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GitLab vs Polarion ALM 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

GitLab
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (11th), Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Fuzz Testing Tools (3rd), DevSecOps (1st)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Enterprise Agile Planning Tools category, the mindshare of GitLab is 28.6%, down from 33.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 4.1%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
GitLab28.6%
Polarion ALM4.1%
Other67.3%
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Rohit Kesharwani - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved agility and time to market with CI/CD enhancements
The CI/CD pipelines in GitLab are highly valuable. Another important feature is the single source of repository, allowing efficient repository management and source code management. GitLab provides manageability by allowing us to manage source code effectively through separate repositories. Additionally, GitLab enables the creation of individual CI/CD pipelines for each repository, making software more agile. By integrating GitLab as a DevOps platform, we have enhanced agility, improved our time to market, and different teams can work collaboratively on various projects.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is scalable."
"GitLab is kind of an image of GitHub, so it gives us the flexibility to monitor our changes in the repos."
"The merging feature makes it easy later on for the deployment."
"The CI/CD pipeline with Helm has significantly improved deployment speed and efficiency."
"The most valuable features of GitLab are the review, patch repo, and plans are in YAML."
"They incorporate new features every September, and they have introduced their own code editor and AI features."
"We use GitLab in the new project for CI/CD, integration, and deployment."
"The most valuable functionality of GitLab, for me, is the DevOps. Besides the normal source control based on Git, I find the Auto DevOps features most important in the solution."
"Scalability is good...The integration is quite good."
"It is a very stable solution."
"The solution offers good integration."
"The software is stable."
"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."
"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."
"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."
"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."
 

Cons

"GitLab doesn't have AWS integration. It would be better to have integration with other container management environments beyond Kubernetes. It has very good integration with Kubernetes, but it doesn't have good integration with, for example, AWS, ETS, etc."
"The solution does not have many built-in functions or variables so scripting is required."
"The initial setup was quite challenging because it takes some time to understand how to pull out or push the code."
"GitLab's Windows version is yet not available and having this would be an improvement."
"The licensing model could be improved to be more accommodating in terms of user numbers and costs."
"GitLab could improve by having more plugins and better user-friendliness."
"It is a little complex to set up the pipelines within the solution."
"Based on what I know so far, its integration with Kubernetes is not so good. We have to develop many things to make it work. We have to acquire third-party components to work with Kubernetes."
"The ease-of-use could be improved a little."
"I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system."
"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."
"The interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."
"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."
"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing features that are common in web-based applications."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't mind the price because I use the free version."
"GitLab is cheap."
"My company uses the free version of GitLab, which is GitLab Community Edition. There is a licensed version also available for GitLab."
"In terms of the pricing for GitLab, on a scale of one to five, with one being expensive and five being cheap, I'm rating pricing for the solution a four. It could still be cheaper because right now, my company has a small team, and sometimes it's difficult to use a paid product for a small team. You'd hope the team will grow and scale, but currently, you're paying a high license fee for a small team. I'm referring to the GitLab license that has premium features and will give you all features. This can be a problem for management to approve the high price of the license for a team this small."
"In total, I believe we have more than 300 licenses spread over about 100 users, though I can't comment on the costs involved."
"GitLab is highly priced for smaller teams, but it's okay if considering a user base of thousands."
"As I work in a vast enterprise, I'm unsure about the licensing cost for GitLab. It's the management team that takes care of that."
"I think that we pay approximately $100 USD per month."
"It is an expensive product."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"The solution is expensive."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"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 license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
28%
Computer Software Company
11%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise42
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about GitLab?
I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?
We are currently using general GitLab, not GitLab Premium.
What needs improvement with GitLab?
GitLab needs to improve the CI/CD functionality because it is not compatible with Jenkins and other tools, as it is not that efficient. Security-wise, we have security features enabled in GitLab fo...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Fuzzit
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. NASA  2. IBM  3. Sony  4. Alibaba  5. CERN  6. Siemens  7. Volkswagen  8. ING  9. Ticketmaster  10. SpaceX  11. Adobe  12. Intuit  13. Autodesk  14. Rakuten  15. Unity Technologies  16. Pandora  17. Electronic Arts  18. Nordstrom  19. Verizon  20. Comcast  21. Philips  22. Deutsche Telekom  23. Orange  24. Fujitsu  25. Ericsson  26. Nokia  27. General Electric  28. Cisco  29. Accenture  30. Deloitte  31. PwC  32. KPMG
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about GitLab vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.