Microsoft Project Server vs Planview Portfolios comparison

Microsoft and Planview are both solutions in the Project Portfolio Management category. Microsoft is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.1, while Planview is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.0. Microsoft holds a 5.1% mindshare in PPM, compared to Planview’s 7.2% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Planview users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Project Server

Read 62 Microsoft Project Server reviews

1,379 Views
703 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Planview Portfolios

Read 63 Planview Portfolios reviews

2,081 Views
895 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Microsoft Project Server

Planview Portfolios

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Planview Portfolios and Microsoft Project Server both operate in the project management space. Planview Portfolios appears to be favored for its extensive portfolio management capabilities, while Microsoft Project Server stands out for its ease of use and scheduling strength.

Features: Planview Portfolios is recognized for its robust resource planning, project execution, and strategic alignment capabilities, with strong customization and integration with tools like Power BI. It's particularly suitable for large-scale projects requiring detailed resource and financial management. Microsoft Project Server is appreciated for its scheduling capabilities and seamless integration with other Microsoft products, offering a familiar environment for Microsoft ecosystem users. It helps significantly in planning and task management with its straightforward user experience.

Room for Improvement: Planview Portfolios needs better support for visualization enhancements, more straightforward customization options for reporting, and integration with other agile tools. Users also desire enhancement in its support framework. Microsoft Project Server could improve its collaboration features and integration with modern technologies, alongside improvements in the user interface and resource management capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Planview Portfolios offers multiple cloud deployment options, although setup complexity can vary. Some users report inconsistent customer service, experiencing challenges in obtaining immediate assistance. Microsoft Project Server predominantly offers on-premises deployment with limited cloud options, providing robust support documentation but facing some integration issues. Users find contacting customer service straightforward, although resolution speed could be improved.

Pricing and ROI: Planview Portfolios is considered costly but offers substantial ROI through enhanced resource management and strategic alignment, with licensing options like FLEX for adaptable needs. Opinions on its cost-effectiveness are mixed. Microsoft Project Server's pricing is perceived as high for its capabilities, particularly due to its seamless integration with the Microsoft platform. It may be cost-prohibitive for smaller businesses despite its robust features. Planview's pricing aligns with its feature set and ROI, whereas Microsoft’s pricing is competitive, primarily benefiting from integration advantages.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Project Server vs. Planview Portfolios Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Project Server vs. Planview Portfolios

September 2025

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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

Microsoft Project Server

Ranking in Project Portfolio Management

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Planview Portfolios

Ranking in Project Portfolio Management

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Enterprise Architecture Management (13th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Project Portfolio Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Project Server is 5.1%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Planview Portfolios is 7.2%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Project Portfolio Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Project Server	5.1%
Planview Portfolios	7.2%
Other	87.7%

Project Portfolio Management

Featured Reviews

Mouloud Fourali

Project Manager at Digital Research Alliance of Canada

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.

Read full review

EduardoMaya

Project Office Manager at Hoteles City Express

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to understand and navigate."

"The solution is stable."

"The ability to track a project's progress using Microsoft Project Server is the most valuable aspect. It depends, especially when managing multiple projects."

"There are many valuable features of this solution. It is very advanced and once you understand and learn how to use it, it can be quite powerful. The whole package can be quite powerful."

"The most valuable feature of the Microsoft Project Server is the level of detail with which I can break down a task and check the dependencies."

"In the competitive landscape of project management and portfolio management solutions, Microsoft Project Server stands out significantly."

"I like the way you can build the schedule by the Don't Start Before or Don't Start After values. You can use it to build your schedule based on how you change your dates. This is how it actually builds the schedule."

"Microsoft Project Server is quite a powerful tool and offers a good way of seeing dependencies and interactions, along with baselines."

More Microsoft Project Server pros

"Planview Management integrates seamlessly with other tools and systems used within the organization, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and collaboration platforms."

"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."

"I like that it's an enterprise environment. I can look across everything that's going on and have a sense of what is going on within the organization."

"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."

"The sheer amount of information available in one single interface is valuable. Everything is there. It is also a lot of work to maintain all the information, but generally, you can find everything you need within this one tool."

"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 flexibility on offer is very helpful in meeting the organization's needs."

"Its view into resource capacity and availability absolutely help us manage work. We can't plan out projects for delivery until we know if we have resources available to deliver them. That's been really critical. We look at our projects and see what availability of resources we have. That helps us to determine when we can start new work."

More Planview Portfolios pros

Cons

"Resource management has room for improvement because it uses a lot of resources."

"The price of the product must be improved."

"The solution's desktop version is not compatible with the MacBook."

"There need to be more tutorials available to users."

"The solution could have more compact dashboards, such as one finds with Planview."

"Microsoft Project Server needs improvement in the integration of more tools and syncing of Blockly tools on time."

"The reporting in the desktop version is not highly customizable or professional compared to other solutions."

"It needs to be more collaborative from inside the application. It only does project scheduling for me. It would be good if it could do other things and be more collaborative, such as sharing tasks for users. It is not really incorporated into MS Office, so you can't copy-paste stuff. It is on its own, doing its own thing. It is only used for scheduling, and it doesn't work well with anything else."

More Microsoft Project Server cons

"The administrative tabs are very confusing, especially in terms of configuring screens and users. It's not very intuitive versus many other applications that I have worked in the past. I have to go to separate sections than I think I have to in order to get to the place that I need to adjust something."

"When I started working with Planview, I didn't know anything about project or resource management. I had to learn everything: the admin side, then the user side of it. Probably, in the beginning, I would implement in the blueprint or workshops more demos. A live demo of how the system works because we would like a little deeper dive in how the application works for us to understand what we need to provide, what we are doing, what we will be doing. Because in the beginning, it was so overwhelming, and we didn't know anything about the tool."

"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."

"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."

"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 solution needs to be better at accepting new ideas for upcoming releases."

"The only area that I can see currently needing improvement is just the modernization of the look and feel of it."

"There can be improvement on the sense of urgency because a lot of times we've exhausted everything that we can, and now, we're reaching out. So, it isn't a, "Well, have you tried to reboot this?" We've already done everything. Once we put in a ticket, there should be more of a sense of urgency on it."

More Planview Portfolios cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing was procured before my involvement."

"The product is expensive."

"It has features that cannot be bought by other rivals, so cost does not matter."

"We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft, and our licensing is based on the agreement."

"I rate the pricing a one out of ten because the price is way too high."

"A standard license is cheaper, but if you want more features, then there is a premium license or professional license."

"I would rate the price a six out of ten."

"I think they need more flexibility with licensing, because there are preconceived ideas that don't allow as much flexibility with the various licenses."

More Microsoft Project Server pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

"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 are on the Flex licenses."

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

"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."

"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."

More Planview Portfolios pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Government

Energy/Utilities Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	25
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	33

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	58

Questions from the Community

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, especially when managing multiple projects.

See all answers

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 year. The pricing for Microsoft Project Server is relative; I would say it is cheap.

See all answers

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 it in a collaborative way similar to other office products, for example, using c...

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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

Comparisons

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Compared 22% of the time

ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management vs Microsoft Project Server

Compared 10% of the time

Planview ProjectPlace vs Microsoft Project Server

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Primavera Portfolio Management vs Microsoft Project Server

Compared 8% of the time

Jira vs Microsoft Project Server

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

LeanIX vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 7% of the time

SAP Portfolio and Project Management vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 6% of the time

Planview PPM Pro vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Project Server

August 2025

Download Microsoft Project Server product report

Buyer's Guide

Planview Portfolios

August 2025

Download Planview Portfolios product report

Also Known As

MS Project Server

Planview Enterprise One, Troux

Overview

Microsoft Project Server facilitates project portfolio management and everyday collaboration, enhancing decision-making processes. Its integration with SharePoint offers a flexible solution for enterprise project management, catering to complex project needs seamlessly.

Microsoft Project Server empowers project teams and managers with enhanced communication and comprehensive project visibility. It supports dynamic resource allocation, financial tracking, and risk assessment. A cloud-ready platform, it simplifies deployment and scalability, suitable for diverse project environments and needs robust integration with leading productivity tools and services.

What are the key features of Microsoft Project Server?

Resource Management: Allocate and track resources efficiently to optimize productivity.
Portfolio Analysis: Assess and prioritize projects based on strategic alignment and constraints.
Time Reporting: Streamline time tracking and reporting for accurate project insights.
Integration with Office: Seamlessly connects with Microsoft Office applications for enhanced productivity.
Security and Compliance: Ensures data security with customizable permissions and compliance standards.

What benefits can users expect from Microsoft Project Server?

Enhanced Collaboration: Facilitates communication and collaboration among project teams.
Improved Decision Making: Offers comprehensive data analytics for strategic planning.
Efficiency Gains: Streamlines project management workflows for increased productivity.
Cost Management: Enables effective budget tracking and financial control.

Industries such as construction, IT services, and pharmaceuticals leverage Microsoft Project Server for managing large-scale projects with precision. Its adaptability to different industry standards ensures specific project requirements are met while maintaining operational control and regulatory compliance.

Microsoft

Planview Portfolios offers a comprehensive platform for managing IT, project and resource management, along with strategic planning. The tool focuses on optimizing resource allocation and financial analysis, supporting global operations.

Organizations use Planview Portfolios to streamline project tracking from inception to completion, enhancing strategic alignment with corporate objectives. The tool integrates with platforms like JIRA to provide seamless workflows and supports critical business processes, including budgeting and capacity planning. Teams benefit from customized configurations and robust reporting, further supporting effective decision-making. Despite its strengths, improvements are sought in navigation, documentation, and integration capabilities.

What are the key features?

Customizable interface: Allows personalization to meet specific needs.
Comprehensive resource and financial management: Enables detailed tracking and analysis.
Robust reporting: Provides extensive data insights.
Integration with Power BI: Enhances data access for stakeholders.
Resource and capacity planning: Optimizes workforce allocation.

What benefits should users expect?

Improved strategic alignment: Supports better decision-making.
Increased operational efficiency: Streamlines project management.
Enhanced resource optimization: Ensures optimal use of workforce.
Better financial insights: Allows precise budget tracking.

In industries like IT and project management, Planview Portfolios supports complex portfolio handling, ensuring visibility across global operations. Companies in these sectors leverage its strategic planning tools for strategic alignment and resource management, integrating with existing systems for improved process efficiency.

Planview

Sample Customers

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Project Server vs. Planview Portfolios

September 2025

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