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IBM Engineering Workflow Management vs Rally Software vs TFS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
IBM Engineering Workflow Management boosts productivity by 30%, enhancing team efficiency and leadership insights with user-friendly tracking features.
Sentiment score
7.9
Rally Software improves efficiency and ROI, simplifies processes, offers valuable insights, and outperforms Quality Center in cost-effectiveness.
Sentiment score
7.2
TFS enhances productivity and cost-efficiency by automating processes, integrating with Microsoft products, and improving software development for oil and gas.
Integrating TFS with Visual Studio and Azure Cloud has improved our development processes by providing better integration and reducing errors.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
IBM Engineering Workflow Management offers reliable, skilled support with effective local vendor assistance, though customization and forum support are limited.
Sentiment score
6.9
Rally Software's customer service is knowledgeable and responsive, but response times can be slower for complex issues.
Sentiment score
6.9
Users praise TFS support for its excellence, quick responses, and resources, although some suggest improvements in response time and SLAs.
as a Microsoft product, it might have limited global documentation or support options compared to GitLab.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
IBM Engineering Workflow Management is scalable and adaptable, with some integration challenges and performance improvement needs noted by users.
Sentiment score
7.2
Rally Software is known for scalability and agile integration, with minor slow-downs but no major data handling issues.
Sentiment score
7.4
TFS is scalable, suitable for enterprises, but larger organizations may encounter challenges; rated 6 to 8 out of 10.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
IBM Engineering Workflow Management's stability varies with customizations, server factors, and deployment planning, affecting performance for some users.
Sentiment score
7.3
Rally Software is stable with reliable uptime, but users face occasional performance issues, needing improvement in reporting and speed.
Sentiment score
7.7
TFS is reliable and robust, though minor issues under load or specific setups can impact performance, requiring proper hardware.
Its stability is lacking as we have encountered security leaks and glitches.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Engineering Workflow Management faces challenges in integration, customization, usability, vendor reliance, and requires enhanced tools and cloud adaptability.
Users seek improved navigation, performance, reporting, Kanban support, integration, and customization in Rally Software for better user satisfaction.
TFS requires improved interface, tool integration, agile features, merging, reporting, affordability, stability, cloud synergy, and performance enhancements.
Improved graphics in terms of metrics and connectivity to SharePoint from Microsoft products would be beneficial.
TFS is not as fast, easy to use, or configurable as GitLab, despite moving into the cloud.
I am content with how TFS is structured now, particularly the Azure version.
 

Setup Cost

IBM Engineering Workflow Management offers flexible licensing with complex yet worthwhile pricing, yielding strong ROI and excellent support.
Rally Software is costly compared to competitors, but offers value for agile scaling and negotiable professional services for large users.
Enterprise TFS users experience varied costs; many manage expenses with agreements, praising integration despite fewer features than HPE ALM.
 

Valuable Features

IBM Engineering Workflow Management enhances software development with task linking, traceability, agile support, and seamless change management integration.
TFS integrates with Visual Studio, enhancing version control, lifecycle management, and Agile support, valuable for diverse development needs.
It provides more efficiencies for our scrum team, ensures everyone is on the same page, and offers leadership insight into progress.
The integration with Azure DevOps also offers seamless functionality for CI/CD processes.
Makes it easier for me to create builds and release pipelines without needing to program YAML files.
 

Mindshare comparison

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
Test Management 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.
Deep Maini - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps you collaborate on various effects and solutions from the top to the bottom of the organization
We use Rally Software extensively in our agile development processes. We have program boards set up where we write and break down stories. We assign story points and map dependencies between different stories, showing how stories from one team may depend on stories from another team. It integrates these functions well, especially compared to Jira, which has some limitations in this area. The tool keeps improving based on how teams actually work in Scaled Agile, continually upgrading their software versions to meet our needs. I find the whole Rally Software tool integrated very nicely. In Jira, we often go to Confluence for documentation using two separate tools. But in the product, it's not like that. The documentation is tightly integrated. I don't feel like switching to another tool, like going from Jira to Confluence. The tool is designed for collaboration. It shows your organization's view, showing different teams and verticals. It helps you collaborate on various effects and solutions from the top to the bottom of the organization. It has an ecosystem that supports this. All the dependencies between different teams can be easily mapped in Rally Software. They have a program board for that purpose.
Pmurki@Micron.Com Praveen - PeerSpot reviewer
Version control is excellent and good for code review, branching, merging strategies and more
I've worked with TFS for source control and Agile project management. We also used TFS for seamless team collaboration and tracking.  I used TFS for a couple of years. Now, we use Azure DevOps. It's a wonderful tool for source control and CI/CD pipelines It's a really valuable tool for…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
19%
Government
14%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Insurance Company
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
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 ...
What needs improvement with IBM Engineering Workflow Management?
Improved graphics in terms of metrics and connectivity to SharePoint from Microsoft products would be beneficial.
What do you like most about Rally Software?
Rally offers many features that help the management of activities, coordination, alignment and reports, which applies...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rally Software?
I don't know the exact pricing, but I think the tool is priced high. They provide quality workmanship, good software,...
What needs improvement with Rally Software?
The product itself seems to have a lot of bugs. One issue is that it sometimes allows people to modify data inappropr...
Which is better - TFS or Azure DevOps?
TFS and Azure DevOps are different in many ways. TFS was designed for admins, and only offers incremental improvement...
What do you like most about TFS?
Microsoft's technical team is supportive.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TFS?
While I do not know the exact pricing, TFS is likely more expensive than GitLab.
 

Also Known As

IBM Rational Team Concert (IBM ALM), IBM RTC
CA Agile Central, Rally Enterprise, CA Agile Training, CA Agile Coaching, CA Agile Academy, CA Agile Management , CA ALM
Team Foundation Server
 

Overview

 

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
Physicians Mutual, Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare, Editora Abril, Tata Communications, Level 3 Communications, Seagate, TomTom, Philips, Hiscox, Physicians Mutual, MYOB
Vendex KBB IT Services, Info Support, Fujitsu Consulting, TCSC, Airways New Zealand, HP
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, GitLab, ServiceNow and others in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools. Updated: July 2025.
863,429 professionals have used our research since 2012.