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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
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (6th)
TFS
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Test Management Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Polarion ALM is 6.4%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TFS is 3.7%, down from 4.9% 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 ALM6.4%
TFS3.7%
Other89.9%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

LasseMikkonen - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consultant 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.
reviewer2603940 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Easily manage automated builds and releases but security and performance require advancements
TFS has room for improvement as there have been global security issues that many companies, including ours, have experienced. There are glitches, such as runners getting stuck, deployments generating errors, and it's becoming outdated. TFS is not as fast, easy to use, or configurable as GitLab, despite moving into the cloud.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."
"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."
"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."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its browser experience. I rate its traceability feature a ten out of ten. From the initial stage to the release, you can manage everything through a single point."
"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."
"Scalability is good...The integration is quite good."
"Polarion ALM helps us better structure our customer requirements, and we can also validate the specs of our products against those. If anything changes on our side, we see the impact, and we can see the effect If a customer changes requirements."
"Basically, the capacity to construct various products is something I find handy."
"Complete integration with VS IDE and Office tools: This give us a possibility of high-level automation, thus minimizing human error."
"Team Foundation Server (TFS) is easy to use, and we have a complete trail and traceability. We also like the access control part."
"The initial setup was straightforward: creating a new project, importing code, and setting up branches."
"The most valuable feature is simplicity."
"TFS allows me to handle automated builds and release management quite easily."
"Version Control: TFS offers both the centralized “TFVC” version control technology as well as the distributed “Git” version control technology."
"The most valuable features of TFS are the test plans. We can reproduce reusable test plans in test automation. We have a lot of queries and this feature is very useful."
 

Cons

"I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
"The interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."
"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."
"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
"The tool needs to improve its planning. It also needs to add more integrations."
"The price could be cheaper."
"Access and permissions are confusing when attempting to include basic manual testing functionalities."
"I understand Microsoft is phasing out TFS in favor of Git, so I would steer anyone interested in TFS to look into Git."
"The dashboard needs more enhancements."
"The project management side should be addressed and the project and release planning should be somewhat extended."
"There are glitches, such as runners getting stuck, deployments generating errors, and it's becoming outdated."
"There are many things that I cannot do, and I have a lot of bugs."
"TFS needs to be stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive product."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"Use the Microsoft recommended “seat-based” licensing model. This allows a single developer with multiple machines to consume only one client license."
"It is an expensive solution."
"We are using the open-source version."
"TFS is expensive, and the licensing costs are yearly. I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"TFS is not cheap."
"The overall price of TFS is good."
"On a scale where ten is the highest and one is the cheapest, I rate the solution's licensing cost at one on a scale of one to ten."
"The pricing is reasonable at this time."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
28%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
13%
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 Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise64
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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: December 2025.
879,889 professionals have used our research since 2012.