Avolution ABACUS vs Planview Portfolios comparison

Avolution and Planview are both solutions in the Enterprise Architecture Management category. Avolution is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.0, while Planview is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.5. Avolution holds a 3.6% mindshare in AM, compared to Planview’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Avolution users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Planview users who would recommend it.

Avolution ABACUS

Read 15 Avolution ABACUS reviews

2,024 Views
918 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Planview Portfolios

Read 63 Planview Portfolios reviews

353 Views
202 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Avolution ABACUS

Planview Portfolios

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Planview Portfolios and Avolution ABACUS are contenders in the project management and enterprise architecture categories, respectively. Planview Portfolios has an edge with its robust integration capabilities and strategic focus, although both products have unique strengths.

Features: Planview Portfolios includes robust capabilities for resource planning, strategy execution, and portfolio management, with seamless integration with tools like Power BI for flexible configuration and reporting. It boasts impressive project management and resource utilization bridging strategy and execution. In contrast, Avolution ABACUS offers a highly customizable meta-model and advanced modeling capabilities, making it ideal for complex reports and impact analysis. Its key strength lies in 3D modeling, providing significant flexibility in designing enterprise architectures.

Room for Improvement: Planview Portfolios needs refinements in user configuration, agile integration, and reporting speed, along with improvements to enhance workflow flexibility and customized modules. Users express difficulties with financial components and support responsiveness. Avolution ABACUS requires better integration, improved analytical reporting, and enhanced support for regional markets. It could also benefit from increased automation in data updates and better dashboards and simulation capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Planview Portfolios supports public, private, and on-premises deployments, offering flexibility and scalability suited to various organizational needs. The variability in customer service highlights issues with ticket resolution times and staff turnover, though technical support is generally positive. Avolution ABACUS focuses primarily on private and on-premises environments, providing consistent technical support, albeit with less emphasis on cloud deployments. Its customer service is often praised for responsiveness and expertise.

Pricing and ROI: Planview Portfolios is considered expensive, with licensing models like FLEX and enterprise licenses that offer cost efficiencies in larger deployments. Users perceive ROI through enhanced resource utilization and strategic portfolio management, despite difficulty quantifying exact figures. Avolution ABACUS presents competitive pricing, appealing to enterprises focused on detailed modeling without a vast user base. Its ROI is more qualitative, with gains in visibility and architecture planning, though less quantifiable than Planview's enterprise-level claims.

To learn more, read our detailed Avolution ABACUS vs. Planview Portfolios Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Avolution ABACUS vs. Planview Portfolios

April 2025

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Helped 849,190 peers since 2012

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

Avolution ABACUS

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Planview Portfolios

Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Project Portfolio Management (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.6%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Planview Portfolios is 0.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Architecture Management

Featured Reviews

JoseCamacho

Freelancer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Supports evaluating architecture through corporate objectives

I conducted an evaluation of enterprise architecture at the European Court in Luxembourg, reviewing and analyzing existing implementations to identify potential improvements and providing recommendations I conduct evaluations to identify potential improvements and make recommendations, forming a…

Read full review

Mark Hillman

Global Head of Portfolio Management at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees

User-friendly interface, but the reporting could be improved

The reporting is poor and requires improvement. The tiles and exception-based activities in the application are sufficient to get by. However, when it comes to producing executive reports, MI reports, or any other type of reporting, we must exit Planview and work offline. We have been working with them to improve on that, as well as using some of the Power BI capabilities that have been available for a while, but it's still more difficult than it should be. In the next release, I would like to be able to use the data in the tool to gain insight much more easily.

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

"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."

"The most valuable feature is the traceability, you can trace any object to the other."

"The technical support is very good. They are responsive and the answers they provide are detailed."

"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."

"The product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make."

"There are plenty of features available such as the ability to test applications for issues and a user-friendly dashboard."

"The tool's implementation is straightforward as everything is readily available. For instance, setting up a portal is seamless, allowing easy publishing and access to data. However, integrating with other tools like BI, Power BI, or Grafana requires setting up pipelines between them."

"The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key."

More Avolution ABACUS pros

"Our transparency is increasing a lot. It is helping us to get people together. There are no dark rooms anymore. In some areas or concepts, we want to add more light to every single concept. That's the big impact that the tool is having. It allows conversations between people."

"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."

"The resource management and assignment features are valuable. The timesheet management is also valuable because that is a requirement for us. So, the ability to see timesheet forecasting and timesheet actual submission from resources has been very useful and valuable to us."

"We do a lot of big projects which are pretty expensive to structure the product development around and see the progress. Every time we start a project, we have to expense the spends for certain amounts. We need some baselines, like predictive versus actual."

"Enterprise One provides a variety of types of resource assignments for assigning work to people. It's very easy and straightforward to configure these assignments. Planview allows us to see the entire workforce. We can see where our skill sets of people are, what they're working on, and allows us to make informed business decisions based on priority."

"Another good thing is that we can create custom reports, which is great. If I created a custom report, a tile that tells me how many people have logged in today. We currently have a little under 2000 users, and that's only users, we actually have integrations, that we created a custom form that sends hours directly to Planview. They're not using Planview directly, but they're sending their hours to Planview through an API."

"We've brought our portfolio altogether. We have had multiple ways of reporting out what our portfolio is, whether it's in Excel, Word, or in different places. We brought all of our projects together in one place. That has worked out well for us. We've been able to manage the work on Gantt charts and our resources better. The big thing for us on research and development is around managing people's time, on which projects they are working on, and how much effort does it take to launch our projects."

"The solution view into resource capacity and availability helps us to manage work."

More Planview Portfolios pros

Cons

"I use reference models, which are taxonomies, in my EA work. It is a reference model/taxonomy of things with capabilities, sub capabilities, and sub-sub capabilities, so you're working it down. I haven't yet found a simple way to implement that in Abacus. It could be that it is there, but I don't know how to do it."

"Their local presence in the Middle East could be scaled more, particularly in customer service. It would be good if they'd also have mobile dashboards for executive management out of the box."

"The most valuable features are the catalog and the diagram."

"It is vastly scalable but you can't run it on a Mac or Linux so it has limitations."

"While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product."

"Avolution ABACUS has the drawback of needing data filtering at the development level, unlike some tools that offer filtering at deployment. Two areas where Avolution ABACUS could be improved are regional support and flexibility in model selection. Sometimes, it's challenging to access support or updates in certain regions, which can slow down progress. Additionally, it would be beneficial if the tool allowed more flexibility in selecting multiple models within a single unit."

"While this is one of the most powerful tools on the market it does not integrate well with Microsoft Office or others."

"They should take more initiative to implement things that competing products have already come out with."

More Avolution ABACUS cons

"I think the capabilities are there, but it seems difficult for me to even create a report as I am not a Planview technical expert. It is not particularly intuitive. It slows us down in reporting the big picture to management."

"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."

"Some of the out-of-the-box reporting is not immediately useful and although it can be configured or customized, there are still improvements that can be made."

"Configuring the UI in the content management system is too elaborate and too time-consuming."

"Our version is definitely set up a bit more waterfall world. It would be better if some of the agile features were more in the standard product."

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

"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."

"Sometimes within the application, when you pull a report, it takes awhile performance-wise for the reports to pull up."

More Planview Portfolios cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is competitive. It is not chump change. I am just using the studio version. I am not using the full enterprise version, which would probably cost me three times more for single-use, but it gives a lot more capability and analysis. It is server-based as well, and it is reasonably priced compared to a lot of the other tools. There are other tools that have other sorts of capabilities, but in order to use them, you'd really have to have like 50 users for the price to become justifiable."

"It is expensive."

"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."

"My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable."

"To get a fairly extensive license for Enterprise Architects from Spark is approximately US $400.00, maybe less, but with Avolution Abacus it was approximately US $2000.00 per year, and that includes maintenance with the Abacus tool."

"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"

"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."

"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."

More Avolution ABACUS pricing and cost advice

"We have unlimited licenses for all of our functionalities. Since we went global, we went with that model."

"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."

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

"I don't know about the actual pricing. I have not come across any costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"We are on the Flex licenses."

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

More Planview Portfolios pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Government

14%

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Avolution ABACUS?

The tool's implementation is straightforward as everything is readily available. For instance, setting up a portal is seamless, allowing easy publishing and access to data. However, integrating wit...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Avolution ABACUS?

It's pricey compared to Essential, Deltek, or Essential Cloud. However, its diagramming capabilities and metamodel design make it worth it. But it's not for large user bases. It has modules for app...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Avolution ABACUS?

While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product. It would be beneficial to have seminars or other met...

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Planview Portfolios?

Planview Portfolios is not too expensive. You get what you paid for.

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

Comparisons

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect vs Avolution ABACUS

Compared 23% of the time

LeanIX vs Avolution ABACUS

Compared 17% of the time

MEGA HOPEX vs Avolution ABACUS

Compared 16% of the time

Visio vs Avolution ABACUS

Compared 10% of the time

ARIS BPA vs Avolution ABACUS

Compared 9% of the time

More Avolution ABACUS Competitors

Broadcom Clarity vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 14% of the time

LeanIX vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 9% of the time

SAP Portfolio and Project Management vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 9% of the time

Planview PPM Pro vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 8% of the time

Planisware vs Planview Portfolios

Compared 8% of the time

More Planview Portfolios Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Avolution ABACUS

April 2025

Download Avolution ABACUS product report

Buyer's Guide

Planview Portfolios

April 2025

Download Planview Portfolios product report

Also Known As

No data available

Planview Enterprise One, Troux

Overview

ABACUS is the enterprise architecture tool designed to have the quickest time-to-value. You can use it to build and maintain rich visual models from existing company data. ABACUS comes with standard industry frameworks as well as advanced analytic tools and best-in-class roadmapping and reporting functionality.

With Avolution ABACUS You Can:

Strategize and analyze your organizational architecture with ease using data-driven diagrams
Enjoy connected data, models, and metrics across your whole enterprise
Work directly and securely in your browser, which is ideal for global teams and remote working

Avolution ABACUS Features:

Modeling and roadmapping: ABACUS offers a fully provisioned modeling environment for enterprise and IT architecture, strategic planning, and digital business management.
Digital collaboration: Avolution ABACUS includes a feature that allows you to set up dashboards so you can tell data stories using business-friendly visualizations.
Portfolio management: Anyone can update their own data, which, in turn, reduces the workload of the enterprise architecture team.
Data-driven architecture: ABACUS’s data-driven architecture gives you the opportunity to design and automate key calculations using out-of-the-box or simple no-code algorithms.
Collaborative data management: Using this feature, you can save time with single sign-on (SSO) and AD Integrations; You can embed directly in MS Teams, Confluence, or other workplace social software.
Dynamic data visualizations: ABACUS’s graph view allows you to navigate through systems in a dynamic environment, as opposed to static diagram views.

Avolution ABACUS Benefits:

Time efficient: Models and roadmaps automatically stay up-to-date, saving your organization a lot of time so you can focus on other priorities instead.
Centralized location: With Avolution ABACUS, you can connect all data in one place, keeping everything both consistent and accurate.
Full flexibility: ABACUS gives you full flexibility to adapt and configure your own metamodels with ease.
Complete visibility: Your whole enterprise can have visibility of the architecture through the use of digital collaboration and visually clear dashboards.
Machine learning: With Avolution ABACUS, you can employ machine learning to speed data management and analysis.
Spot dependencies: ABACUS helps your organization spot dependencies and impacts that might trip up your projects.
Fully customizable: Avolution ABACUS is fully customizable; Select, configure, or adapt your repository and metamodel. You can also automate metrics and analytics specific to your business.

Reviews from Real Users:

Andre W., Enterprise Architect at Enterprise Architecture Perspectives, says, "The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key.”

The Lead Enterprise Domain Architects at a financial services firm feels that "The product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make.”

"There are plenty of features available, such as the ability to test applications for issues and a user-friendly dashboard,” says Suresh T., Enterprise Digital Solution Architect at a tech services company.

Avolution

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

Barclays

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

Buyer's Guide

Avolution ABACUS vs. Planview Portfolios

April 2025

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