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Microsoft Azure DevOps 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

Microsoft Azure DevOps
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
2nd
Ranking in Enterprise Agile Planning Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
132
Ranking in other categories
Release Automation (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
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure DevOps is 17.5%, down from 24.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 8.1%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

Ivan Angelov - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates agile transformation with potential for enhanced intuitiveness
What I liked about the solution is that it offers numerous features that are not available by default unless you are agile. Transitioning from the traditional Waterfall model to an agile methodology was challenging for us. Until 2020, our team predominantly worked with the Waterfall approach, using local tools like ServiceNow. We had a few team members who were familiar with Agile ISO, but none had experience with Azure. Therefore, we pursued Azure certification at the AZ-900 level. Our company organized a training session with a certified Azure expert, which was extremely beneficial for adopting best practices during the initial three months. This preparation helped us get accustomed to the new tool, as transitioning to a new system invariably requires time. Managing a pipeline of deliverables became significantly easier with this solution. We utilized it for stories and integrated change management with Azure DevOps. Eventually, everything related to the environment was organized there, enabling us to follow up and track progress with our technical engineers on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis. Reports were automatically generated and sent to management, offering them insights into our progress concerning the predefined roadmap.
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

"This solution is stable."
"Microsoft Azure DevOps integrates well with other components, such as Synapse, which is a data warehouse tool of Azure. It is a framework platform for BI and integrated with other tools, such as Power BI."
"The simplicity is very good and the customer experience is also great."
"Version control practices have been perfect for us. It maintains a detailed history and is integrated with GitHub, which is also a Microsoft product. It is quite a game-changer."
"The solution is scalable."
"The nice thing about Visual Studio Code is that it's a modular design. So if you're working on a strange language that has a different syntax, you can just get a plugin that'll format your code for you based on the language it's in."
"The simplicity and ease of use are two features that we have found to be most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is that we can run integrations with DevOps. From a QA perspective and a testing perspective, we can run those tests and integrate automation tools. Then we can run those tests as part of the deployment process. Every time we are deploying something, it automatically runs all the tests."
"The technical support is quite good."
"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."
"Scalability is good...The integration is quite good."
"The software is stable."
"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."
"It offers good performance."
"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 solution offers good integration."
 

Cons

"I would like to see better interoperability with the agile scaling frameworks."
"It is very difficult to integrate the product with third-party tools."
"It would be very useful if it had better integration with Microsoft Word because we would like to be able to define the priority requirement document and add it to different stages of the backlog."
"Better integration with the Linux operating system would be an improvement for this solution."
"Microsoft Azure DevOps could improve by having better integration with other email servers."
"The user management in the solution could improve."
"Azure DevOps is set up more for development and less for testing. If it is set up correctly, everyone can use it better, but it was set up from a development point of view, which means it is lacking in what I need from a testing perspective. Just like any other tool, it depends on how it is configured. I am not happy with the way it is set up. It is configured more from a development side, and it doesn't necessarily cater to all the other areas that probably need to use it, such as testing data, etc."
"I want DevOps to have more automated reminders about tasks that don't need management. We don't have reminders, so a project manager must track the tasks. It's not automatic."
"The tool needs to improve its planning. It also needs to add more integrations."
"The solution can be improved by making it more user-friendly, and a server-based application rather than client based."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
"The interface for this solution needs to be made more user-friendly to provide a better user experience."
"Nowadays, the dashboard is too complex to be created."
"The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing features that are common in web-based applications."
"The solution needs to improve its user experience and graphics."
"The weak point of Polarion ALM software is about reporting and time for extraction of the data...The quality of reporting needs to improve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The main agile features are very expensive."
"The cost is quite affordable."
"As the cost structure is per user, I would recommend paying the cost structure based on the amount of data you use rather than the number of users."
"There are other solutions available that are open source and free, such as GitLab."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"The price is cheaper than Jira and some of the other competing tools."
"There are additional costs for some functionality, such as increased scalability."
"I am not aware of any licensing subscriptions for the solution."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
"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."
"The solution is 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."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"It is an expensive product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
26%
Computer Software Company
15%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Which is better - TFS or Azure DevOps?
TFS and Azure DevOps are different in many ways. TFS was designed for admins, and only offers incremental improvements. In addition, TFS seems complicated to use and I don’t think it has a very fri...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure DevOps?
Valuable features for project management and tracking in Azure DevOps include a portal displaying test results, check-in/check-out activity, and developer/tester productivity.
What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?
Polarion ALM ( /categories/application-lifecycle-management-alm-suites ) could see improvements in performance and scalability. The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing f...
What is your primary use case for Polarion ALM?
Polarion ALM ( /products/polarion-alm-reviews ) is a tool that delivers both document views and table views simultaneously. It organizes configurations according to norms and standards, making it s...
 

Also Known As

Azure DevOps, VSTS, Visual Studio Team Services, MS Azure DevOps
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alaska Airlines, Iberia Airlines, Columbia, Skype
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure DevOps vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.