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IBM Engineering Workflow Management vs Polarion ALM comparison

IBM and Siemens are both solutions in the Enterprise Agile Planning Tools category. IBM is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.0, while Siemens is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.3. IBM holds a 1.8% mindshare in EAP, compared to Siemens’s 3.9% mindshare. Additionally, 66% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Siemens users who would recommend it.
IBM Engineering Workflow Ma...
Read 18 IBM Engineering Workflow Management reviews
  • 1,227 Views
  • 393 Comparison Views
66% willing to recommend
Polarion ALM
Read 24 Polarion ALM reviews
  • 3,538 Views
  • 955 Comparison Views
88% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

IBM Engineering Workflow Management and Polarion ALM are competing products in application lifecycle management. IBM often prevails in terms of pricing and support, while Polarion stands out for its advanced features, making it a worthwhile investment for many seeking comprehensive ALM capabilities.

Features: IBM Engineering Workflow Management is valued for its comprehensive task and project tracking, effective integration with other IBM tools, and robust change management functionalities. Polarion ALM offers extensive test management, customization options, and strong traceability features ensuring rigorous compliance, appealing to those needing versatile and powerful functionalities.

Room for Improvement: IBM Engineering Workflow Management could enhance its feature customization and improve its user interface for beginners. Additionally, providing more extensive documentation would help streamline onboarding. Polarion ALM could improve its out-of-the-box functionality and simplify its complex interface to be more user-friendly. Enhancing the extraction of quality data from management reports is another area for improvement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Engineering Workflow Management is recognized for its straightforward deployment and strong customer support, facilitating seamless integration into existing systems. Polarion ALM's deployment can be complex due to customization options but is supported by a responsive customer service team, offering flexibility with added complexity.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Engineering Workflow Management offers a competitive initial setup cost with a promising ROI, especially for those leveraging IBM's ecosystem. Polarion ALM, although higher in upfront costs, provides compelling ROI for organizations seeking extensive ALM features that justify the investment. The choice often hinges on whether the advanced capabilities of Polarion ALM outweigh its initial costs.

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To learn more, read our detailed IBM Engineering Workflow Management vs. Polarion ALM Report (Updated: September 2025).
Buyer's Guide
IBM Engineering Workflow Management 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 Workflow Ma...
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
9th
Average Rating
6.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Software Configuration Management (4th)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Enterprise Agile Planning Tools category, the mindshare of IBM Engineering Workflow Management is 1.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 3.9%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Polarion ALM3.9%
IBM Engineering Workflow Management1.8%
Other94.3%
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Suvajit Chakraborty - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good traceability elements but UI needs improvement
There is room for improvement in the UI. The UI has to improve a lot compared to the competitive tools, like Atlassian Jira, for example. It's very easy to use. It is easy to manage and easy to use. Anybody can learn it right quickly and start with it. But IBM ELM is something where somebody has to have good knowledge, training, and understanding and then only start using it. But there's a big known knowledge curve for IBM ELM. But once that is there, it's normally; organizations do have their own internal team to basically manage it IBM ELM portfolio, the tool chain. So if they have internal teams who are doing it for quite some time, not something new, then it is definitely better. But if there's if somebody is starting new, definitely there is a knowledge curve time it can take at least a year or maybe a couple of years before they can start realizing the benefits.
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Dina Bindi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"It was an all-in-one solution for source code, integrated source control, defect tracking, and project planning."
"Agile templates give us a standard methodology for every Agile project. Also, the ability to create our own object types and linkages to features/epics allows us to enhance the verification of feature readiness."
"The tool provides traceability and reporting, which are important for compliance and measuring progress."
"The tool provides traceability and reporting, which are important for compliance and measuring progress."
"The most valuable features of the solution are highly customizable reports and visibility for all the higher management."
"Work distribution among team members and accountability for completion with a clearer picture."
"All of the features work together to provide a powerful holistic solution - from the dashboard all the way through to security."
"Traceability reporting is inbuilt and includes all your requirements."
More IBM Engineering Workflow Management pros
"The software is stable."
"Scalability is good...The integration is quite good."
"When it comes to functionalities like a real-time collaboration feature and traceability capabilities, Polarion ALM has had those basic features for the past five years already, and they are pretty mature products that have all the needed requirements management features, such as traceability and reporting, and even configuration management or version controlling."
"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."
"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."
"It meets with everybody's needs without having to grab plugins."
"It offers good performance."
"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."
More Polarion ALM pros
 

Cons

"It's becoming less relevant. For example, Maven has evolved, and in its later versions, there are plugins for integrating with source control systems, such as Git-based systems. Support for these plugins is diminishing."
"IBM Engineering Workflow Management can be improved by enhancing its pricing structure, specifically the cost and licensing of this solution."
"The solution is very heavily vendor dependent."
"I would rate the IBM Engineering Workflow Management a seven or an eight. I am leaning closer to seven based on a couple of items I mentioned that I would like to see or know more about, such as improved reporting."
"If you have multiple projects on one server, the tool becomes very slow, and some reports take longer to load."
"We have encountered issues with stability. We have seen where the entire system kind of goes for a toss when certain people use certain types of queries, which are very costly. Then the system kind of slows down a bit, and we have to monitor it."
"Lacks ability to customize and reporting can be slow."
"Improved graphics in terms of metrics and connectivity to SharePoint from Microsoft products would be beneficial."
More IBM Engineering Workflow Management cons
"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."
"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 solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."
"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"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."
"As Polarion ALM is a development-oriented tool, easy support or easy access is provided by default, but if I want to use detailed features, I need to write the script, particularly the VM script, and this is its area for improvement. I want Polarion ALM to have a graphical user interface that doesn't need scripting. In the next release of the tool, I'd like for it to not require scripting and programming because needing to run script language is time-consuming."
"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 user interface is not yet optimized."
More Polarion ALM cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not a free tool. We use a token-based licensing model, which is specific to IBM. The cost per token is around $115-$120."
"I've heard IBM Engineering Workflow Management is more expensive than other tools."
"It's an expensive investment to make, so the decision should be driven on individual requirements."
"Licensing: The solution cost is high and should be brought down to increase competition."
"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."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"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."
"It is an expensive product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Government
15%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
28%
Computer Software Company
12%
Healthcare Company
6%
Educational Organization
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Engineering Workflow Management?
We can track the status of test cases (passed or saved) in a single view. Based on releases and other attributes, we generate various reports and extract metrics from the data.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Engineering Workflow Management?
I've heard IBM Engineering Workflow Management is more expensive than other tools. On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten.
See all answers
What needs improvement with IBM Engineering Workflow Management?
IBM Engineering Workflow Management can be improved by enhancing its pricing structure, specifically the cost and licensing of this solution.
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 Workflow Management Logo
Jira vs IBM Engineering Workflow Management
Compared 32% of the time
Endevor vs IBM Engineering Workflow Management Logo
Endevor vs IBM Engineering Workflow Management
Compared 12% of the time
Inflectra SpiraPlan vs IBM Engineering Workflow Management Logo
Inflectra SpiraPlan vs IBM Engineering Workflow Management
Compared 7% of the time
IBM Rational ClearCase vs IBM Engineering Workflow Management Logo
IBM Rational ClearCase vs IBM Engineering Workflow Management
Compared 6% of the time
Codebeamer vs IBM Engineering Workflow Management Logo
Codebeamer vs IBM Engineering Workflow Management
Compared 5% of the time
More IBM Engineering Workflow Management Competitors
Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM Logo
Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM
Compared 30% of the time
Jira vs Polarion ALM Logo
Jira vs Polarion ALM
Compared 15% of the time
Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM Logo
Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM
Compared 13% of the time
Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM Logo
Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM
Compared 7% of the time
More Polarion ALM Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
IBM Engineering Workflow Management
October 2025
IBM Engineering Workflow Management reportDownload IBM Engineering Workflow Management product report
Buyer's Guide
Polarion ALM
October 2025
Polarion ALM reportDownload Polarion ALM product report
 

Also Known As

IBM Rational Team Concert (IBM ALM), IBM RTC
No data available
 

Overview

IBM Engineering Workflow Management manages plans, tasks, the project status and acts as the critical link between required and delivered work. It provides flexibility to adapt to any process, which enables companies to adopt faster release cycles and manage dependencies across both small and complex development projects. This solution offers no-charge server software and flexible pricing models. It becomes a complete IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management solution—when purchased as a set of seamlessly integrated tools: IBM Engineering Workflow Management, IBM Engineering Test Management, and IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next.

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

Telstra Corporation, Visteon, Atos SE, Panasonic Automotive Systems, IBM Global Technology Services, CareCore National, JTEKT Corp., ItaÒ BBA, Avea, CACEIS, Danske Bank Group, APIS IT
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Buyer's Guide
IBM Engineering Workflow Management vs. Polarion ALM
September 2025
Free Report: IBM Engineering Workflow Management vs. Polarion ALM
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