Polarion ALM vs Rally Software comparison

Siemens and Broadcom are both solutions in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category. Siemens is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.2, while Broadcom is ranked #10 with an average rating of 6.8. Siemens holds a 8.3% mindshare in ALM, compared to Broadcom’s 6.1% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Siemens users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Polarion ALM

Read 23 Polarion ALM reviews

4,007 Views
3,646 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Rally Software

Read 119 Rally Software reviews

4,485 Views
4,216 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Polarion ALM

Rally Software

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Rally Software and Polarion ALM both compete in the application lifecycle management solutions category. Rally Software appears to have an edge in pricing flexibility, while Polarion ALM provides comprehensive features that suit compliance-focused industries.

Features: Rally Software offers robust project management, release tracking, and scrum support. It enhances its functionality through flexibility and integration capabilities, especially with JIRA. User-friendly interfaces improve team interaction tracking and reporting. Polarion ALM provides high traceability and management of requirements, tests, and releases, advantageous for industries focusing on compliance.

Room for Improvement: Rally Software needs to improve Kanban support and performance, focusing on metrics and integration. It also requires more intuitive reporting and analytics. Polarion ALM can enhance user experience, ease integration with external tools, and improve its interface, as well as enrich its test management and reporting capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Rally Software offers deployment in public cloud, on-premises, and hybrid cloud models. It is known for responsive customer service, although some users find initial navigation difficult. Polarion ALM provides diverse public and private cloud deployment options, with comprehensive but costly support.

Pricing and ROI: Rally Software is cost-effective for smaller teams with bulk purchasing discounts, showing significant ROI through streamlined processes. Though pricier, Polarion ALM justifies its cost for larger enterprises by offering features essential for traceability and compliance, balancing cost with functionality.

To learn more, read our detailed Polarion ALM vs. Rally Software Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM vs. Rally Software

July 2025

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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

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Rally Software

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

10th

Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

119

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Polarion ALM is 8.3%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rally Software is 6.1%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

Featured Reviews

Dina Bindi

Information and Communication technology at CNH Industrial

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.

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Deep Maini

Agile CSM - Sr. Scrum Master at Alliant Energy Corporation

Helps you collaborate on various effects and solutions from the top to the bottom of the organization

We use Rally Software extensively in our agile development processes. We have program boards set up where we write and break down stories. We assign story points and map dependencies between different stories, showing how stories from one team may depend on stories from another team. It integrates these functions well, especially compared to Jira, which has some limitations in this area. The tool keeps improving based on how teams actually work in Scaled Agile, continually upgrading their software versions to meet our needs. I find the whole Rally Software tool integrated very nicely. In Jira, we often go to Confluence for documentation using two separate tools. But in the product, it's not like that. The documentation is tightly integrated. I don't feel like switching to another tool, like going from Jira to Confluence. The tool is designed for collaboration. It shows your organization's view, showing different teams and verticals. It helps you collaborate on various effects and solutions from the top to the bottom of the organization. It has an ecosystem that supports this. All the dependencies between different teams can be easily mapped in Rally Software. They have a program board for that purpose.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The software is stable."

"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."

"We had a nice experience with technical support."

"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."

"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."

"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."

"It offers good performance."

"It meets with everybody's needs without having to grab plugins."

More Polarion ALM pros

"Helps me plan an estimate of how soon or how far out we'll be able to deliver something."

"I was able to create epics for our budgeting concerns and it helped me link everything together."

"It is very stable. It has been on the market a long time."

"It's good only for documenting manual test cases."

"We've actually used it for virtual PI planning. We have teams in different locations, and we actually virtually do PI planning, big-room planning, using the tools."

"CA Agile Central provides visibility into how teams are meeting business objectives."

"The visibility it brings to the plan, the ability to capture tasks, and trace them all the way through the life cycle. Providing that visibility helps both me and the team, or teams, to be able to understand where we are in the development process."

"With this product, searching for historical information or the evolution of the requirement, detecting conflict between projects has helped a lot."

More Rally Software pros

Cons

"The solution's editing capabilities need improvement."

"The ease-of-use could be improved a little."

"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."

"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."

"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."

"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."

"The planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."

"The weak point of Polarion ALM software is about reporting and time for extraction of the data...The quality of reporting needs to improve."

More Polarion ALM cons

"One problem I see is that if there is a dependent user story - for example, if my team is working on one thing and there is a dependent user story from another team - we can have a dependency created but we don't know if there is a change of status from the other team. That is something which is very important for Agile Central to look into so that if the other team makes any changes we will be notified as well."

"In terms of improvement, perhaps some more metrics. If they could add some additional, that would be cool."

"It's a bit cumbersome to manage the Project Picker. As we sunset teams or projects close out - but we still have test cases tied to those teams or projects that are being used in other spaces - we have this monstrous list in the Project Picker that becomes really difficult to manage and find, and we can't clean that up ourselves. It would be nice if it was easier to do that and not lose your history."

"I'd like to be able to color code timeboxes, so I have an easy visual way to track the success of sprints."

"The solution is expensive."

"More customization capabilities would be helpful. Providing a little bit more structure around how the system should be set up in terms of the hierarchy structure might be helpful as well."

"I think the interface could be a little bit more visual and less wordy. Right now, it seems like it's just a lot of text on the page. In other ticketing systems where it's more visual, you can see more of a flow. But in this one it's more just a list of tasks. I would like to see that a little bit better, especially considering it has so many great organizational features, like child tasks, different artifacts. It would be great to see it presented more appropriately."

"CA Agile Central does not have a workflow tool included."

More Rally Software cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

"Software for medical devices is always 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."

"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."

"It is an expensive product."

"The license costs are fairly high as compared to some of the other solutions out there."

"Rally Software costs $50 a month, and for a base account, that price is acceptable."

"It is expensive and may not be worthwhile for a small company."

"We are always looking for a discount, if the solution was less expensive it would be a benefit."

"From a price point, it's a cost effective solution for our needs."

"I don't know the exact pricing, but I think the tool is priced high. They provide quality workmanship, good software, regular upgrades, and they're always attentive and listen to users. Everything comes with a price. I think it's an expensive solution compared to Jira or other competitors, but it's a complete package."

"I understand it's a little more expensive. That is why many people prefer Jira."

"Frankly, pricing is expensive and needs to be carefully planned for when budgeting."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

28%

Computer Software Company

12%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Insurance Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Polarion ALM?

It is a very stable solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?

The backlog management for Agile in Polarion ALM could be improved or enhanced in future releases. What is missing is that if you have a hierarchy in your backlog with epics, features, and user sto...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Rally Software?

Rally offers many features that help the management of activities, coordination, alignment and reports, which applies agility across the organization. If I were to highlight a particular feature, i...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rally Software?

I don't know the exact pricing, but I think the tool is priced high. They provide quality workmanship, good software, regular upgrades, and they're always attentive and listen to users. Everything ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Rally Software?

The product itself seems to have a lot of bugs. One issue is that it sometimes allows people to modify data inappropriately. For example, team members can change numbers at will. While we have a me...

See all answers

Comparisons

Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM

Compared 31% of the time

Jira vs Polarion ALM

Compared 21% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM

Compared 14% of the time

Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM

Compared 8% of the time

ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management vs Polarion ALM

Compared 2% of the time

More Polarion ALM Competitors

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Rally Software

Compared 31% of the time

Jira vs Rally Software

Compared 30% of the time

TFS vs Rally Software

Compared 6% of the time

OpenText Application Quality Management vs Rally Software

Compared 5% of the time

PTC Integrity vs Rally Software

Compared 3% of the time

More Rally Software Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM

July 2025

Download Polarion ALM product report

Buyer's Guide

Rally Software

July 2025

Download Rally Software product report

Also Known As

No data available

CA Agile Central, Rally Enterprise, CA Agile Training, CA Agile Coaching, CA Agile Academy, CA Agile Management , CA ALM

Overview

The world’s first 100% browser-based ALM enterprise solution, which enables seamless collaboration across disparate teams, multi-directionally linked work items, full traceability, accelerated productivity and automated proof of compliance.

Siemens

With Rally Software, you can plan, prioritize, manage, track, and continuously improve your work so that you can deliver the value that your customers need with speed, quality, and efficiency. Our enterprise-class Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) SaaS platform provides visibility into progress, roadblocks, and dependencies across multiple teams, projects, and programs. This allows you to align to your strategic goals and create better business results, and to do it all in a single system of record.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group

Physicians Mutual, Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare, Editora Abril, Tata Communications, Level 3 Communications, Seagate, TomTom, Philips, Hiscox, Physicians Mutual, MYOB

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM vs. Rally Software

July 2025

Free Report: Polarion ALM vs. Rally Software

Find out what your peers are saying about Polarion ALM vs. Rally Software and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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