What are ALM Tools?
ALM tools are software applications that help organizations manage the entire application lifecycle, from conception to retirement. They typically include features for requirements management, design, development, testing, deployment, and operations.
Not sure if you need an ALM tool? Click here to learn more about what Application Lifecycle Management is, as well as the practice’s benefits and importance in modern software development.
ALM tools can help organizations to:
- Improve the quality of software by providing a central repository for requirements, design, and test cases
- Increase the efficiency of software development by automating processes and providing a single source of truth for information
- Reduce the risk of errors by tracking changes to requirements and code.
- Improve communication and collaboration between stakeholders by providing a shared workspace
ALM tools typically work by integrating with a variety of other software applications, such as source control systems, bug tracking systems, and build automation tools. This allows ALM tools to provide a comprehensive view of the application lifecycle and to automate many of the tasks involved in software development.
Key features to look for in ALM tools include requirements management, project planning and management, code management and version control, testing and quality assurance capabilities, deployment and release management functionalities, and collaboration features. Evaluating and selecting the right ALM tool based on these features ensures efficient and high-quality software development.
Best ALM Tools
There are a number of different ALM tools available on the market, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. When choosing an ALM tool, it is important to consider the specific needs of your organization.
Here are the top 12 ALM tools available on the market in 2023:
#1. SpiraTeam
SpiraTeam is Inflectra's award-winning ALM solution that helps teams manage their program's requirements, releases, iterations, tasks, defects, and code in one environment, with complete traceability. SpiraTeam’s requirements and test case management modules come with fully customizable workflows. The solution is great for project portfolio management, program planning and baseline management and offers robust configuration and version control for artifacts. Bug, issue, and task tracking is easy and makes the work of QA teams a breeze. SpiraTeam’s features for electronic signatures and document collaboration are especially valuable for companies working in highly regulated industries.
Cost: Starting at $1,717 per year for three concurrent users
#2. Microsoft’s Azure DevOps Server
Microsoft’s ALM suite uses Visual Studio, which is one of the most-used integrated development environments in the developer community. Microsoft’s Azure DevOps Server provides good version control and configuration functionality. Due to the fact that Visual Studio lacks requirements management, Azure DevOps can be easily integrated with HP’s products in order to take advantage of HP’s capabilities in this regard. Microsoft’s ALM suite is a particularly good choice for organizations that use a .NET framework because many .NET developers use Visual Studio and also tend to enjoy using Azure DevOps.
Cost: $9,000 per year for three concurrent users (Visual Studio Enterprise), $1,620 per year (Visual Studio Professional)
#3. IBM’s Rational
IBM offers several products for its ALM solution. Some of these are: CLM for collaborative lifecycle management; the Engineering Workflow Management tool for managing workflows; Continuous Delivery cloud service for automating software builds and tests, Engineering Lifecycle Management Base for managing requirements, quality, changes, project plans and tracking, and others. IBM products support both Agile and Waterfall methodologies and integrate with IBM Tivoli to support continuous integration. These features make IBM products a good choice for organizations needing to integrate diverse processes. The product is an older one with a lot of legacy support, but IBM has kept it up-to-date, aligning with ALM emerging trends.
Cost: Not advertised, contact IBM
#4. Rally (CA Agile Central)
Rally (formerly CA Agile Central) is one of the top ALM tools for businesses that use Agile methods. Its project management features, including resource planning, are designed with Agile in mind. It is also a great ALM tool for testing. Rally provides collaboration functionality through Flowdock, which has chat and email features. It also supports the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and offers Agile-specific analytics and metrics based on the Software Development Performance Index. It provides both on-premises and SaaS options.
Cost: $1,800 per year for three concurrent users
#5. JIRA + Confluence + Stash + Bamboo
By combining a few products from the Atlassian suite like JIRA, Confluence, Bitbucket Server, and Bamboo a competent and full-service ALM tool has been designed. JIRA Software is used to plan and track projects and their corresponding issues. Confluence is a collaboration tool for document and knowledge management. Bitbucket Server is a Git-powered code repository that collaborates using requests and inline comments. Bamboo Server is used for integration, programmed build & testing, deployment, and delivery.
Note: Support of JIRA’s server licenses will end as of Feb 15, 2024, which makes this option less viable.
Cost: Depends on pricing levels of each component
#6. Polarion ALM
Polarion ALM by Siemens is full enterprise-level ALM software built to connect teams and people to improve the application development process. Polarion makes new projects easy by providing the ability to reuse or branch your data (or code) for similar projects or product lines. Securely share data and set user permissions.
Cost: Not advertised, contact Polarion
#7. CodeBeamer
CodeBeamer is a fully-integrated ALM platform by Intland Software. It covers every step of the application process including Requirements, Software & Hardware Development, QA & Test Management, and Release & DevOps. It provides enterprise-level agile scalability to ensure applications can grow rapidly. CodeBeamer lets you easily collaborate with a team of engineers and export documents right from CodeBeamer to Word or Excel for quick data analysis or presentations.
Cost: Not advertised, contact CodeBeamer
#8. Kovair ALM
Kovair is a full ALM tool taking you from early-stage Requirements to Release and DevOps. It integrates with over 70 other ALM and IT tools. Kovair is a 100% web-based solution that makes for a much easier customer support system. Real-time notifications help keep teams on top of every stage of the process.
Cost: Not advertised, contact Kovair
#9. Digital.ai Agility
Digral.ai offers Agility (formerly VersionOne) for enterprise agile planning and TeamForge for application lifecycle management. Agility can help teams envision, plan, and deliver software. TeamForge is an application development, collaboration, and delivery platform that supports a variety of workflows and frameworks such as agile, waterfall, and hybrid development methodologies.
Cost: $1,404 per year for three concurrent users (Ultimate), $1,044 per year (Enterprise)
#10. MicroFocus ALM
OpenText (formerly MicroFocus) ALM is a Lean, Agile and DevOps software that allows teams of all sizes to deliver high-quality apps with greater speed. MicroFocus ALM m allows stakeholders to interact and coordinate, to achieve the project goals. It provides robust tracking & reporting and seamless integration of various project related tasks, and can connect to email systems to send emails to team members
Cost: Not advertised, contact OpenText
#11.SwiftALM
SwiftALM is a collaborative platform for IT Program, Project, and Process Governance. SwiftALM includes organization modeling and access control features with the ability to perform multiple levels of information drill down. With SwiftALM, you can set up the resources, processes, and projects, controlling access to plans and reports. The tool has a highly configurable and flexible application architecture and advanced analytics technologies to increase productivity, quality, and delivery.
Cost: Not advertised, contact NimbleWork
#12. Targetprocess
Targetprocess helps agile teams scale, providing support for LeSS, SAFe and the custom agile frameworks. Targetprocess is a good option for small to mid-sized companies who aim to scale quickly. It supplies an intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface with tools for workflow configuration, requirements management, task management, web-based administration, and reporting at the portfolio, program, and product levels. Additionally, they offer a Service Desk standalone app that enables issue management in the same standard environment as your development.
Cost: Not advertised, contact Targetprocess
Additional ALM Solutions
In addition to the tools that made our top 12 list, here are some notable depending on your specific needs, budget and industry:
- AccelQ
- Rocket Aldon
- ALM Complete
- DevSuite
- Helix ALM
- JAMA
- Modern Requirements4DevOps
- OneOps
- Orcanos
- Planview AgilePlace
- PractiTest
- qTest
- Relution
- Tuleap
- Visure
Get the Best ALM Tools & Ecosystem With Spira
However, SpiraTeam is the ideal ALM tool for most businesses. It offers a complete suite of functionalities, seamless integration with popular development tools, powerful insights, and exceptional customer support. Able to scale with you and improve your cycle processes in no time, try a free 30-day trial of SpiraTeam for streamlined ALM and successful software development.