OpenText ALM Octane vs TFS comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between OpenText ALM Octane and TFS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed OpenText ALM Octane vs. TFS Report (Updated: March 2024).
763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The solution natively supports Agile-Waterfall hybrid software development at an enterprise scale. This is very important to us. Because even though the company wishes to go Agile, we still have projects which follow a Waterfall methodology. In order for us to accommodate both, we needed some sort of hybrid system. Because if we are using a fully Agile system, then the reporting might not be correctly extracted.""It’s easy to set up.""There are a lot of predefined reports. We can attach additional reports for users, like who worked on what defect and when, as well as what is the status of the release compared to the previous release. It is really endless. All the data is really linked together. Then, if all the data is linked together, there is an option to prepare reports out of it. We are very impressed with its reporting capabilities.""An improvement on previous versions because it comes as preconfigured as possible.""The way testing is closely tied into the product Backlog has made it more intuitive, or easier to manage the relationship between building out an application and testing it. In other tools, that is more segregated. The way it's designed in Octane, people have said it makes more sense to them, and that it's easier for them to understand their data and to maintain and test their solutions.""We like Micro Focus ALM Octane because its performance is okay, and its stability is okay, so we use it a lot. The platform is easy to use.""A valuable feature is the pipeline, so that we can now connect to Jenkins and then have all the results from testing, from external, in the tool, so that we can see the whole approach from there. Also, We can work with labels so we have better filtering solutions than in ALM. And it's much smarter and leaner to use than ALM.""Backlog management is the most valuable feature. This was a capability that was missing or difficult to achieve in ALM Quality Center."

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"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.""Build definitions and releases within the product. allow us to put our latest applications in the field.""It is a stable solution.""The most valuable features are test case writing and bug tracking.""I like the build management features and the integration with Jenkins and many other tools.""We use TFS for forecast management.""User alerts are very helpful for knowing when work is required.""The traceability is valuable. While managing the workflows, it was always nice to have that traceability from requirements and all the way through design. It integrates with Microsoft Test Manager, and you can have everything that is related to a requirement attached to it."

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Cons
"Improvements could be made by way of additional integrations across the lifecycle.""What could be improved in Micro Focus ALM Octane is its integration with Jira.""Because JIRA is a leading tool for both development and requirements management - everybody is using JIRA - I'm pretty there will be a use case where people are trying to connect between ALM Octane and JIRA. The back-end configuration of the synchronization with JIRA could be simplified. The architecture is really complicated. We required a lot of machines to build the cluster and the configuration was not really clearly described within the documentation. This may have something to do with the fact that the software is pretty new.""Globally, I don't see many major points of improvement. It's mostly plenty of little things, and it's weird to me that they are not in the product yet. They are really details, but they're annoying details... Today, in the tool, we've got plenty of assets we can handle, like requirements, user storage, defects, tasks and so on. And to all of those elements, we can add comments. We can add comments to any asset in Octane but not to tasks. It's just impossible to understand why it's not available for the tasks because it's available everywhere else. Similarly, for attachments, you can attach files absolutely everywhere except on automated runs, which is, again, awkward. I don't understand why on this element, in particular, you cannot do it. It's little touches like that.""I have yet to experience the CI/CD part of Micro Focus ALM Octane but as demonstrated by the team who is providing the services, I see that the CI/CD could improve. When we check in the code, for the code snippet that has been checked in by a particular user, you need to open a separate file. When comparing Micro Focus ALM Octane to Jira, they have a separate window in which you can click on the ID and the code is visible in the snippet. It's a two-step process in Micro Focus ALM Octane and it's a single-step process in Jira. It's essential for the developers to think about this difference.""Currently, Micro Focus ALM Octane is considered an old-world tool in the industry and lacks the perception of being a new-age tool among its customers.""The biggest problem with ALM Octane is that it's very complex, so it's difficult to use and scale.""We've only had a few stability issues. Generally, we have issues following any deployment they do, so if they do a deployment on a Sunday, then we may have a couple of issues on a Monday or Tuesday."

More OpenText ALM Octane Cons →

"Integration from Visual Studio could be improved.""This solution is quite old and it is already being bundled as Azure DevOps Server.""The interface can be improved and made more user-friendly.""It would be better if we could bring it out on the cloud.""I understand Microsoft is phasing out TFS in favor of Git, so I would steer anyone interested in TFS to look into Git.""TFS and MTM have their own style of working and they are different from other tools like Jira or TestRail, which are simpler and easy to use.""They have room for improvement in merging the source code changes for multiple developers across files. It is very good at highlighting the changes that the source code automatically does not know how to handle, but it's not very good at reporting the ones that it did automatically. There are times when we have source code that gets merged, and we lose the changes that we expected to happen. It can get a little confusing at times. They can just do a little bit better on the merging of changes for multiple developers.""There's not automatic access to test case management and execution."

More TFS Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Pricing is the weakest point. It is expensive, but the tool has plenty of features. The main problem we have is that the pricing is very high compared to some other solutions."
  • "It will be as expensive as ALM.NET, if not more expensive. But here's a good tip: If you have ALM.NET, you are able to share your licenses from ALM.NET to Octane. You just have to define a dedicated number of licenses on ALM.NET and then you can share them with ALM Octane, with some configuration effort. This is something that you have to take into account, that there is a possibility of such license sharing that could decrease your costs. Compared to open-source tools, the price the ALM Octane is definitely higher, in terms of the licensing cost."
  • "It's pretty pricey, one of the most expensive ones on the market... The value depends on if you use all the features that it has. It comes with a lot of features. The difference between the license structure of ALM and Octane versus JIRA, is that you get everything with ALM and Octane... For JIRA, you buy the pieces one piece at a time."
  • "It's expensive. HPE products, and now Micro Focus, have always been expensive. The license is not cheap, and it will always be a challenge, particularly for small organizations like ours."
  • "For what it does, it's very reasonably priced. I like the licensing model as well, because it's very flexible. You can scale licenses up and down for short periods of time."
  • "In terms of pricing, it's comparable to what we had previously. It's not priced at the higher end of the scale by any means. It's priced nicely, in the middle of the market. For what you're getting, it's a very good tool."
  • "Going forward, I think we will want to explore adding more licenses."
  • "The solution has reduced our testing costs."
  • More OpenText ALM Octane Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It's just as expensive as HPE ALM, without many of the features, best used for development tool only to avoid higher costs."
  • "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."
  • "Use the Microsoft recommended “seat-based” licensing model. This allows a single developer with multiple machines to consume only one client license."
  • "If running TFS on-premise is expensive, maybe you could consider moving to the Cloud and use the Visual Studio Team Services."
  • "It is pretty expensive compared to other project management tools."
  • "The pricing is reasonable at this time."
  • "TFS is more competitively priced than some other solutions."
  • "We pay subscription fees on a yearly basis and the price is reasonable."
  • More TFS Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Hi Netanya Basically , it all depends on the use cases for your environment and the business needs. Hope the below data may be relevant to you for identifying your needs and deciding on the… more »
    Top Answer:The platform's most valuable feature is pipeline integration or continuous integration services.
    Top Answer:The product is highly priced compared to other tools. However, it offers substantial value. There is a distinction between OEM pricing and the final pricing for customers. They could understand the… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:Microsoft's technical team is supportive.
    Top Answer:There is a yearly licensing fee that needs to be paid.
    Ranking
    Views
    8,305
    Comparisons
    4,255
    Reviews
    13
    Average Words per Review
    559
    Rating
    8.2
    Views
    10,519
    Comparisons
    6,261
    Reviews
    27
    Average Words per Review
    391
    Rating
    8.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Micro Focus ALM Octane, Micro Focus Octane
    Team Foundation Server
    Learn More
    Overview

    OpenText ALM Octane helps organizations implement a “quality everywhere” approach and improve Agile and DevOps development and testing processes to improve the flow of work across the software delivery value stream. You can tightly align quality efforts from development to release, employ a broad range of tests anchored by automation, and continuously monitor and improve for increased throughput. OpenText fosters an open approach so that quality is visible, traceable, and continuously improved. By synchronizing quality and testing with Agile and DevOps processes, risks are mitigated early in the software delivery value stream – speeding the way for faster delivery and improved customer satisfaction.

    ALM Octane facilitates a tailored and scalable approach for large enterprises. You can deploy your way and minimize infrastructure needs with deployment options spanning on-premises, SaaS, and public cloud (Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure Marketplaces). Similarly, various licensing options can tailor the features to meet specific needs with support for thousands of concurrent users in geographically disperse locations.

    Visual Studio’s Team Foundation Server (TFS) is a powerful application development lifecycle management solution. It aids developers in managing every aspect of their DevOps and application creation. TFS combines many different types of solutions into a single powerful platform.

    Visual Studio TFS Benefits

    Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy TFS include:

    • Build automation. TFS enables users to create definitions that can easily automate any and all tasks that are critical to the development of their applications. Businesses can utilize features that are built into TFS to accomplish preset tasks that can help them create the application of their choice. This can include enabling them to run automated tests when the need arises. Additionally, users can create custom tasks that will run automatically and allow users to focus their attention on the areas that most demand their focus.
    • Security. TFS is designed with the security of a user’s DevOps in mind. It enables an organization to restrict user permissions so that only developers that are meant to have access to particular parts of the development process can perform tasks related to those sections. It segments the development process to reduce the possibility of sensitive data being stolen.
    • Enables product rollbacks. TFS keeps copies of past versions of the organization’s application. Users can sift through the different versions that are available and can redeploy the version that best fits their needs should it ever become necessary to do so.

    Visual Studio TFS Features

    • Source code management. TFS comes with all of the tools that developers need to completely manage their source code. They can share their code so that multiple developers can work on the same project. Additionally, TFS enables them to do things like review the history of a particular piece of source code.

    • Project management. Organizations can leverage the wealth of project management features that TFS offers and ensure that their projects run as smoothly as possible. Project managers are able to use TFS to control every aspect of their project, from the planning stage until the application’s development has reached its conclusion.
    • Reporting. TFS enables users to generate reports that leverage critical metrics and provide them with important insights into the applications that they are creating. These comprehensive reports can be secured so that only users with the proper level of clearance can access them.

    Reviews from Real Users

    TFS is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its source code management capabilities and its powerful integration suite.

    Carl B., the vice president of engineering at Vertex Downhole Ltd, writes, “The most valuable features are related to source code management. Using TFS for source code management and being able to branch and have multiple developers work on the same projects is valuable. We can also branch and merge code back together.”

    Ashish K., the principal consultant at Wipro, says, “I have found almost all of the features valuable because it integrates well with your Microsoft products. If a client is using the entire Microsoft platform, then TFS would be definitely preferable. It integrates with the digital studio development environment as well.”

    Sample Customers
    Orange, Airbus, Haufe Group, Kellogg's, Claro, Bon Secours, World Wide Technology
    Vendex KBB IT Services, Info Support, Fujitsu Consulting, TCSC, Airways New Zealand, HP
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider27%
    Financial Services Firm27%
    Transportation Company19%
    Consumer Goods Company4%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm27%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Government9%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm26%
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company16%
    Energy/Utilities Company11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization51%
    Computer Software Company7%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    Financial Services Firm5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise3%
    Large Enterprise79%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business13%
    Midsize Enterprise8%
    Large Enterprise79%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise59%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business9%
    Midsize Enterprise57%
    Large Enterprise34%
    Buyer's Guide
    OpenText ALM Octane vs. TFS
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText ALM Octane vs. TFS and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    OpenText ALM Octane is ranked 5th in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites with 13 reviews while TFS is ranked 3rd in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites with 27 reviews. OpenText ALM Octane is rated 8.2, while TFS is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of OpenText ALM Octane writes "A stable solution used for test management that is perceived to be an outdated tool by its customers". On the other hand, the top reviewer of TFS writes "It is helpful for scheduled releases and enforcing rules, but it should be better at merging changes for multiple developers and retaining the historical information". OpenText ALM Octane is most compared with Jira, OpenText ALM / Quality Center, Microsoft Azure DevOps, Rally Software and IBM Rational ALM, whereas TFS is most compared with Microsoft Azure DevOps, Jira, Rally Software, Visual Studio Test Professional and PTC Integrity. See our OpenText ALM Octane vs. TFS report.

    See our list of best Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites vendors.

    We monitor all Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.