Azure DevOps vs. ZenTao

Azure DevOps works well when you’ve got larger delivery efforts with multiple teams and a lot of moving parts, and you need one place to plan work, track it properly, and see how everything links together. It’s especially useful when delivery and development are closely tied and you want backlog items, code and releases connected rather than spread across tools. Where it’s less of a fit is for small teams or simple pieces of work, as it can feel like more setup and process than you really need, and non-technical users often struggle with the interface. It also isn’t great if you want instant, easy programme-level views or a very visual planning experience without putting time into configuration.

Incentivized

I am very glad about the working speed of this tool. The comfort and support it has provided us in project management are worth appreciating because Project management is a big deal and using ZenTao has made it easy and fun for us as we can as a team better collaborate. But some of its features need to be fixed.

• Utilize Git as a repository to share work between multiple users
• Ability to configure Pipelines to build containers to run virtual deployments and testing scripts.
• Split individual tasks and relate to master documents for quick navigation and ability to see overall picture of project.
• Track status of each task
• Integrate with Git to utilize branches, merging, approvals, history, etc.

Incentivized

• Story could be linked with product, sprint, test case, bug, which makes traceability so great.
• Test module, with test case, case library, test request, test report, very detailed.
• On-Premise available, the package is very small based on LAMPP
• SaaS version even cheaper without your own IT maintenance support.
• Price really affordable.
• API call is easy, so that we could do customizations.

• I did mention it has good visibility in terms of linking, but sometimes items do get lost, so if there was a better way to manage that, that would be great.
• The wiki is not the prettiest thing to look at, so it could have refinements there.
• It could improve the search slightly better.

• The function of ZenTao mobile version is a little weak.
• ZenTao users need to receive training before they start using the software, because for testers, the first use of the software may be a little complicated, and they cannot execute the same test case multiple times in the same test execution process.
• Although there are many reports built in. But if you want to get the data yourself，You have to know how to write SQL to customize your reports, which can a little bit challenging.

I don't think our organization will stray from using VSTS/TFS as we are now looking to upgrade to the 2012 version. Since our business is software development and we want to meet the requirements of CMMI to deliver consistent and high quality software, this SDLC management tool is here to stay. In addition, our company uses a lot of Microsoft products, such as Office 365, Asp.net, etc, and since VSTS/TFS has proved itself invaluable to our own processes and is within the Microsoft family of products, we will continue to use VSTS/TFS for a long, long time.

Incentivized

It's a great help to get more information about new feature release and stay updated on what the dev team is working on. I like how easy it is to just login and read through the work items. Each work item has basic details: Title, Description, Assigned to, State, Area (what it belongs to), and iteration (when it’s worked on). See image above.They move through different states (New → Discovery → Ready for Prod → etc.).

Incentivized

When we've had issues, both Microsoft support and the user community have been very responsive. DevOps has an active developer community and frankly, you can find most of your questions already asked and answered there. Microsoft also does a better job than most software vendors I've worked with creating detailed and frequently updated documentation.

Incentivized

Was not part of the process.

Incentivized

Microsoft Planner is used by project managers and IT service managers across our organization for task tracking and running their team meetings. Azure DevOps works better than Planner for software development teams but might possibly be too complex for non-software teams or more business-focused projects. We also use ServiceNow for IT service management and this tool provides better analysis and tracking of IT incidents, as Azure DevOps is more suited to development and project work for dev teams.

Incentivized

ZenTao defines bugs, tasks, and stories separately, not just an ISSUE. I can oversee the development from creating a Product Backlog to releasing the increment. I can also collect and record product feedback from the client and share with my team.

• We have saved a ton of time not calculating metrics by hand.
• We no longer spend time writing out cards during planning, it goes straight to the board.
• We no longer track separate documents to track overall department goals. We were able to create customized icons at the department level that lets us track each team's progress against our dept goals.

Incentivized

• We are delivering projects on time and can keep an eye on the progress of our projects.
• My team and I can better communicate on a project.
• As it is [in my experience], buggy it sometimes results in disturbing the whole working of our company.