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GitLab vs Polarion ALM comparison

GitLab and Siemens are both solutions in the Enterprise Agile Planning Tools category. GitLab is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6, while Siemens is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.2. GitLab holds a 25.5% mindshare in EAP, compared to Siemens’s 4.6% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Siemens users who would recommend it.
GitLab
Read 84 GitLab reviews
  • 9,580 Views
  • 125 Comparison Views
97% willing to recommend
Polarion ALM
Read 22 Polarion ALM reviews
  • 1,223 Views
  • 65 Comparison Views
87% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Polarion ALM and GitLab are competitors in the application lifecycle management and development operations sectors. While Polarion ALM is favored for its traceability and compliance features in regulated industries, GitLab's superior DevOps capabilities and CI/CD integration provide substantial benefits for agile environments.

Features: Polarion ALM offers customizable traceability, compliance management, and robust version control. GitLab excels in continuous integration, seamless deployment, and provides an all-in-one platform that simplifies workflows.

Room for Improvement: Polarion ALM could enhance its ease of use, reduce the complexity of its setup, and improve out-of-the-box functionalities. GitLab might expand its feature set, streamline its advanced settings, and enhance user onboarding processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Polarion ALM requires expert configuration and longer setup times, though its customer service is reliable. GitLab offers easier deployment with cloud-based options and responsive support, facilitated by comprehensive documentation.

Pricing and ROI: Polarion ALM incurs higher initial costs but yields strong ROI in regulatory-focused environments. GitLab's scalable pricing model caters to various teams, offering faster ROI through integrated functionalities readily available upon setup.

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To learn more, read our detailed GitLab vs. Polarion ALM Report (Updated: June 2025).
Buyer's Guide
GitLab vs. Polarion ALM
June 2025
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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

GitLab
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (9th), Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (6th), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Fuzz Testing Tools (3rd), DevSecOps (1st)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Enterprise Agile Planning Tools category, the mindshare of GitLab is 25.5%, down from 32.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 4.6%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Rohit Kesharwani - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved agility and time to market with CI/CD enhancements
The CI/CD pipelines in GitLab ( /products/gitlab-reviews ) are highly valuable. Another important feature is the single source of repository, allowing efficient repository management and source code management. GitLab provides manageability by allowing us to manage source code effectively through separate repositories. Additionally, GitLab enables the creation of individual CI/CD pipelines for each repository, making software more agile. By integrating GitLab as a DevOps platform, we have enhanced agility, improved our time to market, and different teams can work collaboratively on various projects.
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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.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They incorporate new features every September, and they have introduced their own code editor and AI features."
"The stability of GitLab is impressive."
"GitLab is very useful for pipelines, continuous integration, and continuous deployment. It is also stable."
"The CI/CD pipeline with Helm has significantly improved deployment speed and efficiency."
"CI/CD is very good. The version control system is also good. These are the two features that we use."
"We use the Git repository and tagging feature. We are a product-based company and use this solution to move to a forward or backward tag."
"The stability is good."
"It is scalable."
More GitLab pros
"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"The software is stable."
"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."
"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 offers good performance."
"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."
"Scalability is good...The integration is quite good."
More Polarion ALM pros
 

Cons

"We have only seen a couple of issues on Gitlab, which we use for building some of the applications."
"The solution could improve by providing more integration into the CI/CD pipeline, an autocomplete search tool, and more supporting documentation."
"The solution should be more cloud-native and have more cloud-native capabilities and features."
"You need to have a good knowledge of the product in order to use it."
"There are some challenges with repository file management as GitLab may struggle to manage larger files."
"GitLab could consider introducing a code-scanning tool. Purchasing such tools from external markets can incur charges, which might not be favorable. Integrating these features into GitLab would streamline the pipeline and make it more convenient for users."
"The solution could be faster."
"It could have more security integrations and the ability to check the vulnerability of the code. I don't think it is a responsibility of Gitlab, but it would be nice to have more options to integrate with."
More GitLab cons
"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."
"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."
"The user interface of Polarion ALM needs improvement as it can experience changes that disrupt workflows, especially during major updates."
"Based on my understanding, the tool's integration capabilities with multiple tools is an area of concern that Polarion needs to focus on more."
"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."
"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"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 planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."
More Polarion ALM cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the open-source version."
"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"We are using the free version of GitLab."
"Regarding pricing, I would rate GitLab as moderately priced, maybe around a seven or eight out of ten. It could be more flexible for clients but generally offers good value."
"The solution's pricing is acceptable."
"GitLab is comparatively expensive, but it provides value because it's feature-rich."
"The initial setup cost is excellent and you can add the premium features later."
More GitLab pricing and cost advice
"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."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"It is an expensive product."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"The solution is expensive."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
26%
Computer Software Company
14%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about GitLab?
I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?
The pricing and cost are on par with other tools and are neither too expensive nor cheap.
See all answers
What needs improvement with GitLab?
One significant feature we lack is the configuration that enforces code reviews, which simplifies the development life cycle. Unfortunately, this is available only at a higher license level than we...
See all answers
What do you like most about Polarion ALM?
It is a very stable solution.
See all answers
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...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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AWS CodePipeline vs GitLab Logo
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Compared 5% of the time
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Compared 30% of the time
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Compared 23% of the time
Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM Logo
Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM
Compared 15% of the time
Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM Logo
Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM
Compared 8% of the time
TFS vs Polarion ALM Logo
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Compared 2% of the time
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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
GitLab
June 2025
GitLab reportDownload GitLab product report
Buyer's Guide
Polarion ALM
May 2025
Polarion ALM reportDownload Polarion ALM product report
 

Also Known As

Fuzzit
No data available
 

Overview

GitLab is a complete DevOps platform that enables teams to collaborate and deliver software faster. 

It provides a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle, from planning and development to testing, deployment, and monitoring. 

With GitLab, teams can streamline their workflows, automate processes, and improve productivity.

GitLab

The world’s first 100% browser-based ALM enterprise solution, which enables seamless collaboration across disparate teams, multi-directionally linked work items, full traceability, accelerated productivity and automated proof of compliance.

Siemens
 

Sample Customers

1. NASA  2. IBM  3. Sony  4. Alibaba  5. CERN  6. Siemens  7. Volkswagen  8. ING  9. Ticketmaster  10. SpaceX  11. Adobe  12. Intuit  13. Autodesk  14. Rakuten  15. Unity Technologies  16. Pandora  17. Electronic Arts  18. Nordstrom  19. Verizon  20. Comcast  21. Philips  22. Deutsche Telekom  23. Orange  24. Fujitsu  25. Ericsson  26. Nokia  27. General Electric  28. Cisco  29. Accenture  30. Deloitte  31. PwC  32. KPMG
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Buyer's Guide
GitLab vs. Polarion ALM
June 2025
Free Report: GitLab vs. Polarion ALM
Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
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