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Helix ALM vs IBM DOORS Next comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Helix ALM
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
7th
Average Rating
6.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (19th), Test Management Tools (15th)
IBM DOORS Next
Ranking in Application Requirements Management
5th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Requirements Management category, the mindshare of Helix ALM is 3.3%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM DOORS Next is 8.5%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Requirements Management
 

Featured Reviews

Harold Pogue - PeerSpot reviewer
Helix ALM is insanely configurable, with great traceability, and flexibility
The most valuable features of Helix ALM are traceability and flexibility. One thing that distinguishes Helix ALM from other solutions is that it is a hybrid cloud model. Helix ALM is not a full cloud implementation like Valerian, Jira Jama, or Atlassian, where we just go through a browser onto the cloud. In the case of Helix, we have code that goes on our computer and then that communicates to the cloud. We have the backup and distribution capability of the cloud, but we have code executing on our machine, and we don't need to worry much about speed and internet lag problems.
Roger Trackwell - PeerSpot reviewer
An industry-leading tool to demonstrate traceability between requirements, with valuable features for tailoring modules and managing several thousand requirements
The biggest thing is that it shows cradle to grave traceability between the initial parent requirement and the lowest level, or what we call a CID, a critical item development spec. You can establish your verification plans in DOORS, and then as you get test results, you can put them in DOORS as a link or as a pointer to where that specific test resides on a company database. Then you can also write compliance rationale and add a column for coding, like pass, fail, green, yellow, red, meets, does not meet, partially meets, or whatever scoring criteria you want to use. Like I said, the best thing about it is that it provides you that visibility of your verification, allowing you to know how close you are to your pre-production activities, prototyping, go ahead, or whatever it is.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool offers high stability."
"Helix ALM enables users to build, make efficient and effective decisions, and use least-cost methods for maximum benefit, as fast as possible. They allow you to see and visualize your configuration."
"The most valuable features of Helix ALM are traceability and flexibility."
"One of the most valuable features is how you can tailor the modules."
"The most valuable features are the baselines and links."
"My company contacts the solution's technical support, and they are good and responsive."
"IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation is easier to expand to build a backend with several servers, so you can also use it to scale up to several hundreds of users without major problems."
"The tool's most valuable feature is displaying requirements in a tabular format. This means you can see everything laid out in columns and rows. It is more aesthetic compared to other tools. The traceability matrix helps to view things better. It comes with different linking rules."
"As far as maintaining our requirements so that we can have copies of them, it's good. I can print it out if necessary."
"The most valuable features are the versioning of requirements and the possibility to reuse them."
"The "Link by Attribute" feature is useful for making links without needing to use the web interface manually."
 

Cons

"Helix ALM should be able to integrate with other systems better. Helix ALM should also have an easier user interface, and the solution needs to have drag-and-drop tools included in it."
"It would be great to see Perforce's strategy is for implementing intelligence into the process via AI or ML. It's not clearly defined, at least not to my knowledge."
"The accountability and the equivalent to using, acting, editing, working with Word, and also importing and exporting from Word needs improvement."
"As a web tool, DNG can be difficult to use if the server is loaded or your network connection to it is saturated."
"There is room for improvement in the APIs that they have exposed for integration."
"The only additional feature would be if it had dynamic linking to other MBSE tool sets or industry-leading tools."
"Be very careful how you load your DNG server. There are limits to the number of artifacts a server can handle."
"IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation is not a very user-friendly product."
"IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation has room for improvement compared to other tools like Polaris and Jama Connect. These tools offer more flexibility and options for developers, which IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation lacks. For example, you can define your link rules in Jama Connect, but you can't do that in IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation."
"I have come to the conclusion that if you are considering migrating from DOORS to DNG, don't! Instead of spending 100's to 1000's of hours doing migrations, invest those hours in a DXL programmer to make DOORS do what it isn't doing for you now."
"It does have a tendency to condense the requirements. It kind of puts them in a tree format. Sometimes those trees are a little difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I give the solution a nine out of ten for pricing."
"I rate the product price a nine on a one to ten scale, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"If the product price were not reasonable enough, our company would not use IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation."
"The cost of maintenance is €20,000 to €30,000 ($22,000 to $33,000 USD) and there are no additional fees."
"The price of this solution is very high, and it increases year after year."
"Users can buy a three-year license for about 12,000 Euros."
"You are going to need a beefy server and a fat network pipe to it in order to make DNG and its companion tools work well for users."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Healthcare Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
23%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Helix ALM?
I rate the product price a nine on a one to ten scale, where one is low price and ten is high price.
What needs improvement with Helix ALM?
Helix ALM should be able to integrate with other systems better. Helix ALM should also have an easier user interface, and the solution needs to have drag-and-drop tools included in it.
What do you like most about IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation?
The tool's most valuable feature is displaying requirements in a tabular format. This means you can see everything laid out in columns and rows. It is more aesthetic compared to other tools. The tr...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation?
The pricing is considered unreasonable, and there is speculation that IBM may not be putting much effort into further development, possibly treating it as a cash cow.
What needs improvement with IBM Rational DOORS Next Generation?
There is a need for improvement in user experience, as the UI is too complex and outdated. Updates should be more frequent to ensure security and functionality, especially in addressing vulnerabili...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

TestTrack
Rational DOORS Next Generation, RDNG, Rational Requirements Composer and IBM RRC
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Invision, Softing, CACI, Hunter Industries, ITSO, Itron, EEC, Database Consultants Australia, VirtualScopics, March Networks, WorkForce
Major health insurer
Find out what your peers are saying about Helix ALM vs. IBM DOORS Next and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.