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OpenText Application Quality Management vs Polarion ALM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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

OpenText Application Qualit...
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
208
Ranking in other categories
Quality Management Software (1st), Test Management Tools (1st)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of OpenText Application Quality Management is 6.8%, up from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 4.6%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenText Application Quality Management6.8%
Polarion ALM4.6%
Other88.6%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

GS
Partner at IS Nordic AS
Manages multiple releases seamlessly
We have done some work with companies, probably four or five years ago and found the ability to manage multiple releases simultaneously as a main advantage, especially in complex programs with multiple concurrent releases. Running automated tests against back-level versions in certain environments is possible, and newer versions can be tested as well. It creates constant visibility into the test process, showing the status, bugs, and automated test results. It is a solid product in large corporations in Denmark, ensuring everyone knows where the process stands. There is a good understanding of what is critical, allowing prioritization of test cases.
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

"Allows us to do defect resolution from logging to resolution."
"ALM allows you to maintain complete end-to-end process."
"The most valuable thing about the solution is it handles requirements, tests, and defects in one tool."
"The Defect Module helps the project team to track the defects in a structured and manageable way until defects closure."
"The wide range of supported current and legacy web technologies, desktop apps, and WebServices testing is by far the most valuable feature."
"It's the perfect tool for testing purposes, but you need to consider other options if development teams do not use the environments supported by Quality Center."
"Having used the tool before, I like the use of parameters, being able to do exports and reports of the data for monitoring of executions, and the defect management as well. I feel satisfaction in that area."
"My clients were able to implement an end-to-end process for software testing."
"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."
"It's all in one place, where every department can utilize the same tool."
"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."
"It offers good performance."
"When it comes to functionalities like a real-time collaboration feature and traceability capabilities, Polarion ALM has had those basic features for the past five years already, and they are pretty mature products that have all the needed requirements management features, such as traceability and reporting, and even configuration management or version controlling."
"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."
"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see the idea of users being flushed out more, so not just, "This defect is now assigned to a particular person," or "This person is assigned to execute a test.""
"It is not really user friendly and it is difficult to handle test speeds."
"Upgrades are a nightmare and documentation is difficult to understand."
"Sometimes I do run my queries from the admin login. However, if I want to reassess all my test cases, then I am still doing this in a manual manner."
"I would like to be able to search easier, not just do SQL queries, being able to do free keyword searches on the data. That's valuable."
"As for the scalability of OpenText ALM _ Quality Center, there are limitations, particularly in agile methodologies, which is currently my main concern."
"Overall the user experience of HP ALM is very good, there are some small improvements which can help those who are doing defect triage and management, and also the actual testers who use a test lab."
"The performance needs work, as over the past couple years, where I have worked with large companies, I noticed slower response times."
"The solution's editing capabilities need improvement."
"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"The interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."
"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 weak point of Polarion ALM software is about reporting and time for extraction of the data...The quality of reporting needs to improve."
"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."
"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."
"The solution is not easy to use. The configuration aspect of the solution is not easy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you have more than five users, a concurrent licensing model should be considered."
"It's a perpetual license."
"I'd rate the pricing as 3/10 as it's very expensive."
"For pricing, I recommend to buy a bundled package. Check the HPE site for more details."
"Compared to the market, the price is high."
"The pricing is expensive nowadays."
"Seat and concurrent licensing models exist; the latter is recommended if a large number of different users will be utilizing the product."
"Pricing could be improved as it's high-priced. I don't exactly know the pricing point, but previously, I know that it was really high so less people were able to use it for their projects."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"It is an expensive product."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
9%
Performing Arts
7%
Manufacturing Company
30%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise161
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus ALM Quality Center?
The on-premises setup tends to be on the expensive side. It would be cheaper to use a cloud model with a pay-per-use licensing model.
What needs improvement with Micro Focus ALM Quality Center?
Regarding integration with various development tools, I can provide examples, and I am using customizable dashboards in OpenText ALM _ Quality Center, which definitely help identify project bottlen...
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus ALM Quality Center?
People are using OpenText ALM _ Quality Center for recording user cases, testing and hand documentation, defect tracking, business purposes, and reporting.
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

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center, HPE ALM, Quality Center, Quality Center, Micro Focus ALM, OpenText Quality Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbus Defense and Space, Vodafone, JTI, Xellia, and Banco de Creìdito e Inversiones (Bci)
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Application Quality Management vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.