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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
84
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 (12th), Project Portfolio Management (7th)
 

Featured Reviews

Nurul Asyikin Wahab - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient project management with robust data tracking and an easy setup
When I have too many elements or items in a project, it becomes cumbersome, especially during printing. Non-technical users do not need all the data, so it's primarily for technical personnel. Without guidance, it's challenging to use the app. With guidance and expert knowledge, it becomes manageable, however, it's not for non-technical teams. The worst part is handling too many items, like 1,000 items, which Microsoft Project struggles with, especially when printing. Printing on A3 size is quite burdensome, so I prefer viewing it on a tablet or computer. On a tablet or phone, I can see the full project elements depending on the screen size.
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 especially like the reporting tools, which are visual tools and offer visual reports."
"The resource allocation features, which help allocate resources to tasks, are quite valuable."
"The solution is well established and runs very accurately."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is time management."
"I have found that the chart reporting feature is very helpful for us currently."
"A lot of valuable features have been added in the last three years, including scheduling automation and intelligence."
"Microsoft Project is easy to use and helps our teams visualize the evolution of our projects."
"Microsoft Project is used to track the project delivery and the project management."
"The overall interface is very easy to use. It puts together strategy and execution across all your investments."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"Enterprise One has enabled us to eliminate Excel. We don't track financials anymore in an Excel format, which the company was doing before. Even now, being a new portfolio manager four months in, I'm able to just pick up my project. I'm able to see where I am right now. That improvised it to be more automated. The only missing part is the integration between tools. I'm not able to see my full schedule, but I know what are my important milestones are like watching the financials and all that stuff."
"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."
"The look and feel of it is pretty clean."
 

Cons

"The licensing cost is expensive and has room for improvement."
"The technical support could be improved. They are okay, however, they could be much better."
"It needs to be more comprehensive."
"The packaging of Microsoft Project Professional is pretty simple as a product. But, the end-to-end enterprise is complex."
"The setup and scalability can be somewhat difficult for new users until they gain knowledge."
"The solution's interface seems to be an outdated one. So, I would like its interface to be improved."
"Its user experience can be improved while configuring it. Its reporting can also be better. Reporting is not very easy. Reports do not always work. I was trying to download some reports, and they didn't work. I don't know if it was related to the configuration that I was using. I didn't go too deep to check if something was missing."
"The tool's deployment is complex. Integration and automation also need to be improved."
"Its support to legacy paying customers is something PlanView is not handling well.​ We were unable to implement due to lack of professional support by PlanView. ​"
"The scheduling's kind of clunky in terms of its ability for us to see what stage work is at. They could have done better with that. It can be difficult to use."
"I think some of the administrative aspects of it could be a little easier, especially when it comes to designing reports. The reporting coming out of it could be a little bit better."
"We do have some significant issues with our integrations that we're working through. Those are not as stable or reliable as what we would like."
"I think that the user interface needs some getting used to. It's not immediately intuitive. That's potentially room for improvement. I think also that an organization needs to have good support from some senior management to get something like Planview established."
"The outcome management and work resource management in terms of teams needs improvement. Team handling, how team requirements are generated, and how the resource managers can work with teams needs to be improved."
"Even though Enterprise One is easy and user-friendly, it could provide better training like a demo. Providing more tutorials or sessions would really help."
"It would be great to see Planview incorporate agile interfacing/methods in it. Like CA Clarity and other leading PPM tools – Planview should enhance or develop the interfaces to ingrate with other market leading Agile tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution has a decent annual license subscription cost, which is not high."
"I am not involved with this."
"The license fees for the professional version, which is estimated to be approximately $1,600, and the standard version, which is approximately $1,200, may be considered expensive by some users. This is something that could be improved to make the platform more accessible to a wider audience."
"The cost for an on-premises-based license is a one-time fee, and the cloud-based is an annual payment plan."
"I do not have personal experience with pricing or licensing of this product."
"You only need a Team's license in order to use Microsoft Project within Teams, which is very helpful."
"We have to pay for a yearly license for Microsoft Project."
"I believe the licensing for the solution is based on an annual fee."
"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."
"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."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $50,000 USD annually."
"I don't think we have necessarily purchased everything that I would have liked to have seen."
"We have portfolio managers, resource managers, project managers, and time reporting licenses. These are the licenses that we have."
"The cost of other pieces and integrating them in needs improvement."
"We have unlimited licenses for all of our functionalities. Since we went global, we went with that model."
"The licensing part is a bit costly in comparison with the other available PPM tools."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
9%
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 Business31
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise41
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise58
 

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?
The company typically pays for the Microsoft Project licensing. I'm not certain about the exact cost of the licenses, but I believe it's usually included in the Microsoft 365 package.
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: September 2025.
869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.