Compare IBM Rational ALM vs. TFS
IBM Rational ALM is ranked 7th in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites with 6 reviews while TFS is ranked 5th in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites with 8 reviews. IBM Rational ALM is rated 7.2, while TFS is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of IBM Rational ALM writes "Helped with time management, improved our resource utility, and helped assure on-time completion". On the other hand, the top reviewer of TFS writes "Nice dashboard, good task-selection capability, and the option to save pages as favorites is helpful". IBM Rational ALM is most compared with JIRA, Microsoft Azure DevOps and TFS, whereas TFS is most compared with JIRA, Microsoft Azure DevOps and Micro Focus ALM Quality Center. See our IBM Rational ALM vs. TFS report.
Most Helpful Review | |||||
|
| ||||
 Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational ALM vs. TFS and other solutions. Updated: March 2020. 408,459 professionals have used our research since 2012. | |||||
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros | |
The most valuable feature is the reporting of the CPU usage on the dashboard. At the same time, if you're working from the architect or the designing team you, it's quite easy to manage the resources online. It helped us contain critical things, like source code and several documents, which is very important to us. It is relatively easy to use and user-friendly once the setup is complete. The cataloging is a very valuable feature. For a lot of enterprises, they end up not knowing which applications do specific features. The cataloging helps with this. It's not that verbose, but it still gives you allowances to put in more detail. The planning feature is rich with Scrum concepts: Sprint, Sprint retrospective, the rules in the Scrum framework. | The most valuable features are the dashboard and task-selection capability. This solution enables us to link all items usefully, in the way we use Agile. I like the build management features and the integration with Jenkins and many other tools. I like the Kanban board. It is very useful in terms of seeing who is working on what and what the current status of work is. It's an integrated system that includes all the information that we need to deliver our products smoothly and to track the progress of each piece of code. From the project management perspective, the tool is efficiently managing teams by giving management information, such as reports, graphs, velocity, capacity, etc. The biggest value-add is the solution integrates well with most Microsoft products. Build definitions and releases within the product. allow us to put our latest applications in the field. |
Cons | |
The stability of this solution can be improved. The directory designer manager is uncivil. The design manager is clearly really unstable. Of course it would be related to customer experience. The solution is not user friendly at all. It needs an expert to use it, although the reporting feature was okay. There is not enough beginner support material in the form of FAQs or simple training to help you get started. The features should be more intuitive. If I'm looking for something, its location should be easy to locate. I would like to see better reporting features. The out-of-box reporting is - I don't want to say limited - but the focus is on the Scrum and Sprint reports. We need more reporting features regarding the history of the work, tracking it more deeply. | The interface can be improved and made more user-friendly. The test management interface is not very handy. One of the areas that could be improved is to have an effective full lifecycle management. In the next release, I would like them to include integration for various projects, similar to what JIRA has, and they could create this feature on the dashboard. The dashboard needs more enhancements. More options could be provided from the perspective of requirements management, which would help product owners to use the tool effectively. Since it is Microsoft, it is technology agnostic, thus it does not really fit into various different technologies in the organization. We are also using Microsoft Teams. The two products function separately. There is not enough collaboration between Microsoft Teams and TFS. |
Pricing and Cost Advice | |
Information Not Available | It is pretty expensive compared to other project management tools. |
 Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites solutions are best for your needs. 408,459 professionals have used our research since 2012. | |
Ranking  | |
Views 1,661 Comparisons 1,242 Reviews 6 Average Words per Review 539 Avg. Rating 7.2 | Views 27,971 Comparisons 23,667 Reviews 8 Average Words per Review 315 Avg. Rating 7.9 |
Top Comparisons | |
 Compared 38% of the time.  Compared 31% of the time. Compared 10% of the time. | Compared 36% of the time. Compared 32% of the time.  Compared 6% of the time. |
Also Known As | |
| Rational ALM, MKS | Team Foundation Server |
Learn | |
| IBM | Microsoft |
Overview | |
| Lifecycle management capabilities built on the open, unifying IBM Rational Jazz platform can help agile and traditional teams: see at-a-glance status, access better data for decisions, manage costs, reuse the most efficient processes across the organization, manage cloud, web, SOA and mobile application design and development. Teams can also gain real-time traceability, manage work across vendors, unify across a diverse set of lifecyle tools, and provide collaborative development for continuous delivery as part of the IBM DevOps solution. | Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) is the collaboration platform at the core of Microsoft's application lifecycle management (ALM) solution. TFS supports agile development practices, multiple IDEs and platforms locally or in the cloud and gives you the tools you need to effectively manage software development projects throughout the IT lifecycle. |
Offer | |
Learn more about IBM Rational ALM | Learn more about TFS |
Sample Customers | |
| Tennis Australia, WeCloud AB, Port Otago Limited, Logicalis US, Valmer, The Chevrolet Volt, Ashurst | Vendex KBB IT Services, Info Support, Fujitsu Consulting, TCSC, Airways New Zealand, HP |
Top Industries | |
No Data Available | Financial Services Firm46% Manufacturing Company13% Software R&D Company13% Retailer8% Software R&D Company36% Comms Service Provider10% Financial Services Firm7% Government6% |
Company Size | |
No Data Available | Small Business14% Midsize Enterprise20% Large Enterprise65% Small Business2% Midsize Enterprise10% Large Enterprise88% |
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational ALM vs. TFS and other solutions. Updated: March 2020.
408,459 professionals have used our research since 2012.
See also IBM Rational ALM Reviews, TFS Reviews, and our list of Best Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites Companies.
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.