We are using it for building Research and Development Project labs.
Director, Project Management Office at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
The ability to look at resource loading is useful, but it needs collaboration features
Pros and Cons
- "The ability to look at the resource loading is most valuable."
- "Collaboration within the tool is lacking when you compare it to online or cloud-based tools."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
It has been helpful for calculating the time of completion of our projects and looking at the critical parts of our projects.
What is most valuable?
The ability to look at resource loading is most valuable.
What needs improvement?
Collaboration within the tool is lacking when you compare it to online or cloud-based tools.
We should be able to notify assignees about the tasks that have been assigned to them. This is something that we don't have, and it could be because of the way it was deployed for us.
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Microsoft Project Server
December 2025
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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for about five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is pretty stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It seems scalable to me.
How are customer service and support?
I don't have any experience with them.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
It was our company's decision to switch to this. With my previous employer, I have used different solutions. Smartsheet is one of them.
How was the initial setup?
I did not deploy it myself. I am an end-user. We have an IT organization for its deployment.
What other advice do I have?
You have to define your use case and see if this tool makes sense for your use case or not.
I would rate it a seven out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Enterprise Architect at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Stable with good collaboration capabilities but lacks insights around cost and budget
Pros and Cons
- "The stability of the 2019 version is quite good."
- "The deployment aspect of the product is a bit tedious."
What is our primary use case?
My organization handles IT consulting and services. That's primarily how the organization is managed. The use case for this solution was to set up the resource development unit and manage the investment cost, scheduling, budgeting, and some of those new initiatives that were supposed to happen in the R&D division. That was why we were looking for a portfolio management product. We found that Project Server could be a way to visualize and govern the entire program for the client.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution has improved the organization primarily due to the transparency between each individual team. There is a productivity benefit. I've likely seen a 20% to 28% increase in productivity benefit over a year's time. From a cost perspective, I'm less sure of how to comment. That said, productivity and transparency are definitely the two benefits I've witnessed so far.
What is most valuable?
The most relevant feature is its collaboration capabilities. Users can easily collaborate, for example, on Sharepoint or Microsoft Teams. If there is a lot of heavy usage of Microsoft tools, it's easy to share and collaborate across apps.
The Excel interface is very good.
The stability of the 2019 version is quite good.
What needs improvement?
The deployment aspect of the product is a bit tedious. That's something I personally see of my organization. Deploying Project Server from an infrastructure perspective is not an easy thing. It takes a week sometimes to set it up.
From a features perspective, the insights around the cost and budget could be improved. Competitor products are more robust. Project Server has a very limited feature in terms of reporting. Specifically, the features around the cost control are weak. The built-in reports and the built-in analytics for Project Server are very minimal. The competitors are way ahead than what Project Server is offering us.
The initial setup was complex.
The integration to an employee engagement platform probably would make more sense and integrations with other products like SAP would be useful.
Users of Project Server need to write some amount of custom integrations to the DLP product innovation site. If you wanted to have resource analysis, you want to create invoices based on resources working on a project, that integration is still not there. Integrating with some of those invoice management systems would make more sense now based on the way enterprises are working in terms of automation.
The solution needs multi-language support. The tool primarily supports English as a primary language. If someone wanted to make it Arabic, the Project Server does not work well. The characters sets, the dates, and other things create a lot of mess.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using the solution for around six years or so. We started using it in 2016.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
When I was using the Project Server 2016, that was creating a lot of problems in terms of performance, in terms of export, input, the content. However, when we moved to Project Server 2019 three years ago, I would say it was an improved version. It's quite stable now. There have been a lot of technical advancements, and feature announcements. 2019 is a much more stable version.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Primarily the solution has been handled by the PMO team which is comprised of 20 users. They are mostly portfolio managers, program managers, and solution architects as well as an executive who usually uses it from a governance perspective.
Since this has been used by the portfolio managers, so it's basically bread and butter for the PMO team. It's used day in, day out and it's tracking a single source of truth from a program management perspective. In terms of expanding the portfolio, likely, the business will grow, and that's when we may add more users. By 2022, we might add five more users. That is what I foresee.
How are customer service and technical support?
We go through a CSP partner for Microsoft due to the online nature of the deployment. Our CSP partner is quite helpful. We are pleased with the support quality they provide. I would rate them four out of five stars.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was complex. Any type of guidance or user training or helpful documentation and materials were not available.
The deployment took around seven to ten days. Deployment took really a long time.
I will not be able to properly quantify what went wrong. I'm not sure if it was the infrastructure or the capacity planning or if the partner just wasn't quite capable. There could have been multiple issues. The general perception was that was supposed to happen within a day, maximum. It took around seven to nine all working days to just set up the environment.
What about the implementation team?
We used partners. They were a Microsoft partner.
Since I was not managing the process, I can't give feedback in terms of how the partner was to work with, or their capabilities.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution offers a subscription-based pay-as-you-go model.
Now that everyone has moved to the online version, it is my understanding that the approximate cost comes to around $350 to $400 USD per month. I see or close to $4,000 to $5,000 USD per annum.
What other advice do I have?
We are simply a customer and an end-user.
Although we began with the on-premises version, we've recently started using the online version of the solution. That is primarily how we access it now.
From an advice perspective, for any enterprise that has an existing investment around Microsoft, it makes more sense in terms of moving to a Project Server to manage in a more structured way. However, if you do not use SharePoint, if you do not use Microsoft Teams or any sort of solution that is the real value of Project Server it's not necessary to use Project Server. This solution is best for those companies planning to have a commitment to Microsoft technology. It brings more value.
I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten. It's lacking some features around budget cost and portfolio management. There are a few areas that could use improvement still.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Project Server
December 2025
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Project Server. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
879,425 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Agile PMO Chief at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Simple user experience with good usability and accessibility
Pros and Cons
- "The usability is excellent."
- "We need to be able to compare milestones, calls, and other variables regarding the projects we are working on. I have to contract developers to make reports, which is where things get complicated. They need to develop personal and custom fields for us."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution based on its mobility. I can use it online or via mobile phones or anywhere I can get internet access.
How has it helped my organization?
I'm able to curate the SPI (Schedule Performance Index) and the CPI (Cost Performance Index) that helps us measure the performance in regards to costs and even taxes that projects have.
I can create metrics about costs either project by project or phase by phase.
What is most valuable?
The permissions are the most valuable aspect of the solution. I can configure groups to access different information. The solution allows us to manage the project baseline very well. I can control the baselines in specific user groups, which is very useful for me.
The solution offers very good availability in that we can access it from anywhere, whenever we need to.
The usability is excellent.
We've found the user experience to be quite simple. The views and filters in particular are very good.
What needs improvement?
The reports need to be improved. It's complicated. The default views are good. However, we need more. We need to be able to compare milestones, calls, and other variables regarding the projects we are working on. I have to contract developers to make reports, which is where things get complicated. They need to develop personal and custom fields for us. We also need to use Power BI, which needs to connect with Project Server, in order to generate reports.
The scalability capabilities could be improved upon.
There should be an interaction between Microsoft's Planner app and this solution. Their Planner is a good solution. I would like them both to connect directly, with the Planner tasks in the Project plans. It would also be helpful if the solution integrated with Microsoft Teams. My company uses Office 365, and therefore it would be great if everything was integrated.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for a long time. It's been longer than a decade. I'd say it's around 15 years at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution's stability is good. Of course, it depends on the cloud provider. This is important. When you have a good cloud provider or infrastructure provider, stability is good. You have to play with the servers and processors and memory about the solution. When you have a good provider, it's no problem. When you have a bad provider, you have problems.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability could be improved upon. Sometimes I want to create some instance or other Project Servers to create, for example, test environments. We need to create a test to do a pilot to sell the idea. However, it's complicated to establish what is the best instance to manage the project.
We have about 2,000 users online, however, it depends on the cloud environment. How many users we have depends on the infrastructure provider. They ensure the scalability and stability of the environment.
We do plan to increase usage. We still have to configure new project types in the project server to gain more users. We want to achieve 1,000 users this year. Right now, I have 300 active users. The plan for this year is to include more project types in the project server throughout the environment and at the end to achieve 1,000 users, at a minimum.
How are customer service and technical support?
I haven't really dealt with technical support. The relationship with Microsoft is in the IT area. I am not personally part of that group. I am the portfolio manager, therefore I don't have a direct relationship with Microsoft. That said, I'd say it's good, as I don't have any problems. When we have made a request to IT they answer it quickly. Therefore, I'd say we're pretty satisfied with the level of support on offer.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I used to use Clarity for our Agile projects, however, this solution is less expensive.
Clarity is good, however, it is complicated to use as it makes it more challenging for the final users to understand the project plans. Also, the templates to manage the project plans are complicated. I like Microsoft Project better than Clarity.
How was the initial setup?
At the moment, the initial setup is not overly complex. It's pretty straightforward. that's due to the fact that I know the solution very well. I've worked with the 2010 version as well and have ten years of experience and have used it in my everyday work for so long, the setup is not hard for me.
The deployment depends on the company and its culture. I have implemented Project Server in two months, which is pretty fast. However, it depends on the organization's needs.
The reports, for example, are a viable gain for executive teams. When the executive teams watch good reports to manage the portfolio projects, it's easier to deploy the solution.
My strategy is to do a pilot. Over two months, I may do ten projects. I'll generate reports and deliver good information and the executive team of the steering committee can easily see the value for the company. Once the pilot shows the value to the steering committee, I usually have the go-ahead to continue the deployment in our organization.
We had five people for deployment and maintenance. It's a good number. You need one person, that knows the information in regards to users and other people training the other people. There should be another person working on the cost measures such as the reports.
What about the implementation team?
I handle the implementation myself. I have a good amount of experience and therefore don't need further experience. I don't need the help of integrators, resellers, or consultants.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
While the solution is less expensive than Broadcomm's Clarity, it more expensive than Planview.
That said, I'm unsure of the exact pricing or how often we pay licensing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We've also looked at Planview and Jira. We found that the solution has better technical support on offer than other options. That said, I like Planview as it's even less expensive than Project Server.
What other advice do I have?
We are Microsoft Partners.
Currently, I am using Project Online and Project Server. The 2015 versions.
At the moment, I am in the process of deploying, the solution in more areas. I start with IT projects and telecom projects. Currently, I am working to introduce regular projects, marketing projects, product projects, etc. I am working to introduce more areas in the Project Server environment.
On a scale from one to ten, I would rate it at an eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Cyber Security Engineer at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
The product is highly scalable, user-friendly, and provides excellent technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The product is user-friendly."
- "The price of the product must be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We are using the solution for our security and infrastructure projects.
What is most valuable?
The product is user-friendly.
What needs improvement?
The price of the product must be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the tool’s stability a seven out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The tool has a high scalability. I rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Around ten people, including project managers, portfolio managers, and engineers, use the tool in our organization. We use the solution once a month.
How was the initial setup?
I rate the ease of setup an eight out of ten. The deployment took us months.
What about the implementation team?
We deployed the product with the help of a reseller.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I rate the pricing a seven out of ten. It is a bit costly.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Team Lead , Enterprise Computing Platforms at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
A reasonably priced project management solution, but its user interface could be improved
Pros and Cons
- "We use Microsoft Project Server for project management."
- "Microsoft Project Server's user interface is pretty average, and sometimes it can have bugs."
What is most valuable?
We use Microsoft Project Server for project management. We have a lot of internal projects running, and we assign licenses to any project manager driving a project.
What needs improvement?
Microsoft Project Server's user interface is pretty average, and sometimes it can have bugs.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Project Server for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Microsoft Project Server is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft Project Server is a scalable solution. Around 50 users are using the solution in our organization.
I rate Microsoft Project Server an eight out of ten for scalability.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used a different solution called Clarity. We switched to Microsoft Project Server because Clarity was an expensive solution.
How was the initial setup?
Since it's a cloud-based application, Microsoft Project Server can be easily configured.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Microsoft Project Server is relatively cheaper than other products. We have to pay a yearly licensing fee for Microsoft Project Server. The solution's pricing is reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
We are using the latest version of Microsoft Project Server. I would recommend Microsoft Project Server to other users. Microsoft Project Server gives you value for money.
Overall, I rate Microsoft Project Server a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Junior Data Engineer at a computer software company with 1-10 employees
A tool to create project timelines and task tracking that needs to improve its stability
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to understand and navigate."
- "Stability of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
What is our primary use case?
I use Microsoft Project Server to create project timelines and task tracking.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is easy to understand and navigate.
What needs improvement?
Stability of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft Project Server for two months. I only know that I use the solution's web version.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable solution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
For project management, I use Asana and Trello.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of the product is easy.
The time taken for deployment of the solution depends on the pipelines.
What about the implementation team?
The product's installation phase can be carried out by one of the in-house teams in my company.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend the solution to those who plan to use it.
I rate the overall tool a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Chief Operations Officer at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Affordable product with a simple interface
Pros and Cons
- "Microsoft Project Server is simple to use."
- "The product is difficult to use for complex projects."
What is most valuable?
Microsoft Project Server is simple to use. It doesn't require any prior knowledge. The junior executives can easily operate it.
What needs improvement?
The product is difficult to use for complex projects. There could be more planning tools for project management. Sometimes, we encounter issues with paper size while printing the project plan.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Microsoft Project Server for a few years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have five Microsoft Project Server users in our organization. It needs to be a more scalable platform.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Primavera before. In comparison to Microsoft Project Server, it has a complicated interface.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup process is easy. It has a simple interface; we have to enter the main tasks and subtasks and set the time frame.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented the product.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is an inexpensive product. We purchase its yearly license.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Asana is more scalable and has an on-cloud version. It provides many features required for planning the project compared to Microsoft Project Server.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Microsoft Project Server an eight out of ten. This product is the best choice if you are a beginner planning to do simple projects.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Chief Digitalization Executive at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Good resource management and cost management capabilities with helpful support services
Pros and Cons
- "It can scale well."
- "The solution needs to be much more stable."
What is our primary use case?
When it comes to enterprise projects, we need a consolidated environment where we can interlink all project management activities, including the cost, resources, timeline, and the whole landscape of project management and portfolio management. We needed enterprise resource planning, and we implemented this for the organization.
How has it helped my organization?
It helps us integrate the projects. We can handle cost analysis, resource analysis, task analysis, and all the basic factors that should be covered and are important for any project.
What is most valuable?
Resource management and cost management are very critical features for us.
It can scale well.
Technical support is helpful.
What needs improvement?
The solution needs to be much more stable.
The project support is missing. We tend to use Primavera as opposed to MS Project when we are doing engineering or large-scale projects.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for six years or so.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It isn't stable enough. This is something Microsoft needs to work on.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is quite scalable. It extends well.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support has been very good. We are pleased with their level of support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have used Primavera in place of Microsoft Project on a few projects.
How was the initial setup?
It is not too complex to set up. It is actually pretty straightforward.
What was our ROI?
We have noted an ROI while using the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is moderate. Something like Primavera is more expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I am not using the latest version. I'm on the 2017 version.
If you have a Microsoft environment and aren't working on too complex a project, it is quite good and a solution.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Updated: December 2025
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