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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
13th
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 (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is 3.3%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jira is 21.4%, down from 23.9% 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.
Saroj Ekka - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good repository integration, sprint board and easy to set up
There are some features and reports we need that are not there. For example, if I have to find out the capacity of the current sprint by user and compare it with the previous sprint, that visibility isn't there. We can know the capacity and what happened with the whole sprint, but not for an individual person to see where it's falling and how it's tracking. Report and analytics capabilities are important for a product manager. That visibility is important, so we use Jira. Some of the features are there, and I use my own Excels or other data things to compensate for that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have something called the GC (global configuration), which is a unique feature compared to any other competitor we have in the ALM space."
"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."
"It helped us contain critical things, like source code and several documents, which is very important to us."
"The transition to a SaaS-based solution is a distinct advantage."
"The planning feature is rich with Scrum concepts: Sprint, Sprint retrospective, the rules in the Scrum framework."
"I would rate the stability of this product a nine out of ten."
"The word emulation and importing is good."
"The solution is customizable."
"It's a very complete product overall."
"The layout, workflow, automation, and metrics are helpful in Jira."
"The monitoring, flexibility and tracking are really good in Jira."
"The user interface is simple."
"A stable solution with no unplanned downtime."
"Jira improved our team collaboration by providing visual visibility and transparency. Everyone could see what tasks were being worked on and the progress made. The development team updated task statuses, making tracking progress and planning sprints easy. If there were any impediments or challenges, we addressed them. This process helped us track our progress."
"When we run the Jenkins pipeline, the build is already automatically connected to Jira. We've been able to integrate the ecosystem we created using this automation tool."
"The product provides high flexibility to create new workflows quickly."
 

Cons

"One of the complaints from users is that they have to click buttons too many times for just a simple task. Changing this would lead to a better user experience."
"Of course it would be related to customer experience. The solution is not user friendly at all. It needs an expert to use it, although the reporting feature was okay."
"The interconnectivity between packages is a major support problem and can be improved."
"The solution can improve in the development area and the customized applications."
"The reporting functionality needs to be improved."
"The GUI is a little bit outdated."
"The user interface requires significant improvement as it is overly complex."
"I think nowadays people are getting into Jira and other tools. What is happening is, this solution is becoming more traditional, whereas Jira and other tools are more attractive for the new users to learn and start using because of the graphical interfaces."
"The solution should be more user-friendly and include integration with different tools."
"End-to-end management from product backlog to test completion could be improved."
"Users can be confused about how to use this tool as it's very complex."
"Backlog pruning and visualization are poor."
"Its search and reporting can be improved. They are already nice, but they can be further improved."
"Jira is a project management tracking tool, and it would be great to see integration with the source front or Azure DevOps, etc."
"The initial setup was a bit problematic in terms of getting access to Jira. That goes for a few users, including me."
"The release of a MailServer feature within Jira would be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not cheap."
"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."
"We have a contract, but I am not aware of the details."
"IBM Rational ALM has both monthly and yearly licensing options."
"This product is a little expensive and we had to pay extra to have them set it up for us."
"I don't deal with licensing in my current consultant position."
"Its price is good and similar to other products. It is about five or six dollars per user."
"I don't have the number, but I sure wish Jira was less expensive. Its price point should be a little lower, and it should be more flexible for users who are just ticket viewers."
"It is subscription-based, and we probably pay yearly. I would rate it a four out of five in terms of price."
"It is very cheap if you forego the local instance and stick to the cloud."
"It is an affordable tool."
"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."
"There is a monthly license required for this solution and it is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Educational Organization
50%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Rational ALM?
The user interface requires significant improvement as it is overly complex. For business users with no experience in IT, it can be particularly challenging to understand the UI and create test cas...
What is your primary use case for IBM Rational ALM?
We use IBM Rational ALM as part of our overall application suite for our manufacturing company. It is used by our engineering team to capture requirements, perform testing, and manage defects. Spec...
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: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.