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Atlassian 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

Atlassian ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
16th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Atlassian ALM is 2.5%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TFS is 4.4%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
TFS4.4%
Atlassian ALM2.5%
Other93.1%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

BRIANJOHNSON2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Independant Consultant at B&H Designs Ltd
Long-term testing workflows have improved integration of test planning and defect tracking
The deployment depends on whether you are deploying it on your computer or across the program. Cloud-based system deployment takes some time, as it depends on your rights to your computer. I would rate the deployment as a seven on a scale of one to ten. It took a couple of hours to get it right. The IT department deploys it.
PS
Service delivery manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Ensures team collaboration with strong version control but could improve testing capabilities
Version control is the most basic feature in TFS. It has been there since the beginning. We use it primarily for that purpose. Basically ensuring that the code is not overwritten by other team members and maintaining the sanctity of the code. Bringing order to a disparate team which is virtual at different locations is very important, and TFS provides that control. Once you update a code, nobody can modify it until you are done working on it and check in. It is a great product that revolutionized the way teams work together on Microsoft pieces of code. The versioning part has unique features and capabilities which are unmatched with other products out there.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The Atlassian ALM suite consists at least of JIRA, Confluence, BitBucket and HipChat - just the tools you need for organizing your teams in a very efficient way."
"The interface between the repository and test plan stands out as valuable, and I appreciate building the tests and scenarios in Test Lab and the ability to link defects throughout the system, which Atlassian ALM does better than any other testing products."
"This solution fits very well into our agile product management environment."
"The most valuable feature is the Scrum board."
"This solution fits very well into our agile product management environment."
"If you can spend the little effort to configure Jira to support your more complex requirements management, then you can concentrate everything in one tool."
"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."
"As a general purpose tool, JIRA and Confluence are still ahead of the competition."
"Good branching and labelling features."
"The solution helps with pretty much all aspects of the development cycle, including using it for QA, testing, development, and the release, and it's useful for every aspect of the development cycle."
"It's an integrated system that includes all the information that we need to deliver our products smoothly and to track the progress of each piece of code."
"The tool's installation is straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of TFS is integration."
"We have set up a centralized TFS server, and all the delivery projects are using it for code repository, ALMs, and DevOps implementation."
"Version Control: TFS offers both the centralized “TFVC” version control technology as well as the distributed “Git” version control technology."
"As a QA geek, MS Test is the most valuable component."
 

Cons

"Confluence is just a super-inadequate tool for editing documents."
"However, it is not really scalable, so if you want to use it for anything larger or plan to use it for product portfolios, then it starts to be problematic."
"The solution is stable but at times, the performance is poor. It takes time to load and the response time is not up to the mark."
"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."
"For project management, the scheduling of the project tasks should be simplified because it's complex and too rigid using the Atlassian Portfolio."
"Atlassian ALM is too expensive. The pricing is very expensive."
"Frankly it's a really daunting exercise - challenging, problematic and very flaky."
"TFS and MTM have their own style of working and they are different from other tools like Jira or TestRail, which are simpler and easy to use."
"TFS isn't a great tool if you're on the cloud, so the cloud version could be improved."
"When you are trying to connect from Visual Studio code to TFS the integration isn't so easy and I think that could be improved."
"It has been really dated. When you start to work more in an agile environment, it is not really that flexible."
"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."
"Microsoft should discontinue the use of SharePoint as I don’t really see any value add to TFS, document management features can be included in TFS web portal itself, if required!"
"The record and play functionality needs some improvement."
"The price could be cheaper."
 

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."
"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 solution is expensive."
"TFS is not cheap."
"It is pretty expensive compared to other project management tools."
"I am not in a position to comment on the licensing terms, as we are talking about an enterprise arrangement."
"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."
"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."
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893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Educational Organization
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise64
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlassian ALM?
Atlassian ALM is too expensive. The pricing is very expensive.
What needs improvement with Atlassian ALM?
I am still not satisfied with the requirements area of Atlassian ALM. Atlassian ALM has four parts: test plan, Test Lab, requirements, and reporting. The requirements portion continues to be an are...
What is your primary use case for Atlassian ALM?
I have been using Atlassian ALM for twenty-five years. It used to be called Quality Center, and I first used it in 2000 and 2001. The company changed, but the product remained. Atlassian ALM has no...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TFS?
While I do not know the exact pricing, TFS is likely more expensive than GitLab.
What needs improvement with TFS?
From a testing perspective, while the build and deploy automation capability and pipeline integration are already present to a great extent, these are areas where TFS can improve further.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Team Foundation Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, NASA, Cisco, eBay, Redfin, Toyota, Kaiser Permanente, Gilt, CSIRO, Autodesk, The Daily Telegraph, CODE, Illumnia
Vendex KBB IT Services, Info Support, Fujitsu Consulting, TCSC, Airways New Zealand, HP
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian ALM vs. TFS and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.