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Adobe Workfront vs Microsoft Project Server 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:
 

Featured Reviews

Chris French - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced project management and automation simplify reporting and approval processes
I think that Adobe Workfront could be improved in several areas, including reporting, which I've already mentioned. There are very specific things within the custom forms that I think could be improved, such as having different labels within forms instead of system-wide. The ability to hide options in a drop-down at the custom form level instead of system-wide would be another improvement. There are times we have to create brand new fields because we need slightly different wording within the label. If we had the capability, we could easily trim down from over 1,000 custom fields to about 400 custom fields if we had the ability to have individual labels by form. So reporting is a big one, and I think there are some not huge changes needed, but improvements to custom forms and custom fields would be beneficial. My experience with reporting in Adobe Workfront so far is that the reporting could be better. The ability to report is great, but I think it is too difficult. Regarding dashboards, they are crucial to be able to pull information from different levels, but that's also a negative because it is very difficult to do that on a report. If I have issue-level data and project-level data that I need to see, with some custom coding, you can do some of it in a report, but in general, if you have a lot of that blended data between levels, you need to use a dashboard, which requires two different reports due to the difficulty in pulling data at the different levels into one thing.
Mouloud Fourali - PeerSpot reviewer
Visual project planning enhances collaboration and proactive management
The dependency management in Microsoft Project is highly valuable, as it visually maps dependencies and impacts within a project plan. The online version facilitates easy collaboration without having to share multiple versions of the file. The Gantt chart is also a very powerful tool for a visual presentation of sequences, critical paths, and execution processes, which simplifies comprehension for users.
EduardoMaya - PeerSpot reviewer
A solution that gives you all the information you need to plan detailed projects
The initial setup was just a little complex. I rate the initial setup a seven out of ten. Deploying the solution took two weeks. While deploying the solution, we had two instances, one for the IT team and one for the business team. And we had to connect the two and explain things to the team. Only two people were needed to deploy the solution, me and another person.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I also like Workfront's integration. The solution integrates natively with other systems. It's easy to connect Workfront to any product that has a customer service database, such as a CRM or service ticket management solution."
"Workfront is innovative and these were plenty of features that I found valuable while working at Logitech. Workfront had this feature of Project Schedule Templatization. This saves time and effort and even leads to the standardization of processes that are well-assorted. The Intelligent Graphical Interfaces of Workfront allow one to look at a specific type of resource and a specific phase for a specific family of products. You can get quite granular with the data and even zoom in or out of the timeline. It also categorizes projects according to classes and portfolios so that over time, you can more easily understand what are the various metrics involved in producing a specific portfolio Another important feature is Workfront allowing you to validate milestones and investigate the project. This also helped me to understand which projects are performing well and whether it was beneficial to invest in the same. The IT and the app configuration is quite secure and it is one of the benefits. One more valuable feature is the integration of communication systems inside Workfront. This helps you differentiate between normal business emails and project-specific conversations. This is also known as ‘queues’ and I absolutely find this feature extremely powerful."
"One of the best things about Adobe Workfront is that we can immediately track each project, keep track of all tasks with milestones, and monitor everything effectively."
"Feature-wise, I would say that its overall ability to be infinitely customizable is valuable...My experience with the support team has been amazing."
"Monitoring the progress of projects and tasks is very effective."
"The most valuable feature of Adobe Workfront that I have found is the external lookup, which helps users to get the outputs based on the API and enables users to get region information if it was in the country based on the logic-driven key and value pair."
"Workfront centralizes the tasks, the assignment of tasks, and documents required to do the work, streamlining communication and information availability, thus improving organization and reducing dependency on decentralized methods like email or servers."
"Adobe Workfront acts as a centralized platform, providing a single source of truth for project tasks and resources, supporting Agile methodologies like Kanban and Scrum, and allowing customizable workflows to automate tasks and streamline approvals."
"This is a scalable solution. It is easy to set up and to add clusters to your environment."
"Project schedule management is very good. Basically, it sits on SharePoint. So, every time we create a project, a new project site is created within that SharePoint environment, which is a very good document repository. It allows us to create issues and risks lists and additional functionality to keep track of what's going on with projects."
"The solution, overall, is excellent for project planning."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is stable to use, especially since I work with Microsoft for an extended period."
"Microsoft Project Server is quite a powerful tool and offers a good way of seeing dependencies and interactions, along with baselines."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to understand and navigate."
"The ability to track a project's progress using Microsoft Project Server is the most valuable aspect. It depends, especially when managing multiple projects."
"Using Power BI and SQL Server, I can extract a lot more data."
"Whenever we have issues, there is always someone ready to help us. Their people are knowledgeable and responsive. They get to tickets quickly. Just three or four weeks ago, we were having issues with getting data into Planview. We submitted a ticket and the turnaround was probably 45 minutes to get a response."
"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."
"The solution view into resource capacity and availability helps us to manage work."
"We provided whatever feedback we had to the Planview team, and they went in and built those additional features that we requested. For example, they created a great way for our users to search for a specific resource, project, program, or role. We were not using some of the features, and we wanted them to not be visible, and they helped us with that. They also brought a feature to provide visibility into when a resource was never assigned to any task. There was no visibility to this before. This feature was really very good for visibility into the resource portfolio."
"We can view a project both at the top level and dig into the particularities. It's given us greater visibility into the work itself."
"In my opinion, the financial planning feature is the most valuable feature of Planview Enterprise One."
"We're still in an early stage. Things will change as we use it more. I did program reports that are important and that will provide us with value."
"We have a fairly good picture of time tracking."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, new users find it a bit difficult to handle Adobe Workfront."
"Their agile tools are not as good as they could be, not as good as competitor products."
"Workfront's reporting capabilities must be improved."
"Integration with Azure DevOps could be improved to facilitate better communication between the two systems."
"Adobe Workfront could improve its interface, which may benefit from an overhaul for better consistency between the web interface and the API."
"My experience with reporting in Adobe Workfront so far is that the reporting could be better."
"Scalability in Adobe Workfront means it does not have its own storage space, since it is not a digital asset management tool."
"The downtime, while not too long or frequent, is an area for improvement."
"The solution's desktop version is not compatible with the MacBook."
"It would be useful if the solution allowed us to share files or project schedules. You may get that with the cloud version. However, it's not available on the on-premises versions."
"The user interface looks quite old and needs to be improved."
"The solution must provide Agile and AI features."
"The solution could have more compact dashboards, such as one finds with Planview."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"There need to be more tutorials available to users."
"Microsoft Project Server could improve by making the solution more user-friendly."
"I would suggest for the request module that they open up the fields and columns so it's like we are doing our work in the work module. You can't do that with today. We also have to make sure that the fields can go both ways with the request and work modules. Including fields in the column sets would be helpful, because today they only use attributes."
"The resource area needs improvement. The improvements that have been made recently in the later versions have been good improvements, but I think there are some more improvements needed there."
"Visualization and reporting areas could use improvements by having canned reports."
"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."
"Support is still a challenge. We find it challenging more due to the responsiveness and getting a case or ticket assigned to an analyst. That's what I was just doing. I was following up on an email that we opened last week. We haven't heard anything, so following up on that."
"The only area that I can see currently needing improvement is just the modernization of the look and feel of it."
"We have almost like a third-party group who has to do a lot of our configurations. It's a bit painful for us anytime we want to make a change. The other issue is that we have different groups all in the same instance. So, if one group wants to make a change, it impacts everyone. Then, we all have to come together, to say, "Yes, we approve this change, or no, we do not." Thus, it has not been as flexible for us."
"The technical people are very competent, but there is so much turnover in the people that we talk to, and that's frustrating. They will say, "We can make this work." Suddenly, that guy has left, and we have no one. Then, we have to start all over."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Speaking about pricing, I wouldn't recommend it to a smaller company because I do think the price point is higher than other solutions that can work."
"Adobe purchased Workfront in the past year, and they're putting work into developing the platform, so I expect the price to rise. It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable for the value it provides. It isn't Monday.com where you pick a license with a set price, and you've got a project manager."
"The pricing is a barrier to implementation. It is expensive compared to other competitors. Speaking about licensing, they have a private manager license for $1000, which you can use for administration as well. Then they offer a worker license for $500, and then a reviewer or contributor license which is free."
"We are partners with Adobe, so we get the licensing at a cheaper rate."
"The pricing of Workfront is completely license based."
"Adobe Workfront is an expensive solution."
"I'm not quite sure about the licensing costs. We're probably paying somewhere in the neighborhood of about 80,000 to 90,000 a year for our current on-prem because we handle our own licensing. As far as Project Online is concerned, we're still trying to get a good handle on that. It looks like it is going to be in a neighborhood of about 120,000 to 150,000 a year, but we're getting a lot more capability out of it."
"It has features that cannot be bought by other rivals, so cost does not matter."
"The product is expensive."
"It's not subscription-based, we purchased the on-premises version."
"I cannot comment on the price as I was not responsible for purchasing the solution."
"Microsoft Project Server is an expensive solution. Small businesses will not be able to afford it."
"It is an inexpensive product."
"We pay an annual licensing fee for the solution."
"The cost of other pieces and integrating them in needs improvement."
"Our licensing costs are probably $150,000 to $180,000 a year with 270 licenses total."
"We are on the Flex licenses."
"Planview is a little pricey. From a licensing perspective, for just a simple timesheet user who does nothing in the system but reports time, the licensing is a little pricey, but you have to look at it from what it is that you get. We have 6,000 users, and I don't manage the system at all. I just have to do add them to the system. The servers, maintenance, OS levels, security patching for the OS, and all other things are not something that we maintain. So, you have to look at it from an operational perspective. It is not just the product itself. A holistic view has to be taken when you look at the product and how you're going to support it. I would have to hire an entire operation staff to bring it in-house, and at the end of the day, that might cost me more."
"When we went through that process, I believe it is competitive with others on the market. However, there are less expensive options available. It's a more premium offering at a higher price."
"The licensing part is a bit costly in comparison with the other available PPM tools."
"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."
"I don't think we have necessarily purchased everything that I would have liked to have seen."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Healthcare Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise33
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Workfront?
Adobe Workfront features include expenses associated with a project or task that are not related to labor hours. This...
What needs improvement with Workfront?
The platform could benefit from additional customization features. The external lookup field, which allows custom API...
What is your primary use case for Workfront?
We specifically implement Adobe Workfront for other clients as Deloitte is a partner of Adobe. We work with different...
What do you like most about Microsoft Project Server?
The ability to track a project's progress using Microsoft Project Server is the most valuable aspect. It depends, esp...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Project Server?
The pricing for Microsoft Project Server is standard, around $200-$250, but I think it's actually $80 to $100 per yea...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Project Server?
In order to improve Microsoft Project Server, collaborative features could be enhanced, as it is possible to improve ...
What do you like most about Planview Portfolios?
Planview Management integrates seamlessly with other tools and systems used within the organization, such as enterpri...
What needs improvement with Planview Portfolios?
Enhancements are needed in: Advanced reporting and analytics: While Planview Management provides robust reporting and...
What is your primary use case for Planview Portfolios?
We use Planview Management to assess the current project portfolio, evaluate resource availability, and prioritize pr...
 

Also Known As

AtTask, Workfront DAM
MS Project Server
Planview Enterprise One, Troux
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Advance Autoparts, Emerson, Covario, Cisco, Caroma, TREK, Sapient Nitro, ATB, LexisNexis, CarPhone Warehouse
Magnachip, Gwinnett County Schools, CLEAResult, Medbit Oy, Intelbras S.A., ETS, CORE Construction, Keller Foundations
UPS, NatWest, Ingram Micro, Canadian Tire, Viessmann, Volvo, NASCO, UNESCO
Find out what your peers are saying about Planisware, ServiceNow, Smartsheet and others in Project Portfolio Management. Updated: September 2025.
868,654 professionals have used our research since 2012.