OpenText ALM Octane vs. Polarion ALM

If someone is already using ALM Octane, then it is worth the pain to go through the upgrade process to get the current versions. If you need it to tie into Jira, it can do that. Just be prepared for a rough road. If you have some other product that you use for DevOps, PM, and QA, you will probably be better off sticking with what you have. DaVita also uses TFS, but not in a full implementation (i.e. not with a build server for code deployment), so for them, ALM makes a lot of sense. If you are using TFS with a build server, there are other methodologies that won't end up making you want to pull your hair out trying to make it integrate with what you are using.

Incentivized

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.

• Bug-logging and keeping track of the bug status.
• Integration with DevOps to do continuous testing.
• Keeping coordination between development and testing teams.

Incentivized

• 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.

• The integration to Synchronizer is very difficult to implement.
• The integration to Jira was very hard to get working.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

Customer support is very good takes minimal time to resolve the issue and always takes feedback seriously to improve the application.

Incentivized

Micro Focus ALM Octane use at DaVita goes back beyond my starting with them three years ago. They have used it as part of DevOps as well as for performance measurement of software releases in combo with HP Performance Center (a great combination). Jira is well suited to managing bug reports and development processes with Agile and Scrum, but ALM Octane goes above and beyond that.

Incentivized

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.

• It's had a very positive impact.
• Very good customer support as well when required.

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized