IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs Polarion ALM comparison

IBM and Siemens are both solutions in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category. IBM is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.2, while Siemens is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.3. IBM holds a 3.9% mindshare in ALM, compared to Siemens’s 7.5% mindshare. Additionally, 77% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Siemens users who would recommend it.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...

Read 20 IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) reviews

1,497 Views
1,482 Comparison Views

77% willing to recommend

Polarion ALM

Read 24 Polarion ALM reviews

3,602 Views
3,350 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...

Polarion ALM

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 12, 2025

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management and Polarion ALM are both significant players in the application lifecycle management market. While IBM ELM stands out due to its robust integration capabilities, Polarion ALM is highly valued for its flexibility and feature-rich environment.

Features: IBM ELM offers a comprehensive suite including requirements management, quality management, and change management on a single platform. Polarion ALM is notable for its customizable environment, emphasizing traceability and user adaptability. Both platforms provide extensive lifecycle management support; however, IBM maintains an edge with its seamless integration.

Room for Improvement: IBM ELM could enhance flexibility and user-customizable features. Improvements in user interface intuitiveness would help make Polarion less daunting for new users. Both tools would benefit from stronger, more straightforward reporting capabilities, and more efficient ways to generate documentation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM ELM offers streamlined deployment with extensive support services, suitable for larger enterprises. Polarion ALM provides a flexible deployment model, easily tailored to organizational needs, with strong customization support. IBM's structured deployment process is a key difference between the two.

Pricing and ROI: IBM ELM requires a significant initial investment, focusing on long-term ROI through comprehensive features. Polarion ALM involves upfront costs but is perceived to provide quicker returns because of its adaptability and included feature breadth. Despite IBM's higher initial costs, its extensive integrations may justify the investment for strategic objectives.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM

September 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

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

Polarion ALM

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is 3.9%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 7.5%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Polarion ALM	7.5%
IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)	3.9%
Other	88.6%

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) 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.

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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

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

"You can customize the board according to your needs."

"It's easy to use."

"We have something called the GC (global configuration), which is a unique feature compared to any other competitor we have in the ALM space."

"The word emulation and importing is good."

"The most valuable feature is how IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) allows me to present to the customer what the actual software, even hardware, will do."

"The planning feature is rich with Scrum concepts: Sprint, Sprint retrospective, the rules in the Scrum framework."

"The integration with Git works well."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) pros

"The solution offers good integration."

"You can see the work ticket and you can circulate that within the teams. You can define your flows, customize according to your needs, and you can create dashboards and create the reports according to your needs."

"It meets with everybody's needs without having to grab plugins."

"Polarion ALM helps us better structure our customer requirements, and we can also validate the specs of our products against those. If anything changes on our side, we see the impact, and we can see the effect If a customer changes requirements."

"It is a very stable solution."

"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."

"We had a nice experience with technical support."

"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."

More Polarion ALM pros

Cons

"If you look at the UI, it was literally designed ten years ago, and even at the time it was introduced, it was already somewhat outdated."

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

"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."

"The directory designer manager is uncivil. The design manager is clearly really unstable."

"The product must be more user-friendly."

"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."

"In the next release, we expect a traceability metrics configuration where we can configure the user stories. We also expect them to improve or simplify the query process."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) cons

"The weak point of Polarion ALM software is about reporting and time for extraction of the data...The quality of reporting needs to improve."

"Based on my understanding, the tool's integration capabilities with multiple tools is an area of concern that Polarion needs to focus on more."

"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."

"The interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."

"Polarion ALM can learn from Atlassian tools a lot, as the usability is not the best, and it is really narrowly focused on requirements management only."

"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."

"The planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."

More Polarion ALM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"IBM Rational ALM has both monthly and yearly licensing options."

"The solution is not cheap."

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

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

"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."

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

"The solution is expensive."

"Software for medical devices is always expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

22%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

28%

Computer Software Company

11%

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Rational ALM?

The solution is customizable.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

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 backlog management for Agile in Polarion ALM could be improved or enhanced in future releases. What is missing is that if you have a hierarchy in your backlog with epics, features, and user sto...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Polarion ALM?

We are in our product development using Polarion ALM's functionalities. I am a power user, partly responsible for configuring the tool. We are using it for many things. The idea was to go for a req...

See all answers

Comparisons

Jira vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 23% of the time

Codebeamer vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 12% of the time

PTC Integrity vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 8% of the time

Atlassian ALM vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 8% of the time

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) Competitors

Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM

Compared 30% of the time

Jira vs Polarion ALM

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM

Compared 13% of the time

Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM

Compared 7% of the time

GitLab vs Polarion ALM

Compared 3% of the time

More Polarion ALM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

October 2025

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) report

Download IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) product report

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM

October 2025

Download Polarion ALM product report

Also Known As

IBM Engineering Rhapsody, Rational ALM, MKS

No data available

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

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

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

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group

Buyer's Guide

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM

September 2025

Free Report: IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM

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