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Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

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

Microsoft Azure DevOps
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
2nd
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
133
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (1st)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
6th
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure DevOps is 16.0%, down from 23.7% 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

Ivan Angelov - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates agile transformation with potential for enhanced intuitiveness
What I liked about the solution is that it offers numerous features that are not available by default unless you are agile. Transitioning from the traditional Waterfall model to an agile methodology was challenging for us. Until 2020, our team predominantly worked with the Waterfall approach, using local tools like ServiceNow. We had a few team members who were familiar with Agile ISO, but none had experience with Azure. Therefore, we pursued Azure certification at the AZ-900 level. Our company organized a training session with a certified Azure expert, which was extremely beneficial for adopting best practices during the initial three months. This preparation helped us get accustomed to the new tool, as transitioning to a new system invariably requires time. Managing a pipeline of deliverables became significantly easier with this solution. We utilized it for stories and integrated change management with Azure DevOps. Eventually, everything related to the environment was organized there, enabling us to follow up and track progress with our technical engineers on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis. Reports were automatically generated and sent to management, offering them insights into our progress concerning the predefined roadmap.
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

"Mostly, I have found the source code control pipeline and the pull request governance to be very valuable."
"The most valuable feature is that it brings order to our projects, and we know the status of each one at every moment."
"Some of the valuable features are the functionality and the wide range of capabilities."
"Azure Pipeline and Azure Release are most valuable. I use Azure DevOps through pipeline and release."
"The one thing that really stands out to me is how you can filter and how you can do your reporting and filter the tasks and everything by user."
"Azure DevOps' collaborative features are good, and it integrates well with other tools in the software development process, like quality testing, documentation, and agile development."
"It's a great product for the CI/CD process."
"The integration of the whole cycle is the main strength of the tool. If I want to control the cycle with other tools on the market, I would have to use several tools. However, this is not the case with Azure DevOps or TFS."
"The solution offers good integration."
"The technical support is quite good."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"Polarion ALM helps us better structure our customer requirements, and we can also validate the specs of our products against those. If anything changes on our side, we see the impact, and we can see the effect If a customer changes requirements."
"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."
"It offers good performance."
"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."
"It meets with everybody's needs without having to grab plugins."
 

Cons

"Incorporating security tools directly into DevOps is crucial, as many existing DevOps solutions lack robust security features."
"Microsoft Azure DevOps could improve by providing better integration with other tools. It is very easy to integrate with Azure, but when you need to integrate with other solutions, such as Amazon Web Services, is difficult."
"At times, our development work encounters issues, particularly when executing numerous CI/CD processes."
"In comparison to JIRA, I believe DevOps has very poor reporting and metrics support."
"Better integration with the Linux operating system would be an improvement for this solution."
"The tutorials for building pipelines are an area that is a bit technical for a beginner."
"Templates could be improved."
"They have brought a lot of new collaboration features in the latest version. We haven't used those features, but they should continue to expand it more on the collaboration front so that two developers can look at the code and work at the same time. It will be helpful for working from home."
"The weak point of Polarion ALM software is about reporting and time for extraction of the data...The quality of reporting needs to improve."
"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 of Polarion ALM needs improvement as it can experience changes that disrupt workflows, especially during major updates."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."
"I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system."
"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."
"We use PTC Windchill, and Polarion ALM doesn't have native integration, so we had to purchase the connector to integrate it with Polarion ALM. We still haven't implemented it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As the cost structure is per user, I would recommend paying the cost structure based on the amount of data you use rather than the number of users."
"There are additional costs for some functionality, such as increased scalability."
"For the basic license, it is around five euros per month."
"The cost is quite affordable."
"We pay a monthly license for Microsoft Azure DevOps."
"It is a subscription model and I only pay for what I use."
"Compared to other tools, Microsoft Azure DevOps is a cheap solution."
"When compared to other vendors, it is cheaper."
"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."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"The solution is expensive."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"It is an expensive product."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
26%
Computer Software Company
14%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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 improvements. In addition, TFS seems complicated to use and I don’t think it has a very fri...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Valuable features for project management and tracking in Azure DevOps include a portal displaying test results, check-in/check-out activity, and developer/tester productivity.
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

Azure DevOps, VSTS, Visual Studio Team Services, MS Azure DevOps
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alaska Airlines, Iberia Airlines, Columbia, Skype
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure DevOps vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.