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 4.0% mindshare in ALM, compared to Siemens’s 7.2% 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

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

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: November 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM

November 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 872,837 peers since 2012

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

6.1

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

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is 4.0%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 7.2%, up from 6.8% 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	7.2%
IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)	4.0%
Other	88.8%

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.

Read full review

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.

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

"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."

"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."

"It's easy to use."

"One of the key advantages of IBM Rational ALM is its workflow capabilities, which enable seamless collaboration between development and production teams and ensure that all stakeholders are aware of the progress and readiness of the solution. Additionally, the solution is good for integration."

"The integration with Git works well."

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

"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 solution is customizable."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) pros

"We had a nice experience with technical support."

"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."

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

"Polarion ALM is excellent for tracking who is working on what and how many people are involved in a project."

"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."

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

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

"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."

More Polarion ALM pros

Cons

"The features should be more intuitive. If I'm looking for something, its location should be easy to locate."

"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."

"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."

"Improvement is needed in bridging DNG and Rhapsody and vice versa for better data exchange from both sides with some trigger technologies."

"The user interface requires significant improvement as it is overly complex."

"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."

"The reporting functionality needs to be improved."

"The product must be more user-friendly."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) cons

"The tool needs to improve its planning. It also needs to add more integrations."

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

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

"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."

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

"Test management lacks an automated process."

"The user interface of Polarion ALM needs improvement as it can experience changes that disrupt workflows, especially during major updates."

"The user interface is not yet optimized."

More Polarion ALM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not cheap."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"It is an expensive product."

"The solution is expensive."

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

"Software for medical devices is always expensive."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

872,837 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

23%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

28%

Computer Software Company

12%

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 22% 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 13% of the time

Atlassian ALM vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 8% of the time

Jama Connect vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) Competitors

Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM

Compared 30% of the time

Jira vs Polarion ALM

Compared 15% 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

November 2025

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

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

872,837 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM report.

See our list of best Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites vendors.

We monitor all Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.