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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
91
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (7th), Build Automation (3rd), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (4th), Rapid Application Development Software (12th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (4th), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Enterprise Agile Planning Tools category, the mindshare of GitLab is 26.0%, down from 26.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 3.9%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
GitLab26.0%
Polarion ALM3.9%
Other70.1%
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
 

Featured Reviews

BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Role-based workflows have transformed daily deployments and improve team collaboration
GitLab has role-based access control, so when a team member needs to make a code change, they cannot directly apply it to the environment but must put in a merge request. Once a senior reviews the code and approves it, then it is implemented across the environment, making it safer and allowing everyone to experience the process. The best features GitLab offers are version control and automation, which are the major things that stand out to me. When it comes to access, the login is very smooth, with just one login integrated with our Okta, allowing everyone to log in easily. Deployments become much easier, and that is how GitLab helps. The automation features make my work easier because we use a tool called AWX, which is connected to GitLab. Whenever we run a job on AWX, it directly checks the code and uses it. Since the code is not preserved locally but kept in the cloud, it is safe and nobody can tamper with it. When it comes to safety, that is a major thing. Automation features allow the code to be accessed from any tools we use, so the jobs we run are helping tremendously and doing their work perfectly. For pipeline tasks, we have created a significant amount of pipelines, which are all hosted in GitLab. Running the pipelines has become much easier, and they are doing a perfect job, helping tremendously in our day-to-day activities. GitLab has positively impacted my organization because previously we stored code locally on servers, leading to many risks. Since GitLab came into our environment, our integration and deployments became much easier, helping our work become much smoother. Improvements from GitLab have led to better team collaboration because when several people are working, they can all edit the code and submit it as a merge request, and once approved, it reflects directly to the main branch. Many can work at the same time. When it comes to deployments, deploying has become much faster since we started using GitLab, and even if errors occur, we can spot them easily and troubleshoot, which has helped tremendously.
LasseMikkonen - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO 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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They incorporate new features every September, and they have introduced their own code editor and AI features."
"Key features allow creation of well-presented Wiki that includes ideas, development, and domains."
"I would definitely recommend the solution to other organizations."
"CI/CD is very good. The version control system is also good. These are the two features that we use."
"My understanding is that the product is reliable."
"For us, Gitlab's most valuable feature is the integration with Cypress. We're using Cypress as an automation tool, so we're using GitLab as a tool for running in parallel."
"The most valuable features of Gitlab are integration with CIE and the ability to rapidly deploy solutions, projects, and applications. It is very easy to use, and there are no complaints."
"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."
"The tool helped us to more effectively and efficiently gather and structure the information (requirements, test plans, project management data, etc.), and share it with the involved stakeholders in a safe and change-controlled manner."
"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."
"It's all in one place, where every department can utilize the same tool."
"Even though Polarion is quite expensive, it's quite a good solution for medical device development in general, especially for software development."
"This one tool incorporates almost all engineering tasks we need to do for one project."
"We had a nice experience with technical support."
"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."
"It offers good performance."
 

Cons

"The tool should include a feature that helps to edit the code directly."
"I rate the support from GitLab a four out of five."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly. We do most of our operations through the website interface but it could be better."
"GitLab's UI could be improved."
"At this point, I think the features are declining."
"The only thing our company is really waiting on in terms of features is the development of metrics."
"Technologies are always changing. Nowadays, new things like serverless computing and workload management have emerged. We have noticed a few gap items for faster service delivery. For example, we do user interface testing in the latest team and automate it using some tools. Recently, we integrated a tool with user interface testing, which can simulate a multi-user environment. So, we would like to see more integration with different platforms."
"While GitLab is a great tool for developers, it lacks project planner features. Roadmaps and Gantt charts in GitLab are not as advanced as in Jira, and changing start and end dates is more laborious in GitLab."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
"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."
"The backlog management for Agile in Polarion ALM could be improved or enhanced in future releases."
"The solution's editing capabilities need improvement."
"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"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 configuration aspect of the solution is not easy. A person needs a lot of programming knowledge in order to successfully handle the job."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is fine. It is on the cheaper side and not expensive. You have to pay additionally for GitLab CI/CD minutes. Initially, we used the free version. When we ran out of GitLab minutes, we migrated to the paid version."
"I don't mind the price because I use the free version."
"Regarding pricing, I would rate GitLab as moderately priced, maybe around a seven or eight out of ten. It could be more flexible for clients but generally offers good value."
"The solution is based on a licensing model that includes technical support and is paid annually."
"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."
"GitLab's pricing is good compared to others on the market."
"The price of GitLab could be better, it is expensive."
"GitLab is a free solution to use."
"It is an expensive product."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
30%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?
The setup cost for GitLab is minimal since the team has its own minimal resource balancing. The costing falls into an intermediate stage and is impactful across all results within the team. It allo...
What needs improvement with GitLab?
There are many improvements that GitLab can implement, such as addressing the issue of caching. Currently, when I have multiple tasks to merge or attempt multiple merges, the CI/CD and overall GitL...
What is your primary use case for GitLab?
My main use case for GitLab is as a version control system that we are using. Currently, I am working on an end-to-end AI pipeline, and I have deployed my whole code using GitLab so that all things...
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...
What advice do you have for others considering Polarion ALM?
The pricing of Polarion ALM and IBM ELM is pretty much aligned. They are not at the same level, but I would say aligned according to the capabilities of the tools, with DOORS being more expensive b...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Fuzzit
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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 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.