IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs Polarion ALM comparison

IBM and Siemens are both solutions in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category. IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 7.5, while Siemens is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.3. IBM holds a 3.8% mindshare in ALM, compared to Siemens’s 8.3% mindshare. Additionally, 76% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Siemens users who would recommend it.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...

Read 19 IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) reviews

1,490 Views
1,475 Comparison Views

76% willing to recommend

Polarion ALM

Read 23 Polarion ALM reviews

3,889 Views
3,578 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

IBM Engineering Lifecycle M...

Polarion ALM

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 6, 2025

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management and Polarion ALM are competing products in the application lifecycle management category. IBM ELM seems to have the upper hand in customer support and integration, while Polarion ALM is more favorable due to its modular architecture and scalability, often seen as more cost-effective in the long term.

Features: IBM ELM is known for robust reporting, traceability across various tools, and seamless integration with other IBM products like DOORS for detailed requirements mapping. Its automation capabilities facilitate efficient data management and decision-making. Polarion ALM stands out for its customizable workflows, robust version control, and comprehensive requirement tracking. Its powerful document control and traceability features allow teams to handle all aspects of requirements engineering effectively.

Room for Improvement: IBM ELM could improve its deployment flexibility to better support cloud-based implementations and streamline its cost structure to appeal more to small and medium-sized businesses. The user interface could also be simplified for easier navigation. Polarion ALM may benefit from enhancements in out-of-the-box functionality for planning and management. Users have suggested simplifying the setup process and refining report generation for better user efficiency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM ELM provides a traditional deployment process tailored for enterprises needing extensive support. Its thorough enterprise-grade customer service suits larger organizations with complex infrastructures. Polarion ALM offers modern cloud-based deployment, enabling faster implementation and facilitating agile transitions. Its efficient customer service is particularly beneficial for smaller, agile teams.

Pricing and ROI: IBM ELM's initial setup can be substantial but offers a good ROI with its comprehensive functionality and support. It is ideal for enterprises requiring thorough lifecycle management. Polarion ALM provides a cost-efficient pricing model with competitive ROI due to its lower upfront investment and scalability. This makes it an attractive choice for businesses seeking quick adaptation without heavy initial costs.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM

July 2025

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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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Polarion ALM

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

3rd

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (6th)

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 Polarion ALM is 8.3%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

Featured Reviews

Juergen Albrecht

Managing Director at CCC Systems Engineering Suisse GmbH

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.

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Dina Bindi

Information and Communication technology at CNH Industrial

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's easy to use."

"The solution is customizable."

"You can customize the board according to your needs."

"The integration with Git works well."

"The transition to a SaaS-based solution is a distinct advantage."

"The planning feature is rich with Scrum concepts: Sprint, Sprint retrospective, the rules in the Scrum framework."

"It helped us contain critical things, like source code and several documents, which is very important to us."

"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."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) pros

"Polarion ALM is excellent for tracking who is working on what and how many people are involved in a project."

"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."

"It is a very stable solution."

"You can see the work ticket and you can circulate that within the teams. You can define your flows, customize according to your needs, and you can create dashboards and create the reports according to your needs."

"The software is stable."

"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."

"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."

"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."

More Polarion ALM pros

Cons

"The interconnectivity between packages is a major support problem and can be improved."

"The reporting functionality needs to be improved."

"The stability of IBM Rational ALM could be improved."

"The solution can improve in the development area and the customized applications."

"The features should be more intuitive. If I'm looking for something, its location should be easy to locate."

"The GUI is a little bit outdated."

"I think nowadays people are getting into Jira and other tools. What is happening is, this solution is becoming more traditional, whereas Jira and other tools are more attractive for the new users to learn and start using because of the graphical interfaces."

"Of course it would be related to customer experience. The solution is not user friendly at all. It needs an expert to use it, although the reporting feature was okay."

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) cons

"Technical support needs some improvement."

"The tool needs to improve its planning. It also needs to add more integrations."

"Test management lacks an automated process."

"The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing features that are common in web-based applications."

"The ease-of-use could be improved a little."

"The configuration aspect of the solution is not easy. A person needs a lot of programming knowledge in order to successfully handle the job."

"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 user interface of Polarion ALM needs improvement as it can experience changes that disrupt workflows, especially during major updates."

More Polarion ALM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM Rational ALM has both monthly and yearly licensing options."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Software for medical devices is always expensive."

"The solution is expensive."

"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."

"It is an expensive product."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

24%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

12%

Transportation Company

Manufacturing Company

28%

Computer Software Company

12%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Rational ALM?

The solution is customizable.

See all answers

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...

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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...

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What do you like most about Polarion ALM?

It is a very stable solution.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Jira vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 25% of the time

Codebeamer vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 18% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 16% of the time

PTC Integrity vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 9% of the time

Atlassian ALM vs IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) Competitors

Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM

Compared 30% of the time

Jira vs Polarion ALM

Compared 20% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM

Compared 14% of the time

Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM

Compared 8% of the time

GitLab vs Polarion ALM

Compared 3% of the time

More Polarion ALM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM)

August 2025

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) report

Download IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) product report

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM

August 2025

Download Polarion ALM product report

Also Known As

IBM Engineering Rhapsody, Rational ALM, MKS

No data available

Overview

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management stands out for its robust Agile Scrum planning, lifecycle traceability, and tool management, offering cloud-based configurability and strong collaboration features.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management provides rich capabilities for Agile project management, facilitating requirements and test management, configuration management, and version control. Its integration with IBM Doors supports comprehensive requirements handling, and the cloud-based platform enhances collaborative efficiency across teams. Despite needing advances in user-friendliness and reporting, ELM's global configuration and compliance features make it invaluable in demanding environments.

What are the key features of IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management?

Scrum-based planning: Supports Agile methodologies with rich planning tools.
Lifecycle traceability: Offers complete traceability across development stages.
Customizable workflows: Adaptable workflows with Kanban for flexibility.
Git integration: Supports efficient version control and collaboration.
Global Configuration: Manages complex configurations globally.
Compliance and reporting: Ensures robust auditing and comprehensive reporting capabilities.

What benefits should be evaluated in reviews?

Collaboration: Enhanced sharing across platforms for seamless teamwork.
Cost-effectiveness: Delivers efficient tools that optimize project spend.
Comprehensive requirement handling: Facilitates detailed requirement management through IBM Doors integration.

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management is vital in sectors like automotive and manufacturing, where it implements Agile frameworks to manage requirements, conduct testing, and handle defects. It integrates into development pipelines ensuring live traceability and visibility, supporting critical engineering processes efficiently.

IBM

The world’s first 100% browser-based ALM enterprise solution, which enables seamless collaboration across disparate teams, multi-directionally linked work items, full traceability, accelerated productivity and automated proof of compliance.

Siemens

Sample Customers

Tennis Australia, WeCloud AB, Port Otago Limited, Logicalis US, Valmer, The Chevrolet Volt, Ashurst

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group

Buyer's Guide

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM

July 2025

Free Report: IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs. Polarion ALM

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