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IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs Jira comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 30, 2025

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

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
12th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jira
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
274
Ranking in other categories
Application Requirements Management (2nd), Project Management Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is 3.5%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jira is 21.1%, down from 24.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

Juergen Albrecht - PeerSpot reviewer
Combining tools for effective data analysis while customization and integration need improvement
The most valuable feature is how IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) ( /products/ibm-engineering-lifecycle-management-elm-reviews ) allows me to present to the customer what the actual software, even hardware, will do. It helps them gain an impression of the complexity of the functionality and find an easier way to decide whether to implement it. A picture says more than one thousand words, which is why I work with the combination of ELM and the specification of DOORS. The automation capabilities I built use column-based scripts for analysis to search, fetch, and transfer information. When I open modules, it automatically analyzes the changes since the last opening by me.
AmitUbale - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient project management that's comprehensive and and helps with time efficiency
We use Jira primarily for project management within the organization. It helps us manage tasks, bug management, and tracking tickets effectively. We assign tickets to individual team members and track them easily For project management, Jira has helped facilitate efficient task segregation and…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Everyone in a team can work on the same platform and share the same information."
"You can customize the board according to your needs."
"The cataloging is a very valuable feature. For a lot of enterprises, they end up not knowing which applications do specific features. The cataloging helps with this. It's not that verbose, but it still gives you allowances to put in more detail."
"The planning feature is rich with Scrum concepts: Sprint, Sprint retrospective, the rules in the Scrum framework."
"The most valuable feature is the reporting of the CPU usage on the dashboard."
"The word emulation and importing is good."
"IBM Rational ALM is a very good tool. I like the management and traceability features and the test management tool. The latter is not linked with the stories and fixed management. It is really useful, and we can create test plans. We can also test some metrics related to QA."
"I would rate the stability of this product a nine out of ten."
"Powerful features including a good reporting capability."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
"It is a complete solution. It has more features as compared to other tools, especially the open-source one that we use. It is also easy to administer."
"We use Jira mostly for task coordination and assignment. Additionally, scrum methodologies defined work items and bug issues. If we create any bugs all of them are fixed."
"Jira has a good reporting system. It also has an API, so we can do all sorts of reporting."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"The level of stability is quite good."
"Jira is quite easy to use and very simple from my point of view."
 

Cons

"Some improvements to the user interface (UI) would be helpful, such as exposing more services to make it easier to customize to the needs of each customer."
"The interconnectivity between packages is a major support problem and can be improved."
"The features should be more intuitive. If I'm looking for something, its location should be easy to locate."
"The stability of IBM Rational ALM could be improved."
"IBM Rational ALM should remove the features not used by the customers and keep this product as lightweight as possible."
"The GUI is a little bit outdated."
"The stability of this solution can be improved."
"Improvement is needed in bridging DNG and Rhapsody and vice versa for better data exchange from both sides with some trigger technologies."
"Of course, the price could always be cheaper."
"Jira is a project management tracking tool, and it would be great to see integration with the source front or Azure DevOps, etc."
"Jira has recently updated their UI, but more can be done to make it even better."
"They can maybe dumb down the directions for building the automation a little bit because to be able to build out the automation, I had to play around with it and learn what all the fields meant and what they were referencing. I don't have an IT background originally. My background is in biology, and I got into project management by chance. I am good at it, but I haven't really worked with coding languages. In terms of writing automation, it is easier for devs because they intuitively know what they're being asked, but as a PM who originally didn't have IT experience, it was a little bit daunting at first. It could also have an extra hierarchy to be able to allow tasks under stories. It could be the way it is set up at our organization, but currently, under stories, you can have sub-tasks, but you can't create a task. Being able to customize your hierarchy a little bit more would be beneficial because sometimes, the devs would say, "Well, here's a story, and now we need sub-tasks," but as we were building out the sub-tasks, sometimes we had to go a step lower to dig in a little bit more, and we couldn't do that."
"I would like to see test execution modules."
"For a non-technical person to use, Jira is not intuitive."
"The sprint-related graphics need to be improved."
"It is not user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This product is a little expensive and we had to pay extra to have them set it up for us."
"IBM Rational ALM has both monthly and yearly licensing options."
"We have a contract, but I am not aware of the details."
"The price of the solution could be reduced. Many of our customers are not using all the features and this could be why our clients feel the price is too high."
"The solution is not cheap."
"The price of the solution could be less expensive. We pay annually for the solution."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. The product offers flexibility in pricing since it depends on the memory bits you have used."
"There are other solutions that are free making this solution seem expensive in comparison."
"Its price is fine, but we would like it to be less expensive. We are paying on a yearly basis."
"I understand JIRA is quite expensive."
"The standard package of Jira is for 100 users. They should offer more packages for other increments, such as 500 or 2,000. In my previous company, there was a free package that provided a minimal number of users."
"For very small companies, if you have less than 10 individuals, it is $10 a year for each of the products. When we were a part of the enterprise and had more than 10 people using it, or before they came up with this solution for small companies, it was $2,500 a year for the license for Jira and Confluence, and I believe something like $600 a year to perpetuate the license. I can't remember if it was $600 or $2,500 annually. It was for up to 25 people at the time, and this was in the early 2000s and mid 2000s."
"If I compare Jira's licensing model with that of other products, I think that the other products have a much better licensing model."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
26%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
Transportation Company
7%
Educational Organization
38%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Rational ALM?
Improvement is needed in bridging DNG and Rhapsody and vice versa for better data exchange from both sides with some trigger technologies. This would provide a visual reminder of changes in a modul...
What is your primary use case for IBM Rational ALM?
Most of my primary use cases involve the combination of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) ( /products/ibm-engineering-lifecycle-management-elm-reviews ) and DOORS, including both Classic D...
Is Jira better or would you go with Micro Focus ALM Octane?
Hi Netanya, Basically , it all depends on the use cases for your environment and the business needs. Hope the below data may be relevant to you for identifying your needs and deciding on the approp...
Which is better - Jira or Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Jira is a great centralized tool for just about everything, from local team management to keeping track of products and work logs. It is easy to implement and navigate, and it is stable and scalabl...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jira?
We operate under a nonlimited license with Jira, allowing a number of users to access it with a single enterprise license.
 

Also Known As

IBM Engineering Rhapsody, Rational ALM, MKS
Jira Software
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tennis Australia, WeCloud AB, Port Otago Limited, Logicalis US, Valmer, The Chevrolet Volt, Ashurst
Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Jira and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.