GoCD vs Polarion ALM comparison

Thoughtworks and Siemens are both solutions in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category. Thoughtworks is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.3, while Siemens is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.2. Thoughtworks holds a 0.2% mindshare in ALM, compared to Siemens’s 8.2% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Thoughtworks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Siemens users who would recommend it.

GoCD

Read 7 GoCD reviews

144 Views
95 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Polarion ALM

Read 22 Polarion ALM reviews

3,837 Views
2,560 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

GoCD

Polarion ALM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

GoCD and Polarion ALM compete in software development lifecycle management. GoCD appears to have an advantage in pricing and deployment, while Polarion ALM stands out with advanced capabilities and project management features.

Features: GoCD provides pipeline modeling, on-demand deployment, and configuration as code, which aid in streamlining continuous delivery. Polarion ALM offers traceability, real-time collaboration, and change management, enhancing visibility and control over projects.

Room for Improvement: GoCD could benefit from a wider range of plugins to extend functionalities and improve community support for advanced use cases. Polarion ALM could enhance its initial setup process, offering more intuitive onboarding and reducing the complexity of integrations. Both products may focus on refining certain features for broader appeal and functionality.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GoCD is lauded for straightforward on-premise deployment and responsive customer support, simplifying setup and issue resolution. Polarion ALM requires more initial configuration and integration, but its support team offers comprehensive resources for complex scenarios, albeit with slower response times.

Pricing and ROI: GoCD features low upfront costs, delivering significant ROI for smaller teams focused on continuous integration and delivery. Polarion ALM's higher initial setup cost suits larger organizations needing extensive feature sets, offering potentially higher ROI through improved productivity and project tracking capabilities.

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

Buyer's Guide

GoCD 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

GoCD

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

15th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (17th), Release Automation (11th)

Polarion ALM

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of GoCD is 0.2%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 8.2%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

Featured Reviews

Nishant Narayan Singh

DevOps Architect at Cognizant

Simplifies the pipeline process, but the access control system needs enhancement

One area of product improvement is the access control system. It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be simplified. The folder structure is another aspect that could be enhanced, as all jobs are displayed on a single page without the clear organization seen in Jenkins. Implementing a more structured approach to organizing jobs would improve user experience. AI could simplify job creation. For example, instead of manually editing pipelines as code, an AI tool could allow users to input variables and automatically generate the required jobs. It would help reduce human errors, such as issues that arise from incorrect edits in large code files.

Read full review

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The UI is colorful."

"GoCD's open-source nature is valuable."

"The most notable aspect is its user interface, which we find to be user-friendly and straightforward for deploying and comprehending pipelines. We have the ability to create multiple pipelines, and in addition to that, the resource consumption is impressive."

"Permission separations mean that we can grant limited permissions for each team or team member."

"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."

"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."

"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."

"Polarion ALM is excellent for tracking who is working on what and how many people are involved in a project."

"The software is stable."

"Scalability is good...The integration 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."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its browser experience. I rate its traceability feature a ten out of ten. From the initial stage to the release, you can manage everything through a single point."

More Polarion ALM pros

Cons

"The documentation really should be improved by including real examples and more setup cases."

"The aspect that requires attention is the user management component. When integrating with BitLabs and authenticating through GitLab, there are specific features we desire. One important feature is the ability to import users directly from GitLab, along with their respective designations, and assign appropriate privileges based on that information. Allocating different privileges to users is a time-consuming process for us."

"The tool must be more user-friendly."

"It is difficult to assign different access levels because it relies on separate keys for developer and admin access, which could be simplified."

"The ease-of-use could be improved a little."

"I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system."

"Test management lacks an automated process."

"The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing features that are common in web-based applications."

"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."

"The solution's editing capabilities need improvement."

"The configuration aspect of the solution is not easy. A person needs a lot of programming knowledge in order to successfully handle the job."

"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."

More Polarion ALM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution and it is inexpensive."

"It's an open-source and free tool."

"The solution is expensive."

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

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

"Software for medical devices is always expensive."

"It is an expensive product."

"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."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Retailer

12%

Real Estate/Law Firm

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 GoCD?

The UI is colorful.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GoCD?

The product is free of cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with GoCD?

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

GitLab vs GoCD

Compared 33% of the time

Jenkins vs GoCD

Compared 28% of the time

GitHub Actions vs GoCD

Compared 19% of the time

Tekton vs GoCD

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs GoCD

Compared 10% of the time

More GoCD Competitors

Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM

Compared 30% of the time

Jira vs Polarion ALM

Compared 23% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM

Compared 15% of the time

Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM

Compared 8% of the time

PTC Integrity vs Polarion ALM

Compared 6% of the time

More Polarion ALM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

May 2025

Download GoCD product report

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM

May 2025

Download Polarion ALM product report

Also Known As

Adaptive ALM, Thoughtworks Go

No data available

Overview

GoCD is an open source continuous delivery server created by ThoughtWorks. GoCD offers businesses a first-class build and deployment engine for complete control and visibility. It was designed for continuous delivery and the concepts essential to this practice are built in at the core.

Thoughtworks

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

Ancestry.com, Barclay Card, AutoTrader, BT Financial Group, Gamesys, Nike, Vodafone, Haufe Lexware, Medidata, Hoovers

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group

Buyer's Guide

GoCD vs. Polarion ALM

June 2025

Free Report: GoCD vs. Polarion ALM

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

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