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Avolution ABACUS vs Planview Portfolios comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Avolution ABACUS
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Planview Portfolios
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Project Portfolio Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.1%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Planview Portfolios is 2.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Planview Portfolios2.8%
Avolution ABACUS3.1%
Other94.1%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

JoseCamacho - PeerSpot reviewer
Freelancer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Supports evaluating architecture through corporate objectives
I conducted an evaluation of enterprise architecture at the European Court in Luxembourg, reviewing and analyzing existing implementations to identify potential improvements and providing recommendations I conduct evaluations to identify potential improvements and make recommendations, forming a…
Monabi Kingsley - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at 3M
Centralized planning has improved resource visibility and supports data‑driven financial decisions
The best features Planview Portfolios offers are visibility enhancement, robust system performance, and comprehensive resource management. This enhanced visibility in Planview Portfolios ensures that all users can easily track progress, identify bottlenecks, and make informed decisions to optimize workflow efficiency. When discussing robust system performance, the system's robust performance in meeting our various work requirements effectively and efficiently stands out. It is very stable and reliable, contributing to a seamless user experience, which enables users to focus on their tasks without disruptions. I also love the financial breakdown, planning and prioritization, and attribute collection on projects in Planview Portfolios. Planview Portfolios has positively impacted my organization since I started using it. It has enabled me to gain insights into the full scope of work consuming resources. I am able to know where the resources are being consumed more, especially which resources are consuming the most. I have been able to leverage resources management and resource time reporting, which enabled the generation of $90 million in annual revenue through labor billing to customers.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."
"This product is very strong in terms of the meta-model because you can customize a lot according to the business plan."
"ABACUS is a really forward thinking product with a lot of nice features in it; it's not just all talk, it actually works."
"For what it does it is very good and a reasonable price."
"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"There are plenty of features available such as the ability to test applications for issues and a user-friendly dashboard."
"Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis."
"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."
"We use time reporting. We convert time reporting into financial costs and do contractor and capacity planning for our resources. We track our work. So, that's the module we use extensively. As a matter of fact, we have upwards of 300 open projects at this given moment. It is pretty close to 300 open activities that are working."
"It maps back to our SDLC process pretty well. I'm able to see the stage of where things are at. We also use Azure DevOps for all of our requirements and our coding."
"Having Enterprise One has increased our on-time completion rate by 40%."
"The flexibility on offer is very helpful in meeting the organization's needs."
"The portfolio management gives you a view of all the projects as well as all the information about the total amount of effort, time, and cost being spent on the projects. It gives the organization how much money and effort should be spent towards projects so they can budget and do better capacity planning in the next fiscal year. It gives them visibility into their resources and if they have capacity."
"I would say it works really well for forecasting remaining effort, especially in terms of forecasting the dollar amounts. We've gotten pretty good at adjusting rates because we have a lot of contract workers."
"Troux has an easily extensible meta model and UI which other tools don't have."
"The most valuable features are the resource planning and tracking."
 

Cons

"The company needs to update the UML version they are using for the product as it is quite old."
"It is vastly scalable but you can't run it on a Mac or Linux so it has limitations."
"It is vastly scalable but you can't run it on a Mac or Linux so it has limitations."
"While this is one of the most powerful tools on the market it does not integrate well with Microsoft Office or others."
"I use reference models, which are taxonomies, in my EA work. It is a reference model/taxonomy of things with capabilities, sub capabilities, and sub-sub capabilities, so you're working it down. I haven't yet found a simple way to implement that in Abacus. It could be that it is there, but I don't know how to do it."
"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."
"In the future, there could be improvements in integration and enhancements."
"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."
"The reporting is absolutely shocking. It's not good reporting and requires improvement."
"We had issues with the data rephrasing."
"When it comes to reporting there are some challenges with integration."
"One of the reasons why we've upgraded so many times is because of performance standards. We've just run into issues where we've had performance problems. Maybe they are not upgrading, but they're adding more horsepower. Then, we do go upgrade and lose that horsepower, which is frustrating from my perspective as an admin to lose that horsepower. Hopefully, that'll change."
"Right now, we're overspending, and my organization is not seeing the value in Planview because we are paying so much for licenses that we're not using."
"The outcome management and work resource management in terms of teams needs improvement. Team handling, how team requirements are generated, and how the resource managers can work with teams needs to be improved."
"We don't use the Progression feature. We will use it at some point in time. Until then, we want to have a way to set time to help decide what's in the past, present, and future. It is one of the things we've been discussing with Planview."
"The scheduling's kind of clunky in terms of its ability for us to see what stage work is at. They could have done better with that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"I'm paying on a yearly basis. I don't know whether it's a highly expensive tool or not. I'm getting a single version of it, and I don't have the enterprise part on it because I don't need the server component, and I don't need a web browser component. My estimate would be that it's a very reasonably priced tool given that you don't need to have licenses with everyone in order to get the information and the decision support capabilities out of the tool. You use the enterprise edition on top of the studio, which is the heart of the tool. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"It is expensive."
"To get a fairly extensive license for Enterprise Architects from Spark is approximately US $400.00, maybe less, but with Avolution Abacus it was approximately US $2000.00 per year, and that includes maintenance with the Abacus tool."
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"It is competitive. It is not chump change. I am just using the studio version. I am not using the full enterprise version, which would probably cost me three times more for single-use, but it gives a lot more capability and analysis. It is server-based as well, and it is reasonably priced compared to a lot of the other tools. There are other tools that have other sorts of capabilities, but in order to use them, you'd really have to have like 50 users for the price to become justifiable."
"We overbought our licenses. We looked at our needs three to four years down the road and tried based our contract on that. However, we were over aggressive. We use about a third of the licenses that we have. We're looking to adjust the makeup so we can start utilizing the amount of money that we are spending. Right now, we're overspending, and my organization is not seeing the value in Planview because we are paying so much for licenses that we're not using."
"We have several hundred licenses. It costs us several hundred thousand dollars a year."
"I don't think we have necessarily purchased everything that I would have liked to have seen."
"In the time that I've used it, we've doubled up the amount of dollars on our intended projects."
"I think all in we are at $33,000 a year and that includes Projectplace and Planview. We used to have the integration to JIRA, but we don't pay for that anymore."
"With the costs, they were very understanding. Knowing that we were an existing customer, they were very much willing to work with us to make sure that we were able to transition to Enterprise One from PPM Pro."
"The cost of other pieces and integrating them in needs improvement."
"The licensing part is a bit costly in comparison with the other available PPM tools."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise66
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Avolution ABACUS?
It's pricey compared to Essential, Deltek, or Essential Cloud. However, its diagramming capabilities and metamodel design make it worth it. But it's not for large user bases. It has modules for app...
What needs improvement with Avolution ABACUS?
While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product. It would be beneficial to have seminars or other met...
What is your primary use case for Avolution ABACUS?
I conducted an evaluation of enterprise architecture at the European Court in Luxembourg, reviewing and analyzing existing implementations to identify potential improvements and providing recommend...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Planview Portfolios?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that Planview Portfolios is one of the best and a very cost-effective tool.
What needs improvement with Planview Portfolios?
Planview Portfolios can be improved as the user interface defaults to the last opened portfolio, which can waste a lot of time loading a large portfolio if that is not what I need at that moment. J...
What is your primary use case for Planview Portfolios?
My main use case for Planview Portfolios is to ensure governance and decision auditability by incorporating embedded workflows, approval management, and key document retention supporting a single c...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Planview Enterprise One, Troux
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
UPS, NatWest, Ingram Micro, Canadian Tire, Viessmann, Volvo, NASCO, UNESCO
Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. Planview Portfolios and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.