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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
6.2
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

"What I like the most is the DevOps Boards. It's easy to create a hierarchical project structure, assign tasks to people, and to track their tasks."
"My team likes the integration that Microsoft Azure DevOps has with GitHub and Microsoft Teams. The solution is well integrated with other Microsoft tools in one place, it is very good."
"Two of the most valuable features include the integrated project management suite, which consolidates source code and project management in a single location, and its powerful reporting capabilities."
"It is easy to use. The shared repository is useful. Everything is in one environment."
"It's graphical representation and tools are easy to use."
"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."
"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."
"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."
"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."
"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."
"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 technical support is quite good."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"It meets with everybody's needs without having to grab plugins."
 

Cons

"As for room for improvement, more features need to be added to the classic pipeline. The build and release pipelines are present, but there has not been much improvement there."
"I'd like to have something better for the test plan."
"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."
"Something that could be improved is the initial setup with the integration of ReadyAPI."
"The user management in the solution could improve."
"This product would be improved if the helpdesk were included."
"Azure DevOps is set up more for development and less for testing. If it is set up correctly, everyone can use it better, but it was set up from a development point of view, which means it is lacking in what I need from a testing perspective. Just like any other tool, it depends on how it is configured. I am not happy with the way it is set up. It is configured more from a development side, and it doesn't necessarily cater to all the other areas that probably need to use it, such as testing data, etc."
"The administrative capabilities of the tool need a huge improvement. Its Wiki and reporting also need a lot of improvement. Their support can also be better."
"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing features that are common in web-based applications."
"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."
"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."
"The weak point of Polarion ALM software is about reporting and time for extraction of the data...The quality of reporting needs to improve."
"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."
"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I find that the pricing is good, and it is competitive with the other vendors in the market."
"I am not aware of any licensing subscriptions for the solution."
"The price of this solution is fair."
"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."
"The solution costs $5 or $10 per user, per month."
"I don't know the pricing of DevOps. It would be much cheaper than ALM because ALM came out as a software product initially. Now they are moving into a cloud and subscription model. In that case, Microsoft is coming from Azure and the cloud and DevOps and software as a service, so it would be much cheaper, but the catch would be that they are trying to get money on all the sides, like an operating system, Microsoft Office, or Microsoft Azure DevOps."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing of Azure DevOps falls within the average range and it is fixed."
"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."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"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."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"It is an expensive product."
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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.
862,514 professionals have used our research since 2012.