Jira vs Polarion ALM comparison

Atlassian and Siemens are both solutions in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category. Atlassian is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4, while Siemens is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3. Atlassian holds a 13.3% mindshare in ALM, compared to Siemens’s 6.4% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Atlassian users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Siemens users who would recommend it.

Jira

Read 277 Jira reviews

13,526 Views
7,575 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Polarion ALM

Read 24 Polarion ALM reviews

3,418 Views
3,145 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Jira

Polarion ALM

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Jira and Polarion ALM compete in the project management category. Jira seems to have the upper hand due to its flexibility and extensive plugin ecosystem, which cater to a broad range of user needs.

Features: Jira is widely adopted for its bug tracking, issue tracking, and project management capabilities. It offers strong API integration, extensive plugin support, and excellent functionality for Agile methodologies. Polarion ALM excels in requirements management, traceability, and compliance. Its strengths include real-time collaboration and managing complex, regulated environments.

Room for Improvement: Jira faces challenges such as customization complexity and a less user-friendly interface for complex enterprise needs. Its integration with testing tools often requires third-party plugins. Polarion ALM requires improvements in modernizing its user interface, easing third-party tool integration, and simplifying the setup process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Jira provides a flexible deployment model with options for public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises. Customer service relies on community support, though direct support is responsive. Polarion ALM also offers diverse deployment options, including hybrid and on-premises, but with more complex deployment processes. Its customer service is responsive but could improve in ease and speed of access.

Pricing and ROI: Jira is competitively priced, especially suited for small to medium-sized enterprises. Its user-based pricing model can become expensive with scaling, yet it is considered valuable for its functionality. Polarion ALM is generally more expensive, which can be prohibitive for smaller organizations. Both solutions enhance productivity and management efficiency, with Jira offering more customization options through plugins.

To learn more, read our detailed Jira vs. Polarion ALM Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Jira vs. Polarion ALM

December 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

Jira

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

277

Ranking in other categories

Application Requirements Management (2nd), Project Management Software (1st)

Polarion ALM

Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Jira is 13.3%, down from 22.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 6.4%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Jira	13.3%
Polarion ALM	6.4%
Other	80.3%

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites

Featured Reviews

Akhil Viswam

Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Agile workflows have streamlined sprint planning and tracking for faster feature delivery

Jira has a very good interface and it is very easy to manage sprints, tasks, and epics. The main feature is the hierarchy, as features can be converted into epics and topics, allowing bigger tasks to be partitioned into smaller ones. The hierarchy feature in Jira helps the team significantly compared to other tools that have been used, such as Trello, which is mainly useful only for a waterfall model. For modern Agile practices, Jira is the most adapted tool in the industry. Another valuable feature is that Jira APIs have been used for data science projects to analyze tasks and get insights. This has also been very helpful in the project.

Read full review

LasseMikkonen

Principal Consultant at byte

Has provided mature traceability and configuration features while supporting complex product development for mid-to-large companies

Polarion ALM can learn from Atlassian tools a lot, as the usability is not the best, and it is really narrowly focused on requirements management only. For example, if you want to do testing and test result management with it, it is very limited. Jama Connect has similar limitations, and both should really focus on developing the integrations and extendability. For example, Jama Connect does not even have an extension marketplace, whereas Polarion has a small one. However, compared to the Atlassian Marketplace where you can get whatever applications for whatever price, it is a totally different ballgame. I would highly recommend Polarion ALM add more AI features to it. I know they have started to do something, but for example, I have been developing widgets for IBM DOORS Next, AI widgets, so that you can write and analyze requirements with the AI, and I have also done the same for Jira, creating a couple of Jira applications in the marketplace as well.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have found the structure, functionality, and how Jira handles the tickets most valuable."

"It is easy to integrate Jira within our current IT environment. Jira has connectors and supports various integration."

"The most valuable feature is its flexibility."

"The most valuable feature of Jira is the integration with all the different Atlassian tools. They all integrate very easily."

"The most valuable features in Jira are the dashboard, reports, and boards that help us to control the advancement of the project."

"The design of the interface is clean and not too busy visually."

"Jira's integration with our workflow is deep, and we rely on it heavily for software development."

"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its ability to connect everything together."

More Jira pros

"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."

"Polarion ALM's integration is very good and easy to use."

"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 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."

"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."

"We had a nice experience with technical support."

"The best feature of Polarion ALM to me is its traceability link."

More Polarion ALM pros

Cons

"In general, although we use JIRA, we never really learned how to use it properly. The learning curve of the solution is high. It has a lot of power, and yet we don't understand its capabilities."

"There needs to be a way to export a user story."

"When you first start to use the interface, it is confusing."

"They can maybe dumb down the directions for building the automation a little bit because to be able to build out the automation, I had to play around with it and learn what all the fields meant and what they were referencing. I don't have an IT background originally. My background is in biology, and I got into project management by chance. I am good at it, but I haven't really worked with coding languages. In terms of writing automation, it is easier for devs because they intuitively know what they're being asked, but as a PM who originally didn't have IT experience, it was a little bit daunting at first. It could also have an extra hierarchy to be able to allow tasks under stories. It could be the way it is set up at our organization, but currently, under stories, you can have sub-tasks, but you can't create a task. Being able to customize your hierarchy a little bit more would be beneficial because sometimes, the devs would say, "Well, here's a story, and now we need sub-tasks," but as we were building out the sub-tasks, sometimes we had to go a step lower to dig in a little bit more, and we couldn't do that."

"Of course, the price could always be cheaper."

"My main concern is the administration of projects, especially user groups, and this requires root access rights but there is no concept of layered admin rights."

"The only thing that JIRA doesn't for us is release management in a way that I can create a list of versions easily."

"Sometimes, we create the same bug with two or three different Jira tickets in my company, which leads to duplication, making it an area where improvements are required."

More Jira cons

"I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system."

"Integration requires a lot of effort. You typically need to work with an implementation partner to get it done. Most connectors available for Polarion ALM are paid. Unlike other vendors offering several standard connectors for free, integrating third-party software with Polarion ALM involves discussing and coordinating with the third-party software providers, which requires effort."

"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."

"The most important thing for them to improve should be platform-independent features. They should also provide extensive pipelines and release pipelines that we can define and we can work on."

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

"The solution's editing capabilities need improvement."

"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."

"The planning and task management aspects of the solution were not that easy."

More Polarion ALM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you get larger, the pricing becomes very, very steep."

"I am not sure if the client is using a commercial version. I think it is on a per-user basis, and it is around 15 Canadian dollars for a user, but I'm not sure. It also has a free version."

"I don't feel that price is an issue."

"Its price is fine, but we would like it to be less expensive. We are paying on a yearly basis."

"It is an affordable tool."

"We had a perpetual license but have changed to a subscription."

"If I compare Jira's licensing model with that of other products, I think that the other products have a much better licensing model."

"I think the starter pack of three users, up to five users, is free. So you can try it out."

More Jira pricing and cost advice

"It is an expensive product."

"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."

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

"The solution is expensive."

"Software for medical devices is always expensive."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

29%

Computer Software Company

11%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	105
Midsize Enterprise	56
Large Enterprise	150

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

Is Jira better or would you go with Micro Focus ALM Octane?

Hi Netanya, Basically , it all depends on the use cases for your environment and the business needs. Hope the below data may be relevant to you for identifying your needs and deciding on the approp...

See all answers

Which is better - Jira or Microsoft Azure DevOps?

Jira is a great centralized tool for just about everything, from local team management to keeping track of products and work logs. It is easy to implement and navigate, and it is stable and scalabl...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jira?

Jira itself is fairly priced for the features it provides, but pricing is a bit higher than some alternatives, mostly because many plugins and add-ons are paid and licensed per user. So even if onl...

See all answers

What do you like most about Polarion ALM?

It is a very stable solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?

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

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Jira

Compared 8% of the time

IBM DOORS vs Jira

Compared 7% of the time

OpenText Software Delivery Management vs Jira

Compared 6% of the time

Rally Software vs Jira

Compared 4% of the time

ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management vs Jira

Compared 3% of the time

More Jira Competitors

Codebeamer vs Polarion ALM

Compared 28% of the time

Microsoft Azure DevOps vs Polarion ALM

Compared 12% of the time

Jama Connect vs Polarion ALM

Compared 8% of the time

PTC Integrity vs Polarion ALM

Compared 6% of the time

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) vs Polarion ALM

Compared 4% of the time

More Polarion ALM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Jira

January 2026

Download Jira product report

Buyer's Guide

Polarion ALM

January 2026

Download Polarion ALM product report

Also Known As

Jira Software

No data available

Overview

Jira is a powerful cloud- and subscription-based application lifecycle and issue management solution. It is designed to aid users both in project management and in resolving any issues that arise at any point in the software development process. It is especially concerned with easing the ability of developers to collaborate.

Jira Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy Jira include:

DevOps lifecycle visibility and planning. Jira provides application developers with tools that enable them to track and visualize where they are in the development process. This means that a DevOps team can measure their progress at all times. Jira’s roadmapping feature also enables a DevOps team to work more efficiently by setting goals for their projects, keeping them on track. Additionally, they are able to track whether they are meeting the goals that they set for their projects.

Regular product updates. Atlassian is constantly updating Jira so that it is continuously evolving into an ever more powerful and user-friendly solution. Users can be sure that the product that they are using is always being tweaked so as to provide them with the best possible project management solution.

Flexibility. Jira enables users to customize their workflows and dashboard so that the solution is operating in a way that best matches their needs. Jira can also integrate with more than 3,000 other applications and integrations. Organizations can use it to expand their project management and DevOps capabilities in many different ways.

Jira Features

Security capabilities. Jira is equipped with a number of useful security features. It gives administrators the ability to restrict access to certain tools so that only users who are authorized to complete certain tasks have access to the tools related to the completion of that task. Users can also set default permissions so that only particular users can work on new projects or particular projects.

Real-time notification feature. Users can set Jira so that it offers them notifications that contain critical information in real time. It can send users email notifications when pressing issues have been updated. They can also set it to notify them about tasks that may be due, or other similar events.
Activity log. Jira has the ability to track any and all changes that are taking place within the software framework. Users can keep a close eye on everything that is going on. This promotes a high level of visibility and can be leveraged to aid developers in their collaboration efforts.

Reviews from Real Users

Jira is a powerful solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its workflow engine and its highly customizable dashboard.

Bharath R., the tool implementation and project management lead at a financial services firm, writes, “I feel the strongest feature of Jira is its workflow engine. It empowers us to automate our workflows within our organization. It's the one characteristic of Jira which I think can help any organization, be it in any domain.”

Uday J., a staff engineer at a computer company, says, “Another thing that I like a lot about Jira is that in the dashboard, you can plug the modules that you want. You can enable certain sections. For example, you can show trend history, open Jira tickets, etc. Some of the managers have created a dashboard for each engineer.”

Atlassian

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

Square, Nasa, eBay, Cisco, SalesForce, Adobe, BNP Paribas, BMW and LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.

Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group

Buyer's Guide

Jira vs. Polarion ALM

December 2025

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