No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

OpenText Application Quality Management vs Polarion ALM comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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

OpenText Application Qualit...
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
208
Ranking in other categories
Quality Management Software (1st), Test Management Tools (1st)
Polarion ALM
Ranking in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites category, the mindshare of OpenText Application Quality Management is 7.7%, up from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polarion ALM is 4.3%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenText Application Quality Management7.7%
Polarion ALM4.3%
Other88.0%
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites
 

Featured Reviews

GS
Partner at IS Nordic AS
Manages multiple releases seamlessly
We have done some work with companies, probably four or five years ago and found the ability to manage multiple releases simultaneously as a main advantage, especially in complex programs with multiple concurrent releases. Running automated tests against back-level versions in certain environments is possible, and newer versions can be tested as well. It creates constant visibility into the test process, showing the status, bugs, and automated test results. It is a solid product in large corporations in Denmark, ensuring everyone knows where the process stands. There is a good understanding of what is critical, allowing prioritization of test cases.
LasseMikkonen - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO 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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What they do best is test management. That's their strong point."
"The user interface is fully web-capable; it's a website, and it runs on a browser."
"We mostly use the Defect module and then Test Plan, Test Lab, but if you ask about the most valuable feature it is the customization of any action in the ALM client."
"ALM/Quality Center is expensive, but it has its value and, in certain cases, the Enterprise edition is way too much, but it is very stable and reliable."
"At a Fortune 100 company, we achieved a reduction of 30% of defects in the first year and decreasing percentages the subsequent years."
"Using Quality Center as one tool helped us to track just one tool from beginning to end."
"As a stand-alone test management tool, it's a good tool."
"Allowed us to centralize our test efforts from end to end so that we have a single source of truth for all of our test artifacts and data."
"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."
"This one tool incorporates almost all engineering tasks we need to do for one project."
"The features I find the most valuable are requirement tracking and schematics."
"It is a very stable solution."
"We had a nice experience with technical support."
"Polarion ALM delivers both document views and table views simultaneously and organizes configurations according to norms and standards."
"Polarion ALM has some valuable tools for managing our targets and requirements. I think that's its best feature."
"Even though Polarion is quite expensive, it's quite a good solution for medical device development in general, especially for software development."
 

Cons

"The BPT also known as Business Process Testing can sometimes be very time intensive and sometimes might not be very intuitive to someone who is not familiar with BPT."
"I'd like to see the concept of teams put into it."
"The session timeout time needs to be longer in my opinion."
"We need to move test cases manually from Test Case module to Test Execution module. This consumes more manual interaction."
"What happens is, we're having to use multiple products to come to one goal."
"As soon as it's available on-premises we want to move to ALM Octane as it's mainly web based, has the capability to work with major tests, and integrates with Jenkins for continuous integration."
"The dashboard was not working at first. Later on, it was difficult to customize it."
"The solution's reporting could be improved."
"The solution's editing capabilities need improvement."
"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."
"Test management lacks an automated process."
"I don't think that this solution scales well. It means that we have to split our project and use something with fewer objects in it."
"The system’s technology is not the most current, leading to missing features that are common in web-based applications."
"I also recently suggested that CMS consider incorporating generative artificial intelligence into the system."
"One of Polarion's shortcomings would be planning. It can handle plans, but the planning feature is very basic."
"Technical support needs some improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'd rate the pricing as 3/10 as it's very expensive."
"The cost of licensing depends on the number of VMs that you are running test cases on and it is not cheap."
"This is an expensive solution."
"It's a perpetual license."
"It has several limitations in adapting its agility easily."
"The full ALM license lets you use the requirements tab, along with test automation and the Performance Center. You can also just buy the Quality Center edition (Manual testing only), or the Performance Center version (Performance Testing only)."
"Seat and concurrent licensing models exist; the latter is recommended if a large number of different users will be utilizing the product."
"I've never been in the procurement process for it. I don't think it is cheap. Some of the features can be quite expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"The license model is okay for large companies but would be quite expensive for smaller enterprises."
"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."
"Software for medical devices is always expensive."
"You have to pay around 50-60 euros per user."
"If the pricing would come down and it was more affordable then we wouldn't have to switch."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites solutions are best for your needs.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
30%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise32
Large Enterprise161
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus ALM Quality Center?
The on-premises setup tends to be on the expensive side. It would be cheaper to use a cloud model with a pay-per-use licensing model.
What needs improvement with Micro Focus ALM Quality Center?
Regarding integration with various development tools, I can provide examples, and I am using customizable dashboards in OpenText ALM _ Quality Center, which definitely help identify project bottlen...
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus ALM Quality Center?
People are using OpenText ALM _ Quality Center for recording user cases, testing and hand documentation, defect tracking, business purposes, and reporting.
What needs improvement with Polarion ALM?
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 te...
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...
What advice do you have for others considering Polarion ALM?
The pricing of Polarion ALM and IBM ELM is pretty much aligned. They are not at the same level, but I would say aligned according to the capabilities of the tools, with DOORS being more expensive b...
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus ALM Quality Center, HPE ALM, Quality Center, Quality Center, Micro Focus ALM, OpenText Quality Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbus Defense and Space, Vodafone, JTI, Xellia, and Banco de Creìdito e Inversiones (Bci)
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica, IBS AG, Zumtobel Group
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Application Quality Management vs. Polarion ALM and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.