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 8.3. GitLab holds a 28.9% mindshare in EAP, compared to Siemens’s 4.0% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of Siemens users who would recommend it.

GitLab

Read 82 GitLab reviews

10,458 Views
8,512 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Polarion ALM

Read 21 Polarion ALM reviews

1,311 Views
889 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

GitLab

Polarion ALM

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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.

To learn more, read our detailed GitLab vs. Polarion ALM Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Polarion ALM

April 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

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (9th), Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (12th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (3rd)

Polarion ALM

Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Enterprise Agile Planning Tools category, the mindshare of GitLab is 28.9%, down from 31.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 4.0%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

Featured Reviews

Gaurav Chandel

AWS DevOps/ Site Reliability Engineer at Tata Consultancy

Boosted productivity with automated pipelines and seamless collaboration

There are some challenges with repository file management as GitLab may struggle to manage larger files. Improvements could be made regarding size management and file partitioning. Also, the UI has remained the same for a couple of years and could benefit from an update with AI features and better customization.

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Dina Bindi

Information and Communication technology at CNH Industrial

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

"This product is always evolving, and they listen to the customers."

"It is a speedy platform compared to the others I have used. I have also enjoyed using the platform as this solution offers a good user experience."

"The dashboard and interface make it easy to use."

"For us, Gitlab's most valuable feature is the integration with Cypress. We're using Cypress as an automation tool, so we're using GitLab as a tool for running in parallel."

"GitLab is a solution for source code management, container registry, pipelines, testing, and deployment."

"We have seen a couple of merge requests or pull requests raised in GitLab. I see the interface, the way it shows the difference between the two source codes, that it is easy for anyone to do the review and then accept the request; the pull request is the valuable feature."

"GitLab's source control is excellent."

"This is a scalable solution. We had around 200 users working with it."

More GitLab pros

"The solution offers good integration."

"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."

"It is a very stable solution."

"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."

"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."

"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."

"The technical support is quite good."

"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."

More Polarion ALM pros

Cons

"I've noticed an area for improvement in GitLab, particularly needing to go through many steps to push the code to the repository. Resolving that issue would make the product better. My team quickly fixed it by writing a small script, then double-clicking or enabling the script to take care of the issue. However, that quick fix was from my team and not the GitLab team, so in the next release, if an automatic deployment feature would be available in GitLab, then that would be good because, in Visual Studio, you can do that with just one click of a button."

"I'm new to GitLab, so I would appreciate more documentation about the code and commands."

"The pricing has been substantially increased, which is a major concern."

"The solution does not have many built-in functions or variables so scripting is required."

"There is a need to improve or adopt AI into the ecosystem like a co-pilot, which Microsoft has done with GitHub."

"We do face issues in our company when we run out of disk space."

"It can be free for commercial use."

"Merge conflicts and repository maintenance could improve. If there is someone new to the system they would not know if there is a conflict."

More GitLab cons

"The weak point of Polarion ALM software is about reporting and time for extraction of the data...The quality of reporting needs to improve."

"The most important thing for them to improve should be platform-independent features. They should also provide extensive pipelines and release pipelines that we can define and we can work on."

"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's editing capabilities need improvement."

"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."

"Test management lacks an automated process."

"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."

More Polarion ALM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't mind the price because I use the free version."

"We are currently using the open-source version."

"GitLab is cheap."

"The solution is free."

"It is very expensive. We can't bear it now, and we have to find another solution. We have a yearly subscription in which we can increase the number of licenses, but we have to pay at the end of the year."

"It seems reasonable. Our IT team manages the licenses."

"I'm not aware of the licensing costs because those were covered by the customer."

"The price of GitLab could be better, it is expensive."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive."

"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."

"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."

"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."

"Software for medical devices is always expensive."

"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

24%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

26%

Computer Software Company

14%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

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 of GitLab is reasonable, aligning with what I consider to be average compared to competitors.

See all answers

What needs improvement with GitLab?

Certain features in Jira are not available in GitLab, such as the functionality to have weights at the milestone and epic levels. Hopefully, these features will be resolved with work items in GitLa...

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?

Polarion ALM ( /categories/application-lifecycle-management-alm-suites ) could see improvements in performance and scalability. The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing f...

See all answers

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 simultaneously. It organizes configurations according to norms and standards, making it s...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GitLab

Compared 28% of the time

GitHub CoPilot vs GitLab

Compared 13% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

Compared 8% of the time

AWS CodePipeline vs GitLab

Compared 6% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

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Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM

Compared 28% of the time

Jira vs Polarion ALM

Compared 26% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM

Compared 16% of the time

Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM

Compared 8% of the time

TFS vs Polarion ALM

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

April 2025

Download GitLab product report

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM

April 2025

Download 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

April 2025

Free Report: GitLab vs. Polarion ALM

Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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