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 #12 with an average rating of 7.5, while Siemens is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.2. IBM holds a 3.7% mindshare in ALM, compared to Siemens’s 8.2% mindshare. Additionally, 76% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Siemens users who would recommend it.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...

Read 19 IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) reviews

1,488 Views
1,473 Comparison Views

76% willing to recommend

Polarion ALM

Read 22 Polarion ALM reviews

4,007 Views
3,646 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...

Polarion ALM

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 6, 2025

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management and Polarion ALM are competing products in the application lifecycle management category. IBM ELM seems to have the upper hand in customer support and integration, while Polarion ALM is more favorable due to its modular architecture and scalability, often seen as more cost-effective in the long term.

Features: IBM ELM is known for robust reporting, traceability across various tools, and seamless integration with other IBM products like DOORS for detailed requirements mapping. Its automation capabilities facilitate efficient data management and decision-making. Polarion ALM stands out for its customizable workflows, robust version control, and comprehensive requirement tracking. Its powerful document control and traceability features allow teams to handle all aspects of requirements engineering effectively.

Room for Improvement: IBM ELM could improve its deployment flexibility to better support cloud-based implementations and streamline its cost structure to appeal more to small and medium-sized businesses. The user interface could also be simplified for easier navigation. Polarion ALM may benefit from enhancements in out-of-the-box functionality for planning and management. Users have suggested simplifying the setup process and refining report generation for better user efficiency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM ELM provides a traditional deployment process tailored for enterprises needing extensive support. Its thorough enterprise-grade customer service suits larger organizations with complex infrastructures. Polarion ALM offers modern cloud-based deployment, enabling faster implementation and facilitating agile transitions. Its efficient customer service is particularly beneficial for smaller, agile teams.

Pricing and ROI: IBM ELM's initial setup can be substantial but offers a good ROI with its comprehensive functionality and support. It is ideal for enterprises requiring thorough lifecycle management. Polarion ALM provides a cost-efficient pricing model with competitive ROI due to its lower upfront investment and scalability. This makes it an attractive choice for businesses seeking quick adaptation without heavy initial costs.

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM

July 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

12th

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

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is 3.7%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 8.2%, up from 5.7% 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.

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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 is relatively easy to use and user-friendly once the setup is complete."

"The transition to a SaaS-based solution is a distinct advantage."

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

"The most valuable feature is the reporting of the CPU usage on the dashboard."

"I would rate the stability of this product a nine out of ten."

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

"The integration with Git works well."

"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."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) pros

"The software is stable."

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

"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."

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

"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."

"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."

"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."

"The solution offers good integration."

More Polarion ALM pros

Cons

"The product must be more user-friendly."

"Some improvements to the user interface (UI) would be helpful, such as exposing more services to make it easier to customize to the needs of each customer."

"The solution can improve in the development area and the customized applications."

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

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

"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."

"The reporting functionality needs to be improved."

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

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) cons

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

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

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

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

"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 most important thing for them to improve should be platform-independent features. They should also provide extensive pipelines and release pipelines that we can define and we can work on."

"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."

"The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing features that are common in web-based applications."

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."

"The solution is not cheap."

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

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

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

"Software for medical devices is always expensive."

"It is an expensive product."

"The solution is expensive."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

24%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

12%

Transportation Company

Manufacturing Company

27%

Computer Software Company

13%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

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.

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...

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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...

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What do you like most about Polarion ALM?

It is a very stable solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?

The user interface of Polarion ALM needs improvement as it can experience changes that disrupt workflows, especially during major updates. Sometimes, database migrations take too long, spanning two...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Polarion ALM?

As a manual tester, I use Polarion ALM ( /products/polarion-alm-reviews ) for our weekly builds validation. These builds are crucial as they eventually lead to final release builds for customers. I...

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Comparisons

Jira vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 26% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 18% of the time

Codebeamer vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 17% of the time

PTC Integrity vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 9% of the time

Atlassian ALM vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) Competitors

Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM

Compared 31% of the time

Jira vs Polarion ALM

Compared 22% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM

Compared 14% of the time

Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM

Compared 8% 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)

June 2025

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) report

Download IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) product report

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM

June 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

July 2025

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

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