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

Jira vs Polarion ALM vs TFS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Jira is 12.6%, down from 22.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 6.1%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TFS is 3.7%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Jira12.6%
Polarion ALM6.1%
TFS3.7%
Other77.6%
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
CEO 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.
PS
Service delivery manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Ensures team collaboration with strong version control but could improve testing capabilities
Version control is the most basic feature in TFS. It has been there since the beginning. We use it primarily for that purpose. Basically ensuring that the code is not overwritten by other team members and maintaining the sanctity of the code. Bringing order to a disparate team which is virtual at different locations is very important, and TFS provides that control. Once you update a code, nobody can modify it until you are done working on it and check in. It is a great product that revolutionized the way teams work together on Microsoft pieces of code. The versioning part has unique features and capabilities which are unmatched with other products out there.

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 Jira is the integration with all the different Atlassian tools. They all integrate very easily."
"It gave us control over all test artifacts in one place, along with easy traceability, mapping between stories, bugs, test cases, and test cycles."
"The initial setup was pretty straightforward."
"I like seeing which tickets are open and what our response rate is. They have a lot of good metrics in their system to see what's going on."
"We do not have a lot of time for investigating new things, but Jira has saved us a great deal of time. It has a nice user interface and we can do a lot of things with it."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its ability to connect everything together."
"The product provides high flexibility to create new workflows quickly."
"The customization and tailoring of the workflows have proven to be very useful."
"The solution offers good integration."
"Polarion ALM is excellent for tracking who is working on what and how many people are involved in a project."
"It is a very stable solution."
"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."
"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."
"The software is stable."
"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."
"Scalability is good...The integration is quite good."
"Good branching and labelling features."
"TFS' most valuable feature is the triage process. It is a robust solution that is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature from my point of view is project management, which includes user stories as well as task management."
"The solution is very much stable."
"The initial setup is easy, it is easy to understand and use."
"The most valuable features are test case writing and bug tracking."
"Some of the valuable features are version control and the ability to create different collections in terms of segregating the authorization for teams who connect to small projects."
"A notable feature of TFS is its ease of creating user stories and tasks, which simplifies the process of adding and editing them."
 

Cons

"I do know the initial setup was pretty complicated. The user interface could be better organized and easier. ​"
"There is always a bit of a performance problem. It's a bit slow to load the whole data."
"Jira could improve the workflow, screen, and field configurability. They are lagging behind other solutions, such as Allegra in work system configurability."
"Stability is an area of concern and it needs improvement, otherwise, it's a good product."
"The biggest complaint industry-wide about JIRA is they need to purchase additional extensions, such as reporting automation. If they could provide some additional extensions from the initial purchase it would be a huge benefit."
"The support could be improved."
"Users can be confused about how to use this tool as it's very complex."
"Jira is a project management tracking tool, and it would be great to see integration with the source front or Azure DevOps, etc."
"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 user interface is not yet optimized."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
"The ease-of-use could be improved a little."
"Integration requires a lot of effort. You typically need to work with an implementation partner to get it done. Most connectors available for Polarion ALM are paid. Unlike other vendors offering several standard connectors for free, integrating third-party software with Polarion ALM involves discussing and coordinating with the third-party software providers, which requires effort."
"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 weak point of Polarion ALM software is about reporting and time for extraction of the data...The quality of reporting needs to improve."
"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."
"Microsoft should discontinue the use of SharePoint as I don’t really see any value add to TFS, document management features can be included in TFS web portal itself, if required!"
"I understand Microsoft is phasing out TFS in favor of Git, so I would steer anyone interested in TFS to look into Git."
"There's not automatic access to test case management and execution."
"Integration from Visual Studio could be improved."
"The test management interface is not very handy."
"TFS needs to be stable."
"One of the areas that could be improved is to have an effective full lifecycle management."
"It would be better if we could bring it out on the cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't deal with licensing in my current consultant position."
"The basic price of Jira is reasonable, but for each plugin, we have to keep paying more. When you add it all up, it can be expensive. The main problem we face is we are forced to purchases plugin licenses for users who are not going to use them. For example, we have Jira licenses for approximately 450 people but if we only want a purchase a plugin for few people it is mandatory to buy the license for the 450 people who have Jira licensees. This is a problem because sometimes we need plugins for the product manager or for people in charge of the report, not everyone. For us, it can be very expensive in the end, they should alter this policy to allow plugins for only a set number of licenses."
"We feel that the product is a good value for the cost."
"As a company, we get a subsidized price, and it's lower than what's quoted on their website."
"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."
"We are using the enterprise license which is nice because it ensures that we always have the latest versions of Jira software."
"Jira and its solution off the shelf are cheap. It is cheap for startups."
"I am not sure about the pricing, but I know its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"It is an expensive product."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"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."
"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."
"TFS is more competitively priced than some other solutions."
"I wouldn't say that this tool is cheap or expensive but in the middle."
"We pay for the license yearly."
"I was working with the engineering team, and that was not under my umbrella. From what I can remember, its license was yearly. They had the licenses on a per-user basis, and they included MTM."
"The pricing is reasonable at this time."
"We are using the open-source version."
"There is a yearly licensing fee that needs to be paid."
"There are different prices depending on the configurations. There is a free version available. There is no extra cost for the solution. However, the hardware could be something that needs to be considered."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites solutions are best for your needs.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
29%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business106
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise150
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise64
 

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 d...
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 a...
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...
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 focuse...
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 con...
What advice do you have for others considering Polarion ALM?
The pricing of Polarion ALM and IBM ELM is pretty much aligned. They are not at the same level, but I would say align...
Which is better - TFS or Azure DevOps?
TFS and Azure DevOps are different in many ways. TFS was designed for admins, and only offers incremental improvement...
What do you like most about TFS?
Microsoft's technical team is supportive.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TFS?
While I do not know the exact pricing, TFS is likely more expensive than GitLab.
 

Also Known As

Jira Software
No data available
Team Foundation Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Vendex KBB IT Services, Info Support, Fujitsu Consulting, TCSC, Airways New Zealand, HP
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian, Microsoft, OpenText and others in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites. Updated: January 2026.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.