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15 Best ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) Tools & Software for 2024

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As software development becomes increasingly complex and fast-paced, it is more important than ever for teams to have effective Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools to manage their projects. ALM tools provide a suite of features to help teams manage every stage of the software development process, from requirements gathering to deployment and beyond. With so many ALM tools available, it can be overwhelming to choose the right one for your team’s needs. In this guide, we will explore the 15 best ALM tools of 2024, based on their features, performance, usability, and user reviews. Whether you are a small development team or a large enterprise, this guide will provide you with the information you need to select an ALM tool that best suits your requirements.

What is Application Lifecycle Management?

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is a set of practices, processes, and tools that are used to manage the complete lifecycle of a software application, from initial requirements gathering to final deployment and beyond. ALM encompasses the entire software development process, from ideation and planning to maintenance and retirement.

The goal of ALM is to ensure that software applications are developed and maintained efficiently and effectively, in order to meet the needs of end-users and stakeholders. This includes managing requirements, designing and developing software, testing and quality assurance, deployment and release, and ongoing maintenance and support.

ALM typically involves the use of a variety of tools and technologies, including requirements management, project management, version control, continuous integration and delivery, testing and quality assurance, and issue tracking. By using a comprehensive set of tools and processes, ALM helps teams to collaborate more effectively, reduce errors, and improve the quality and reliability of their software applications.

Top 15 Application Lifecycle Management Tools

Visure Requirements ALM Platform

Visure is one of the most trusted modern ALM platforms that specialize in requirements management for organizations of all sizes across the globe. The company integrates through the whole ALM processes including risk management, issue and defect tracking, traceability management, change management, and various other areas like quality analysis, requirements versioning, and powerful reporting.

  1. Pros:
    1. Standards & Compliances – Visure helps with compliance with various important industry standards including DO-178B, DO-178C, DO-254, ISO-26262, and ISO 21434. Moreover, Visure also supports SPICE compliance, CMMI, and FMEA as well.
    2. Traceability – Visure also helps you in maintaining full traceability between your system and all the software requirements, risks, tests, and other artifacts. Furthermore, Visure assists you in generating full traceability reports as well.
    3. Multi-tier Collaboration – Visure supports XML-based standards, like ReqIF and XRI, that help you in exchanging requirements between various different customers and suppliers. 
    4. Security – Visure ensures proper security of information and requirements. The tool does this through its rigorous access policy where only certain people can access the artifacts even at the elementary level. 
    5. Quality Analysis – Visure’s Quality Analyzer allows you to perform a semantic analysis of the requirements to identify the quality of the requirements. Therefore, if the requirements are low quality, the tool will automatically flag them with ambiguity or inconsistencies. 
    6. Version Control – Visure supports robust versioning control which allows you to completely re-trace all the versions of requirements in the project. It is an essential feature for any company as it helps the development team keep track of all the changes that are made over time.
    7. Data Models – Visure supports many development processes like Agile, V-model, etc. At Visure, we ensure to analyze the specific problems that are inherent in business models and provide a solutional data model for each specific need. These data models are customizable to relate to the client’s internal processes and can be enforced as required.
  2. Cons:
    1. If you’re currently working on a very short-term project with no cross-project impact, then you might be better off getting a lightweight tool like Jira.
    2. If you are currently working on an IT project with no criticality, perhaps this is not the tool you will be looking for.
  3. Pricing:
    1. Visure offers a free 30-day trial that can be downloaded from the website itself. Other details about pricing and demo can be found on Visure’s website.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – 4.5/5 (5+ reviews)
    2. Capterra – 4.9/5 (10+ reviews)

IBM DOORS

IBM DOORS is one of the oldest ALM tools in today’s market. The best thing IBM offers is great compatibility with other tools in the field. IBM offers flexible solutions suitable for large-scale enterprises along with high-level granularity and configurability.

  1. Pros:
    1. Standards – IBM supports easy compliance with various industry standards like ISO 26262 and ISO 21434. 
    2. Easy Operations – IBM allows you to easily create baselines, track versioning when detailed requirements are involved, and interlink the change requests directly to the initial documents. 
    3. Collaboration – IBM also helps in boosting collaboration among the team by managing the code, planning sprints, running standups, and tracking work in order to reduce rework. 
  2. Cons:
    1. The interface of DOORS is quite outdated and dull. 
    2. Importing images, pdfs, and text files in IBM can be a pain sometimes.
    3. IBM does not offer integration outside the IBM technology ecosystem making it difficult to adapt to other tools.
    4. IBM is also too expensive for small or medium organizations.
  3. Pricing:
    1. Basic plans start at $164 per month
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – 3.9/5 (100+ reviews)
    2. Capterra – 4.5/5 (2 reviews)

CodeBeamer

CodeBeamer is a tailor-made ALM tool by Intland Software for advanced products and software development. This tool comes up with pre-configured templates and compliance for Agile and DevOps-oriented organizations.

  1. Pros:
    1. Standards – CodeBeamer brings quality by adhering to various standards like ISO 26262 and IEC 61508. 
    2. Flexible – CodeBeamer is known to be quite flexible and a highly configurable tool. This tool supports quality analysis, audits, and reviews and further helps in generating custom-configurable QMS reports. 
    3. Supporting system – The supporting system from CodeBeamer is highly appreciated in the market. The reporting system is quite strong and keeps you up-to-date with the latest project progress. 
    4. Traceability and documentation – CodeBeamer is quite liked for the traceability it provides between all the requirements and other artifacts. The documentation assistance the tool provides is also quite liked in the market. 
  2. Cons:
    1. The tools seem to lack traceability among low-level requirements and source code.
    2. The user interface of the tools is also quite confusing and does not look really nice.
    3. It is also said that while the tool is suitable for IT-oriented organizations, the same can not be said for other types of organizations. 
  3. Pricing:
    1. Basic plan starts at $79 per month.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – 4.4/5 (100+ reviews)
    2. Capterra – 4.2/5 (25+ reviews)

Jama Software

Jama is a requirements management tool that provides a great platform for ALM, risk and test management. Jama assists you in building complex products and systems by improving cycle times and hence, enhancing the quality.

  1. Pros:
    1. Standards – Jama complies with various standards for quality and risk management, lifecycle management, and other regulatory requirements like ISO 26262, ISO 21434, and FMEA.
    2. Interface – Jama offers a quite modern and intuitive interface along with features like live traceability and an effective notification system. This enhances efficiency, and alignment, and mitigates the risks. 
    3. Easy Integration – Jama can be easily integrated with other tools like Jira and Azure DevOps. It also supports various development methodologies like Agile. 
  2. Cons:
    1. For beginners, Jama can take some time to get used to. 
    2. For the users who do not possess licenses, Jama limits the number of users and some other features as well. 
    3. The import and export feature is also not quite convenient in Jama. 
  3. Pricing:
    1. Available only when requested
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – 4.2/5 (100+ reviews)
    2. Capterra – 4.5/5 (10+ reviews)

Modern Requirements

Modern Requirements is a cloud-based ALM tool that integrates with Azure DevOps, TFS, and VSTS. It offers strong traceability to project managers throughout each stage of the process. Modern Requirements works for various industries like healthcare, banking, and technology. 

  1. Pros:
    1. Standards – Modern Requirements performs formal reviews to enhance the input and integrates the comets from reviewers on a regular basis. It helps your organization achieve full compliance with ISO 26262 and ASPICE. 
    2. Documentation – Documentation of Modern Requirements is another one of the most liked features. Modern Requirements allows you to build live requirements documents that will update along with your requirements. Review management helps you build online review reports from within your project. 
    3. Strong Traceability – Modern Requirements allows you to create horizontal traceability matrices that help you review your traceability within a few seconds. It also uses an intersectional matrix to ensure easy viewing, managing, and changing things between various artifacts of the project. 
  2. Cons:
    1. Modern Requirements does not offer advanced templates.
    2. The security for the third-party plugins is also not so good.
  3. Pricing:
    1. Free Trial Available. Prices are available only when requested.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – N/A
    2. Capterra – N/A

Helix ALM

Helix is another tool in the ALM world that helps you with project management by centralizing all your requirements, test cases, issues, and other artifacts and managing them as well.

  1. Pros:
    1. Regulations –  Helix helps with some important standard compliance such as ISO 26262, and ISO 21434.
    2. Fits Everywhere – Helix is a flexible tool that fits in all kinds of small as well as complex processes making it easy to use. 
    3. Reports and Bugs – Helix captures all the test reports and bug reports in one place and also provides a time-to-time update for keeping the application up to date. 
  2. Cons:
    1. Importing and exporting items from MS Excel or Word can be a bit clumsy. 
    2. The Test Run system is not quite adaptable for mechanical testing. 
    3. Report creation is poor.
    4. Helix does not support Scrum methodology either. 
  3. Pricing:
    1. Available only when requested.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – 4/5 (80+ reviews)
    2. Capterra – 4.1/5 (25+ reviews)

Siemens Polarion

Polarion is a well-known ALM tool in the market. Polarion is admired for saving time and effort, improving quality, and ensuring safety for complex systems. 

  1. Pros:
    1. Standards – Polarion helps with collaboration across complex standards such as ISO 26262, ASPICE, and CMMI.
    2. End-To-End Traceability – Polarion guarantees end-to-end traceability between all the requirements and test cases ensuring the requirements and test cases are mapped to each other properly. 
    3. Easy Import/Export – Polarion’s traditional features like versioning, dashboards, and an open API are what make it stand out in the crowd. The import-export of information on Polarion is pretty easy and intuitive. 
  2. Cons:
    1. People criticize Polarion for using an unfitting interface design and icons. 
    2. Also, Polarion does not offer any free trial or free version to try out the product before actually paying for it. 
  3. Pricing:
    1. Available only when requested.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – 4.1/5 (15+ reviews)
    2. Capterra – 2.7/5 (3 reviews)

Spira Teams

Spira Teams is an ALM platform that helps you in managing your requirements, releases, tests, issues, and tasks in a single integrated environment. It also offers an incorporated dashboard with important metrics of the project.

  1. Pros:
    1. Regulations –  Spira Teams offer capabilities for managing your testing and compliance activities in accordance with ISO-26262.
    2. Easy Integration – The tool is known to make the automation and integration process quite easy which makes it one of the most preferred RM tools in the market.
    3. Traceability – Spira Teams also provides end-to-end traceability for all the requirements, test cases, defects, development work, and source code. 
  2. Cons:
    1. For people using Spira Teams, it is not easy to move the requirements or artifacts from one tool to another.
    2. Validation against AD is said to be difficult to set up as well.
    3. Spira Teams is also not quite suitable for big firms because of limitations like a single database, and difficulties in attaching bigger files.
  3. Pricing:
    1. The cloud version is priced at $34.69 per concurrent user per month.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – 4.0/5 (20+ reviews)
    2. Capterra – 4.1/5 (90+ reviews)

Tuleap

This is a ALM system that majorly facilitates agile methodologies, V-model, requirements management, and IT service management. This project management platform enables organizations to meet the required standards like CMMI and ITIL.

  1. Pros:
    1. Compliance – Tuleap provides standard compliance with ASPICE and ISO-26262 for the automotive industry.
    2. Traceability – Tuleap ensures end-to-end traceability from initial requirements to test campaigns and final deliveries. It connects all the requirements, test cases, and other artifacts to ensure full traceability. 
    3. Easy to use – Tuleap is quite easy to use and set up, thanks to the cloud version of the tool. It allows you to create a workflow corresponding exactly to your needs. 
  2. Cons:
    1. The document management interface is not as good as compared to other tools.
    2. Some of the user interface features like copywriting and moving documents are not intuitive.
  3. Pricing:
    1. Basic plan starts at 720 per month.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – 4/5 (10+ reviews)
    2. Capterra – 4.5/5 (35+ reviews)

Jira

Jira is one of the most famous ALM tools, by Atlassian, in the market. Jira is majorly used by the Agile teams to manage requirements, plan and track the project along with the corresponding issues.

  1. Pros:
    1. Perfect for Agile Workers – Jira is capable of providing a single view for all the user stories and will also generate the required reports and documentation for various sprints like sprint velocity and burndown charts. Moreover, ticket organization into sprints and releases is pretty easy while monitoring the workload and task assignments. 
    2. Numerous Integrations – Integration with third-party software is a usual issue with many requirements management tools. Jira, on the other hand, is pretty good at that. In fact, there are more than 3000 applications available on Atlassian Marketplace that would help you extend the features of the software. 
    3. Easy Customization – Jira allows its users to create any type of issue. Workflows can be customized as required to fit any requirements. Various elements like tables, forms, reports, and timelines are also customizable as per your requirement.
  2. Cons:
    1. Jira focuses majorly on software companies, too Agile ones.
    2. They do not have traceability features.
  3. Pricing:
    1. Jira comes with a free plan for up to 10 users. For more features and user support, the premium plans start at $7.50 per user, per month.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – 4.2/5 (4,000+ reviews)
    2. Capterra – 4.4/5 (12,000+ reviews)

Xebrio – 

Xebrio is a cloud-based ALM platform that allows users to create, manage, and track product requirements throughout the development lifecycle. It aims to help businesses and teams streamline their requirements management processes, collaborate effectively, and ensure that the final product meets customer needs and expectations. 

  1. Pros:
    1. Cloud-based – Xebrio is a cloud-based platform, which means that it can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection, making it convenient and flexible for teams working remotely or across multiple locations.
    2. Intuitive interface – Xebrio has a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate and use, making it accessible to users with varying levels of technical expertise.
  2. Cons:
    1. Xebrio has limited integrations with other tools and platforms, which may be a drawback for teams who rely on other tools for their development processes.
    2. While Xebrio allows for some customization, it may not provide enough flexibility for teams with more complex requirements management needs.
    3. Xebrio is a paid platform, which may be a factor for small teams or organizations with limited budgets.
  3. Pricing:
    1. Basic plan starts at $25 per month, per user.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – N/A
    2. Capterra – N/A

Enterprise Architect

Enterprise Architect is a visual modeling and design tool that allows individuals and teams to create, manage and share complex software and business architecture models.

  1. Pros:
    1. Comprehensive modeling – Enterprise Architect supports a wide range of modeling notations and features, making it a comprehensive tool for large and complex projects.
    2. Collaboration – Enterprise Architect provides built-in collaboration features that enable teams to work together more effectively and efficiently.
    3. Integration – Enterprise Architect integrates with many popular development tools, making it easy to incorporate modeling into existing workflows.
  2. Cons:
    1. Due to its comprehensive features and modeling capabilities, Enterprise Architect can be complex to learn and use effectively, particularly for new users or small teams.
    2. The pricing structure may not be suitable for small businesses or startups due to its high cost.
  3. Pricing:
    1. Basic plan starts at $299 per license.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – 4.1/5 (20+ reviews)
    2. Capterra – 4.1/5 (35 reviews)

ReqView

ReqView is a cloud-based ALM tool that helps teams manage their product requirements, specifications, and related documentation throughout the development lifecycle. It provides a range of features to help teams define, analyze, and trace their requirements, as well as collaborate and communicate effectively.

  1. Pros:
    1. User-friendly interface – ReqView provides an intuitive interface that is easy to navigate and use, making it accessible to users with varying levels of technical expertise.
    2. Traceability – ReqView provides traceability features that allow users to track requirements to tests, issues, and other artifacts throughout the development lifecycle.
    3. Affordable – ReqView offers a range of pricing plans, including a free plan, making it a cost-effective option for small teams or individuals.
  2. Cons:
    1. ReqView has limited integrations with other tools and platforms, which may be a drawback for teams who rely on other tools for their development processes.
    2. While ReqView provides some modeling capabilities, it may not be as comprehensive as other modeling tools, which may limit its use for complex systems or projects.
    3. ReqView is a cloud-based platform, which may be a concern for teams with security or data privacy requirements.
  3. Pricing:
    1. Basic plan starts at €390 per user per year.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – 4.3/5 (3 reviews)
    2. Capterra – 4.5/5 (35 reviews)

HPE ALM

HPE ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) is a comprehensive software tool for managing the entire application development lifecycle. It provides a range of features and tools for requirements management, test management, release management, and defect management, among others.

  1. Pros:
    1. Comprehensive toolset – HPE ALM provides a comprehensive set of tools and features for managing the entire application development lifecycle, from requirements management to defect management.
    2. Integration – HPE ALM integrates with a range of third-party tools, making it easy to incorporate into existing workflows.
  2. Cons:
    1. Due to its comprehensive features and toolset, HPE ALM can be complex to learn and use effectively, particularly for new users or small teams.
    2. HPE ALM is a paid tool, which may be a factor for small teams or organizations with limited budgets.
    3. HPE ALM can be resource-intensive and may require significant computing power to run effectively, particularly for larger teams or complex projects.
  3. Pricing:
    1. Available only when requested.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – N/A
    2. Capterra – N/A

CollabNet VersionOne

CollabNet VersionOne is an enterprise-level Agile application Lifecycle Management platform that provides a range of features for managing the Agile development process. It offers tools for agile project management, DevOps, and value stream management. Developed by CollabNet VersionOne, the platform is designed to help teams work more efficiently and deliver high-quality software products.

  1. Pros:
    1. Integration – CollabNet VersionOne integrates with a wide range of third-party tools, making it easy to incorporate into existing workflows and systems.
    2. Collaboration – CollabNet VersionOne provides collaboration features that enable teams to work together more efficiently and effectively.
    3. Customization – CollabNet VersionOne is highly customizable, allowing users to tailor the platform to their specific Agile development needs.
  2. Cons:
    1. Due to its comprehensive features and toolset, CollabNet VersionOne can be complex to learn and use effectively, particularly for new users or small teams.
    2. CollabNet VersionOne is a paid tool, which may be a factor for small teams or organizations with limited budgets.
    3. CollabNet VersionOne can be resource-intensive and may require significant computing power to run effectively, particularly for larger teams or complex projects.
  3. Pricing:
    1. Basic plan starts at $29 per feature per month.
  4. Ratings & Reviews:
    1. G2 – 3/5 (4 reviews)
    2. Capterra – 4.1/5 (60+ reviews)

Conclusion:

Choosing the right Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tool is crucial for the success of any software development project. With so many options available, it can be challenging to identify the best ALM tool for your team’s specific requirements. This guide has explored the 15 best ALM tools of 2024 based on their features, performance, usability, and user reviews. These tools offer a wide range of features and functionality to support every stage of the software development lifecycle.

From established industry leaders to innovative new players, these tools provide something for everyone, whether you’re a small team or a large enterprise. By selecting the right ALM tool, teams can streamline their software development process, improve collaboration, and deliver high-quality software products to their end users. Request a free 30-day trial at Visure Requirements ALM Platform to see how our software can help you streamline your requirements management process.

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