Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs Polarion ALM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 6, 2025

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
19
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
22
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 - 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) ( /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.
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.

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."
"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."
 

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."
"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."
 

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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites solutions are best for your needs.
860,825 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
12%
Transportation Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

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 trigger technologies. This would provide a visual reminder of changes in a modul...
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

IBM Engineering Rhapsody, Rational ALM, MKS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tennis Australia, WeCloud AB, Port Otago Limited, Logicalis US, Valmer, The Chevrolet Volt, Ashurst
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
860,825 professionals have used our research since 2012.