of the other solutions out there."
"I don't know the exact pricing, but I think the tool is priced high. They provide quality workmanship, good software, regular upgrades, and they're always attentive and listen to users. Everything comes with a price. I think it's an expensive solution compared to Jira or other competitors, but it's a complete package."
"Frankly, pricing is expensive and needs to be carefully planned for when budgeting."
"Rally Software costs $50 a month, and for a base account, that price is acceptable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise113
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlassian ALM?
Atlassian ALM is too expensive. The pricing is very expensive.
What needs improvement with Atlassian ALM?
I am still not satisfied with the requirements area of Atlassian ALM. Atlassian ALM has four parts: test plan, Test Lab, requirements, and reporting. The requirements portion continues to be an are...
What is your primary use case for Atlassian ALM?
I have been using Atlassian ALM for twenty-five years. It used to be called Quality Center, and I first used it in 2000 and 2001. The company changed, but the product remained. Atlassian ALM has no...
What do you like most about Rally Software?
Rally offers many features that help the management of activities, coordination, alignment and reports, which applies agility across the organization. If I were to highlight a particular feature, i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rally Software?
The setup cost is expensive. I was not responsible for the license part, but it was on a yearly basis.
What needs improvement with Rally Software?
Reporting is my main area of concern. Additionally, the migration activity and portability are important areas for improvement. If I needed to move from Jira to Rally Software, having built-in port...
 

Also Known As

No data available
CA Agile Central, Rally Enterprise, CA Agile Training, CA Agile Coaching, CA Agile Academy, CA Agile Management , CA ALM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, NASA, Cisco, eBay, Redfin, Toyota, Kaiser Permanente, Gilt, CSIRO, Autodesk, The Daily Telegraph, CODE, Illumnia
Physicians Mutual, Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare, Editora Abril, Tata Communications, Level 3 Communications, Seagate, TomTom, Philips, Hiscox, Physicians Mutual, MYOB
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian ALM vs. Rally Software and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.