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IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs OpenText Application Quality Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 19, 2025

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

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
12th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OpenText Application Qualit...
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
208
Ranking in other categories
Test Management Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is 3.8%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Application Quality Management is 5.4%, up from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

Juergen Albrecht - PeerSpot reviewer
Combining tools for effective data analysis while customization and integration need improvement
The most valuable feature is how IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) allows me to present to the customer what the actual software, even hardware, will do. It helps them gain an impression of the complexity of the functionality and find an easier way to decide whether to implement it. A picture says more than one thousand words, which is why I work with the combination of ELM and the specification of DOORS. The automation capabilities I built use column-based scripts for analysis to search, fetch, and transfer information. When I open modules, it automatically analyzes the changes since the last opening by me.
Hosney Osman - PeerSpot reviewer
Service provider recognizes effective project tracking and reporting capabilities
Regarding integration with various development tools, I can provide examples, and I am using customizable dashboards in OpenText ALM _ Quality Center, which definitely help identify project bottlenecks. As for the scalability of OpenText ALM _ Quality Center, there are limitations, particularly in agile methodologies, which is currently my main concern.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The cataloging is a very valuable feature. For a lot of enterprises, they end up not knowing which applications do specific features. The cataloging helps with this. It's not that verbose, but it still gives you allowances to put in more detail."
"The word emulation and importing is good."
"It is relatively easy to use and user-friendly once the setup is complete."
"At the same time, if you're working from the architect or the designing team you, it's quite easy to manage the resources online."
"It helped us contain critical things, like source code and several documents, which is very important to us."
"The tools for requirement capture we have found very useful."
"The integration with Git works well."
"You can customize the board according to your needs."
"I like the traceability, especially between requirements, testing, and defects."
"We are able to use Micro Focus ALM Quality Center for test management, defect management, test process, test governance activities, and requirement management. We are able to achieve all of this, the solution is very useful."
"It has a good response time."
"I love to use this solution with single projects. It has helped our productivity. With the metrics that I receive, I can put them onto the management model so I can see them there. It has reduced our time for project management and controls by 20 percent."
"We can get an entire project into a single repository where we can view all the data in detail. This is where we keep all our test cases where everyone can reference them. This provides everyone access to the test cases and artifacts via the cloud. There is no need to contact anyone."
"Quality management, project management from a QA perspective - testing, defect management, how testing relates back to requirements."
"The tool's most valuable feature is that it is user-friendly, and everybody can learn to use it easily."
"You can plan ahead with all the requirements and the test lab set it up as a library, then go do multiple testing times, recording the default that's in the system."
 

Cons

"The product must be more user-friendly."
"The solution can improve in the development area and the customized applications."
"Some improvements to the user interface (UI) would be helpful, such as exposing more services to make it easier to customize to the needs of each customer."
"The stability of IBM Rational ALM could be improved."
"The directory designer manager is uncivil. The design manager is clearly really unstable."
"Improvement is needed in bridging DNG and Rhapsody and vice versa for better data exchange from both sides with some trigger technologies."
"IBM Rational ALM should remove the features not used by the customers and keep this product as lightweight as possible."
"The stability of this solution can be improved."
"The integration could be improved because with Agile technology you are working more quickly than with a top-down methodology."
"There's room for improvement in the requirements traceability with Micro Focus ALM Quality Center. That could use an uplift."
"The solution is not browser-based, which modern users prefer."
"There needs to be improvement in the requirement samples. At the moment, they are very basic."
"One drawback is that ALM only launches with the IE browser. It is not supporting the latest in Chrome... It should be launched for all of the latest browsers."
"I would like to be able to search easier, not just do SQL queries, being able to do free keyword searches on the data. That's valuable."
"It can be quite clunky, and it can easily be configured badly, which I've seen in a couple of places. If it is configured badly, it can be very hard to use. It is not so easy to integrate with other products. I've not used Micro Focus in a proper CI/CD pipeline, and I haven't managed to get that working because that has not been my focus. So, I find it hard. I've often lost the information because it had committed badly. It doesn't commit very well sometimes, but that might have to do with the sites that I was working at and the way they had configured it."
"The Agile methodology is now being used across all the organizations, but in this solution, we don't have a dashboard like Jira. In Jira, you can move your product backlogs from one space to another and see the progress, that is, whether a backlog is in the development stage or testing stage. Micro Focus ALM Quality Center does not have this feature. It is typically very straightforward. You just execute the test cases from it, and you just make them pass, fail, or whatever. They can also improve its integration with Jira. The browser support needs to be improved in this because it supports only Internet Explorer as of now. It does not have support for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or any other browser. There are also some performance issues in it. Let's say that you are doing the testing, and you found something and are logging the defect. When you try to attach several or multiple screenshots with the defect, it slows down, which is a very common problem people face. I would like them to include a functionality where I am able to see the reports across all the projects. When you have multiple projects, being a manager, I would like to see the reports across all the projects. Currently, there is no single sign-on through which we can get all the information at one place. You need to log into it project-wise. If you have ten projects, you can't view the information in one dashboard."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM Rational ALM has both monthly and yearly licensing options."
"The solution is not cheap."
"The price of the solution could be reduced. Many of our customers are not using all the features and this could be why our clients feel the price is too high."
"This product is a little expensive and we had to pay extra to have them set it up for us."
"We have a contract, but I am not aware of the details."
"I feel that the licenses are expensive. ​"
"We have divided our licenses between Micro Focus ALM and ALM Octane. It works for us."
"It is an expensive tool. I think one needs to pay 10,000 USD towards the perpetual licensing model."
"Quality Center is pricey, but cheaper is not always less expensive."
"The solution is priceed high."
"Pricing is managed by our headquarters. I am able to get from them for very cheap. The market price is horribly expensive."
"The pricing is expensive nowadays."
"HPE has one of the most rigid, inflexible, and super expensive license models."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
12%
Transportation Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Rational ALM?
Improvement is needed in bridging DNG and Rhapsody and vice versa for better data exchange from both sides with some trigger technologies. This would provide a visual reminder of changes in a modul...
What is your primary use case for IBM Rational ALM?
Most of my primary use cases involve the combination of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) ( /products/ibm-engineering-lifecycle-management-elm-reviews ) and DOORS, including both Classic D...
What do you like most about Micro Focus ALM Quality Center?
The most valuable feature is the ST Add-In. It's a Microsoft add-in that makes it much easier to upload test cases into Quality Center.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus ALM Quality Center?
The on-premises setup tends to be on the expensive side. It would be cheaper to use a cloud model with a pay-per-use licensing model.
What needs improvement with Micro Focus ALM Quality Center?
Regarding integration with various development tools, I can provide examples, and I am using customizable dashboards in OpenText ALM _ Quality Center, which definitely help identify project bottlen...
 

Also Known As

IBM Engineering Rhapsody, Rational ALM, MKS
Micro Focus ALM Quality Center, HPE ALM, Quality Center, Quality Center, Micro Focus ALM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tennis Australia, WeCloud AB, Port Otago Limited, Logicalis US, Valmer, The Chevrolet Volt, Ashurst
Airbus Defense and Space, Vodafone, JTI, Xellia, and Banco de Creìdito e Inversiones (Bci)
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. OpenText Application Quality Management and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.