Perforce ALM vs. Perforce P4

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Perforce ALM
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Helix ALM (formerly TestTrack) is an application performance testing and application requirements management suite.N/A
Perforce P4
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Perforce P4 (formerly Helix Core) is the company's version control and peer code review solution. Perforce offers add-on products for code review for free, and Git support products.N/A
Pricing
Perforce ALMPerforce P4
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Perforce ALMPerforce P4
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Perforce ALMPerforce P4
Considered Both Products
Perforce ALM
Chose Perforce ALM
The other tools that we evaluated did not have all of the capabilities and customization that Helix ALM had to offer and therefore we decided to select Helix ALM.
Perforce P4
Chose Perforce P4
In my opinion, Perforce Helix Core is on a top level of irritation and anti-user experience. In my experience, I can't do simple things like 1 word file edits, while I have never been confused when using something based on Git.
Chose Perforce P4
Git is great, I love Git. But it's not great for dealing with binary assets, even when using git LFS. Locking is not as simple as on perforce. Git presents some problems on using for non-tech people it can get overwhelming and tech people have to come by and help.
Chose Perforce P4
I am only starting with BiBucket and do not yet have sufficient experience to draw upon for comparison.
Chose Perforce P4
New users of Perforce Helix can be up and running in less than thirty minutes. It is easy to use, but also very powerful. Bitbucket is slow, prone to outages, and (for large teams) requires a team of dedicated administrators. I've had request for information from Bitbucket that …
Chose Perforce P4
My last two jobs used SmartSVN but it required a paid license to use regardless of the number of users. The initial setup for Perforce was much more difficult than SmartSVN. There is a lot of parity between the two software packages even though the terminology can be different. …
Chose Perforce P4
Perforce has a better built native visual client that is much simpler to use than Git's. It has a lot of optimizations in the workflow that can execute common patterns during a usual workday. Perforce also has an easier to understand method of presenting merge conflicts and …
Chose Perforce P4
Perforce is internally hosted, which makes it quite a bit faster. I found it easier to use that GitHub and Bitbucket, at least in terms of checking out files and creating changelists. GitHub and Bitbucket are much better for smaller teams, as they are cloud hosted, making …
Chose Perforce P4
Today's web based software makes them easier to integrate into a development process. Jira with integrated BitBucket as the versioning tool, is ahead of the competition. However for large organizations, Perforce is still a very good choice. GitHub can be used as free tool, but …
Chose Perforce P4
Subversion
  • missing many of the features that Perforce provides, but
  • a much more lightweight versioning system
Chose Perforce P4
Perforce has more features than SVN. However even the simpler tasks in SVN require a degree more technical aptitude with Perforce. Git offers most of the same features, however most of these are only really supported via the command-line in Git, where as most tasks can be …
Chose Perforce P4
Perforce is similar to SVN but the SVN has better command line support. Git surpasses both SVN and Perforce because of its flexibility with multiple branches and code review.
Features
Perforce ALMPerforce P4
Version Control Software Features
Comparison of Version Control Software Features features of Product A and Product B
Perforce ALM
-
Ratings
Perforce P4
7.9
Ratings
4% below category average
Branching and Merging00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Version History00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Version Control Collaboration Tools00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Pull Requests00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Code Review Tools00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Project Access Control00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Automated Testing Integration00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Issue Tracking Integration00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Branch Protection00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Perforce ALMPerforce P4
Small Businesses
Polarion ALM
Polarion ALM
Score 9.8 out of 10
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Polarion ALM
Polarion ALM
Score 9.8 out of 10
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Polarion ALM
Polarion ALM
Score 9.8 out of 10
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Perforce ALMPerforce P4
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
6.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
6.6
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Perforce ALMPerforce P4
Likelihood to Recommend
Helix ALM is very well suited for maintaining traceability between user needs, requirements and tests for medical device design controls. It allows users to customize the reports to create a traceability matrix or any other reports that are needed. It is also a good program for tracking issues and bugs and for storing/linking verification and validation test protocols and reports.
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For large-scale codebases with fixed and regular releases that do not follow a continuous delivery paradigm, Perforce is certainly well suited. In projects that are small and distinctly separated from other discrete (though potentially dependent) units, the benefits of the Perforce tool may not be as clear of a victor over other systems.
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Pros
  • Traceability for design controls.
  • Managing workflow of bugs/issues.
  • Maintaining risk management information.
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  • Merge algorithm is smart and utilizing the visual interface to do merges makes them easier to digest.
  • Easy to set up on multiple platforms and architectures and is well supported on all of them.
  • Visual interface has many tools and customization options that help to optimize and personalize workflow.
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Cons
  • Better integration with electronic document control systems like Arena PLM.
  • Easier setup in the back end (customization is available but the interface is not intuitive).
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  • I was having a hard time learning it. Even if you are an experienced developer, there is some learning curve.
  • Can be slow when working with large data sets at once.
  • When working on multiple workspaces on the same machine, Perforce can make it difficult not to mess up the code.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
We have a need to consolidate into a single package, and have such a large variety of technical proficiency among our users that Perforce seems less suitable. Many would like to remain using it, however, even those who use Perforce are the minority, and are often limited to our development teams.
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Usability
No answers on this topic
With Perforce Helix, you can use it via the command line, via P4V, or any of the other APIs included with the product. It is extremely easy for new users to get up and running. Users of Perforce Helix only have to pull in the files of interest to them. Also, Perforce is very easy to script and integrate into your CI/CD pipeline. Streams allows you to have pinpoint control of your workflow, and P4Search is the absolute best--I wish Perforce (the company) would talk more about this. It is absolutely fabulous!
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
In our large environment, Perforce is rarely "down". We have regular maintenance windows and from time to time Perforce can feel a little slow, but its always available. Tech support has always worked with our engineers and IT department to make sure that any real performance or stability issues are addressed quickly.
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Support Rating
The support from Perforce has been extensive and allowed us to customize the setup of Helix ALM specific to our needs. They also hosted training sessions for our users and administrators and provided us with troubleshooting help during initial setup.
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I had two representatives from Perforce contact me after downloading it but never responded when I had questions. I also had a difficult time finding good training material for getting started. There is a lot of available support material when running into issues, though, because of how many large companies use it.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
This rating is related to setting up an environment from an existing Perforce repository. Initial setup of Perforce as the repository for the company was done by a separate team long prior to my inception.
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Alternatives Considered
The other tools that we evaluated did not have all of the capabilities and customization that Helix ALM had to offer and therefore we decided to select Helix ALM.
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New users of Perforce Helix can be up and running in less than thirty minutes. It is easy to use, but also very powerful. Bitbucket is slow, prone to outages, and (for large teams) requires a team of dedicated administrators. I've had request for information from Bitbucket that requires hours to pull together that would take me less than 30 seconds in Perforce Helix. Large file storage in Bitbucket is clunky and requires you to jump through too many hoops. It's not even something you have to think about with Perforce Helix, as you are only limited by your OS. Perforce Helix is very easy to use even for non-developers. I wouldn't dare ask a non-developer to store their documentation in Bitbucket.
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Return on Investment
  • Improved management of requirements, risks and bugs to make sure they don't get lost in emails or long documents.
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  • Locking assets make us have no merge problems which are harder to manage on other versions control without locking
  • Almost no need to give support to artists or non-tech folks because the operations are very straightforward
  • There's no way to do interim checkins without going to the process of creating a stream
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ScreenShots