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IBM DOORS Next vs Jama Connect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 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 DOORS Next
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jama Connect
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
4th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Application Requirements Management category, the mindshare of IBM DOORS Next is 9.3%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jama Connect is 15.6%, up from 12.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Requirements Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Jama Connect15.6%
IBM DOORS Next9.3%
Other75.1%
Application Requirements Management
 

Featured Reviews

Roger Trackwell - PeerSpot reviewer
An industry-leading tool to demonstrate traceability between requirements, with valuable features for tailoring modules and managing several thousand requirements
The biggest thing is that it shows cradle to grave traceability between the initial parent requirement and the lowest level, or what we call a CID, a critical item development spec. You can establish your verification plans in DOORS, and then as you get test results, you can put them in DOORS as a link or as a pointer to where that specific test resides on a company database. Then you can also write compliance rationale and add a column for coding, like pass, fail, green, yellow, red, meets, does not meet, partially meets, or whatever scoring criteria you want to use. Like I said, the best thing about it is that it provides you that visibility of your verification, allowing you to know how close you are to your pre-production activities, prototyping, go ahead, or whatever it is.
Lasse Mikkonen - PeerSpot reviewer
Traceability has improved documentation for auditors and regulators
The collaboration feature in Jama Connect could be improved because it is only used by a limited number of people within an organization due to license costs. For broader collaboration that includes departments like marketing and engineering, many still rely on tools like Slack or Confluence. Additionally, there are areas where usability and configurability could be enhanced.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's most valuable feature is displaying requirements in a tabular format. This means you can see everything laid out in columns and rows. It is more aesthetic compared to other tools. The traceability matrix helps to view things better. It comes with different linking rules."
"As far as maintaining our requirements so that we can have copies of them, it's good. I can print it out if necessary."
"The "Link by Attribute" feature is useful for making links without needing to use the web interface manually."
"IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation is easier to expand to build a backend with several servers, so you can also use it to scale up to several hundreds of users without major problems."
"One of the most valuable features is how you can tailor the modules."
"The most valuable features are the baselines and links."
"There are many good features with DOORS. The solution has a concept of streams and baselines, as well as a concept of components. A component is a subproject inside a project."
"The usability of IBM DOORS Next is very good, and the features are very good."
"The most valuable feature is the single identity provider capability, which simplifies the integration with various platforms, like Google App Store and Microsoft Azure, for providing user access."
"The relationship mapping feature is especially helpful, as it allows us to connect different requirements and compliance-related documentation."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly interface."
"We use Jama Connect mainly for requirements management."
"Jama Connect is a good tool for the entire software development cycle."
"You can get full traceability with any other system. It also includes a test module, and you build the traceability matrix incrementally throughout the development process."
"Provides suitable tools for managing regulatory requirements."
"In Jama Connect, users have the capability to view and manage all test cases directly within the platform and execute them. The entire product specification, spanning various domains such as electrical, mechanical, software, and testing, is consolidated within Jama Connect."
 

Cons

"Both the data storage and reporting for this solution need improvement."
"It offers a bad user experience and the usability is poor."
"It does have a tendency to condense the requirements. It kind of puts them in a tree format. Sometimes those trees are a little difficult."
"There is room for improvement in the APIs that they have exposed for integration."
"When you are in Jira or Confluence, you have some freedom in how you type in text. That's also a weakness of Confluence, however, as it opens the doors to sloppy work. In DOS Next Generation, the text is very rigorous, but it might be difficult for people who don't have the discipline. Having a way to quickly enter requirements could help. It might already be in there, but I don't know. I don't have enough experience with the tool yet."
"IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation has room for improvement compared to other tools like Polaris and Jama Connect. These tools offer more flexibility and options for developers, which IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation lacks. For example, you can define your link rules in Jama Connect, but you can't do that in IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation."
"The only additional feature would be if it had dynamic linking to other MBSE tool sets or industry-leading tools."
"Be very careful how you load your DNG server. There are limits to the number of artifacts a server can handle."
"t is rather slow, so the speed of the process and consuming information should be improved. It doesn't have a nice way of viewing information. We would like to see better interfaces for consuming information."
"Test management can be improved. It's not so scalable. The user interface needs to split things into small projects."
"There are some security concerns with Jama Connect, including two-factor enablement."
"I think there's room for improvement, especially with the review process. Reviews should be integrated with requirement evaluation instead of being separate from it. The review should not run parallel to the requirement."
"More automation could speed up workflows, flag errors more timely, and eliminate manual steps."
"The user interface could be modernized and the product lacks project management functionalities."
"The collaboration feature in Jama Connect could be improved because it is only used by a limited number of people within an organization due to license costs."
"I believe one of the weak points is the reporting side. You must export inter-readable reports from Jama if you do not use the system as a repository for your design history file. Jama is great if you keep it in Jama, but reporting out requires some customization to get it right."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Users can buy a three-year license for about 12,000 Euros."
"If the product price were not reasonable enough, our company would not use IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation."
"You are going to need a beefy server and a fat network pipe to it in order to make DNG and its companion tools work well for users."
"The cost of maintenance is €20,000 to €30,000 ($22,000 to $33,000 USD) and there are no additional fees."
"The price of this solution is very high, and it increases year after year."
"If you want to have creative licenses, pricing may be an issue with the licenses, as it can become quite expensive over time to serve many people."
"The cost seems very competitive with other offerings."
"To have a single source for all the requirements and all the change requests our company gets is the most valuable feature. It has also helped us to keep track of reviews."
"Jama Connect is a little pricy."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
24%
Government
10%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
28%
Healthcare Company
10%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation?
The tool's most valuable feature is displaying requirements in a tabular format. This means you can see everything laid out in columns and rows. It is more aesthetic compared to other tools. The tr...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation?
The solution is slightly high in terms of affordability. I give eight points only because the price is a bit high, which is the only problem since I am the purchasing person, but not the technical ...
What needs improvement with IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation?
We are not interested in integration with lifecycle management tools. If required, we will connect to the local India team for dashboard reporting tools or additional features. I am not an exact us...
What do you like most about Jama Connect?
I like Jama Connect because it's easy to use and understand. The widgets are great, and linking is straightforward. The solution is not complex compared to its competitors.
What needs improvement with Jama Connect?
The text and diagram handling in Jama Connect could be improved. The formatting is quite tricky, and diagrams don't import sometimes depending on the format. Importing diagrams into a requirement c...
What is your primary use case for Jama Connect?
My main use cases for Jama Connect involve managing our requirements through to test and validation. This includes reviewing the requirements, using the review functionality, and supporting our who...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Rational DOORS Next Generation, RDNG, Rational Requirements Composer and IBM RRC
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Major health insurer
Deloitte, SpaceX, Omnigon, Delft University
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM DOORS Next vs. Jama Connect and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.