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IBM Rational ClearQuest vs Rocket ChangeMan ZMF (formerly a Micro Focus product) 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

IBM Rational ClearQuest
Ranking in Software Configuration Management
5th
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Defect Tracking (1st)
Rocket ChangeMan ZMF (forme...
Ranking in Software Configuration Management
6th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Software Configuration Management category, the mindshare of IBM Rational ClearQuest is 9.6%, up from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rocket ChangeMan ZMF (formerly a Micro Focus product) is 9.1%, up from 8.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Configuration Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Rational ClearQuest9.6%
Rocket ChangeMan ZMF (formerly a Micro Focus product)9.1%
Other81.3%
Software Configuration Management
 

Featured Reviews

it_user808977 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Developer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
It can be adapted to any process flow
ClearQuest is a Defect Tracking system with a highly adaptable state machine together with an easy to use API, which can do all of the functions available in the GUI. This simplifies integration and automation of many steps is why the organization still uses a much older version, as there are no…
reviewer1527093 - PeerSpot reviewer
Development Team Lead at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Very flexible with Johnny-on-the-spot tech support
I would like to see them enable parallel development for online. It's available now for batch stuff on the mainframe. Jenkins, IBM, and Rocket all supposedly already have safe and workable version of Git for the mainframe. With that in mind, we need to know where our feature is. Unfortunately, as good as ChangeMan is, if we're listing downfalls, they should be talking to me about this. Not me having to go talk to them about it. Hopefully, they have this in the works and they are positioning their product for the future. That's just a straightforward comment. It really comes down to whether they are complacent or not. The other thing that should improve is cost. Git, even on the mainframe, a large part of the components "free". They're the way you set them up yourselves and they're self-sustaining and built into the infrastructure. You can't charge me for that. I gave ChangeMan an overall score of eight, but what could drive them to a nine is coming up with a way for all my code that belongs together to be tracked and moved together. Everything should move based upon the mainframe; it needs to be alerted and synchronized.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It can be adapted to any process flow and easily be integrated with other in-house tools using the ClearQuest API."
"In combination with a good Configuration Management plan, an organization can create an optimal level of administration and automation creating good traceability in your tasks."
"Customization level of the tool to meet client’s requirements, you can do almost all of the customizations for a project or ticket management system, and notification, hooks, and UI customization are very stable."
"This enabled us to completely migrate from paper-based forms to electronic forms for a number of business areas."
"The combination of a highly flexible state machine together with a platform independent API enables possibilities to automate many steps that in many systems are manual."
"The workflow feature with stateful record types and the ability to implement these rapidly in our project have been of value to us."
"Scalability is great; it has absolutely met every need for us so far, and we do have some concurrent development paths where we're able to flexibly assign variables while our skeletons assemble where we want them to, so the scalability is very good."
"We audit once a year for our ChangeMan access, accurate financial programs, and all of that. Auditors really love ChangeMan for how easy it is to get through and how tight the security is on it. Our internal auditors, external auditors, and SOX editors love this solution. We're in the healthcare business, so HIPAA regulations and all such things are a big deal, and this makes all that really simple."
"What’s most valuable to me is the ability to compile the code and move it through the test and productions environments."
"Auditors really love ChangeMan for how easy it is to get through and how tight the security is on it."
"Scalability is great. It has absolutely met every need for us so far. We do have some concurrent development paths and we're able to flexibly assign variables. At the same time, our skeletons assemble where we want them to, so the scalability is very good."
 

Cons

"Lack of a modern web interface compared to other systems might discourage customers."
"The user interface could benefit from a more modern look and feel."
"It’s very expensive, especially considering that there are much more economical options out there."
"However, the user interface seems very static and the user experience was not the best."
"Lack of a modern web interface compared to other systems might discourage customers."
"As such, there's nothing wrong with the product. It is great, but there are small things that can be better to make it much more friendly. The way you navigate through fields can be improved. If I'm going to stage a component over something that exists and that I've created in another library, and I want to pull it in and write it over what I've got there in my package, I've got to type in that data set name every time. That can be aggravating. It is not a big deal. The way things are sorted can also be improved. If you're doing a delete of a bunch of components, you can't sort those out by type or anything. Some things are just standard, and you can't look at them in a way that would be helpful."
"I would like to see them enable parallel development for online. It's available now for batch stuff on the mainframe."
"I would like to see them enable parallel development for online. It's available now for batch stuff on the mainframe. Jenkins, IBM, and Rocket all supposedly already have safe and workable version of Git for the mainframe. With that in mind, we need to know where our feature is."
"I would like to see a better search tool."
"Their technical support is not so good. To be perfectly honest, that's one of the reasons we were looking at other solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It's on a yearly basis. I am not aware of any additional costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
33%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Government
5%
Insurance Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Insurance Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Non Profit
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
No data available
 

Also Known As

Rational ClearQuest
Open Text, Micro Focus ChangeMan ZMF
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Atos SE, STM, Regence BlueCross BlueShield
SPTS Technologies, Generali France, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. (BBH), Kutxa-Vital-Banco Madrid, Space and Naval Warfare Information Technology Center (SPAWAR ITC)
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational ClearQuest vs. Rocket ChangeMan ZMF (formerly a Micro Focus product) and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.