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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
277
Ranking in other categories
Application Requirements Management (2nd), Project Management Software (1st)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Jira is 13.3%, down from 22.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 6.4%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Jira13.3%
Polarion ALM6.4%
Other80.3%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

Akhil Viswam - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Agile workflows have streamlined sprint planning and tracking for faster feature delivery
Jira has a very good interface and it is very easy to manage sprints, tasks, and epics. The main feature is the hierarchy, as features can be converted into epics and topics, allowing bigger tasks to be partitioned into smaller ones. The hierarchy feature in Jira helps the team significantly compared to other tools that have been used, such as Trello, which is mainly useful only for a waterfall model. For modern Agile practices, Jira is the most adapted tool in the industry. Another valuable feature is that Jira APIs have been used for data science projects to analyze tasks and get insights. This has also been very helpful in the project.
LasseMikkonen - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consultant at byte
Has provided mature traceability and configuration features while supporting complex product development for mid-to-large companies
Polarion ALM can learn from Atlassian tools a lot, as the usability is not the best, and it is really narrowly focused on requirements management only. For example, if you want to do testing and test result management with it, it is very limited. Jama Connect has similar limitations, and both should really focus on developing the integrations and extendability. For example, Jama Connect does not even have an extension marketplace, whereas Polarion has a small one. However, compared to the Atlassian Marketplace where you can get whatever applications for whatever price, it is a totally different ballgame. I would highly recommend Polarion ALM add more AI features to it. I know they have started to do something, but for example, I have been developing widgets for IBM DOORS Next, AI widgets, so that you can write and analyze requirements with the AI, and I have also done the same for Jira, creating a couple of Jira applications in the marketplace as well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the source linking on the commit level to git."
"The workflows are very easy to handle as far as scalability goes."
"It is a complete solution. It has more features as compared to other tools, especially the open-source one that we use. It is also easy to administer."
"Jira offers tools for managing projects using Agile methodology. I think it is good to encourage the development team to use Jira, so that the organization benefits from the proper execution of projects on time. Basically, it helps our organization to execute in a better way."
"The most valuable feature is the feature of assigning. Whenever I have an issue, Jira doesn't stop at just letting me describe the issue. I can also assign the issue to a developer, and the developer gets notified about it. After he is able to work on it, he can update the status and revert back to me through the same platform. It really avoids a lot of communication over email and phone. This the feature that I really like about Jira. I always use Jira with my team."
"It was very easy to learn Jira. As a scrum master, I run daily stand-ups, and they are run directly from Jira. The feature that I really love in Jira is called Issue Navigator. It allows me to customize how I want to show the user stories within Jira to my squad."
"One of the most valuable features is querying because the jQuery function is very good. Additionally, we can create good designs very easily."
"I have found Jira to be scalable."
"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."
"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."
"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 most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."
"It offers good performance."
"Polarion ALM is powerful in easily creating your own workflows for completely different kinds of things."
"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."
 

Cons

"It should be less expensive."
"Its UI can be improved a little bit. I know this a business tool and not a commercial tool, but it could be a little bit more interactive like the HP ALM/Quality Center, which provides you the results of graphs and gives you a lot of visual representations. I feel Jira lacks a little bit in this aspect."
"The reporting needs to be improved."
"Out-of-the-box reporting is limited. It would be helpful if more customisation was possible."
"it would be helpful to have a better tutorial for learning and to have a better understanding of what the features are and what they do."
"The filtration could be better."
"I want the tool to integrate connectors."
"I would like to see visualization of release planning. I can list the releases and I can give dates to releases, but to show how they are happening on a timeline, I would need to order the Portfolio part. But just for this, it may be too much to use the Portfolio for that."
"The user interface is not yet optimized."
"Polarion ALM can learn from Atlassian tools a lot, as the usability is not the best, and it is really narrowly focused on requirements management only."
"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."
"The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing features that are common in web-based applications."
"The tool needs to improve its planning. It also needs to add more integrations."
"The configuration aspect of the solution is not easy. A person needs a lot of programming knowledge in order to successfully handle the job."
"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 ease-of-use could be improved a little."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not sure about the pricing, but I know its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"I am not sure if the client is using a commercial version. I think it is on a per-user basis, and it is around 15 Canadian dollars for a user, but I'm not sure. It also has a free version."
"If you are using just Jira, it is cheap, but if you start to use it and you feel you need some more services or more functions, then you have to buy add-ons, which can make it expensive."
"When you get larger, the pricing becomes very, very steep."
"We are on an annual license to use Jira."
"We currently have ten users, and it is free for ten users."
"The licensing model is annoying. They nickel and dime you."
"The licensing cost for Jira is typically around seven dollars per user, though it may vary depending on regional variations. This cost is for a subscription-based model rather than a one-time purchase. I rate its pricing a seven out of ten."
"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 solution is expensive."
"It is an expensive product."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
29%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business105
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise150
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?
Jira itself is fairly priced for the features it provides, but pricing is a bit higher than some alternatives, mostly because many plugins and add-ons are paid and licensed per user. So even if onl...
What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?
Polarion ALM can learn from Atlassian tools a lot, as the usability is not the best, and it is really narrowly focused on requirements management only. For example, if you want to do testing and te...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

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: December 2025.
880,315 professionals have used our research since 2012.