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

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
6.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure DevOps is 15.4%, down from 23.4% 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

"Azure Port is considered the most valuable feature."
"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."
"Microsoft Azure DevOps integrates well with other components, such as Synapse, which is a data warehouse tool of Azure. It is a framework platform for BI and integrated with other tools, such as Power BI."
"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."
"DevOps is easy to use because we can arrange each task in a project and follow up with the testing, development, and business teams. We manage everything through this."
"Typically the sprints themselves and managing the tasks have essentially eliminated our need for reporting."
"The solution is scalable."
"The reviewing and everything is very good in Azure DevOps."
"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."
"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."
"It is a very stable solution."
"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."
"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."
"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."
"It meets with everybody's needs without having to grab plugins."
 

Cons

"In comparison to JIRA, I believe DevOps has very poor reporting and metrics support."
"It would be great if I could integrate with a human resource type of software that could control timesheets."
"At times, our development work encounters issues, particularly when executing numerous CI/CD processes."
"It is not that intuitive. Sometimes, it is hard to find some of the functions. I would like to have an old-fashioned menu structure to be able to easily find things. Its environment setup is not very good. They should improve the way it is set up for different screens and make it easier to find functionalities and maintain team members."
"I would like to see better interoperability with the agile scaling frameworks."
"The interface is very bad."
"The ability to integrate Microsoft Azure DevOps with other platforms and Microsoft products can be improved."
"Its UI can be easier and more customer-friendly. The UI can be improved from the project management and agile perspective."
"The planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."
"The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing features that are common in web-based applications."
"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"The tool needs to improve its planning. It also needs to add more integrations."
"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."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
"The user interface is not yet optimized."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Azure DevOps is free for up to five users and allows you to track a maximum of three projects."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing is very competitive because of the whole development cycle by Azure DevOps. You don't have to buy and integrate several different tools."
"We have an MPN subscription for Microsoft Azure DevOps, and it's all included."
"For the basic license, it is around five euros per month."
"I find that the pricing is good, and it is competitive with the other vendors in the market."
"We do not pay licenses for this solution."
"We pay a monthly license for Microsoft Azure DevOps."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"The solution is expensive."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"It is an expensive product."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites solutions are best for your needs.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

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: July 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.