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IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs Jira 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is 3.8%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jira is 20.0%, down from 23.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TFS is 4.4%, down from 6.2% 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) 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.
AmitUbale - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient project management that's comprehensive and and helps with time efficiency
We use Jira primarily for project management within the organization. It helps us manage tasks, bug management, and tracking tickets effectively. We assign tickets to individual team members and track them easily For project management, Jira has helped facilitate efficient task segregation and…
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the reporting of the CPU usage on the dashboard."
"You can customize the board according to your needs."
"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 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."
"I would rate the stability of this product a nine out of ten."
"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."
"The solution is customizable."
"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 scrum dashboard is the product's most important feature. It provides an overview of tasks, who is working on what, and the status of each task."
"I was able to do real-time reports myself without having to wait for data import."
"We can query the tickets and create dashboards based on these queries."
"The solution works well and does what it needs to do."
"The most valuable feature is project management."
"We've found the scalability to be good."
"The dashboards are useful."
"Integration is good."
"It is very user-friendly."
"Work item management integration with source control."
"For what I need TFS for, I have never run into any limitation."
"The most valuable feature of TFS is integration."
"The solution is very much stable."
"Complete integration with VS IDE and Office tools: This give us a possibility of high-level automation, thus minimizing human error."
"TFS's best features include user-friendly test management, bug reporting, and ID assignment."
"The initial setup was straightforward: creating a new project, importing code, and setting up branches."
 

Cons

"The interconnectivity between packages is a major support problem and can be improved."
"The user interface requires significant improvement as it is overly complex."
"The product must be more user-friendly."
"The solution can improve in the development area and the customized applications."
"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 features should be more intuitive. If I'm looking for something, its location should be easy to locate."
"The reporting functionality needs to be improved."
"The stability of this solution can be improved."
"The thing I don't like is that it is hard to decide which dropdown options should be selected. When we try and submit it, it will state that there are certain mandates in place. It won't allow us to submit the form unless we fill out all the details."
"The help desk and services management features are in need of improvement."
"As the solution is highly configurable, it has very poor governance."
"I'm really new to Jira and I haven't used all of the features. However, it is quite difficult to use and manipulate. It was a little complicated for me and I don't know if it's difficult globally for others, but I had a difficult time understanding it at first. I used it for issues, epics, stories, tasks, and sub-tasks. For first-time users, Jira could be made better to help them understand."
"We would like to see integration between Tempo and Jira."
"There are no fields to search or to filter by, mainly the ones which use a data around a date and time when something changes."
"There should be a way to integrate the mobile application or in some way, make it more clear because at first instance, I didn't understand how to use it."
"Jira is raising their prices for the license, which is like a trap because many other providers offer services like Jira but for much cheaper."
"The solution is stable but could improve."
"There might be some complexity in its off-cloud versions."
"One of the areas that could be improved is to have an effective full lifecycle management."
"I only use 1% of the functionality, so I am not familiar enough to know what needs to be improved."
"TFS should have capabilities similar to Git, like storing all types of artifacts in the repository."
"We encounter issues with backups."
"The user interface could improve and test management was not useful in TFS."
"I'm looking for specific options that aren't currently available, such as active status, new status, or what's currently in progress."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a contract, but I am not aware of the details."
"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."
"This product is a little expensive and we had to pay extra to have them set it up for us."
"IBM Rational ALM has both monthly and yearly licensing options."
"The licensing model is annoying. They nickel and dime you."
"Our client handles the licensing aspect. They have not yet purchased the premium version."
"Jira is expensive and a lot of people are choosing DevOps because they are cheaper, open-source, easy to use, and have basic licenses. Jira should decrease its price to be more competitive."
"I don't feel that price is an issue."
"I am not sure about the pricing, but I know its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The tool is expensive."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"The ballpark figure is about $100 a month."
"There are different prices depending on the configurations. There is a free version available. There is no extra cost for the solution. However, the hardware could be something that needs to be considered."
"If running TFS on-premise is expensive, maybe you could consider moving to the Cloud and use the Visual Studio Team Services."
"It is pretty expensive compared to other project management tools."
"You will need to obtain server and account licenses."
"We pay for the license yearly."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis. I don't know the current costs of them. We outsource all that to a third party. Each of the developers gets a Microsoft Visual Studio Azure DevOps license, which gives them access to the TFS server as well. We probably pay on average about 1,800 Canadian Dollars a year for every developer, but that covers a lot more than just TFS."
"We are using the open-source version."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
12%
Transportation Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
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-en...
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 d...
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 a...
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 lic...
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 Engineering Rhapsody, Rational ALM, MKS
Jira Software
Team Foundation Server
 

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.
Vendex KBB IT Services, Info Support, Fujitsu Consulting, TCSC, Airways New Zealand, HP
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian, Microsoft, Siemens and others in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites. Updated: August 2025.
865,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.