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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
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of OpenText Application Quality Management is 6.5%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 4.9%, 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 Management6.5%
Polarion ALM4.9%
Other88.6%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

Hosney Osman - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Solution Architect at Vodafone
Service provider recognizes effective project tracking and reporting capabilities
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 bottlenecks. As for the scalability of OpenText ALM _ Quality Center, there are limitations, particularly in agile methodologies, which is currently my main concern.
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

"Easily integrates with Oracle e-Business Suite."
"The most valuable feature of Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is the alignment of the test to the execution and the linking of the defects to the two. It automatically links any issues you have to the test."
"Lab Management is a valuable feature, because you have a 360 view."
"We have a pretty strong emphasis on quality, so ALM is our gold source repository for quality."
"It's basically the way to show the work that we do as QA testers, and to have a historical view of those executions."
"The tools could be useful if we were utilizing them more effectively"
"We mostly use the Defect module and then Test Plan, Test Lab, but if you ask about the most valuable feature it is the customization of any action in the ALM client."
"The solution's most valuable features are its bidirectional traceability, the solid structure within the test plan, and the test lab."
"The software is stable."
"It is a very stable solution."
"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."
"The technical support is quite good."
"There are similar solutions out there such as Jira and Confluence, but they are not as good."
"Even though Polarion is quite expensive, it's quite a good solution for medical device development in general, especially for software development."
"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."
"It's all in one place, where every department can utilize the same tool."
 

Cons

"We cannot rearrange the Grid in the Test Lab. It is in alphabetical order right now. But sometimes a user will want to see, for example, the X column next to the B column. If they came out with that it would be useful for us. They are working on that, as we have raised that request with Micro Focus."
"Certainly on the UI part, it has to be improved to make it user-friendly and more presentable."
"Performance issues are very common. The degradation of performance and consequent failures continuously happen."
"Costing is an area that needs improvement."
"There needs to be improvement in the requirement samples."
"It's complicated to upgrade."
"Browser support needs improvement. Currently, it can only run on IE, Internet Explorer; it doesn't work on Firefox, doesn't work on Chrome, doesn't work on a Mac."
"It needs Pure-FTPd WebUI and single sign-on."
"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."
"The user interface of Polarion ALM needs improvement as it can experience changes that disrupt workflows, especially during major updates."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"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."
"The solution is not easy to use. The configuration aspect of the solution is not easy."
"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."
"If you were to say that everything is integrated and it's a complete solution, I would say it's not."
"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

"I've never been in the procurement process for it. I don't think it is cheap. Some of the features can be quite expensive."
"The solution was expensive for us."
"For pricing, I recommend to buy a bundled package. Check the HPE site for more details."
"Micro Focus ALM Quality Center is very expensive."
"We have divided our licenses between Micro Focus ALM and ALM Octane. It works for us."
"Depending on the volume, the annual maintenance costs vary on a percentage but it's around $300 a year per license for maintenance. It's at 18% of the total cost of the license."
"The cost of licensing depends on the number of VMs that you are running test cases on and it is not cheap."
"It all comes down to how many people are going to access the tool. When teams go above 20, I think ALM is a better tool to use from a collaboration and streamlining perspective."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"The solution is expensive."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"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."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Performing Arts
7%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
29%
Computer Software Company
10%
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: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.