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Jira vs Polarion ALM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 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

Jira
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
276
Ranking in other categories
Application Requirements Management (1st), Project Management Software (1st)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
24
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 Jira is 16.0%, down from 22.9% 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
ProductMarket Share (%)
Jira16.0%
Polarion ALM7.2%
Other76.8%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

Nathan Akimoff - PeerSpot reviewer
Has customized workflows to fit internal processes and improved overall team organization
I don't have a particular customization or integration that's been especially valuable for my team, but I experienced integrating Jira and QuickBooks, which was very challenging, but it really impacted the efficiency of the whole company. I have been working with Jira for over 12 years, and I've seen it grow every year. It's a powerful product, but lately, I think Atlassian has been adding too many simplified features that look nice but don't offer the same level of flexibility, and made some fields not available through the API, which is kind of frustrating. If I could make one suggestion, it would be to focus more on improving API integration and automation tools, not just the design.
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 a very convenient tool. We can organize our sprints through scrum or kanban. There are scrum boards, and there are kanban boards. If you prefer scrum, you can use Jira. If you prefer kanban, you can still use Jira. You can create your kanban boards in a similar way as you create your scrum boards. It is very useful. It also seems to be very popular these days."
"The dashboard and reports tracking and the setup updates quickly, I am very impressed with those features. Additionally, it is user-friendly."
"It helps me to use virtual Scrum boards across four locations, three time zones, and to plan my work. It fully supports the Scrum approach, and the Agile way of working, and it has Agile thinking behind it.."
"The roadmap feature and the ability to integrate with Power BI are probably the most valuable features in it. It is a great solution. I absolutely love it. It is a tool that was designed for project management, and it has been awesome to work with it so far. I also love Confluence."
"JIRA stores history of changes, which helps a lot to track who, when, and why the issue was modified​."
"I have found Jira to be scalable."
"The most valuable feature of Jira is the project package for development."
"The integration between Confluence and Jira, along with Jira's ticketing system, is a valuable feature the product offers its users."
"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 technical support is quite good."
"Polarion ALM is excellent for tracking who is working on what and how many people are involved in a project."
"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."
"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."
"The tool helped us to more effectively and efficiently gather and structure the information (requirements, test plans, project management data, etc.), and share it with the involved stakeholders in a safe and change-controlled manner."
"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."
"You can see the work ticket and you can circulate that within the teams. You can define your flows, customize according to your needs, and you can create dashboards and create the reports according to your needs."
 

Cons

"Jira has recently updated their UI, but more can be done to make it even better."
"Having more seamless integration with Confluence would really help us track our product management activity and other product details in one place."
"I would like to see more robust release management within the tool."
"I'd like some more features around software testing. I'd like to see some more stuff done around data testing. That's what I'm most interested in."
"It would be very practical if you can more freely reach the information that is already inside the system. Currently, we have to buy add-ons for it. There is a lot of information in the Jira system that you can handle only through add-ons. You cannot reach such information on your own. If you want to use this information, which is already in the system, you have to buy some add-on to use. For example, information about how much time an assignee is spending on a ticket is there in the system, but you cannot access it without an add-on. JQL is a very good way to reach the data inside Jira. If we can reach more objects, even through JQL, it would be great."
"There are a limited number of gadgets accessible in Jira; thus, additional ones should be supported."
"The performance is not so good sometimes. I know that fully depends on the implementation and the IT environment of Jira or the version of Jira installed. The performance is sometimes not so good. I would like to have a better response time from the Jira server. And it fully depends on the administration side of the Jira."
"While it's very powerful, it's very complex sometimes."
"The tool needs to improve its planning. It also needs to add more integrations."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
"Based on my understanding, the tool's integration capabilities with multiple tools is an area of concern that Polarion needs to focus on more."
"The solution's editing capabilities need improvement."
"The user interface of Polarion ALM needs improvement as it can experience changes that disrupt workflows, especially during major updates."
"The ease-of-use could be improved a little."
"I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system."
"The configuration aspect of the solution is not easy. A person needs a lot of programming knowledge in order to successfully handle the job."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The standard package of Jira is for 100 users. They should offer more packages for other increments, such as 500 or 2,000. In my previous company, there was a free package that provided a minimal number of users."
"The licensing model is annoying. They nickel and dime you."
"I don't deal with licensing in my current consultant position."
"The tool is expensive."
"The pricing is much higher than other similar solutions available in the market, and as such, the vendor should think about a price reduction to make this product more affordable."
"The price of the solution could be less expensive. We pay annually for the solution."
"I don't feel that price is an issue."
"There is a monthly license required for this solution and it is expensive."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"It is an expensive product."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"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."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"The solution is expensive."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
28%
Computer Software Company
12%
Healthcare Company
6%
Educational Organization
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business104
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise149
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

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 data may be relevant to you for identifying your needs and deciding on the approp...
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 and work logs. It is easy to implement and navigate, and it is stable and scalabl...
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 license.
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Jira Software
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Jira vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
873,085 professionals have used our research since 2012.