IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs OpenText ALM Octane comparison

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. OpenText ALM Octane

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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

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

13th

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

OpenText ALM Octane

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (8th)

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 OpenText ALM Octane is 6.2%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

Featured Reviews

Juergen Albrecht

Managing Director at CCC Systems Engineering Suisse GmbH

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.

Read full review

GeorgNauerz

Managing Partner at Georg Nauerz Consulting

Makes team collaboration between IT and non-IT users easier with more transparency

The user experience is a lot better than any tool that I have used before. Overall, it is great. It has a smooth interface, which is very user-friendly. It makes it easier to work together and have more transparency and customization, which is very good. There are a lot of features where you can add fields, input individual fields, and input rules, like templated rule-based interaction between entities. The Backlog management is really interesting, because it is all in one place. You don't have a feature here and a feature there, instead you have the Backlog and testing using different backup items, like user storage features and tasks, all in one place. In addition, we are able to write documents, which we can transfer to backup items. Then, we can test them in the same solution without switching tools, or even switching from one part of the tool to another part, because it is all in one place. We use the solution’s Backlog and Team Backlog capabilities. They make our DevOps processes easier through transparency and asset collaboration.

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 word emulation and importing is good."

"The integration with Git works well."

"Everyone in a team can work on the same platform and share the same information."

"One of the key advantages of IBM Rational ALM is its workflow capabilities, which enable seamless collaboration between development and production teams and ensure that all stakeholders are aware of the progress and readiness of the solution. Additionally, the solution is good for integration."

"It helped us contain critical things, like source code and several documents, which is very important to us."

"It's easy to use."

"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."

"At the same time, if you're working from the architect or the designing team you, it's quite easy to manage the resources online."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) pros

"The platform's most valuable feature is pipeline integration or continuous integration services."

"The integration capability of ALM Octane was very straightforward. We had a supporting team, and they provided us with detailed documentation."

"The interface is user-friendly."

"A valuable feature is the pipeline, so that we can now connect to Jenkins and then have all the results from testing, from external, in the tool, so that we can see the whole approach from there. Also, We can work with labels so we have better filtering solutions than in ALM. And it's much smarter and leaner to use than ALM."

"The key feature is the usability. It is fast to learn and easy to use. It's very intuitive to work with. Most of the important functions are available via a few clicks, compared to other tools where I have to open a sub-menu and then a sub-menu and another sub-menu, and then press a button."

"Its end-to-end traceability is one of the big advantages. Most of our agile projects work in a closed team structure. We are seeing what is the flow, where we are, and what is the project milestone. So, it provides end-to-end traceability and good visibility of project milestones."

"It is a very stable tool. The tool has been in the industry for so many years. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."

"Micro Focus' technical support is good."

More OpenText ALM Octane pros

Cons

"The features should be more intuitive. If I'm looking for something, its location should be easy to locate."

"There is not enough beginner support material in the form of FAQs or simple training to help you get started."

"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."

"IBM Rational ALM should remove the features not used by the customers and keep this product as lightweight as possible."

"The stability of IBM Rational ALM could be improved."

"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."

"The GUI is a little bit outdated."

"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."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) cons

"I think the area of release management in the tool is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"The Requirements Module could be better, to build up a better requirements process. There's a huge improvement from ALM.NET to Octane, but it's still not really facilitating all the needs of the product owners, to set up their requirements in Octane."

"The limitation of Octane is that we can't do a release outside of the sprint. We can only plan the release in the sprint. With Agile and JIRA tools, we can plan the release outside the sprint and do a global release of all the projects from the sprint."

"Currently, Micro Focus ALM Octane is considered an old-world tool in the industry and lacks the perception of being a new-age tool among its customers."

"Technical support can be slow."

"The reporting is lacking from a requirements matrix and a traceability perspective."

"We have some requests to beef up the manual testing abilities and the ability to report on testing progress. All the basics are there, but there's an issue of maintainability. For example... once you plan a test and it creates a run, more particularly a suite run, you can't edit the suite run afterward... That that is not realistic with how people work. Mistakes are made and people are humans and we change our minds about things. So the tool needs to allow for a bit more flexibility in that testing area, as well as some better widgets to report on progress."

"Improvements could be made by way of additional integrations across the lifecycle."

More OpenText ALM Octane cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a contract, but I am not aware of the details."

"The solution is not cheap."

"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."

"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 senior management of my company handles the purchases of the solution. However, the price per developer was a major reason we switched from Jira. Apart from the complexity and the support, the price was a major reason that a team of 20 people unanimously decided that we would prefer to go with Micro Focus ALM Octane rather than Jira. The senior management had seen some benefit in it and they preferred it over Jira because the per developer cost was less and the support was superior."

"In terms of pricing, it's comparable to what we had previously. It's not priced at the higher end of the scale by any means. It's priced nicely, in the middle of the market. For what you're getting, it's a very good tool."

"It's expensive. HPE products, and now Micro Focus, have always been expensive. The license is not cheap, and it will always be a challenge, particularly for small organizations like ours."

"Going forward, I think we will want to explore adding more licenses."

"If you compare the price with the functionality, it is pretty much the same as other solutions. If you compare it to Jira, for instance, it has a lot more functionality. You don't need any plug-ins, but it's also more expensive. Once you start adding your different plug-ins to Jira, you'll probably end up with the same amount or more. There is also a yearly support cost, which is usually 25% of the initial cost of the license."

"Pricing is the weakest point. It is expensive, but the tool has plenty of features. The main problem we have is that the pricing is very high compared to some other solutions."

"It will be as expensive as ALM.NET, if not more expensive. But here's a good tip: If you have ALM.NET, you are able to share your licenses from ALM.NET to Octane. You just have to define a dedicated number of licenses on ALM.NET and then you can share them with ALM Octane, with some configuration effort. This is something that you have to take into account, that there is a possibility of such license sharing that could decrease your costs. Compared to open-source tools, the price the ALM Octane is definitely higher, in terms of the licensing cost."

"The solution has reduced our testing costs."

More OpenText ALM Octane pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

26%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

26%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Rational ALM?

The solution is customizable.

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...

What do you like most about Micro Focus ALM Octane?

The platform's most valuable feature is pipeline integration or continuous integration services.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus ALM Octane?

OpenText ALM Octane is an expensive product. However, it offsets costs by saving time and money, thus creating a balance between expenses and benefits. Our organization with over 1500 users sees sa...

Jira vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Comparisons

Compared 28% of the time

Codebeamer vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 20% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 19% of the time

Polarion ALM vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 11% of the time

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) Competitors

Jira vs OpenText ALM Octane

Compared 49% of the time

OpenText ALM / Quality Center vs OpenText ALM Octane

Compared 26% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs OpenText ALM Octane

Compared 8% of the time

Rally Software vs OpenText ALM Octane

Compared 3% of the time

More OpenText ALM Octane Competitors

Product Reports

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Download IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) product report

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) report

OpenText ALM Octane

Download OpenText ALM Octane product report

Also Known As

IBM Engineering Rhapsody, Rational ALM, MKS

Micro Focus ALM Octane, Micro Focus Octane

Overview

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management stands out for its robust Agile Scrum planning, lifecycle traceability, and tool management, offering cloud-based configurability and strong collaboration features.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management provides rich capabilities for Agile project management, facilitating requirements and test management, configuration management, and version control. Its integration with IBM Doors supports comprehensive requirements handling, and the cloud-based platform enhances collaborative efficiency across teams. Despite needing advances in user-friendliness and reporting, ELM's global configuration and compliance features make it invaluable in demanding environments.

What are the key features of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management?

Scrum-based planning: Supports Agile methodologies with rich planning tools.
Lifecycle traceability: Offers complete traceability across development stages.
Customizable workflows: Adaptable workflows with Kanban for flexibility.
Git integration: Supports efficient version control and collaboration.
Global Configuration: Manages complex configurations globally.
Compliance and reporting: Ensures robust auditing and comprehensive reporting capabilities.

What benefits should be evaluated in reviews?

Collaboration: Enhanced sharing across platforms for seamless teamwork.
Cost-effectiveness: Delivers efficient tools that optimize project spend.
Comprehensive requirement handling: Facilitates detailed requirement management through IBM Doors integration.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management is vital in sectors like automotive and manufacturing, where it implements Agile frameworks to manage requirements, conduct testing, and handle defects. It integrates into development pipelines ensuring live traceability and visibility, supporting critical engineering processes efficiently.

IBM

OpenText ALM Octane helps organizations implement a “quality everywhere” approach and improve Agile and DevOps development and testing processes to improve the flow of work across the software delivery value stream. You can tightly align quality efforts from development to release, employ a broad range of tests anchored by automation, and continuously monitor and improve for increased throughput. OpenText fosters an open approach so that quality is visible, traceable, and continuously improved. By synchronizing quality and testing with Agile and DevOps processes, risks are mitigated early in the software delivery value stream – speeding the way for faster delivery and improved customer satisfaction.

ALM Octane facilitates a tailored and scalable approach for large enterprises. You can deploy your way and minimize infrastructure needs with deployment options spanning on-premises, SaaS, and public cloud (Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure Marketplaces). Similarly, various licensing options can tailor the features to meet specific needs with support for thousands of concurrent users in geographically disperse locations.

OpenText

Sample Customers

Tennis Australia, WeCloud AB, Port Otago Limited, Logicalis US, Valmer, The Chevrolet Volt, Ashurst

Orange, Airbus, Haufe Group, Kellogg's, Claro, Bon Secours, World Wide Technology

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. OpenText ALM Octane