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Jira Align vs Polarion ALM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 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

Jira Align
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
8th
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Value Stream Management Software (1st)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
6th
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Jira Align is 1.6%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 8.2%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

ShyiamaKishun - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a straightforward setup process and efficient project management features .
Jira Align supports program increment planning by facilitating the planning aspect, including team setup, dependency management, and defining the layout for each step or stage in a project. The platform aids in breaking down targets into parts, aligning with Agile principles, and ensuring a structured layout. The most impactful feature of Jira Align for project management lies in its capabilities related to planning and setting up projects. The platform visually understands targets, offering a clear and detailed layout. We can determine when to speed up the process or access the project. We can address the issues related to planning and development efficiently. It is a great product to use, aiding in project planning and alignment. I recommend it to others and rate it a ten out of ten.
Dina Bindi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use Jira Align for business strategies, collaboration, and reporting."
"The tool helps us to stick with the timeline and budget of our projects. It also helps me to identify dependencies and red flags and intervene wherever possible. I have found the key metrics tab also useful."
"The most valuable feature of Jira Align is the overall team vision."
"I found Confluence most valuable."
"The biggest advantage of Jira Align, in my opinion, is its user-friendly interface, making it simple and easy for end users to navigate and utilize. The most valuable feature of Jira Align for me is its automation capabilities, allowing us to create automation rules based on logical conditions for our projects. In terms of cross-team collaboration, Jira Align's integration with our project squads has been highly effective. It enables seamless creation of stories linked to incidents and changes, facilitating better visibility and understanding of the relationships between them. Regarding road mapping and dependency tracking, Jira Align enhances our project planning by aligning with our best practices and providing robust capabilities for mapping out dependencies and tracking progress."
"Jira Align helps us manage communication and tasks for a variety of teams without overlap."
"Some of the most valuable features are the configurations and dashboards."
"Jira is one of the most widely used tools in the market, and it has a vast amount of data already stored in it. Jira Align is crucial in orchestrating this data and providing valuable views and insights. However, it's essential for tools like Jira Align to offer configurable features. While complete customization might not always be feasible for enterprise-level tools, configurable features allow organizations to drive transformation accordingly."
"The initial setup of this solution was straightforward, and there were not too many problems with it."
"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."
"It offers good performance."
"It meets with everybody's needs without having to grab plugins."
"The software is stable."
"The most valuable feature is the function of the ALM system."
"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its browser experience. I rate its traceability feature a ten out of ten. From the initial stage to the release, you can manage everything through a single point."
 

Cons

"We have experienced errors with the internal server that occurs frequently."
"Jira Align fails to provide its users with a complete package in terms of portfolio management."
"The vendor should implement automation features"
"Jira Align's cost needs improvement."
"The platform's communication features could be more robust for better team integration."
"The solution’s stability could be improved."
"It would be helpful if they had something for capacity planning that was simpler to understand."
"The tool's corporate pricing is expensive."
"The weak point of Polarion ALM software is about reporting and time for extraction of the data...The quality of reporting needs to improve."
"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."
"The interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."
"The user interface is not yet optimized."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
"The solution's editing capabilities need improvement."
"The configuration aspect of the solution is not easy. A person needs a lot of programming knowledge in order to successfully handle the job."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The software is very good, but the price is expensive. Our licensing costs are on a monthly basis, but there are no additional costs to the standard license fees."
"Jira Align is quite expensive for small-to-medium companies, but it's quite reasonable for larger ones."
"The tool is moderately expensive."
"Jira Align's pricing is reasonable."
"The license for Jira Align is priced fairly."
"Jira Align was reasonably priced then, especially for a bundle license that accommodated around 50 monthly users."
"At our company, we were concerned about the cost of Jira Align, which is expensive"
"The pricing and licensing costs are rated lower, around six mainly due to significant increases in licensing costs that were not well-received by users."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"It is an expensive product."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Insurance Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Jira Align?
I joined the company because they had a large project, and as a startup company, they needed to scale up efficiently. My task was to review the current baseline, assess the team's capabilities, and...
What needs improvement with Jira Align?
The platform's communication features could be more robust for better team integration.
What is your primary use case for Jira Align?
We use Jira Align for business strategies, collaboration, and reporting. The solution allows us to manage the various products and features delivered on that platform.
What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?
The user interface of Polarion ALM needs improvement as it can experience changes that disrupt workflows, especially during major updates. Sometimes, database migrations take too long, spanning two...
What is your primary use case for Polarion ALM?
As a manual tester, I use Polarion ALM ( /products/polarion-alm-reviews ) for our weekly builds validation. These builds are crucial as they eventually lead to final release builds for customers. I...
 

Also Known As

AgileCraft
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Anthem, nielsen, Homeland Security, NCR, dimension data
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Jira Align vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.