10 Best Requirements Management Tools & Software Of 2023
Collecting project requirements is an important part of setting up a new project. Although most times it needs a business analyst in your team to help you get the most out of this phase, the reality is different. Most of you are project managers/business analysts/mind readers, and you know that’s never going to change.
Therefore, this post should help you find your perfect sidekick for this process. These tools will help as you collect user stories, set up brainstorming sessions, diagram process flows or put together a requirements traceability matrix.
Some of the requirements tools on this list offer reporting, versioning, and tracking features that will support your review meetings with stakeholders. Read all about it in the overviews below. You can also head to the FAQ section for more general questions on this topic.
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The Best Requirements Management Tools
Here are a few of the best requirements management tools available today. You can also check out how I picked the tools on this list at any moment.
1
Jama Software
Best requirements management software for enterprises
Jama Software provides a platform for requirements, risk, and test management. Teams building complex products, systems, and software use Jama Connect to improve cycle times, increase quality, reduce rework, and minimize effort proving compliance.
This enterprise-grade tool offers the ability to accurately capture and communicate requirements, goals, progress, and interdependencies throughout the development process. It enables you to align hardware, firmware, and software development stakeholders; improve efficiency; manage change; and prove compliance.
In Jama Connect’s features, you’ll find end-to-end live traceability of people, data, and processes, as well as real-time impact analysis, reviews, and approvals with team collaboration. For requirements gathering, you can define, organize, and execute requirements-based test plans and test cases to ensure quality and compliance.
All of these features are packed into a software that provides the flexibility to support various engineering disciplines and development methodologies. Pair that with an intuitive, browser-based interface, and you’ve got a comprehensive software that’s still easy to navigate.
You can integrate Jama Connect requirements and test plans with ALM, PLM, QA, and MBSE to ensure full traceability, visibility, and collaboration across the lifecycle.
With API integrations and third-party integration hubs, teams can work in familiar tools while contributing to projects in Jama Connect. Jama Connect licenses are available on a user and floating basis through an annual subscription model.
Pricing and trial information are available upon request.
30-day free trial
Pricing Upon Request
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2
Doc Sheets
Best intuitive enterprise requirements management software
Doc Sheets is a platform designed to provide intuitive and affordable enterprise requirements management for teams and companies of all sizes. Doc Sheets is quick and easy to set up while also being a high-performance, scalable, and secure solution for change management, project management, test case management, and workflow features.
Without any coding, Doc Sheets is customizable for any project whether you get it as a cloud (SaaS) or an on-premise solution. It allows requirements creation and tracing for verification and validation of systems. It also accommodates different processes and methodology for agile, scrum, and waterfall work. Doc Sheets empowers traceability processes and provides traceability and gap analysis reports where needed.
Key features include the ability to classify and organize requirements in a robust repository; auto-generate spec docs as PDFs, HTML, or DOCX; filter and group requirements for reporting; export your data into Excel and/or Word documents; import requirements from various external sources; auto-manage versions and product releases; save product information templates for easy access later; and simplify traceability with a comprehensive toolset.
With real-time collaboration, multiple users can contribute to requirements documentation simultaneously. Direct and indirect impact-of-change reporting can cover your bases as things change, shift, and grow. Plus, access control and security make sure only the approved hands are on deck for each project or item.
Doc Sheets integrates with JIRA. It also allows importing data from various sources (JSON, Excel, etc.).
Doc Sheets costs from $19/user/month and offers a 60-day free trial.
60 days free trial
From $19/user/month
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3
codebeamer
Best for out-of-the-box and API integrations.
Intland Software’s codebeamer is a full-stack, end-to-end Application Lifecycle Management platform with strong requirements management capabilities. The tool helps manage complexity from requirements to release in the delivery of safety-critical or traditional software and systems-of-systems products.
For developers of advanced products and software, this open platform extends ALM functionalities with product line configuration, and provides unique configurability for complex processes. Align people, workflows, and tools across the parallel streams of product delivery by enabling teams with a flexible, fully integrated, and highly collaborative platform.
codebeamer is a great tool to support engineers looking for traceability, transparency, and efficient collaboration in requirements management. The platform provides gapless traceability to help track interdependencies and the impact of changes throughout the lifecycle. Requirements-based testing is supported out of the box. Use codebeamer to identify, manage, and track requirements across the lifecycle in order to reduce costs, risks, and delivery times in product development.
Custom reporting options, automated change control, and simple approval management help streamline collaboration in high-velocity development environments. For developers of regulated products, Intland’s preconfigured industry templates and domain services help reduce regulatory compliance effort and costs.
The tool integrates with Jira, Microsoft Word, Excel, IBM Rational DOORS, and plenty more. codebeamer is available as an on-premise or cloud-hosted SaaS platform with flexible licensing options to suit the needs of every team. A free 30-day trial is provided. Pricing information is available upon request.
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.4
95
30 days free trial
From $125/user/month
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4
ReQtest
Best for customizability.
If you’re looking for a tool that’s easy to implement, access, and learn to use, ReQtest should be at the top of your list. It’s a fully cloud-based tool that you can access from anywhere, with a friendly, transparent pricing model that intentionally accommodates small, agile, and scaling teams (as well as large organizations) with a “pay for what you use” approach.
ReQtest offers a complete suite of useful requirements management tools as well as features designed for agile requirements gathering. These include test management tools, bug tracking, and visual bug reporting tools, end-to-end requirements traceability, easy data export to Excel, collaboration features, and agile task boards.
This is a lightweight but effective solution that works well if you’re happy with a stand-alone tool (ReQtest has two-way sync with Jira, but no other pre-built integrations) and have no need for it to perform the functions of a full QMS or ALM system.
Overall, it’s one of the most affordably-priced solutions out there. It starts at $10/user/month, making it a low-risk introductory solution, especially for organizations that are using a requirements management tool for the first time.
This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.8
3
10 days free trial
From $10/user/month
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5
Modern Requirements
Best rated requirements management software
Modern Requirements offers a 4DevOps tool as a single-application solution for everything requirements management. The easy to use tools are built directly into Microsoft’s Azure DevOps, and allow you to create, automate, manage, analyze, and report requirements straight from your Azure DevOps project.
Modern Requirements4DevOps eliminates duplicate work, creates requirements reusability, and connects your requirements directly to your assets. You can build living requirements documents, diagrams, mockups, use case models, and other assets that are updated automatically as requirements change.
The tool also includes a built-in approval process (with e-signatures), easy to create baselines, and always up-to-date trace matrices. This solution allow teams to connect requirements to both development tasks and quality assurance testing for full traceability throughout the project lifecycle.
Built directly into Microsoft’s Azure DevOps, Modern Requirements provides a simple to use interface with the options to toggle off any features that might not be used by a given user. Modern Requirements also has a free guided bootcamp to help walk users through each of the offered tools, as well as professional training and support services at the implementation phase.
Modern Requirements is fully embedded with Microsoft’s Azure DevOps and provides your team with the opportunity to turn your new and existing projects into a single source of truth. They also offer full integrations through their Sync Bridge with all of the common tools.
Licenses are available on a User and Floating basis, and can be purchased as a perpetual license or through a subscription model.
Pricing information available upon request. Free 30-day trial available.
30 days free trial
Pricing upon request
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6
xebrio
Best requirements management tool for end-to-end traceability
Xebrio is a complete requirements management ecosystem that empowers teams to communicate with one another while gathering, analyzing, and finalizing requirements.
Additionally, it covers the entire project development lifecycle from requirements to releases. Xebrio’s requirement workflow allows all stakeholders to actively participate during the requirement gathering process and has an approval mechanism to ensure collective consensus.
Xebrio facilitates mapping requirements to tasks, milestones, test cases, and bugs. These requirements can then be traced to releases for end-to-end traceability. Some key features of the tool include requirements version tracking and version traceability, and real-time collaboration for requirements gathering.
Xebrio’s other significant features include task management, test coverage, milestone tracking, and bug tracking. It also supports document collaboration, time-tracking, and reporting.
In essence, Xebrio is a requirements management ecosystem with built-in project management features.
Xebrio has special pricing for startups and small teams, starting from as low as $1/user/month with a 10-user minimum. Paid plans for bigger teams start at $10/user/month and offer a 14-day free trial.
14-day free trial
From $2/user/month with a 10-user minimum
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7
Accompa
Best for ease of implementation and use
Accompa stands out among the crowd, not necessarily for its features but for its overall ease of use, ease of implementation, friendly pricing/payment model, and great customer service.
That said, Accompa doesn’t have the most robust feature set out there. They add new features on a continuous basis, but if you need something comprehensive in the here and now, I’d look to big players like Jama or Rational DOORS. In most cases, however, I wouldn’t be scared off by Accompa’s lack of features.
This solution does offer a truly useful collection of essential features (or else they wouldn’t be on this list!), and these include requirements traceability, automatic change and dependency tracking for impact analysis, discussion boards and alerts for collaboration, and requirements prioritization rules. It also offers some customization, such as custom fields, views, and user roles.
Another advantage of this tool: an above-average set of pre-built integrations, including Jira, FogBugz, HP Quality Center, IBM Rational, IBM Rational ClearQuest, Bugzilla, trac, VersionOne, Rally, Agilefant, Seapine Software, SmartBear, and VisualStudio Team Foundation Server.
Accompa costs from $199/month.
30 day free trial
From $199/month
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8
IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next
Best for engineering requirements management
IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next is a big hitter in the requirements management software game, with a comprehensive group of resource management software and companion products.
The main differential feature of IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next is its interoperability with other tools, including lifecycle management, team collaboration, and systems/software engineering (including MagicDraw, which makes it easy to convert spreadsheets into models that human brains can understand).
As part of the IBM ecosystem, it integrates with Jazz-based products and hosted Jazz solutions as well.
All in all, IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next offers a flexible solution that works well for large-scale enterprises, offering a high degree of granularity and configurability.
That said, IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS’ greatest strength is also its biggest drawback—it’s highly customizable, but at the same time, its large database and general complexity can make configuration management a bit cumbersome.
It’s not the easiest tool for everyone in your organization to use, although they do help you solve this potential issue by offering plenty of support: on-demand webinars, responsive support, how to’s, etc.
DOORS Next costs from $164/month as a SaaS.
Free Trial
Pricing Upon Request
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9
Caliber
Best for storyboards and simulations
Made by Micro Focus, Caliber (formerly Borland Caliber) is a requirements management tool with some great visual features for modeling requirements. In addition to traceable requirements and impact analysis tools, Caliber offers storyboards and simulations that allow you to test rules/processes to make sure they’re complete.
The biggest advantage of Caliber is that it’s more visually interactive and intuitive than most other requirements tools, with drag-and-drop reordering of requirements and the ability to attach images and spreadsheets to requirements. Likewise, their collaboration features allow for easy user access control, collaboration, review, and approval.
It’s a nice stand-alone tool that’s easy to use, but if you want something that integrates with a bunch of other tools, there are better options out there, as it doesn’t come with pre-built integrations with other tools or systems.
Caliber costs from $150/month.
Free trial available
From $150/month
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10
Perforce Helix RM
Best for traceability and test case management
Perforce’s Helix RM software is offered as a stand-alone module in their ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) suite, a product widely used among top-tier organizations.
This requirements management tool is scalable and can handle large files—it’s a great fit for large, distributed teams. Perforce has also gained a great reputation for responsive and effective customer support.
Helix RM offers a full suite of useful features, including a better offering of graphical tools than your average requirements management tool.
These include real-time collaboration features (comments, approval management, and easy file exports), impact analysis tools, requirements traceability, and test case management, file history graphs and even a time-lapse tool to visualize an item’s progress over time.
Helix resource management also stands out for its integrations—a two-way sync with Jira, as well as integrations with various Microsoft products, Slack, Eclipse, GitHub, Go2Group, Rational DOORS, and OpsHub.
Overall, Helix RM is a powerful tool, but it does take time to set up, implement, and learn to use it effectively. The good news is that they offer a wide variety of resources like video tutorials, training, and a comprehensive knowledge base to simplify the learning curve.
Perforce Helix RM costs from $179/month.
Free for 5 users
Pricing Upon Request
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Other Requirements Management Tools List
Here are more options that didn’t make the cut for the top 10 but definitely worth your while if you are expanding your tool research.
- Orcanos
Best for visualization and reporting
- ClickUp
Best for keeping your requirements visible to all stakeholders throughout the project
- Zoho Projects
Best for ongoing updates, communication, and collaboration
- Wrike
Best for cross-departmental collaboration
- Jira Service Management
Best requirements management tool + ITSM help desk
- ReqSuite® RM
Best for quick startup and high level of customization
- Visure Requirements
Best for enterprise requirements management with high-level customization.
How I Picked The Best Requirements Management Tools
I evaluated and compared the most popular requirements management tools on the market, both for their reviews and user interface. Then I weighed factors that make software a good requirements management solution, such as the following ones.
Visuals
This includes all graphical elements of the tool. It can be a menu, how elements are organized in the UI, how the tool displays a UML diagram or process modeling view, etcetera. This is a tool that you’ll be using every day, so it’s better if it’s nice to look at.
Usability
I look at each tool from your perspective as a user. The idea is to see if the tool is easy to use in terms of navigation through the different features. Also, I see how intuitive it is for someone new to the tool. Therefore, I also research all supporting material to help you master the tool. This includes knowledge bases, training videos, and tool walkthroughs.
Integrations
All out-of-box integrations with third-party applications, plus available APIs so you can develop custom connections. I’ll mention some of the relevant tools I think you may be using.
Pricing
I looked at each tool’s pricing structure. I’ll tell you the price at which their paid plans start on a monthly payment basis, and any information I find on free trials or free versions of the software.
Requirements Management Tools FAQs
Find answers to common questions other people have about this topic.
What is RM?
Requirements Management (RM) is the continuous process of gathering, documenting, analyzing, tracking, and agreeing on project requirements. It also entails communicating with stakeholders so we can be aligned on priorities and which requirements should stay or go.
The end goal of RM is to operate with clear, realistic, and agreed-upon requirements.
What key features should I look for in requirements management software?
Learn about some of the features included in this type of software and get familiar with the terminology.
- Requirements management: This includes the ability to define requirements, model relationships between them, reuse requirements, and export/import requirements data for creating requirements documentation.
- Document collaboration: Feature that allows your team to co-create documents and engage in conversations during the creation or review process.
- Baseline management: This includes tracking baselines, having support for different versions of a document, and tracking those changes. Version management will be especially important to guide conversations with the client on what has changed over time. The more we are in control of the changes, the better.
- Traceability and impact analysis: Establishing automatic relationships across requirements is key in requirements management. Traceable requirements and impact analysis include the ability to run test cases. In effect, this allows you to mitigate risks through change management processes when requirements, people, decisions, and timelines inevitably shift during the course of a project.
How do you pick the best tool for your team?
All things considered, learning to use and implement a requirements management tool is an investment of time and energy. Before you dive in, you want to ensure that you’re choosing the ideal fit for your projects.
I simplify the process by providing you with some of the most important questions I think you can ask during the selection process in order to narrow down the options.
What do you need the tool for?
Do you need something that’s one step up from Google Docs and a spreadsheet, or are you looking for an enterprise-grade tool that can support large volumes of data and distributed teams? Do you need additional functionalities such as task management, risk management, or the ability to create mockups? Will you be using the software specifically for software testing?
In general, here’s a basic division of the software on this list to get you started: More lightweight requirements management software includes ReQtest, Accompa, ReqSuite, and Pearls.
More robust requirements management software includes Rational Doors, Perforce Helix RM, Orcanos, and Jama Software. Middle of the road? Look to Modern Requirements4DevOps (built for Azure DevOps) and Caliber.
Do you want to buy a license or access cloud-based software?
Most requirements documentation software offers the selection between a cloud-based service and an on-premise installation. With this in mind, however, there are several completely cloud-based tools such as Accompa, ReQtest, and Orcanos. Consider your ability to host a solution on-premise. As a result, you’ll be able to narrow down the options significantly.
How easy is it to implement and learn?
A couple of factors contribute to how easy a solution is to learn and implement. Consider:
- Cloud-based or on-premise? See above. Right off the bat, a cloud-based Saas will be quicker to implement than an on-premise solution.
- Availability of training and support? If you expect your team to require some training and ongoing support, look to requirements management tools that have received praise for their above-average training and support: SpiraTeam, Rational Doors, ReqSuite, Accompa, Orcanos, and Perforce Helix RM.
- Pre-built integrations? The tools with the largest number of pre-existing integrations (by far!) are Jama, Accompa, and Perforce Helix RM. If you’re looking to cut down on implementation with a tool that plays nicely with your existing development and business tools, those should be at the top of your list.
What’s Next?
Now that you’ve seen this list, I recommend you read all about how we broke down the requirements-gathering process into 7 easy steps. Also, you might be interested in project scope and how it relates to your requirements.
Related tool lists:
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