Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Polarion ALM vs ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 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

Polarion ALM
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (3rd)
ServiceNow Strategic Portfo...
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Project Portfolio Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Enterprise Agile Planning Tools category, the mindshare of Polarion ALM is 4.1%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management is 6.5%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management6.5%
Polarion ALM4.1%
Other89.4%
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Vishal Savajiani - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective reporting and AI features enhance task tracking
The best feature is the effective reporting system for project portfolio and program management. It allows us to track tasks easily, create cost budgets for individual tasks, and is aligned with AI features. It's a comprehensive strategic project management tool, Agile tool, and business continuity tool. The platform consolidates multiple offerings into one module, eliminating the need to invest in siloed applications.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We had a nice experience with technical support."
"Scalability is good...The integration is quite good."
"Polarion ALM is excellent for tracking who is working on what and how many people are involved in a project."
"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 software is stable."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."
"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."
"In mature companies ready for it, the return on investment would be a nine point five."
"It's a very complete solution."
"The performance is good."
"The integration of ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management with other ServiceNow modules improves workflow efficiency by calculating overall project costs associated with vendor management."
"Everything is valuable. It is tough to choose a particular feature, but project portfolio management along with agile 2.0 are two key product features that I would suggest for services companies like us."
"You don't need a lot of plugins."
"The interface is extremely user-friendly."
"The solution was quite easy to use. The interface was quite user-friendly, and I've become quite familiar with it."
 

Cons

"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."
"The user interface is not yet optimized."
"The most important thing for them to improve should be platform-independent features. They should also provide extensive pipelines and release pipelines that we can define and we can work on."
"I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
"Integration requires a lot of effort. You typically need to work with an implementation partner to get it done. Most connectors available for Polarion ALM are paid. Unlike other vendors offering several standard connectors for free, integrating third-party software with Polarion ALM involves discussing and coordinating with the third-party software providers, which requires effort."
"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."
"The timing reporting module, and how it's used is a bit difficult to understand. Everything related to project management is quite extensive. It needs to be simplified. At first, our users didn't want to use it, because it seems a bit complex."
"It could be more user-friendly."
"Improvements in ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management could involve enhancing the project workbench, which currently shows every project to any project manager."
"As of now, making the product more cost-beneficial would help more organizations consider investing in it."
"The only issue for us is the pricing. It’s quite high in comparison with the competition."
"The price is too high."
"I would like to see some artificial intelligence incorporated into the management functions."
"We track salaries or paychecks of the resources. They change from time to time, such as every six months or every year. If they can come up with a default or out-of-the-box feature to manage those multiple payable costs so that we can automatically calculate the project costs rolled up. That would be the coolest feature that we can expect from ServiceNow. We would like to have an automatic feature to manage the payable costs. We should be able to manage or maintain multiple pay costs so that while calculating the project roll-up costs for individual projects, the respective pay costs in a particular period are picked up automatically from the backend. Currently, we have to customize that. It is doable. We have done it but through customization."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is an expensive product."
"The solution is expensive."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"We have a team of about 6,500 employees across the globe. So, the amount of money I'm going to save by putting the money on the table for the implementation and licenses is very high."
"It's more suitable for larger companies as the licensing cost is relatively high. Not everyone can afford this tool."
"The solution is expensive."
"They sell some things in bundles, and it could be handier that some of those things could be sold in another way, like purity models and other packages. Another thing that I'm struggling with is the pricing of ServiceNow's FYE experience, which includes the tools that are positioned for supporting HR."
"It is a little expensive. We are in Brazil, and for us, it is a little expensive."
"The cost of the solution should not be more than $50,000 annually."
"The pricing is negotiable based on the contract and licensing perspective."
"The solution was quite expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Agile Planning Tools solutions are best for your needs.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
28%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
7%
Educational Organization
4%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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 do you like most about ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management?
We mainly use the solution to support operations and align our ITSM operations with our business goals. This involves coordinating between our application development, support teams, and network en...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management?
The pricing is rated six, as it's relatively low-medium compared to other solutions. However, the value isn't fully justified when not all features are used. A pricing model adjustment is needed fo...
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management?
Based on observations, improvements in ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management could involve enhancing the project workbench, which currently shows every project to any project manager. Restricti...
 

Also Known As

No data available
IT Business Management, ServiceNow IT Business Management Suite, ServiceNow ITBM Suite, ServiceNow ITBM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Proximus, UNT SYSTEM, SAP SuccessFactors
Find out what your peers are saying about Polarion ALM vs. ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.