Likelihood to Recommend Beyond Compare is extremely good at the task of comparisons, whether that is text file comparisons or folder comparisons. It does a great job of easily highlighting the differences for users, and giving them the option of merging (in the case of text files) or synchronizing (in the case of folders.) In either case, no one on my team has ever had any reason to reach for another different tool.
Read full review Polarion ALM shines where it is intended to be used: Application Lifecycle Management. It fits well with agile development concepts, but the extensive customization abilities allow it to adapt to other concepts, too. It is suitable as an all-in-one solution, which is capable of giving transparency over all related areas, be it Requirement Management, Test Management, Release Management, Defect Management, etc., to the involved stakeholders.
Read full review Pros Folder diffing. It allows you to see differences in deeply nested folder structures. File diffing. It allows you to see differences in files no matter their complexity. Diffing rules. It allows you to set rules to include/exclude files, folders and lines from your comparison. Read full review Requirements Management: Polarion ALM provides a centralized repository for capturing and managing requirements. Teams can define, organize, and link requirements to other artifacts like test cases and development tasks. Test Management: Polarion ALM facilitates end-to-end test management. Teams can create detailed test cases, manage test execution, and track test results. Traceability and Impact Analysis: Polarion ALM ensures traceability across all phases of the development lifecycle. Users can establish links between requirements, test cases, development tasks, and other artifacts. This traceability helps in impact analysis, allowing teams to understand how changes in one area may affect other parts of the project. Customization and Adaptability: Polarion ALM is highly customizable to fit the unique needs of different organizations and industries. Users can create custom workflows, define custom fields, and adapt the tool to their specific development processes. Read full review Cons For date formatting discrepancies the software does not automatically mark the dates as equivalent; for instance ‘2019/10/15’ vs. ‘15-OCT-2019’. This would be considered a difference. The columns/report must be ordered similarly. If extra data is available in one file, it should be removed or extra rows will be marked as differences. For spreadsheet comparison, the user must save the file on the proper tab and then “recompare” within the tool. There is no way to switch between sheets in the software. Read full review More robust engine as far as the actual took is concerned. There are navigation components in trace to reporting which we feel can be improved especially when dealing with cross global accessing of the tool. It slows us down a bit so it's backend driven optimization as well as some front end "clunkiness" that can be improved. Improve some filtering capabilities especially in creating custom reports and generally all around the ALM components of the tool. As of the version we have, the ability to enhance replationship types in traceability is limited. Read full review Likelihood to Renew There is too much at stake to go into a new system. But with everything else being promised as far as newer more innovative products, the justification to not renew is a huge risk so that is not a concern
Read full review Usability Again, given the intuitive nature of this program, there is barely any learning curve needed. It is simple, reliable, accurate, and just one of those tools you always have with you and rarely think about until you don't have it. Then it is a case of OMG what was I thinking? This program is just very easy to use, and that makes it more valuable to me than some of my other software tools that cost significantly more.
Read full review Support Rating I have never needed support for this product other than learning how to use a new feature I was not familiar with. User forums and user groups that have used this product for their own purposes have always sufficed for anything that I needed help using with the product. Some of the features could be a little better outlined, but overall very easy to use.
Read full review Alternatives Considered We've tried many:
Code Compare , Meld, UltraCompare, and WinMerge. None of them have the depth of features and speed to handle the work we throw at Beyond Compare. The multi-tabbed interface allows us to sync multiple servers at the same time. It understands multiple file types, metadata, and encodings. It's the best tool for the job.
Read full review Polarion ALM has the best usability, extensibility and reactiv product management. The support is also very good compared to other companies. Or in other words it is closer to the customer. Codebeamer is for sure also a good ALM tool with a great feature set, but existing customers are often neglected. We will see, what PTC as the new owner of codebeamer will change at this point.
Read full review Return on Investment It's made it quick and easy to compare and synchronize directories when restoring a backup or copying code from one environment to another one. There are times when it would be a painstaking task to manually compare or sync two different directories, but BeyondCompare made it a trivial task. Read full review Many of our customers have achieved things that they could not have done without Polarion Possibility to make engineering enjoyable and not so documentation oriented (especially in regulated industries) Automatic and all the time up-to-date reporting gives savings in time Information reuse is typically giving benefits in resource use and time-to-market. Up to 40% reduction in time-to-market seen. 10-20% reduction in R&D cost is typically achievable Read full review ScreenShots