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Adaptive Insights vs Board vs Planful 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Business Performance Management category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 4.3%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Board is 5.6%, up from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Planful is 2.7%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Business Performance Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Adaptive Insights4.3%
Board5.6%
Planful2.7%
Other87.4%
Business Performance Management
 

Featured Reviews

Andrew Rosenberg - PeerSpot reviewer
Adaptive scales well, simple to create new budget versions and models
For the organization I used to work at, it streamlined the process of creating budgets. It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday. So that made it easy. Reporting was pretty easy to set up as well. It streamlined the amount of time it took to do the budget as well as kind of making it simple to implement a rolling forecast process. So, it really was more just a productivity increase and time shortening for the budgeting and forecasting process.
Wiboon Thabsuwan - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use and requires less time to learn or understand its features
I think the product is good in terms of ease of use. The interface looks really nice and very easy to use. Every command appears in the icon. It looks like you don't have to understand everything about the command. You do not necessarily have to know more, or I would say that there is less time for our study about the products. Functionality-wise, it is quite easy to use and requires less time to understand or learn about the product. I am a software vendor, so I do not use the tool myself. I use it for my clients. My clients mostly use it for budgeting and timing purposes. I would say that's really less maintenance at all because they can do everything by themselves. It is good in terms of ease of use.
reviewer1110591 - PeerSpot reviewer
It has helped us speed up the turnaround time on our consolidation, and we haven't had anything come up that the program has not been able to solve
The part that we liked about Excel is that it had a better interface in terms of just graphical illustration of our results. So, if we wanted to look at our financial trends and put it into some type of graphical interface for people to look at, we still have to leverage Excel for that. The dashboards aren't as usable as maybe some of the other solutions, such as Tableau or other BI tools. The application that we use today for our BI tools is Tableau. That's how people absorb information. We don't really use the functionality or dashboards within Planful because of the robustness of Tableau. That's our single source of data. If Planful was better or more comparable in terms of features and functionality, we could probably leverage that in Planful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Reports are allowed to be edited for aesthetic purposes, which is lacking in a lot of other dashboard tools."
"The biggest feature is the source of truth for all of our budget and forecast versions."
"It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its dashboard."
"The important feature is integration with source data. It connects to various ERP systems, including Workday, Intact, and others. It can also import actuals and compare them to PlanPoint quite easily."
"The integration with our payroll system to complete staff modeling during our budget and forecast processes."
"It's very stable."
"Forecasting changes that instantly flow through all financial statements."
"I think the product is good in terms of ease of use."
"Primary valuable features are its flexibility and versatility and, obviously, functionality goes along with that. Plus, it does that at a small footprint in the file servers, and does it very efficiently."
"The flexibility and the user-experience are the most valuable features of the solution."
"The aesthetics of it are really nice. That is what attracted us to BOARD: the ease and functionality of it."
"​Our data is now more structured. Between our data warehouse and BOARD, which are both brand new, we now have a more structured data view with more accurate, timely data."
"The most valuable features are the reporting and the charts. The reporting functionality is handy for aggregation, when it comes to planning. That ability is fascinating and our users are very happy with it. The charts and the reporting allow our users to see all the data and to see how things are going this year or in the COVID situation. They're seeing everything. Instead of having to check data line by line, they're seeing it in a graph and they're seeing it in charts."
"With the combination of 24/7 global support and their community, there was great customer service, tech support, and community support."
"We have better reporting and have been able to better track performance."
"It has helped us speed up the turnaround time on our consolidation. We don't have to do reporting in Excel anymore, which has cut down on the errors and the efficiency of our close time."
 

Cons

"Adaptive Insights has a limit of 1,00,000 rows for HTML reports. It should be improved because we will have multiple dimensions that need to be populated to enhance the image."
"The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up."
"The product's configuration process could be faster."
"Their customer support team is slow to respond and not extremely confident."
"Discovery (the data visualization module): Needs to catch up with BI leaders, such as MS and Tableau. E.g., sorting by amounts in column charts and page slicers to control all visuals."
"Adaptive Insights could improve the data designer interface to make integrations easier to set up."
"Better user interface (UI)."
"Being able to drill down when using OfficeConnect needs work."
"Board's integration could be a bit more robust, but what we have works. If the design isn't right, the flexibility of Board can negatively impact performance."
"Some of our users are still using an MS Office add-in for Excel for certain calculations, and when they export from Board, some of the values, some of the totals and column names, are not coming through into Excel."
"It can have more functionality for narrative reporting. They should also improve their training courses, which are currently very lightweight. When you get into more complex things, it is quite difficult to figure out what you're supposed to do, and you have to look at a lot of videos before you actually understand, which is a bit frustrating. Their training can be more comprehensive."
"It would be nice to have more connectors for other data sources. BOARD is a great tool to become the single source of the truth. Making it easier to connect data sources for niche software tools will make it easier to keep everything in one place."
"Building similar models entirely from scratch could be made quicker with transfer abilities between databases and capsules."
"In terms of scalability, I would say that there are some limitations in the solution. It cannot handle data that is too big."
"I would like to see better relationships with the partners."
"We are looking at ways to improve how we deal with security in BOARD and other similar things. ​"
"The part that we liked about Excel is that it had a better interface in terms of just graphical illustration of our results. So, if we wanted to look at our financial trends and put it into some type of graphical interface for people to look at, we still have to leverage Excel for that. The dashboards aren't as usable as maybe some of the other solutions, such as Tableau or other BI tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect."
"Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others."
"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."
"Adaptive Insights' pricing is relative to its peer competitors. It's certainly competitive compared to a spreadsheet template that you build in Excel. It can be expensive if you need to have 100-500 budget holders giving input and building financial plans. However, in that case, it becomes an extremely good bargain. Compared to its competitors, it offers an excellent value."
"Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place."
"Pricing is in line with other cloud-based EPM tools. It is a subscription-based model based upon the number of users and site type if it's an admin or end-user type thing."
"It's affordable."
"Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings."
"​In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."
"The tool's price is a bit high compared to other solutions."
"Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support."
"The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."
"It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money."
"Right now, everything is on a three-year term contract, and that is our main cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Non Profit
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Adaptive Insights?
It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headc...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Adaptive Insights?
12 years ago, it was very affordable. Workday has definitely increased its price since it acquired Adaptive a few yea...
What needs improvement with Adaptive Insights?
The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up. So, there could be roo...
Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?
We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS ge...
What do you like most about Board?
All the reports are prepared automatically.
What needs improvement with Board?
Board's integration could be a bit more robust, but what we have works. If the design isn't right, the flexibility of...
Ask a question
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Workday Adaptive Planning, Adaptive Discovery , Workday Adaptive Planning
No data available
Host Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Cisco Systems 2. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated 3. Deloitte 4. DocuSign 5. Dropbox 6. Electronic Arts 7. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation 8. Fitbit 9. Fossil Group 10. Groupon 11. Hilton Worldwide 12. HP Inc. 13. Intuit 14. Johnson & Johnson 15. LinkedIn 16. Lyft 17. McAfee 18. Medtronic 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. Pandora 22. PayPal 23. Pinterest 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. ServiceNow 27. Slack Technologies 28. Spotify 29. Symantec 30. Tableau Software 31. Twitter 32. Workday
Coca-Cola, Puma, Desigual, Ricoh, KPMG, H&M, Groupe SEB
Tandem Diabetes Care, Reed Exhibitions, SkyGolf, Zep Inc., Thule, Stylesight, Schumacher Group, Parsons Electric, Nextag, Groupon
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle, Anaplan, IBM and others in Business Performance Management. Updated: September 2025.
867,445 professionals have used our research since 2012.