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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

"The most valuable features of this solution are the scheduling, managing the resources, budgeting, tracking the progress, viewing the progress, reporting, and it is very easy to use."
"The resource allocation features, which help allocate resources to tasks, are quite valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the Auto resource leveling tool because it shows students that often, expert resources get over-scheduled, and that dealing with the issue by just using the auto-resource leveling tool would have a large impact on the delivery date."
"The tool has a simple and excellent approach."
"It's an easy solution to set up."
"Students have benefited from learning the de-facto standard for managing projects used by all the major companies worldwide."
"The scheduling part of Microsoft Project is easy; if you change one of the dates, the rest of the dates automatically get changed based on the dependency."
"The solution is stable."
"Slide Publisher has been a lifesaver for us; it saves us five to 10 hours a week."
"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."
"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."
"Clarizen's reporting features have been critical."
"Provides visibility into employee utilization, progress on specific client projects and a portfolio view of all programs."
"I like the project management solution. It's really nice."
"Clarizen Slide Publisher has helped increase transparency and communication with project stakeholders for us."
 

Cons

"The solution is currently a bit slow and can be faster."
"We'd like the solution to have better integration with other third-party and open-source solutions."
"Microsoft Project could improve the interface, it should be more intuitive. It could be adjusted a little bit to make it a little easier to use and more user-friendly. It is a very powerful tool and it takes people a while to get used to it."
"Time-based planning becomes very difficult because the big projects every task is related to each other, if you change some processes a little bit, every detail is changing."
"The new version has made it a bit more complicated."
"If Project had a better mechanism to allow those who are not the project manager to see their own work tasks, that would be of help or of value to us."
"The setup and scalability can be somewhat difficult for new users until they gain knowledge."
"Microsoft Project could improve the dates. Sometimes the dates are not aligned. This occurs even when you auto-schedule the dates. We have to go and define the schedule daily this should more easily accessible."
"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."
"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."
"One specific area for improvement could be implementing a development environment to test workflows with live production data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have to pay for a yearly license for Microsoft Project."
"The cost for an on-premises-based license is a one-time fee, and the cloud-based is an annual payment plan."
"You do not have to invest much in terms of configuring this solution to suit your needs."
"Its price could be reduced a little."
"The license is a one-time payment but it is expensive."
"It gets expensive when having to add all of the plugins and everything that you need."
"I rate Microsoft Project's pricing a five out of ten."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software 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.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.