Atlassian ALM vs Rally Software comparison

Atlassian and Broadcom are both solutions in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category. Atlassian is ranked #17, while Broadcom is ranked #10 with an average rating of 6.8. Atlassian holds a 1.9% mindshare in ALM, compared to Broadcom’s 6.1% mindshare. Additionally, 60% of Atlassian users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Atlassian ALM

Read 6 Atlassian ALM reviews

679 Views
665 Comparison Views

60% willing to recommend

Rally Software

Read 119 Rally Software reviews

3,558 Views
3,345 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Atlassian ALM

Rally Software

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Rally Software and Atlassian ALM are competing products in the application lifecycle management space. Rally Software offers strong agile project management, while Atlassian ALM is known for superior integration and scalability, often preferred by larger enterprises for its extensive feature set.

Features: Rally Software offers sprint tracking, portfolio management, and team collaboration. Atlassian ALM provides project tracking, powerful customization options, and extensive integration with third-party applications, benefiting from a wide range of plugins that enhance its functionality.

Room for Improvement: Rally Software could improve its feature richness and integration capabilities with other enterprise tools. There's also a need for more customization options and flexibility in reporting. Atlassian ALM can be enhanced with a more user-friendly interface, simplified initial setup, and reduced complexity in managing integrations between its various components.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Rally Software offers a straightforward deployment process focused on agile methodologies with dedicated support to streamline implementation. Atlassian ALM provides a smooth deployment experience with a robust knowledge base and a vibrant community, making self-service support more accessible and attractive for comprehensive support needs.

Pricing and ROI: Rally Software generally has a lower initial cost, appealing to smaller teams with budget constraints. However, Atlassian ALM offers a better long-term return on investment due to its scalability and feature set, which can result in greater productivity and cost savings, making its higher upfront cost worthwhile for businesses expecting growth or needing advanced features.

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

Buyer's Guide

Atlassian 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

Atlassian ALM

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

17th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Rally Software

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

119

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Atlassian ALM is 1.9%, up from 1.3% 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

Xie Zhifeng

R&D Director, CTO at CSDN

Scrum board feature is highly valuable and handles different user volumes

We have both small-sized and big-sized customers. The small ones generally have around 50 to 200 users. The larger ones, for example, in China, have around 15,000 platform users. So, the number of small companies is high, but the total business value comes from the big companies. Atlassian ALM can handle different user volumes. For customers with more than 500 users, we recommend deploying a high availability (HA) architecture. The solution supports both single-node and HA modes. I would rate the scalability a five out of ten. It could be better in terms of scalability with more users. It could be improved to better handle larger numbers of users. We have clients using Atlassian ALM both in China and globally. We have around 20 clients using this solution.

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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

"This solution fits very well into our agile product management environment."

"The most valuable feature is the Scrum board."

"The main power of this tool is the integration between the different products of the Atlassian suite. We have good integration with work management with Java. This is the major strength from this provider."

"The transparency it allows us to provide, both from the team level all the way through the executive level within the company and the work that we are doing."

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

"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."

"We use the roadmap features, and we're getting better at using dates to use the roadmap so that we can see if we're on target for work."

"It has allowed the quality assurance team to keep all information in sync with the application requirements and user stories for our general development."

"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."

"The reporting, and being able to roll that up across the verticals, was an important selling point for us."

"My teams uses it for their daily agile management. They describe their user stories and track the progress of their projects."

More Rally Software pros

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the high-level project management."

"The reports are not really customizable, which is something that they should improve on."

"The automation for scheduling software and doing software tests should be simplified because it's complex and too rigid."

"The Reporting feature can improve, especially around executive summaries and dependency mapping."

"From a test management perspective, it should have the capability to give you both automation and manual integration in one place."

"I think there needs to be some simplification. The team-level side can be challenging and complicated."

"We would like more meaningful, customizable dashboards."

"We'd like better dashboards to make visibility better."

"It is hard to track the changes. For example, we're in sprint 25, and then we have 26, 27, 28, and 29. Throughout that whole time, we're developing pipelines in Azure, moving to GitHub, creating pipelines, and working with teams. But sometimes, we need to revisit specific decisions made in previous sprints, like pipeline details. Maybe it's in our Azure Wiki, GitHub, or Teams, but it's not always consistent. I wish I could search for all tasks or stories related to that particular effort without needing to know everyone's individual stories or features."

"There's a lot of support for Scrum and Agile, but it needs something for the Kanban side."

"A lot of the features that we would be looking to add, I am learning may not be within Agile Central, but part of another CA tool set."

More Rally Software cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a community edition available, but if the price were lower for the addons then more people would use the full version."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Insurance Company

11%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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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...

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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 ...

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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...

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Comparisons

Jira vs Atlassian ALM

Compared 42% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Atlassian ALM

Compared 16% of the time

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs Atlassian ALM

Compared 15% of the time

Polarion ALM vs Atlassian ALM

Compared 10% of the time

OpenText Software Delivery Management vs Atlassian ALM

Compared 8% of the time

More Atlassian ALM Competitors

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Rally Software

Compared 30% of the time

Jira vs Rally Software

Compared 29% of the time

TFS vs Rally Software

Compared 6% of the time

OpenText Application Quality Management vs Rally Software

Compared 5% of the time

Jira Align vs Rally Software

Compared 4% of the time

More Rally Software Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Atlassian ALM

August 2025

Download Atlassian ALM product report

Buyer's Guide

Rally Software

August 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

How to use Atlassian to manage application lifecycle: Atlassian builds software to pull together all the elements of application lifecycle management. Product management, developers, Q/A, dev ops, and business stake holders all have their own ways of interacting with application lifecycle management and Atlassian splits up the process into a few buckets.

1) Collaborate to plan and envision work

Atlassian's Confluence is a collaboration platform for building and driving consensus. Call stake holders in to give approval, comment on, and share pages and integrate with the rest of the development toolchain.

2) Build and track roadmaps

Atlassian's JIRA Software offers incredibly flexible project management with custom workflows, plugins, and high visibility rollups through JIRA Portfolio. Issues can be embedded right in confluence, or be used to kick off new branches in version control. Keep everyone on the same page with project progress.

3) Track and deploy code

Atlassian's Bitbucket is the world's most robust Git solution. The ability to deploy multiple-nodes with failover, global mirroring for super fast clones, and powerful code review control set it apart from competition. Bitbucket also has a mature plugin and hooks system that allows extensions and connection to a suite of CI software.

4) Support and Iterate

Track support requests, bugs, and route users in the right direction with JIRA Service Desk. With the same custom workflow engine as JIRA Software, a tight integration with the rest of the stack, and a knowledge base function make it a powerful addition to the ALM stack.

5) Tie it together

ChatOps helps tie every part of the ALM together. Get stake holders in the same room to manage a project, teams in the same page to manage their work, or plugin automated members to report on CI status, pull requests, page changes in Confluence, or bug reports. Like every piece of Atlassian's ALM there is a mature API for extending plugins and everything can be hosted behind your own firewall.

Atlassian

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

Facebook, NASA, Cisco, eBay, Redfin, Toyota, Kaiser Permanente, Gilt, CSIRO, Autodesk, The Daily Telegraph, CODE, Illumnia

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

Buyer's Guide

Atlassian ALM vs. Rally Software

July 2025

Free Report: Atlassian ALM vs. Rally Software

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

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