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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
7.0
Number of Reviews
137
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (1st)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
5th
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure DevOps is 10.3%, down from 19.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 6.1%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Azure DevOps10.3%
Polarion ALM6.1%
Other83.6%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

Bharadwaj Deepak Mohapatra - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at ENTERPRISE SYSTEM SOLUTIONS LIMITED
Have built reliable end-to-end pipelines and streamlined cloud provisioning through consistent collaboration practices
I am currently working with open-source tools such as Jenkins for my main CI/CD pipeline, and for enterprise clients, I am using Microsoft Azure DevOps CI/CD pipeline. For other clients, I have also implemented CI/CD YAML pipelines through GitLab CI/CD workflow and GitHub Actions. I am creating the end-to-end CI/CD pipeline from development to deployment and monitoring all of this. Azure Boards is easier than Jira for my understanding because there are very easy points to manage the Agile methodology which we work on. Because it is a GUI, sometimes the process may take a few minutes more than the CLI process since the backend is running the exact CLI, but we are commanding through the GUI. There is definitely a time lag, but it is more secure. Microsoft Azure DevOps pipelines work very seamlessly rather than other CI/CD pipelines, as of my understanding. The downside is that the process may take more time when deploying some clusters, Kubernetes, Azure AKS service, or some vast microservice architecture deployments. There may be a little bit of lag I feel, though I cannot tell very strictly that this is a disadvantage, but sometimes it takes a little more time than other cloud infrastructures. All the major things are done by GUI, which is somewhat a little slow. However, if considering automations, process, monitoring, and provisioning, then it is the best cloud service across all the other service providers. Our implementation is a hybrid cloud. Microsoft Azure DevOps is definitely easily scalable. I have worked on many Kubernetes infrastructures and microservice deployments, and I have seen that replication is very good because it is very easy. The replication process is very straightforward. I definitely advocate for using less code because it is very time-consuming. If using GCP or Amazon Web Service, there is more interaction related to work over the CLI process. In terms of Microsoft Azure DevOps, there are many things done by the GUI, which is the best part.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's very user-friendly, and the documentation is good. The most valuable feature is backlog item creation, where we pick features and other things. The burndown chart created for projects to be maintained by the development teams is also useful."
"The most valuable features are continuous integration and deployment, and simplicity."
"This solution is stable."
"All of the features related to release management are very good."
"Provides agile management of projects."
"My first impression of DevOps, after using Jira, is that it has a much better, more intuitive, and more user-friendly interface."
"Detailed logs allow us to pinpoint the exact cause of any issues, making troubleshooting efficient and accurate."
"It's a pretty problem-free solution."
"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."
"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."
"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's most valuable feature is its browser experience. I rate its traceability feature a ten out of ten. From the initial stage to the release, you can manage everything through a single point."
"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 solution offers good integration."
"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."
"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."
 

Cons

"I would like to see better interoperability with the agile scaling frameworks."
"Some of the queries, the way they're built, need to be looked at. We need better query tools."
"Reporting could be better. We would like to see how many applications are onboarded in DevOps and in which phase they are. We would like to know for how many applications we have done only the repository, but we have not yet done the build pipeline or deploy pipeline. Currently, there is no such report. We have to figure it out ourselves. There is no way to check how many applications are completing their build pipelines, how many applications are completing their deploy pipeline, how many are ready to use, and how many pipelines are working."
"The user management in the solution could improve."
"The ability to extend work items was more flexible than it is now. Talking version control, one of our customers had some issues because they found it very difficult to manage more than 1000 repositories for one team project."
"When converting to DevOps, it was difficult to map."
"It should be able to handle the different types. There is ecosystems engineering, and there is software applications engineering. There is a need to bring these teams together, but the disciplines don't integrate very well, and so it won't work."
"There may be a little bit of lag I feel, though I cannot tell very strictly that this is a disadvantage, but sometimes it takes a little more time than other cloud infrastructures."
"The planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."
"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"The user interface of Polarion ALM needs improvement as it can experience changes that disrupt workflows, especially during major updates."
"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."
"The solution's editing capabilities need improvement."
"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 configuration aspect of the solution is not easy. A person needs a lot of programming knowledge in order to successfully handle the job."
"The ease-of-use could be improved a little."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is cheaper than Jira and some of the other competing tools."
"We purchase the solution on an annual basis."
"We pay a monthly license for Microsoft Azure DevOps."
"Microsoft Azure DevOps is an expensive solution."
"The costs are moderate and justify the value provided."
"I don't have a problem with the pricing."
"Licensing cost per user is approximately $11 to $15. We have about 400 users, but not all are active. We have around 200 to 300 active users."
"There is a license for this solution."
"The solution is expensive."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"It is an expensive product."
"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 license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
29%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
Educational Organization
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise69
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

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?
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...
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 aligned according to the capabilities of the tools, with DOORS being more expensive b...
 

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: January 2026.
882,606 professionals have used our research since 2012.