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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
9th
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
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Project Portfolio Management (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Avolution ABACUS is 3.3%, down from 3.7% 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
ProductMarket Share (%)
Avolution ABACUS3.3%
Planview Portfolios2.3%
Other94.4%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

RS
Enterprise Architect at Roads & Transport Authority
Supports multiple frameworks but needs to improve Middle Eastern presence
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. It would be great if we could select multiple models within one project. Also, having better data filtering options would be useful. It would save a lot of time if the architecture diagrams could update automatically whenever the data changes instead of being updated manually every time.
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

"You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors."
"The ease of modeling and the ease of showing interconnectivity and relationships is the most valuable. It is fairly simple and out of the box. It is customizable in many ways. It is a pretty good tool."
"Scalable and stable tool for roadmapping and modeling, with a good dashboard, end-to-end impact analysis, and portfolio management."
"The product is easy to use and well-structured for the integrations we need it to make."
"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."
"If you face new challenges or issues then you can dynamically customize according to the business needs."
"It is a very stable solution...The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy."
"Planview Portfolios has positively impacted my organization since we started using this tool as a project management solution."
"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."
"Its view into resource capacity and availability helps us to manage work. In reporting, we use this facility to help with resource capacity and availability. It also helps to see how much we are using. We derive that information from the work and resource management screen. That is very helpful."
"The integration stuff from tool to tool, like Projectplace to Planview, to manage projects is the most valuable feature. It keeps all our tasks up-to-date. It closely follows up with everything, which is really cool."
"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."
"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."
"Planview Portfolios offers us a single source of truth and enables a faster, more reliable decision-making tool."
"In my opinion, the financial planning feature is the most valuable feature of Planview Enterprise One."
 

Cons

"Having more control over page size is lacking in this product. Print utilization also needs to be improved."
"It doesn't have the simulation capability, which would be helpful in doing some business process analysis and improvements."
"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."
"They should take more initiative to implement things that competing products have already come out with."
"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."
"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 reporting could be easier to configure."
"If they want to expand in the European market then they are going to have to improve their technical support."
"One of the reasons why we've upgraded so many times is because of performance standards. We've just run into issues where we've had performance problems. Maybe they are not upgrading, but they're adding more horsepower. Then, we do go upgrade and lose that horsepower, which is frustrating from my perspective as an admin to lose that horsepower. Hopefully, that'll change."
"I would like to see more documentation pieces. Right now, they do have the content repository. I would like to see more out-of-the-box features with document repository capabilities."
"When you think of planning at a PI level, roadmap planning, or release planning, I think they should make a little more headway into how agile delivery works, tying it back into the financials and the planning to Planview. I think it would be good."
"Recently, we have gotten on a newer version. We're currently on version 15. Some of the things that we've been running into roadblocks on, it looks like the solutions will be coming out in versions 17 or 18. So, we have to upgrade before somethings can get completed."
"The only area that I can see currently needing improvement is just the modernization of the look and feel of it."
"The reporting capability and access to the fields for our system administrators to have access to the data without having to pay Enterprise One to get the data that's needed to create custom reports for management to create reports need improvement."
"Sometimes within the application, when you pull a report, it takes awhile performance-wise for the reports to pull up."
"The resource area needs improvement. The improvements that have been made recently in the later versions have been good improvements, but I think there are some more improvements needed there."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools."
"The pricing is quite good compared to the competition and it is part of the reason we chose the product."
"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."
"There is a subscription for this solution. We are on an annual subscription because you sometimes receive special offers the longer you subscribe."
"The solution's pricing is not an issue."
"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"
"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 licensing part is a bit costly in comparison with the other available PPM tools."
"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."
"In the time that I've used it, we've doubled up the amount of dollars on our intended projects."
"The cost of other pieces and integrating them in needs improvement."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $50,000 USD annually."
"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
18%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

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 Enterprise3
Large Enterprise64
 

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...
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 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

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: February 2026.
882,594 professionals have used our research since 2012.