GoCD vs Rally Software comparison

Thoughtworks and Broadcom are both solutions in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category. Thoughtworks is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.3, while Broadcom is ranked #10 with an average rating of 6.8. Thoughtworks holds a 0.2% mindshare in ALM, compared to Broadcom’s 6.1% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Thoughtworks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

GoCD

Read 7 GoCD reviews

881 Views
141 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Rally Software

Read 119 Rally Software reviews

3,558 Views
3,309 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

GoCD

Rally Software

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

GoCD and Rally Software compete in continuous delivery and project management. GoCD is favorable for deployment and cost efficiency, while Rally Software is preferred for its comprehensive project management features.

Features: GoCD offers pipeline workflow modeling, traceability, and a feature called value stream map for complete pipeline transparency. It integrates smoothly with various teams, allowing for top-level management access and monitoring. Rally Software includes advanced planning, tracking, reporting features, and excellent user story management. It supports team-level interactions, integrates with JIRA and ALM, and allows seamless tracking from epics to tasks.

Room for Improvement: GoCD could improve by expanding its number of plugins and enhancing user support beyond community reliance. Additionally, it could benefit from a more extensive tool integration framework. Rally Software might improve by streamlining its setup complexity and providing better tooling integration, especially in environments where multiple systems interlink with Agile practices. Enhancing its reporting and visualization tools could offer clearer in-project insights.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GoCD is simpler to deploy due to its open-source nature, offering customizable configurations with minimal fuss. It integrates well with various systems, though official support is less pronounced than community help. Rally Software requires a more structured deployment but provides robust customer support, guiding through its relatively complex setup.

Pricing and ROI: GoCD is cost-effective as an open-source tool, providing excellent ROI for budget-conscious users. Rally Software involves higher upfront costs but justifies them with its extensive features, resulting in high ROI through enhanced project visibility and efficiency gains.

To learn more, read our detailed GoCD vs. Rally Software Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

GoCD vs. Rally Software

July 2025

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Helped 865,384 peers since 2012

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 (16th), Release Automation (10th)

Rally Software

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

119

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 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 Rally Software is 6.1%, down from 6.6% 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

Deep Maini

Agile CSM - Sr. Scrum Master at Alliant Energy Corporation

Helps you collaborate on various effects and solutions from the top to the bottom of the organization

We use Rally Software extensively in our agile development processes. We have program boards set up where we write and break down stories. We assign story points and map dependencies between different stories, showing how stories from one team may depend on stories from another team. It integrates these functions well, especially compared to Jira, which has some limitations in this area. The tool keeps improving based on how teams actually work in Scaled Agile, continually upgrading their software versions to meet our needs. I find the whole Rally Software tool integrated very nicely. In Jira, we often go to Confluence for documentation using two separate tools. But in the product, it's not like that. The documentation is tightly integrated. I don't feel like switching to another tool, like going from Jira to Confluence. The tool is designed for collaboration. It shows your organization's view, showing different teams and verticals. It helps you collaborate on various effects and solutions from the top to the bottom of the organization. It has an ecosystem that supports this. All the dependencies between different teams can be easily mapped in Rally Software. They have a program board for that purpose.

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

"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."

"The UI is colorful."

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

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

"The product has excellent customizable reports."

"Agile Central allows us to log one hundred percent of the work we do and it allows for no hidden work, so teams can't go under the radar with what they're working on."

"We use Rally Software extensively in our agile development processes. We have program boards set up where we write and break down stories. We assign story points and map dependencies between different stories, showing how stories from one team may depend on stories from another team."

"The effect of these kind of tools drives the way you organize things. It helps you shape the way you flow."

"When it comes to the valuable features of Rally Software, it excels at burn-down charts, burn-up charts, and road mapping once it's set up. I particularly appreciated the new feature for releases and road mapping, which worked exceptionally well."

"I was able to create epics for our budgeting concerns and it helped me link everything together."

"The Defect feature. In one view you can see all your defects and you can push them into the different releases."

"The main ways that I used it when I was in it day to day was keeping up with the burn rate within the teams. Also, to track at the feature level too, as far as how we were doing with actually being able to deliver that feature."

More Rally Software pros

Cons

"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 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 Reporting feature can improve, especially around executive summaries and dependency mapping."

"From a test management perspective, it should have the capability to give you both automation and manual integration in one place."

"The product needs to have more integration capabilities."

"I would like to see more Kanban support. As it stands, it doesn't seem to have the features or the layouts that the teams really need to be able to execute their tasks. It almost tries to force you into more of a Scrum style."

"In Rally Software, the connection with GitLab and GitHub needs improvement."

"There's a lot of support for Scrum and Agile, but it needs something for the Kanban side."

"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."

"We did submit an enhancement request. I think a lot of teams that do very large scale products have the same issue. They just do not realize it would help them."

More Rally Software cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"From a price point, it's a cost effective solution for our needs."

"It is expensive and may not be worthwhile for a small company."

"Frankly, pricing is expensive and needs to be carefully planned for when budgeting."

"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."

"We are always looking for a discount, if the solution was less expensive it would be a benefit."

"I understand it's a little more expensive. That is why many people prefer Jira."

"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

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Retailer

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Manufacturing Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Insurance Company

11%

Healthcare Company

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 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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rally Software?

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 ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Rally Software?

The product itself seems to have a lot of bugs. One issue is that it sometimes allows people to modify data inappropriately. For example, team members can change numbers at will. While we have a me...

See all answers

Comparisons

Jenkins vs GoCD

Compared 28% of the time

GitLab vs GoCD

Compared 27% of the time

GitHub Actions vs GoCD

Compared 18% of the time

Tekton vs GoCD

Compared 9% of the time

BMC Release Lifecycle Management vs GoCD

Compared 9% of the time

More GoCD Competitors

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Rally Software

Compared 30% of the time

Jira vs Rally Software

Compared 29% of the time

TFS vs Rally Software

Compared 6% of the time

OpenText Application Quality Management vs Rally Software

Compared 5% of the time

Jira Align vs Rally Software

Compared 4% of the time

More Rally Software Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

August 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Rally Software

August 2025

Download Rally Software product report

Also Known As

Adaptive ALM, Thoughtworks Go

CA Agile Central, Rally Enterprise, CA Agile Training, CA Agile Coaching, CA Agile Academy, CA Agile Management , CA ALM

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

With Rally Software, you can plan, prioritize, manage, track, and continuously improve your work so that you can deliver the value that your customers need with speed, quality, and efficiency. Our enterprise-class Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) SaaS platform provides visibility into progress, roadblocks, and dependencies across multiple teams, projects, and programs. This allows you to align to your strategic goals and create better business results, and to do it all in a single system of record.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

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

Physicians Mutual, Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare, Editora Abril, Tata Communications, Level 3 Communications, Seagate, TomTom, Philips, Hiscox, Physicians Mutual, MYOB

Buyer's Guide

GoCD vs. Rally Software

July 2025

Free Report: GoCD vs. Rally Software

Find out what your peers are saying about GoCD vs. Rally Software and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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