A List Of Free Requirements Management (RM) Software

The purpose of requirements management is to ensure that organizations can identify, document, verify and meet the needs and expectations of customers. Requirements may be generated from customers, partners, and stakeholders from relevant business units.

There are plenty of try-before-you-pay-a-lot offers for Requirement Management Software. Good, free RM software, however, is rare. This article sketches out three of the most promising packages and informs you of the pros and cons of each. Not all of them are winners. But there are still some excellent, free bargains available. Let’s see what’s out there.

aNimble — Open Source

aNimble is a free open source solution, hosted on SourceForge. Written in Java, it is compatible with any computer running the Java platform (J2EE). The Java runtime engine is also free to use, making this software a true freebie.

According to SourceForge, aNimble is a “Requirements Management Tool designed to achieve full SDLC traceability for features, requirements, design, implementation, and testing.” It has a user interface for requirements derivation, version control, attributes, and other necessary RM features.

The latest update of this software was in 2016. It may not be in active development.

aNimble Pros:

    FREE OPEN SOURCE

    CROSS PLATFORM COMPATIBILITY

aNimble Cons:

    LATEST VERSION FROM 2016

    QUESTIONABLE ACTIVE DEVELOPMENT

mToo Requirements Management Tool — Open Source

mToo is another free and open source RM tool. This one is in active development and is current in 2017.

mToo is unique among RM software tools. It has no graphical user interface, no GUI. It is a command line tool for hard-core techies and organizations with people who really know how to make their computers sing. It is very efficient.

mToo itself is a development platform that can handle the input and output files required to keep track of your projects. There is no need to use or purchase special tools. Additionally, mToo uses existing revisioning systems such as GIT (well known in development circles) to keep track of baselining, tagging, branching and other processes so that it doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel.

mToo Pros:

    FREE AND OPEN SOURCE

    GOOD FOR DEVELOPERS

    VERY EFFICIENT

mToo Cons:

    VERY TECHNICAL

    STEEP LEARNING CURVE

    NO GUI (Might not be a con for some)

iPlan — 5 Users for Free

iPlan has a 5-users-for-free plan. After that, you pay a per user license fee. (This fee was unavailable at the time this article was written.)

iPlan allows you to create, then breakdown concepts into requirements, setup links between relationships, and incorporate specific details into requirements. From beginning to end you maintain requirements visibility and capture the history of the requirements' changes. Everything is documented, including test cases.

iPlan Pros:

    FREE FOR 5 USERS

    GOOD CUSTOMER SUPPORT

iPlan Cons:

    UI NEEDS WORK

    DIFFICULT TO USE

Conclusion

There isn’t much to choose from when shopping for free Requirement Management Software but if you’re willing to adjust within the constraints, there is clearly an opportunity here to manage your requirements efficiently with these tools.

Which other application do you think should be on this list?