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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
7.1
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (10th), 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 (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Enterprise Agile Planning Tools category, the mindshare of GitLab is 24.8%, down from 33.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 4.7%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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 ( /products/gitlab-reviews ) 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

"The solution's most valuable features are pipelines."
"We like that we can create branches and then the branches can be reviewed and you can mesh those branches back. You can independently work with your own branch, you don't need to really control the core of other people."
"I have found the most valuable features of GitLab are the GitClone, GitPush, GitPull, GitMatch, GitMit, GitCommit, and GitStatus."
"It is user-friendly, easy to use, and easy to administer."
"It is very useful for reviews. We are using branch merging operations and full reset operations. It is also very useful for merging our code and tracking another branch. The graph diagrams of Git are very useful. Its interface is straightforward and not too complex for us."
"GitLab is very well-organized and easy to use. Also, it offers most features that customers need."
"If you want to maintain your issues in GitLab and raise your book of work and features, then GitLab is a great tool for collaboration and integration with code deployment and CICD pipelines."
"Git hosting has an integration with ACD which is why we liked this solution in the first place."
"The technical support is quite good."
"Polarion ALM is excellent for tracking who is working on what and how many people are involved in a project."
"It meets with everybody's needs without having to grab plugins."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"It offers good performance."
"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."
"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."
"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."
 

Cons

"It should be used by a larger number of people. They should raise awareness."
"GitLab can improve its user interface to make conflict resolution more user-friendly."
"It's more related to the supporting layer of features, such as issue management and issue tracking. We tend to always use, for example, Jira next to it. That doesn't mean that GitLab should build something similar to Jira because that will always have its place, but they could grow a bit in those kinds of supporting features. I see some, for example, covering ITSM on a DevOps team level, and that's one of the things that I and my current client would find really helpful. It's understandably not going to be their main focus and their core, and whenever you are with a company that needs a bit more advanced features on that specific topic, you're probably still going to integrate with another tool like Jira Service Management, for example. However, some basic features on things like that could be really helpful."
"GitLab could add a plugin to integrate with Kubernetes stuff."
"I would like to see static analysis also embedded in GitLab. That would also help us. If there's something that it does internally by GitLab and then that is already tied up with your pipeline and then it can tell you that you're coding is good or your code is not great. Based on that, it would pass or fail. That should be streamlined. I would think that would help to a greater extent, in terms of having one solution rather than depending on multiple vendors."
"I have encountered issues with the deployment of CI/CD pipelines, especially dealing with variable environments."
"There is a need to improve or adopt AI into the ecosystem like a co-pilot, which Microsoft has done with GitHub."
"The tool should include a feature that helps to edit the code directly."
"The planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."
"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."
"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."
"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"We use PTC Windchill, and Polarion ALM doesn't have native integration, so we had to purchase the connector to integrate it with Polarion ALM. We still haven't implemented it."
"The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing features that are common in web-based applications."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's standard license is paid annually. They have changed the pricing model and it used to be better. There is a free version available."
"GitLab is comparatively expensive, but it provides value because it's feature-rich."
"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."
"GitLab is highly priced for smaller teams, but it's okay if considering a user base of thousands."
"GitLab is an open-source solution."
"GitLab's pricing is good compared to others on the market."
"I'm not aware of the licensing costs because those were covered by the customer."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is an expensive product."
"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."
"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."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
12%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
The pricing and cost are on par with other tools and are neither too expensive nor cheap.
What needs improvement with GitLab?
One significant feature we lack is the configuration that enforces code reviews, which simplifies the development life cycle. Unfortunately, this is available only at a higher license level than we...
What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?
The user interface of Polarion ALM needs improvement as it can experience changes that disrupt workflows, especially during major updates. Sometimes, database migrations take too long, spanning two...
What is your primary use case for Polarion ALM?
As a manual tester, I use Polarion ALM ( /products/polarion-alm-reviews ) for our weekly builds validation. These builds are crucial as they eventually lead to final release builds for customers. I...
 

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: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.