Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Microsoft Project vs Planview Portfolios comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Microsoft Project
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Project Management Software (3rd)
Planview Portfolios
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (11th), Project Portfolio Management (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

Jacob-George - PeerSpot reviewer
Domain Consultant at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
Improved project scheduling has maximized resource utilization and has reduced delays
I think the licensing structure presents a significant area for improvement. The full features are not offered on the standard E4 license. This becomes problematic when distributing the project plan. I can export the plan as Excel and CSV files, but then I lose all the rich features, including dependency mapping. To recreate all that functionality without proper licensing is challenging. Microsoft Project offers a light version available for free, but when I try to distribute a project plan, it requires separate licensing. Microsoft Project Central used to be more of an enterprise product. Microsoft Project currently focuses on very low-level task management, and it could do much more. I do not see significant advancement happening because there is confusion about where Microsoft Project is heading. I believe Microsoft should bundle the license with Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This approach would result in more people using Microsoft Project. That is my opinion on how to improve adoption and the product offering.
it_user1684173 - PeerSpot reviewer
PM Systems Analyst at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Increases our on-time completion rate and helps in managing the demand and capacity, and we get excellent service in terms of feature requests and support
We've been encouraging our users to manage their schedules directly in the Work and Assignments module. So far, it has been good, but we've been in conversation with the vendor product team to improve the performance of the Work and Assignments module. Right now, it is a bit slower. 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. It provides flexibility for configuring assignments, but one of the things about which we've been talking to Planview is related to certain resources that are associated with a project. When the project extends, their demand also equally goes up. There are also resources where if a particular task has to crash, it may need additional effort. So, it is between the fixed effort versus fixed duration. Planview is more duration-based. For example, if you crash a task, the system rightly thinks that you're crashing the task, and you need to finish the work by doing overtime or working additional hours. If you are taking 30 hours to finish a task in three weeks, and for whatever reason, you have to crash the task into two weeks, 30 hours need to be fulfilled within those two weeks. If the task moves to four weeks, instead of three weeks, you still have 30 hours that get distributed among four weeks, so you will be able to finish the task. That makes sense for those resources that are associated with the task, but there are certain resources, such as a project manager or project administrator, for whom when a project extends, the demand also equally goes up. So, if somebody is assigned 50% for a project, and assuming that the project is moving out by a month or two or three months, the effort shouldn't go down. Currently, the allocation goes down, and our resource managers have to go and update the effort back up to 50% or whatever the demand is. We are interacting with Planview to provide a solution. Right now, we have to go and update the additional demand because of the change in the project.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to check project costs in the solution."
"The most valuable features of this solution are dependency management, milestone progress, multiple resource rates, and RAG views."
"I like that I can change the task and include different resources related to the task."
"I find the planning features the most valuable to me."
"Microsoft offers good support."
"Microsoft Project is one of the only solutions you can use in just about any industry. It's difficult to do that with most other project management tools. There is a lot of flexibility within the product assets. Most sectors can utilize Microsoft Project successfully because it doesn't have any generic adapters."
"A lot of valuable features have been added in the last three years, including scheduling automation and intelligence."
"This tool is the most accurate project management tool, allowing me to run a full set of project activities without having to switch between different tools for scheduling and other tasks."
"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."
"The look and feel of it is pretty clean."
"The biggest impact for using Planview currently would be to understand the true costs of projects. We are trying to get to a point where not only do we take into account technical costs, but what the business cost is. Trying to integrate our business right now into Planview is helping us identify the true cost of the investments that we make so we can try and understand their value."
"The flexibility on offer is very helpful in meeting the organization's needs."
"Another good thing is that we can create custom reports, which is great. If I created a custom report, a tile that tells me how many people have logged in today. We currently have a little under 2000 users, and that's only users, we actually have integrations, that we created a custom form that sends hours directly to Planview. They're not using Planview directly, but they're sending their hours to Planview through an API."
"It gives us the vast ability to churn out-of-the-box reports and have an overview about approach rates and resource utilization."
"The data is the most valuable because the reporting that we provide out of Planview is priceless when compared to any other tool. The reporting has a variety of reports. It has the capabilities of Power BI. It gives us all these dashboards that we can show to our executive leadership, and they have been very well-received."
"The most valuable features are scheduling, resource management, and, from a project perspective, the functions like issues that change orders. They are valuable because, from a project management perspective, we use the workflows that we build for project management and do active risk management and issue management for the projects that we want for our agencies."
 

Cons

"The technical support could be improved. They are okay, however, they could be much better."
"Project availability and speed could always be improved."
"Once we commit our status, changing it is hard."
"When moving resources between projects, it could be a bit more clear."
"Microsoft Project could improve the interface, it should be more intuitive. It could be adjusted a little bit to make it a little easier to use and more user-friendly. It is a very powerful tool and it takes people a while to get used to it."
"The solution is a basic tool that does not give you analytical insights. It does not have any AI capabilities which can also help to plan."
"It is positioned at the more high end. Sometimes it's more complicated than we need."
"I would like Microsoft Project to better align with our business needs, with improved consultant support for setup and integration features that show all relevant aspects at the top level."
"The technical support is a little overworked. At least, they have been in the past year. We need them to focus on somethings from time to time. You can tell that they're really focusing on many things. It has gotten better, but I think they could still use some relief."
"There are some issues with how long it takes to load the data to Planview, It just depends on what your setup is. If there was a way Planview could maybe make the loading faster, in case you do have a lot of things going on with your setup."
"Our challenge will be this tool is complex. It is not necessarily easy to start and learn from the beginning. How do you get people who are not professionals to adopt it, use it, and not be mean about it?"
"We are not very happy with the customer service. This is one of our main pain points. It doesn't cover the entirety of customer service, as there are reps who are really great and we've had good experiences. Many times, we've had people give us attitude, there was a delay in the response, or just a lack of interest. This got to the point where if there was a problem, we would rather try to solve it ourselves then call customer support."
"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."
"It could do with a quicker response time for some reports or portfolios."
"Being the IT development manager who implements the upgrades for Planview, I would love to see more thorough testing of expenditures and more thorough testing in general. When we do an upgrade, we have to do quite a bit of testing because we can affect the bottom line."
"When we first deployed, there were some issues. We never got to the root cause of why they happened. Since we didn't have any history with it, we weren't quite sure if this was a standard operating procedure or it truly was a glitch."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It probably was $30 per license on a monthly basis. There is no additional fee."
"The product is not expensive. My company has opted for an annual subscription."
"The pricing is based on a licensing model and is reasonable."
"The solution is expensive."
"The cost for an on-premises-based license is a one-time fee, and the cloud-based is an annual payment plan."
"Pricing-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten since I feel it is a bit costly."
"We have to pay for a yearly license for Microsoft Project."
"Licensing costs vary depending on the user volume. The pricing is good, I'd rate it four out of five."
"The cost of other pieces and integrating them in needs improvement."
"We have several hundred licenses. It costs us several hundred thousand dollars a year."
"We have unlimited licenses for all of our functionalities. Since we went global, we went with that model."
"We have portfolio managers, resource managers, project managers, and time reporting licenses. These are the licenses that we have."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $50,000 USD annually."
"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 recently did a new bundle for all of Enterprise One. It includes some of the newer pieces, like Projectplace and LeanKit. It bundled our CTM in with it as well. I think the total came out to be about $900,000 a year. This is for unlimited licenses."
"The licensing part is a bit costly in comparison with the other available PPM tools."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Project Management Software solutions are best for your needs.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise41
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise59
 

Questions from the Community

Has anyone moved from Microsoft Project to Smartsheet? How has your experience been with Smartsheet?
Hi @Eire Zimmermann, I helped an organization evaluate both MS-Project and Smartsheet when they were conducting their PM tool RFP. The short of it is this, MS Project is not caught up with the mo...
What do you like most about Microsoft Project?
The product's initial setup phase is easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Project?
I would say Microsoft Project is affordable, but the standalone Project license should be included in the Office price to increase adoption.
What do you like most about Planview Portfolios?
Planview Management integrates seamlessly with other tools and systems used within the organization, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, customer relationship management (CRM) syst...
What needs improvement with Planview Portfolios?
Enhancements are needed in: Advanced reporting and analytics: While Planview Management provides robust reporting and analytics capabilities, further enhancements could include more advanced data v...
What is your primary use case for Planview Portfolios?
We use Planview Management to assess the current project portfolio, evaluate resource availability, and prioritize projects based on strategic objectives, ROI, and risk factors. Planview Management...
 

Also Known As

Project Pro, MS Project
Planview Enterprise One, Troux
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aston Martin, ABANCA, Airbus Group, Capita, Cardiff University, City of Saskatoon, Intel, Pegasus Airlines, South Australia Power Network (SAPN), Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing
UPS, NatWest, Ingram Micro, Canadian Tire, Viessmann, Volvo, NASCO, UNESCO
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Project vs. Planview Portfolios and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.