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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
8th
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
23rd
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 May 2026, in the Project Management Software category, the mindshare of Microsoft Project is 2.2%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Planview AdaptiveWork is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Project Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Project2.2%
Planview AdaptiveWork1.5%
Other96.3%
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

"MS Project is good for anyone working on project planning and looking for a handy tool to manage everything."
"It is a complete and all-rounded enterprise product. From a portfolio management perspective and an individual project management perspective, it is a corporate-wide project management product. It can be used for resource planning, financial planning, task planning, etc."
"Microsoft Project integrates well with the Microsoft Office family of applications. It has plugins that interact with it and you can use it with Microsoft Teams. We can use plugins to communicate with JIRA, Projectplace, and Planview. It's not widely used in the company, of course, but it's something that can interact with the official tools that we have."
"They have moved from a paper to a project management tool, and then they started using Project Professional to run their project server, which is a huge change and a huge transition."
"It can auto-connect based on the dates, which makes it easy. It auto-assigns people, and when you're starting to type in, it auto-fills and populates for you, which is great. It provides little time savers when you're typing everything out."
"The solution is stable."
"Microsoft Project provides benefits by helping monitor project activities effectively."
"There has been a lot of improvement in terms of the return on investment for ordinary resources, as well as the costing."
"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."
"Slide Publisher has been a lifesaver for us; it saves us five to 10 hours a week."
"I like the project management solution."
"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'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."
"Clarizen Slide Publisher has helped increase transparency and communication with project stakeholders for us."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Project has much room for improvement."
"There are a few bugs that can affect the stability. This is typical of most applications."
"It needs to be more comprehensive."
"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."
"The new version has made it a bit more complicated."
"I'd like the solution to be less expensive."
"The dashboard could be improved."
"I would like to have more access to templates and tools that could be used to teach project management best practices."
"It could be more user-friendly. I think it is too overwhelming, initially, in terms of possibilities and so on."
"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."
"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."
"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 slow in our environment and especially if I'm tunneled in an environment, like if I'm connected to my VPN."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Project is an expensive solution."
"I do not remember the exact cost we paid but usually, they charge per user per month."
"The cost for an on-premises-based license is a one-time fee, and the cloud-based is an annual payment plan."
"I am not involved with this."
"It probably was $30 per license on a monthly basis. There is no additional fee."
"You only need a Team's license in order to use Microsoft Project within Teams, which is very helpful."
"You do not have to invest much in terms of configuring this solution to suit your needs."
"I rate Microsoft Project's pricing a five out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
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 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 pla...
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: April 2026.
896,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.