Planview Portfolios vs iServer comparison

Orbus Software and Planview are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. Orbus Software is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.5, while Planview is ranked #11 with an average rating of 9.0. Orbus Software holds a 4.7% mindshare in AM, compared to Planview’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Orbus Software users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Planview users who would recommend it.

iServer

Read 18 iServer reviews

2,505 Views
1,779 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Planview Portfolios

Read 63 Planview Portfolios reviews

3,071 Views
737 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

iServer

Planview Portfolios

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Planview Portfolios and iServer are competitive players in the project management and enterprise architecture categories. While Planview shines in areas of resource management and reporting, iServer gains an edge with its strong data integration capabilities and user adaptability, especially with Microsoft products.

Features: Planview Portfolios integrates strategy with execution, offering a comprehensive view of demand and resources, customizable architecture, and robust resource planning capabilities. iServer stands out with strong integration capabilities, especially with Microsoft Office, customizable architecture modeling, and intuitive UI that aligns with Microsoft applications.

Room for Improvement: Planview Portfolios could improve its agile integration and reduce the steep learning curve. Enhancements in intuitive interface design and customizability are desired. iServer could improve its visualization techniques, performance speed, and integrate more options while enhancing UI usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Planview Portfolios provides flexible deployment options across cloud solutions but garner mixed customer service reviews, where technical support consistency is a concern. iServer mainly offers on-premises solutions indicating stability and control with favorable customer service reviews, praised for quick responsiveness and expertise.

Pricing and ROI: Planview Portfolios is seen as costly but provides flexible licensing options like FLEX, offering value in strategic alignment and resource management. iServer, moderately priced, is perceived as offering a substantial ROI with competitive pricing, improving process efficiency and integration capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Planview Portfolios vs. iServer Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Planview Portfolios vs. iServer

February 2026

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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

iServer

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

8th

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Design (15th)

Planview Portfolios

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Project Portfolio Management (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of iServer is 4.7%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Planview Portfolios is 2.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
iServer	4.7%
Planview Portfolios	2.3%
Other	93.0%

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

Antonios Lazanakis

Senior IT Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Flexible, easy to use, and easy to import data

We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization iServer is a very flexible platform for defining your own enterprise architecture model. It is very easy to import data, and we also have good integration with Visual Drawing Tools and SharePoint. The solution is…

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it_user1684173

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"iServer is a very flexible platform for defining your own enterprise architecture model."

"The initial setup is easy."

"This flexibility is the most helpful part in the standard version."

"iServer has valuable features for workflow and document management."

"We like the governance."

"iServer is a solution that helps catalog enterprise architect solutions and catalog information."

"Integrating the Microsoft documents to the product and visualization matrix where we can see the end-to-end relationship of the network is of great importance to our company."

"It has helped having data lineage in the business cluster, which is used as control artifacts."

More iServer pros

"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."

"It gives us the vast ability to churn out-of-the-box reports and have an overview about approach rates and resource utilization."

"We are able to see where everyone in the team is in terms of hours, where there is capacity, and where we can actually add them, e.g., other projects that they're not currently staffed to."

"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 biggest impact has been getting all these global groups into one space so we can even have intelligent conversations about what are we trying to accomplish. Before, it was just different regions doing whatever. Now, we're all talking the same language, and that's good."

"It gives us flexibility in configuring assignments. We can do both Agile Teams and non-Agile Teams. This flexibility affects our ability to meet our company's particular needs by allowing us to work in a hybrid model, some Agile Teams, and some non-Agile Teams."

"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 have a fairly good picture of time tracking."

More Planview Portfolios pros

Cons

"There can be some performance issues using the solution that should be improved. When you make modifications modify to files there are embedded data within that can take a while to process."

"I haven't used this solution long enough to know what areas could be improved."

"The modelling needs improvement, specifically forecasting capabilities and scenarios."

"The migration tool needs to be included in the main package, and not as a separate license."

"The product is more expensive than Spark."

"There are other solutions out there that have a better user interface."

"It runs relatively slowly."

"Enhancing integration options with ERP or ITSM-related solutions for triggering automated requests for process definitions, changes, and tracking them in the iServer."

More iServer cons

"It is not an end-user-friendly product, and that's really the biggest thing. The hardest or the biggest hurdle I've ever had to face was adoption. I did the installation of the HP product in 2011. The company used it from 2011 to 2015, and the adoption was very high. When I was given the Planview product, adoption was very low. It wasn't as extensively used. We actually had people who wanted to go back to HP PPM because the interface of Planview was so broken, and it still is to some degree. So, it is not user-friendly. It doesn't flow the way a project manager thinks. What we did with HP PPM was a lot more manual programming. It wasn't as nice in terms of the interface, and it wasn't as pretty, but you could design it and build it so that everything flows with the way you worked, but Planview doesn't quite do that. There are a lot of screens. You have to jump back and forth. There are so many different places you have to go to just to do some basic tasks. That's the biggest thing that has really hindered adoption."

"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."

"The reporting is absolutely shocking. It's not good reporting and requires improvement."

"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."

"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."

"When it comes to reporting there are some challenges with integration."

"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've been using it for a while, so it's about maturity. It's about being able to build out things in Agile groups and teams and some of that. Then really trying to drive into the direction of Lean Portfolio Management and more Agile program management, I think is where we're heading."

More Planview Portfolios cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Aim for the exact number of people who shall define/review approve and view the processes, as it will impact the cost."

"The product has a moderate pricing."

"It's about 13K to set up and 9K for the license for three months. I think it's about 20K a year, but we haven't firmed up on pricing yet because the price depends on how long we commit to the solution."

"The solution is cheaper than its competitors."

"They offer annual subscriptions for developing countries, which are not affordable for small or medium businesses."

"The price of iServer is reasonable compared to other solutions."

"Our licensing costs are about a quarter of a million dollars per year."

"Our licensing costs are probably $150,000 to $180,000 a year with 270 licenses total."

"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 cost of other pieces and integrating them in needs improvement."

"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."

"We have several hundred licenses. It costs us several hundred thousand dollars a year."

"Our licensing fees are approximately $50,000 USD annually."

More Planview Portfolios pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

Marketing Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	59

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iServer?

iServer should invest in enhancing the capabilities of the embedded drawing tool, draw.io. draw.io is a drawing tool used to draw architectural diagrams, flow diagrams, etc. It is an alternative to...

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What is your primary use case for iServer?

We use iServer to establish an enterprise architecture function in our organization.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering iServer?

I would recommend the solution to other users. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

See all answers

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...

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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...

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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...

See all answers

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LeanIX vs iServer

Compared 11% of the time

OrbusInfinity vs iServer

Compared 9% of the time

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs iServer

Compared 6% of the time

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Broadcom Clarity vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 10% of the time

Planview PPM Pro vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 7% of the time

Planisware vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 6% of the time

LeanIX vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 4% of the time

Planview AdaptiveWork vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Enterprise Architecture Management

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Planview Portfolios

January 2026

Download Planview Portfolios product report

Also Known As

No data available

Planview Enterprise One, Troux

Overview

iServer is a unified software platform and enterprise modeling environment that extends and enhances the familiar, market leading Microsoft Visio and Office products. Core capabilities provided by iServer include an enhanced Microsoft Visio diagramming interface, a powerful central repository for all enterprise architecture or business process models and documentation, and a range of tools for visualization, analysis and decision making.

Orbus Software

Planview Portfolios equips leaders in strategic portfolio management to enhance investment confidence and market responsiveness through seamless strategy connection, planning, delivery, and outcomes, offering both cloud and on-premises options.

Planview Portfolios supports executives and portfolio managers by improving strategic execution with automated and adaptable processes. It integrates strategy and outcomes by aligning business and technology plans to optimize funding and resource capacity. Features include end-to-end visibility, which allows tracking of strategic initiatives and the ability to analyze performance data using key metrics. It also provides dynamic planning and funding via scenario modeling, allowing businesses to adapt funding based on outcomes while ensuring balanced investments against capacity.

What are the key features of Planview Portfolios?

Strategic Alignment: Connects OKRs with execution processes.
End-to-End Visibility: Assesses performance with KPIs for strategic decision-making.
Dynamic Planning and Funding: Scenario modeling for incremental funding.
Flexible Capacity Planning: Balances resources and dependencies.
Connected Technology Strategy: Aligns tech investments with priorities.
Adaptive Program Management: Integrates planning and cross-functional teams.

What benefits do users gain from using Planview Portfolios?

Customization and Interface: Offers tailored layouts and an intuitive interface.
Centralized Management: Manages projects and resources effectively.
Robust Reporting: Features Power BI integration for comprehensive reports.
Agile Integration: Supports agile practices alongside traditional methods.
Enhanced Collaboration: Facilitates team collaboration across departments.

Planview Portfolios sees extensive use across industries like IT, financial planning, and resource management. Global companies implement it for managing projects, resource allocation, and strategic planning. It's crucial for end-to-end project management, including investment planning, capacity management, and connecting agile with traditional resource planning, supporting departments worldwide in project execution.

Planview

Sample Customers

Barclays, Cathay Pacific, Deloitte, British Gas, MasterCard

UPS, NatWest, Ingram Micro, Canadian Tire, Viessmann, Volvo, NASCO, UNESCO

Buyer's Guide

Planview Portfolios vs. iServer

February 2026

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