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Microsoft Project vs Planview AdaptiveWork comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 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

Microsoft Project
Ranking in Project Management Software
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Planview AdaptiveWork
Ranking in Project Management Software
21st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Project Management Software category, the mindshare of Microsoft Project is 2.1%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Planview AdaptiveWork is 1.5%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Project Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Project2.1%
Planview AdaptiveWork1.5%
Other96.4%
Project Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jacob-George - PeerSpot reviewer
Domain Consultant at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
Improved project scheduling has maximized resource utilization and has reduced delays
I think the licensing structure presents a significant area for improvement. The full features are not offered on the standard E4 license. This becomes problematic when distributing the project plan. I can export the plan as Excel and CSV files, but then I lose all the rich features, including dependency mapping. To recreate all that functionality without proper licensing is challenging. Microsoft Project offers a light version available for free, but when I try to distribute a project plan, it requires separate licensing. Microsoft Project Central used to be more of an enterprise product. Microsoft Project currently focuses on very low-level task management, and it could do much more. I do not see significant advancement happening because there is confusion about where Microsoft Project is heading. I believe Microsoft should bundle the license with Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This approach would result in more people using Microsoft Project. That is my opinion on how to improve adoption and the product offering.
VishalSingh11 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director BPM at a marketing services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has resources management and timesheets but could be more flexible
Compared to Broadcom Clarity, there was some flexibility with blueprints, etc. You can create a blueprint for different business groups or different customers. Planview AdaptiveWork doesn't have something like that. If they can build up something like a view price. It's still a traditional way where you have to create different instances for different customers. The PPM solution uses queries if I'm rolling out for different divisions. In that case, I have to create different instances for each region because each division may have a different look and feel. But if I have a blueprint, then it's very convenient. I can create multiple interfaces for different processes. Broadcom Clarity has some access control on those viewpoints.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Microsoft Project is one of the only solutions you can use in just about any industry."
"Combined with a project management methodology such as PMI for example, it is effective for monitoring and control."
"My life has improved so much with Microsoft Project."
"The most valuable features of this solution are dependency management, milestone progress, multiple resource rates, and RAG views."
"Microsoft Project is primarily for tracking your team, observing team activity, and tracking time for tasks."
"The solution makes it very easy to plan and has great customization capabilities."
"The most valuable feature is probably the Kanban diagram. People are familiar with the Kanban tools. When they do their scrum meetings, they have that Kanban board where you can see the different tiles for all the queries and move them from left to right. IT is familiar with that because, for development, most of the tools have that capability. It could also be more graphical, like Asana."
"The Gantt chart view is great."
"Clarizen Slide Publisher has helped increase transparency and communication with project stakeholders for us."
"Slide Publisher has been a lifesaver for us; it saves us five to 10 hours a week."
"I like the project management solution. It's really nice."
"Clarizen's strength is reporting. Aside from reporting, I also like the ability to create customized workflow and custom actions. The workflow rules are handy. For example, you can create custom fields and dependent picklists."
"Provides visibility into employee utilization, progress on specific client projects and a portfolio view of all programs."
"Clarizen's reporting features have been critical."
"The feature that has improved our project planning the most is the ability to create custom workflows, which allows us to automate manual tasks that project managers need to perform. The collaboration feature enhances our team's productivity by allowing individuals to see the impact of their decisions on projects owned and managed by other teams."
 

Cons

"The scalability is co-dependent on the stability of the product. We have 4000 users, and at times the product is slow."
"They should assist with tedious tasks."
"The only suggestion for improvement is the generative AI feature for task suggestions; this is the main concern so far, something nice to have."
"When you start getting into the more advanced features, it can become unstable. The more you use the advanced features, the more exposure you have to an unanticipated result. I think we need to add the Kanban Board capability to the product that would help them advance that board into the project management methodology that's being used in the industry today. Being able to depend on Scrum management is key."
"There are tons of tools that can do this way better."
"This solution has been created for the Waterfall framework, and even if Microsoft added some features to use for Agile Framework it will not work because it has not been created for Agile frameworks specifically as Scrum or Kanban has."
"The Microsoft license is relatively expensive."
"It would be better if there were more access to Agile implementations."
"It could be more user-friendly. I think it is too overwhelming, initially, in terms of possibilities and so on."
"I felt like the slide publisher isn't that user-friendly. I think it wasn't that easy to use or to figure out because of formatting constraints, or maybe we need to get better at understanding some of its limitations."
"If I start customizing too many things, Clarizen tends to get really slow in our environment and especially if I'm tunneled in an environment, like if I'm connected to my VPN."
"Have struggled with reporting and user adoption."
"One specific area for improvement could be implementing a development environment to test workflows with live production data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost for an on-premises-based license is a one-time fee, and the cloud-based is an annual payment plan."
"It probably was $30 per license on a monthly basis. There is no additional fee."
"The solution is less expensive than other options."
"The solution is expensive."
"The license is a one-time payment but it is expensive."
"We purchase perpetual licenses due to the high cost of subscriptions, which are about 1,000 Australian dollars."
"The licensing model is somewhat complex."
"The solution has a decent annual license subscription cost, which is not high."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise42
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Project?
I would say Microsoft Project is affordable, but the standalone Project license should be included in the Office price to increase adoption.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Project?
I am not expert enough to explain areas of improvement for Microsoft Project because I have not explored it extensively or used it enough, so I am not the right person to comment on this. I have no...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Project Pro, MS Project
Planview Clarizen
 

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
Cisco Capital, JLL, Conagra Brands, Cargill, JLL, IBM, IIROC, Siemens Energy
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Project vs. Planview AdaptiveWork and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
905,526 professionals have used our research since 2012.