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Avolution ABACUS vs Planview Portfolios comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Planview Portfolios
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Project Portfolio Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.1%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Planview Portfolios is 2.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Planview Portfolios2.8%
Avolution ABACUS3.1%
Other94.1%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

JoseCamacho - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Monabi Kingsley - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at 3M
Centralized planning has improved resource visibility and supports data‑driven financial decisions
The best features Planview Portfolios offers are visibility enhancement, robust system performance, and comprehensive resource management. This enhanced visibility in Planview Portfolios ensures that all users can easily track progress, identify bottlenecks, and make informed decisions to optimize workflow efficiency. When discussing robust system performance, the system's robust performance in meeting our various work requirements effectively and efficiently stands out. It is very stable and reliable, contributing to a seamless user experience, which enables users to focus on their tasks without disruptions. I also love the financial breakdown, planning and prioritization, and attribute collection on projects in Planview Portfolios. Planview Portfolios has positively impacted my organization since I started using it. It has enabled me to gain insights into the full scope of work consuming resources. I am able to know where the resources are being consumed more, especially which resources are consuming the most. I have been able to leverage resources management and resource time reporting, which enabled the generation of $90 million in annual revenue through labor billing to customers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If you face new challenges or issues then you can dynamically customize according to the business needs."
"It is a very powerful tool that does what an enterprise architect needs it to do and it supports the business in knowing more about the business so that they can do better."
"There are plenty of features available such as the ability to test applications for issues and a user-friendly dashboard."
"The most valuable feature is the traceability, you can trace any object to the other."
"It's more than just an enterprise architecture tool as it has a lot of nice features, e.g. messaging, simulation, etc."
"For what it does it is very good and a reasonable price."
"The product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make."
"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"Enterprise One provides a variety of types of resource assignments for assigning work to people, and it also allows program managers to group work together and see the resource demands and cost at a consolidated level."
"It gives us the vast ability to churn out-of-the-box reports and have an overview about approach rates and resource utilization."
"Now, we have a full view of projects, allocations, and effort to deliver our portfolio projects."
"Enterprise One improves our monthly portfolio and resource capacity planning and forecasting and improves the visibility of the resource capacity and the team's capacity to take on new work."
"Our reporting is much better. There is much more visibility on projects, schedules, tasks, and in our milestones. Now, we have a consistent way of reporting out to the committees and getting all of our schedules and milestones."
"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."
"A lot of of the value is around the project metrics so far but as I get more plugged into the strategic management, it's strategic planning and programs and then tying that into outcomes. I work with executive leadership and that's really what they're looking for, to say, "Okay, what outcomes do we want to achieve and how are we going to get there, plan that out, sequence that out, and then get the work to do that? And then track the work back to where we're headed with our outcomes.""
"It has been effective for our delivery; it has given us much better visibility into what is being delivered and when, and our finance/accounting department has been able to get more information than what they had before."
 

Cons

"I haven't yet found a simple way to implement reference models and taxonomies with capabilities, sub capabilities, and sub-sub capabilities in Abacus."
"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."
"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."
"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."
"There are probably some things that Avolution could add to the product to enhance it and keep up with what some other products are introducing."
"It is vastly scalable but you can't run it on a Mac or Linux so it has limitations."
"For some of the functionality, it might be a little complicated for people getting started."
"This solution needs to improve resource usage because it has a heavy browser. It is easy to use, but it takes time to load and to run other programs."
"For some projects where we have hundreds of tasks with hundreds of resources to open, it might take on the order of five minutes to load up, which, to open a screen, is not a reasonable amount of time."
"Overall, the UI needs improvement. The UI should have more possibilities for users who are not specialized in using Planview."
"The solution needs to be better at accepting new ideas for upcoming releases."
"The licensing part is a bit costly in comparison with the other available PPM tools."
"Allowing users to have a link that opens a specific sub-tab or folder is a challenge."
"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, because right now it is a bit slower."
"The biggest room for improvement are the scripted dialogues; the scripted dialogues are a logic that you set up to force a certain workflow or process to happen, and it's very old in respect that there are no clauses that you can apply to that logic."
"Its reporting needs to be improved. My main complaint when it comes to Planview is that it is good to maintain all the data but to actually use the information that is in it, you actually have to use a different tool. We use Power BI. So, we pull all the information, and then we use a Power BI dashboard to stage or look at the information."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm paying on a yearly basis. I don't know whether it's a highly expensive tool or not. I'm getting a single version of it, and I don't have the enterprise part on it because I don't need the server component, and I don't need a web browser component. My estimate would be that it's a very reasonably priced tool given that you don't need to have licenses with everyone in order to get the information and the decision support capabilities out of the tool. You use the enterprise edition on top of the studio, which is the heart of the tool. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"This solution is expensive for some people's budgets and they need to offer a Lite version at a cheaper price"
"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."
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"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."
"We have several hundred licenses. It costs us several hundred thousand dollars a year."
"I don't think we have necessarily purchased everything that I would have liked to have seen."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise66
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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...
What is your primary use case for Avolution ABACUS?
I conducted an evaluation of enterprise architecture at the European Court in Luxembourg, reviewing and analyzing existing implementations to identify potential improvements and providing recommend...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Planview Portfolios?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that Planview Portfolios is one of the best and a very cost-effective tool.
What needs improvement with Planview Portfolios?
Planview Portfolios can be improved as the user interface defaults to the last opened portfolio, which can waste a lot of time loading a large portfolio if that is not what I need at that moment. J...
What is your primary use case for Planview Portfolios?
My main use case for Planview Portfolios is to ensure governance and decision auditability by incorporating embedded workflows, approval management, and key document retention supporting a single c...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Planview Enterprise One, Troux
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Barclays
UPS, NatWest, Ingram Micro, Canadian Tire, Viessmann, Volvo, NASCO, UNESCO
Find out what your peers are saying about Avolution ABACUS vs. Planview Portfolios and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
895,399 professionals have used our research since 2012.