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Polarion ALM vs TFS 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

Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (7th)
TFS
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Test Management Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Polarion ALM is 7.5%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TFS is 4.1%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Polarion ALM7.5%
TFS4.1%
Other88.4%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

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.
Pmurki@Micron.Com Praveen - PeerSpot reviewer
Version control is excellent and good for code review, branching, merging strategies and more
I've worked with TFS for source control and Agile project management. We also used TFS for seamless team collaboration and tracking.  I used TFS for a couple of years. Now, we use Azure DevOps. It's a wonderful tool for source control and CI/CD pipelines It's a really valuable tool for…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."
"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."
"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."
"Scalability is good...The integration is quite good."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"I am impressed with the solution’s stability."
"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."
"It offers good performance."
"The interface is easy to navigate."
"The interface is good with TFS."
"It is easy to push our changes from quality to pre-prod and prod."
"The most valuable features are the dashboard and task-selection capability."
"We use TFS for forecast management."
"I like the Kanban board. It is very useful in terms of seeing who is working on what and what the current status of work is."
"User alerts are very helpful for knowing when work is required."
"The most valuable features of TFS are bug reporting and its high performance."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"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 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."
"Based on my understanding, the tool's integration capabilities with multiple tools is an area of concern that Polarion needs to focus on more."
"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."
"The user interface is not yet optimized."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
"I understand Microsoft is phasing out TFS in favor of Git, so I would steer anyone interested in TFS to look into Git."
"This solution is quite old and it is already being bundled as Azure DevOps Server."
"Since the TFS was an on-prem solution, the private network accessibility was restricted."
"One of the areas that could be improved is to have an effective full lifecycle management."
"I'm looking for specific options that aren't currently available, such as active status, new status, or what's currently in progress."
"TFS on-premise does not support integration with SharePoint Online."
"Integration from Visual Studio could be improved."
"The manageability and performance of the product are areas of concern where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution is expensive."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"It is an expensive product."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"TFS is not cheap."
"I would like to see TFS improve its web interface as there are some limitations with IDs and the integration behind it and with open source tools like VS Code."
"TFS is expensive, and the licensing costs are yearly. I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"TFS is more competitively priced than some other solutions."
"I was working with the engineering team, and that was not under my umbrella. From what I can remember, its license was yearly. They had the licenses on a per-user basis, and they included MTM."
"The price of the solution is cheaper than other competitors and it is a per-user license."
"The overall price of TFS is good."
"We pay subscription fees on a yearly basis and the price is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
28%
Computer Software Company
12%
Healthcare Company
6%
Educational Organization
4%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

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 Business17
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise64
 

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...
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 TFS?
Microsoft's technical team is supportive.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TFS?
While I do not know the exact pricing, TFS is likely more expensive than GitLab.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Team Foundation Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Vendex KBB IT Services, Info Support, Fujitsu Consulting, TCSC, Airways New Zealand, HP
Find out what your peers are saying about Polarion ALM vs. TFS and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
871,408 professionals have used our research since 2012.