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TFS vs Zephyr Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 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

TFS
Ranking in Test Management Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (9th)
Zephyr Enterprise
Ranking in Test Management Tools
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Test Management Tools category, the mindshare of TFS is 5.4%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zephyr Enterprise is 5.1%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Test Management Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
TFS5.4%
Zephyr Enterprise5.1%
Other89.5%
Test Management Tools
 

Featured Reviews

PS
Service delivery manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Ensures team collaboration with strong version control but could improve testing capabilities
Version control is the most basic feature in TFS. It has been there since the beginning. We use it primarily for that purpose. Basically ensuring that the code is not overwritten by other team members and maintaining the sanctity of the code. Bringing order to a disparate team which is virtual at different locations is very important, and TFS provides that control. Once you update a code, nobody can modify it until you are done working on it and check in. It is a great product that revolutionized the way teams work together on Microsoft pieces of code. The versioning part has unique features and capabilities which are unmatched with other products out there.
JM
Director - Quality Engineering at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Integration with tool streamlines test management but needs better exporting options
I use it for test management within Jira This tool boasts an incredibly user-friendly interface that integrates seamlessly with other Jira tools. I particularly appreciate its intuitive features for designing test plans, creating test cases, and executing test cycles. Some areas for improvement,…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a flexible tool which can be adopted to our own way of work, that allows us to enhance and continuously improve our ability to deliver great and quality software to our clients."
"It's user friendly. We haven't had any issues so far. It's flexible. If we need something, we can always contact the owner in our headquarters to make a configuration."
"You could use a less expensive product, but if you need integration with MS Visual Studio this is the best product."
"Since it is a robust solution, I face no performance issues. Also, considering how well the implementation process of the solution was carried out, we never faced any issues while using the solution."
"TFS is used to check source code and revision control, ensuring we do not have to do source control on our own, and as a programmer the product does exactly what I need from it."
"For what I need TFS for, I have never run into any limitation."
"With TFS online, now everything is in the cloud, it is tidy and easy to compare and restore, especially my unfinished work, where I use the shelving changes feature."
"It's an integrated system that includes all the information that we need to deliver our products smoothly and to track the progress of each piece of code."
"It has many features, but the main things that we need are the test cycles and integration with automation because we have automation for the web and mobile applications. We use it for test case management to run the test cases and get the results. At this moment, it is fulfilling our requirements. We are able to get the test execution report and the test pass and fail report. This summary is delivered to our management."
"Zephyr really improves the testing of the product on many levels - planning, test case creation, automation goals, test reporting, and verification of the testing."
"If anyone is looking for a good, lightweight, flexible and agile test management product, I think they would do very well with Zephyr Enterprise."
"Now, we are getting consolidated reports in one place, we have all our metrics and repository together, and this is helpful."
"Zephyr Enterprise is a stable solution."
"It has integration with test automation tools."
"We use the solution for test case management."
"It has a very intuitive user experience."
 

Cons

"The dashboard and the customization of dashboards is an area they have to work on."
"It has been really dated. When you start to work more in an agile environment, it is not really that flexible. They tried to replicate the look and feel of Jira, but it is not quite there. It was nice to use in the past, but it is not as flexible now with the changing development environments and methodologies."
"The usability of TFS is not that great."
"I think the testing tools need some work."
"The dashboard needs more enhancements."
"The user interface could be improved to make it simpler and increase usability."
"The solution is stable but could improve."
"It is very difficult to delete work items from the database."
"For JIRA, in comparison to other solutions, such as TestRail, Zephyr is good, but it is not as good as DFS."
"Creating better default varieties of reporting would make the product much better and more popular."
"We would like support for the agile and behavior-driven development (BDD) approaches."
"The solution is not really stable. Sometimes in the past, some pages wouldn't load due to issues."
"We faced some errors while uploading the test cases."
"We have a lot of automation for our products, and we require a utility for its integration with automation. Currently, we have to write this utility ourselves. It would be great if they can provide such a utility."
"Additionally, they could improve the daily reporting. It does generate reports, but they are screen based reports."
"The only thing I have missed is an easy way to configure showing the latest execution results of all test cases linked in JIRA (story/epic), thus, receiving the state of a feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are using the open-source version."
"We pay subscription fees on a yearly basis and the price is reasonable."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis. I don't know the current costs of them. We outsource all that to a third party. Each of the developers gets a Microsoft Visual Studio Azure DevOps license, which gives them access to the TFS server as well. We probably pay on average about 1,800 Canadian Dollars a year for every developer, but that covers a lot more than just TFS."
"TFS is more competitively priced than some other solutions."
"TFS is on the higher side, but if you intend to use the tool as a complete ALM tool, it will reduce your costs in the long run."
"It is an expensive solution."
"If running TFS on-premise is expensive, maybe you could consider moving to the Cloud and use the Visual Studio Team Services."
"I wouldn't say that this tool is cheap or expensive but in the middle."
"DFS is more expensive than Zephyr. DFS is around $32 per person, whereas Zephyr is $10 per person. There is a major difference in the price, which is the main reason why we are trying to shift to Zephyr."
"It costs a couple of thousand dollars for a little more than 125 users, per month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise64
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TFS?
While I do not know the exact pricing, TFS is likely more expensive than GitLab.
What needs improvement with TFS?
From a testing perspective, while the build and deploy automation capability and pipeline integration are already present to a great extent, these are areas where TFS can improve further.
What needs improvement with Zephyr Enterprise?
Some areas for improvement, include its export capabilities. Exporting test cases, especially those with screenshots or attachments, can be cumbersome, hindering easy sharing and scalability.
What advice do you have for others considering Zephyr Enterprise?
I would recommend it mainly for manual testing and test management. Within Zephyrscale, they also have automated testing, however, I would recommend it only for test management. The overall rating ...
 

Also Known As

Team Foundation Server
SmartBear Zephyr
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Vendex KBB IT Services, Info Support, Fujitsu Consulting, TCSC, Airways New Zealand, HP
Hyundai, Fujitsu, Google, David Jones, Burger King, Ingenico, Websense, Dow Jones, Harris, Saab
Find out what your peers are saying about TFS vs. Zephyr Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.