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10 Best Microsoft Project Alternatives You Should Try In 2023

Best Microsoft Project Alternatives

Here’s my list of the best MS Project alternatives.

  1. 1. monday.com — Best alternative for integrating with other tools
  2. 2. ClickUp — Best alternative for having more features, nice visuals, and colorful boards with loads of information.
  3. 3. Smartsheet — Best alternative with a built-in critical path feature
  4. 4. Zoho Projects — Best alternative for complex project visualization
  5. 5. Forecast — Best Microsoft Project alternative for resource management
  6. 6. ProjectManager.com — Best MS Project alternative for progress tracking and reporting
  7. 7. Hive — Best Microsoft Project alternative for scalability
  8. 8. Easy Projects — Best Microsoft Project Alternative for enterprise and portfolio project management
  9. 9. Merlin Project — MS Project alternative for iOS with customization
  10. 10. Moovila — Best Microsoft Project alternative for project scoring features

Microsoft Project remains one of the most popular project management software. However, loads of companies are moving away from it and onto products that are updated more frequently. Long gone are the days when we had to wait a year for a product upgrade, plus Microsoft Project alternatives are more robust nowadays.

Having said that, Microsoft has released an online version of its software and is making strides to make it a competitive product. While we wait for it to be better, here are a few options to consider and the features that make them a great alternative to MS Project.

How I Picked The Best Microsoft Project Alternatives

The following are the criteria I used to evaluate the alternatives after carefully selecting them from the wide range of options available in the market. I researched the top tools in the space and analyzed what would make them a good alternative to Microsoft Project.

User Interface (UI)

I look at the tool from a designer's perspective. Therefore, every element on the screen is part of the analysis of its visual appeal. Although you might think it’s secondary to functionality, a pretty tool affects our mood and performance if we see it every day.

Usability

Is it intuitive and user-friendly? Similar to the criterion above, the elements on the screen and their distribution must make sense to the user. A pretty tool without a good user experience is equal to having a Ferrari without an engine. Something that boosts this category is the availability of tutorials, detailed documentation, and training.

Integrations

Is it easy to connect with other tools? I look into the available pre-built connections with other tools that extend its functionality. Further, I fetch details on available APIs in case your team wants to jump in and build their own integrations.

Pricing

Here, I go into their pricing structure, analyze plans, starting costs, free trials or even a free version that you can use.

Best Microsoft Project Alternatives

In the overview of Microsoft Project alternatives below, I break down the features, pricing, and main benefits of the best MS Project alternatives.

1

monday.com

Best alternative for integrating with other tools

monday.com is one of the few tools that prides itself in ‘not being a project management tool’! This work management platform focuses on simple structures that help clarify the sequence of work that needs to be done.

Why I picked monday.com: This tool is a great Microsoft Project alternative in that it functions a lot like a spreadsheet—but one that’s more intuitive to use and modify without having to mess around with formulas. Likewise, it offers more than a basic spreadsheet by giving you various views of your projects—view as spreadsheets or as lists, on a map, on a Kanban board, and other views. Users can upload and attach files to cards, make comments, mention teammates, and more.

It offers the ability to create summary charts as well as export and share project plans. However, one downside is that it doesn’t allow you to make Gantt charts in the traditional sense (they have a feature that serves the same purpose and works just as well, called “timelines”), nor can you import or export MPP files. That said, monday.com is designed as a true alternative to MS Project, not something to be used in tandem with it.

monday.com Standout Features & Integrations

Features include resource and project management, time tracking, collaboration, file management, collaborative docs and reporting dashboards.

Integrations include project management apps like Slack, Excel, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform, and many more, accessible via Zapier.

Its free plan is available for a maximum of 2 users.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 6745

14-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats)

2

ClickUp

Best alternative for having more features, nice visuals, and colorful boards with loads of information.

ClickUp is a project management platform with a focus on becoming the only tool you need to use at work.

Why I picked ClickUp: This is definitely a tool that you can get as an alternative to Microsoft Project. It has features like task management, time management, collaboration documents, whiteboards, and reporting tools that make it a viable option if you want a strong performance and low cost solution.

Unlike MS Project, ClickUp has beautiful visuals, an intuitive interface, support for sprints, goals, and workload view of your resources. Every detail in this tool has been properly designed, created, and deployed to give you a 5-star user experience on mobile, desktop and browser.

Although you can’t import your .mpp files, it does have importing capabilities for .csv files, .xlsx, and other project tools like Trello, Asana, Jira, and more.

ClickUp Standout Features & Integrations

Features include real-time reporting, whiteboards and shared documents for collaboration, task management with different views, goal tracking, and templates.

Integrations include Slack, G Suite, Hubspot, Toggl Track, One Drive, Dropbox, and many more tools. Additional integrations with over 1,000+ apps can be connected through Zapier. If you want to build custom integrations, you can use its public API to do so.

ClickUp's free plan gives you access to all features so you can properly test the software.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 4135

Freemium plan available

From $9/user/month

3

Smartsheet

Best alternative with a built-in critical path feature

Smartsheet is a spreadsheet based software that looks and feels like the most natural transition from MS Project to other cloud-based project management software.

Why I picked Smartsheet: Smartsheet's online project management tool takes some of the most useful features of Microsoft Project, combines them with the simple use of an online spreadsheet, and then incorporates team collaboration and automation functions to save money. It offers the basics: functions such as making a schedule with tasks, subtasks, activities, assigned resources, and sections on tasks.

Smartsheet helps you organize projects, grids, calendars, dashboards, portals, forms, and more all from a unified control center. They have pre-built Gantt chart templates with customizable fonts and colors, “% Complete” and “Assigned To” columns, and more. It has useful features such as workflow automation and visualization of tasks in Gantt, calendar, and card views. Team members get notified of critical changes in real-time, and the tool provides shared views, detail history, activity logs, automated alerts, reminders, and status reports to keep everyone aligned and informed.

The Critical Path feature highlights all the tasks which directly impact your project completion date so you can keep an eye on important milestones. Reporting is a strong feature of this tool, with editable summary reports that you can easily export to Excel.

Smartsheet Standout Features & Integrations

Features include dashboards, reports that consolidate multiple sheets, workflow automation, resource management, multiple views, forms to collect information, and digital asset management using Brandfolder.

Integrations include Microsoft and Google apps, as well as development essentials like Jira, and useful business apps like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Box, and Tableau. The platform is extensible through a REST API and webhooks.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.4 7399

Freemium version available

From $7/user/month

4

Zoho Projects

Best alternative for complex project visualization

Zoho Projects is a MS Project alternative that has a simple, easy-to-use interface that also comes with a mobile application.

Why I picked Zoho Projects: It has extensive Gantt chart features and capabilities at an affordable price range which creates an all-round project management experience. It has an intuitive Gantt chart that can be operated with simple drag-and-drop actions. It supports all four kinds of dependencies and contains a critical path and baseline to help avoid delays.

Zoho Projects comes with features like task management, time tracking, and resource utilization. All projects can be split into milestones that you want to reach at various time periods. Task management is easy with features like custom fields and statuses, task recurrence, reminders, and a Kanban view. You can manage your time by splitting and allocating your available hours to all your work items.

The resource utilization chart comes with simple seesaws that depict the workload of your resources. While allocating tasks, you can easily see who is over-utilized, under-utilized, or unavailable. Collaboration is possible with any of the project’s stakeholders with interactive feeds and forums, wiki pages, and built-in chat.

Zoho Projects Standout Features & Integrations

Features include task management, task automation, blueprints, time and issue tracking, reporting, and forums for detailed discussions with your team.

Integrations include several Zoho applications like Zoho CRM, Zoho Books, Zoho People, and other applications like Office 360, Google Drive, G Cal, GitHub, BitBucket, and Crashlytics. Zoho has a Marketplace that has several pre-built extensions. Zoho Projects also has support engineers and live chat support to help with onboarding.

They have a freemium version for up to 3 users and 2 projects.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.2 286

10-day free trial

From $5/user/month

5

Forecast

Best Microsoft Project alternative for resource management

Forecast is a powerful combination of resource management and project management built on the foundation that successful projects require a combination of short and long term planning.

Why I picked Forecast: You can build advanced interactive Gantt charts with Forecast’s full suite of project management features. Powered by AI, it is designed for companies that want to monitor the progress of their projects, programs, and portfolios in real-time. Forecast learns from hundreds of thousands of projects and turns a simple list of tasks into a project plan with assigned team members, estimated task duration, and precise delivery dates - allowing you to be more efficient and build project timelines in seconds.

Team members can collaborate and comment on tasks, and Forecast gives you profitability insights as well, so management can monitor revenue by project.

Forecast Standout Features & Integrations

Features include project management, project accounting, fully customizable dashboards, advanced warnings to mitigate risk, timesheets, smart invoices, and project financials.

Integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, iCloud Calendar, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Outlook, Harvest, Trello, Asana, GitLab, Github, and dozens more using a paid plan through Zapier. Higher-tier subscriptions include native integrations with Timelog, Xero, QuickBooks Online, JIRA, Azure DevOps, Salesforce, Okta, OneLogin, and Azure Active Directory.

Forecast is currently used in 40+ countries worldwide, by agencies, consulting companies, and enterprises.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 225

14-day free trial

From $29/user/month

6

ProjectManager.com

Best MS Project alternative for progress tracking and reporting

ProjectManager combines Gantt chart functionality with many other project views—kanban boards, spreadsheets, task lists, and more—to support the needs of hybrid teams. While the project manager may prefer the Gantt view to create a detailed work breakdown structure, others team members can work on the same project through a simple task list.

Why I picked ProjectManager: It is simple enough for anyone to use, yet powerful enough for managers to make data-driven decisions and for businesses to manage projects of all levels of complexity.

Gantt charts allow users to drag and drop to adjust deadlines, add and visualize dependencies, and set specific milestones. Users can import Gantt charts to and from other tools (including .mpp files from MS Project) to get projects up and running quickly. The tool also allows users to create reports in one click, view progress bars for quick project health checks, and create PDF versions and shareable links.

ProjectManager Standout Features & Integrations

Features include project portfolios, Kanban boards, reporting, workflow automation, customizable dashboards with real-time information, and collaboration tools.

Integrations include Office 365, Jira, Slack, and Google Drive, with even more connections available through Zapier.

Although this tool does not offer a free version, you can cancel or change plans at any time while on a monthly account.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.4 76

30-day free trial

From $16/user/month

7

Hive

Best Microsoft Project alternative for scalability

Hive is a project management tool and collaboration platform that powers companies like Starbucks, Uber, WeWork, and IBM. Hive is the world's first community-built software, with a roadmap comprised entirely of customer-voted features.

Why I picked Hive: With flexible project views, dependencies, and thousands of integrations, Hive streamlines your work in one centralized platform and offers much more than just Gantt charts. Used by teams of varying sizes, from 10 people to 1,000, Hive is a great option as a Microsoft Project alternative for a diverse range of companies and work styles.

Hive’s time tracking, resourcing, and flexible view capabilities allow for a transparent understanding of other team members’ work and upcoming projects. Hive also has full email integration in their project management tool, which allows you to send and receive Gmail and Outlook messages from the app.

Hive Standout Features & Integrations

Features include collaboration and messaging, time tracking, goal tracking, notes AI, task and process automation, and analytics.

Integrations include Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Box, Google Drive, Slack, Jira, Github, and many more available through Zapier. It also has a free API you can use to build custom integrations.

Choose Hive if you’re in the market for a well-laid-out, comprehensive Microsoft Project alternative tool that can be scaled up or down based on team needs.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.6 417

14-day free trial

From $16/user/month

8

Easy Projects

Best Microsoft Project Alternative for enterprise and portfolio project management

Easy Projects is built to plan and deliver on projects that have varying complexity levels, anywhere from simple tasks to more in-depth projects that involve multiple departments. Easy Projects enables real-time collaboration between executives, project managers, stakeholders, and all other team members.

Easy Projects includes tools like Gantt charts, Kanban boards, resource loading simulations, and project calendars, which are easy to use and allow all users, not just PMs, to efficiently manage tasks and projects by mapping out all activities on a timeline. The tool also offers critical paths and multiple dependencies, which are clearly laid out so project managers can anticipate changes to a deadline.

Advanced reporting capabilities allow managers to view and analyze project performance and profitability as well as quickly spot potential bottlenecks. Managers can also provide project metrics and birds-eye view updates to executive team members with custom in-depth business intelligence reports.

In addition, Easy Projects offers an extensive product knowledge base, plus real people are always standing by to answer your questions. Users can conveniently import and export data back and forth from Microsoft Project and Easy Projects as well.

Easy Projects is accessible from any device and includes an app for Apple or Android. The tool is available from at $24/month per user and a free two-week trial is available.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.1 289

From $24/user/month

Pros

  • Responsive and helpful support
  • Over 2000+ integrations available
  • Great for handling complex projects

Cons

  • More flexibility in reporting would be welcome
  • Less suitable for smaller businesses
9

Merlin Project

MS Project alternative for iOS with customization

In its latest iteration, Merlin Project works pretty well. It’s a great Mac alternative to Microsoft Project, and looks very similar, with many of the granular controls for creating project plans that many of the other options out there gloss over.

You can create tasks and subtasks with dependencies and constraints, add work and duration separately, assign resources with an option to decrease duration or increase work, see how much work each resource has assigned, and add your own fields to each task, for which you can define the field type (e.g. checkbox, date, etc.). Merlin Project also comes with some cool new features such as Kanban board, resource pools, mind mapping and even a standalone app available in the Apple App Store.

Importing in and out of Merlin is pretty straightforward, import native MPP and export MS Project XML, but you lose a lot of formatting which is annoying.

Merlin Project costs $99/year.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
2.8 2

30 days free trial

From $16.99 / month

10

Moovila

Best Microsoft Project alternative for project scoring features

Moovila is a project management software suite that brings a higher level of intelligence to the software through AI, patented visualizations, and project scoring capabilities.

Moovila's standout feature is the mPIX Score, which was developed by credit industry veterans with advisory oversight by Stanford, MIT, and Princeton mathematicians. The mPIX score captures the amount of preventable risk in a plan with a single, actionable number.

The tool also includes a Project Debugger feature which allows users to see at a glance where problems are and fix them. Moovila's philosophy is that project structures follow a format—like code—and thus can be debugged—like code. Moovila also includes an AI project management coach named Carmen that will walk you step-by-step through what needs to be done to clean up a project. Carmen can even check calendars to make scheduling a snap.

Moovila also includes a critical path feature that works with Carmen to do the math for project managers, rather than users having to do difficult calculations themselves. Users can drag-and-drop tasks into the critical path and Carmen will find out if the project timeline is achievable.

Other features offered by Moovila include remote & extended team management, contextual collaboration features that ensure knowledge transfer as people come and go, resource management, spreadsheets, Gantt charts, calendars, and Kanban boards.

Pricing for Moovila is available upon request.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
5 3

30 days free trial

Pricing available upon request

Pros

  • Critical Path visualization more accessible as the tool does the math for you
  • mPIX score provides more accurate picture of risk in a project
  • AI coach assists with project scheduling and clean-up

Cons

  • Learning curve when acclimating to Moovila's philosophy on project work and best practices
  • Due to the number of features, some may not be immediately obvious to users

Need expert help selecting the right Project Management Software?

We’ve joined up with Crozdesk.com to give all our readers (yes, you!) access to Crozdesk’s software advisors. Just use the form below to share your needs, and they will contact you at no cost or commitment. You will then be matched and connected to a shortlist of vendors that best fit your company, and you can access exclusive software discounts!

The Best Microsoft Project Alternatives Comparison Chart

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the baffling array of Microsoft Project alternatives out there.

Below, we’ve put together a reader-friendly table neatly summarizing basic info about the tools described in this article. We’ve investigated the pricing and availability of free trials and demo versions for you to make a side-by-side comparison that much simpler.

Tool Free Option Price
1
monday.com

Best alternative for integrating with other tools

14-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) Visit Website
2
ClickUp

Best alternative for having more features, nice visuals, and colorful boards with loads of information.

Freemium plan available

From $9/user/month Visit Website
3
Smartsheet

Best alternative with a built-in critical path feature

Freemium version available

From $7/user/month Visit Website
4
Zoho Projects

Best alternative for complex project visualization

10-day free trial

From $5/user/month Visit Website
5
Forecast

Best Microsoft Project alternative for resource management

14-day free trial

From $29/user/month Visit Website
6
ProjectManager.com

Best MS Project alternative for progress tracking and reporting

30-day free trial

From $16/user/month Visit Website
7
Hive

Best Microsoft Project alternative for scalability

14-day free trial

From $16/user/month Visit Website
8
Easy Projects

Best Microsoft Project Alternative for enterprise and portfolio project management

Not available

From $24/user/month Visit Website
9
Merlin Project

MS Project alternative for iOS with customization

30 days free trial

From $16.99 / month Visit Website
10
Moovila

Best Microsoft Project alternative for project scoring features

30 days free trial

Pricing available upon request Visit Website

Other project scheduling software alternatives worth considering:

There are some new kids on the Gantt chart block! I haven’t had a chance to review these properly, but if none of the above work for you, it’s worth checking some of these out:

  1. Project Plan 365

    Best MS Project MPP compatibility

  2. Workzone

    Best for project template capabilities

  3. TeamGantt

    Best for viewing multiple projects on one Gantt chart

  4. Tom's Planner

    Collaborative Gantt chart software for teams who use MS Excel

  5. GanttPRO

    Best Microsoft Project alternative for creating powerful Gantt charts

  6. Nifty

    Best alternative for its user experience

  7. Wrike

    Best Microsoft Project alternative for team collaboration

  8. Planview Clarizen

    Best enterprise Microsoft Project alternative

  9. Celoxis

    Best alternative for its omprehensive project and portfolio management features

Microsoft Project Alternatives FAQs

What do people wonder about when exploring an alternative?

What is Microsoft Project?

Microsoft Project is a project management tool used by different types of users, with varying levels of access. The software provides tables, views, filters, fields, calendars, and a database for doing things like:

  • Developing project plans
  • Assigning resources
  • Tracking time & progress
  • Creating Gantt charts
  • Creating & managing budgets
  • Balancing workloads
  • Scheduling tasks & resources
  • Creating graphical reports
  • Storing project data in a shared database

You can learn more about Microsoft Project features, benefits, cost, and use cases in my overview of Microsoft project management software.

Is Microsoft Project useful?

For a lot of agencies, yes. In many cases, the default project management tool for creating project plans is still Microsoft Project, and it provides a lot of useful tools.

For starters, Microsoft Project is not just a fuzzy old tool that Microsoft doesn’t really care about. They’ve been in business for over 30 years, and they’re introducing some really smart integrations with Power BI, Internet of Things, bots, and machine learning that are awesome.

What has replaced Microsoft Project?

For many years, MS Project was the default project management tool for most project managers. However, because of its laser focus on the PM and its responsibilities, it was slow to respond to the collaboration needs of this role.

Because of it, Microsoft Project has been replaced with cloud-based project management tools that, in addition to project management, offer collaboration features such as an in-app chat, mentions, comments, approval and proofing workflows.

Is there a free MS Project alternative?

If you don't have the budget to upgrade and are okay with having limited functionality, here are some options.

  1. Project Libre – open source project management software
  2. GanttProject – free project management and scheduling app to make Gantt charts on Windows, OSX, and Linux
  3. Ganttology – interactive Gantt chart software with basic free plan (1 chart, 50 tasks), in addition to paid plans
  4. Toggl Plan – simple, sleek project planning software with a free plan (5 people max) in addition to paid plan

MS Project alternatives Buyer's Guide

Here are some questions to ask yourself when choosing the right MS project alternative for your particular needs.

How do you use your project plans and schedules?

The software on this list is meant to keep your project plans front and center. They promote visibility and communication around the plan. Consider if this is the use you currently give your plans and schedules or if it’s what you would like to have.

Here are some common uses:

  • Gantt charts exist at the beginning of the project and are never updated again.
  • Timelines serve as a tool for baseline analysis.
  • Schedules communicate progress to the project and executive team.

What key features should I look for when selecting MS Project alternatives?

A great alternative to software must at least match the features in the one you are trying to replace. Here’s what to look for in your new software.

  1. Import and export .mpp files: The tool should be able to open and import MS Project files, either natively or through a .csv file. Then, export PDFs or shareable project plans.
  2. Resource management: The tool should have a module that handles workload and resource scheduling and supports capacity planning.
  3. Time tracking: From simple to complex projects, the software needs a time tracking tool so the team can record the time they invest in activities. This can be built into the tool itself or handled through an add-on (like an integration).
  4. Roadmap: The ability to track multiple projects in one view, display goals, and overall progress. This specific feature might be available only on higher-tier plans.
  5. Reporting: The tool must have a reporting module that lets you track progress on your projects, portfolios, programs, and resources.
  6. Views: The ability to see information in diverse formats. The minimum required is a Gantt and a Kanban view. Modern tools will have more, such as calendar, table, box, and list views, for example.

Disclaimer, I left a couple of features that belong to the Enterprise plan out. This is on purpose because, if you are at that level, almost any of the tools on this list will out-feature MS Project anyway.

Who will use it?

Think of who needs to see the project information. Is it a team member, client, third party, or only the project manager? The more people need to be involved and collaborate, the bigger the need for a tool that has integrated chat features, the ability to export dashboard information and create external users for the tool.

What other tools are you using?

Make a list of all the tools that you currently use. Then, define which ones are, should, and you would like to be connected. Finally, go into the integrations section of your tool of choice and see if it can mimic what’s on your list.

Sometimes these integrations are already built. Other times, they have to be connected through an external party like Zapier, or programmed by your IT team using the tool’s API.

Are you always online?

Cloud-based project apps can be great, and they can be kept more up to date with ‘live’ information, but consider that they require an active internet connection to work.If you do not have a reliable internet connection or are constantly on the go, look for apps that have offline capabilities. This can be from a desktop version of the software or a mobile app.

What's the cost?

The cost of Microsoft Project tends to be one of the primary reasons that people look for an alternative. Microsoft Project isn’t cheap, but if you do a quick search on Amazon, you can find Microsoft Project 2019 for less than $600. In addition, you should factor in the number of users and the cost of ownership of the product.

Consider Projects vs Users

Most of the Microsoft Project alternatives are priced on a cost-per-user basis. So in working out which solution is the most affordable, consider what makes the most sense for you; is it a tool that many people in the organization will need to use, or will it be used principally by the project manager?

Consider The Lifetime Cost Of Ownership

While web-based apps might seem affordable in the short run, typically costing around $15/user/month, the cost of ownership over 3 years is actually the same as buying a copy of Microsoft Project. So before deciding on subscribing to a service, consider purchasing a desktop-based non-cloud solution like:

Summary of Microsoft Project Alternatives

While Microsoft Project might seem like an easy tool to replace, when you can subscribe to Project Online Professional for $30/user/month, it’s worth weighing up all the options before subscribing to a cloud-based option.

But if you’re not using it every day, and just need a simple Gantt project planner, there are lots of great, cheap, and even free options for you.

Just realized that you need a different type of tool? Check out these other reviews:

microsoft project alternatives logos list

What Do You Think?

What project management tools do you think we’re missing? Any other great alternatives to Microsoft Project for project scheduling, making Gantt charts, and project plans? We’d love to hear if you’ve got any suggestions, tips, or thoughts on using this kind of project scheduling software – why not share them using the comments below?

By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 15 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony.

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47 Comments

  • Love Project in a Box. Excellent alternative to MS Project.

    Reply

  • Useful content, will definitely test your recommendation

    Reply

  • Hey Ben, Thanks for compiling the list, I am amazed few of the products I've tried before are not included in the list like Trello, Basecamp, Notion and TeamGantt. I've been searching a good project manager for a while, thanks for listing these, I am going to try SmartSheet because it seems like Google Sheets on Steriods. Thanks again

    Reply

  • You shuld add Proggio.com to your list, it's a new free tool very easy to use for professional PMOs

    Reply

  • Great compilation. Please also checkout Avaza (www.avaza.com). We offer integrated Project Management, Time Tracking, Expense Tracking, Scheduling, Time Billing, Fixed Fee Billing, 30+ reports and more. We also offer great 24/7 customer support, a robust API, and free pieces of training anytime you'd like! All that for a price that most can't beat!

    Reply

  • Here is another free and simple project management tool with built in Gantt and Canvas https://ruumapp.com/

    Reply

  • Hi, Ben It is a great article and a rich collection of MS project alternatives. Like you said you would like to hear about others too. I would like to represent TIEMCHART Tiemchart have been helping some of the largest organisation where were initially on MS Project. We have delivered a system that is also taking into account for Human, Material and Assets to account for project progress. Please visit our website https://tiemchart.com/ms-project-alternative.html to understand bit more about how we are helping the industry. We would love to hear back from you and also will be thankful if you can kindly include our name in your list. Thanks & Regards,

    Reply

  • Looking for a recommendation for a novice - what's a good, free tool to learn project management software on? Thanks!

    Reply

    • Hey Liz, if you're looking for project management software, including Gantt charts, I'd try Wrike

      Reply

  • What about taskworld - how does this stack up in comparison to say SmartSheet?

    Reply

  • I would highly recommend to take a look at Hansoft ( https://www.hansoft.com ) to which you can easily import MS Project XML. It is completely free for up to 9 users (it is intended to be used collaboratively) and then costs 28$/user/month. It is stable, super fast and very flexible.

    Reply

  • Gantter is no longer supported so is in effect a dead programme - and a very buggy one at that.

    Reply

    • Thanks for the heads up on that one - last time I tried it I didn't encounter any bugs, but good to know! Did you find any good free alternatives?

      Reply

  • If you are interested in Gantt chart tool then GanttPRO is the best choice. As its just intuitive, fast and smart to use, then other alternatives.

    Reply

    • Agree, GanttPRO works really fast and the pricing model is clear and fair. Just compare teamgantt to ganttpro: https://www.teamgantt.com/pricing/ - $9.95 /user per month and minimum of 5 users, that means that if I want a plan for me I need to for 5 and the cost is 49,75. https://ganttpro.com/pricing/ - $19 / month for 1 user and $49 / month for 5 members The choice is obvious :)

      Reply

  • Another good "alternative" can be MS Project by itself, this program is available in cloud at https://www.apponfly.com/en/microsoft-project-standard-2016?KAI Full version of Project but online, not bad.

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  • HI Ben, Interesting review but not quite sure how you missed Planner from PROJECT in a box. https://www.projectinabox.org.uk/planner/ now quite a mature product and completely free for ever for all organisations to download https://www.projectinabox.org.uk/registration/ . We found in our commercial products that 80+percent of the plans people created in MS Project used a very basic set of functions, tasks, dependencies, groupings, resources etc so we provided these in a simple to use tool five years ago and now there are well over 100,000 users. We find many people ditching MS Project to use this instead at an organisation wide level as well as on a new user at a time basis. Over the years we have added a lot to Planner so it now includes project accounting and costing model and uniquely is also a risk and issue/RAID tool so users can collect all their key project controls data in one place. Of course we also provide reports and all data and charts etc can be exported and dropped to clip board. We even provide two way exchange with MS Project and Excel. We know of other customers who transfer to Primavera through this interface. Planner is used by many of our biggest global customers on some huge projects and also by the complete novice to create there first ever plans. A full set of training videos and free technical support is also provided. Although it is free forever it doesn't mean it is some simple trial tool, we continue to add interesting new features to it based on the dialog with our many customers. Hope your readers find this a helpful update. Regards Malcolm West MD PROJECT in a box

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  • For those who are handling with sensitive data, I would also recommend stackfield.com

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  • Thanks Ben for this lowdown. It's an interesting to get a PM's perspective on Project Management software. This is a good guide for PC users although for Mac users the options are a bit more limited. However, there's also some excellent project management software for those on Mac. This is a really useful article for anyone that needs something suitable for Macs - hope it helps! https://machow2.com/best-alternatives-microsoft-project-mac/

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  • Fantastic review, thank you! I was just a bit surprised about the Merlin evaluation though. I use a Mac and found it to be the best Microsoft Project alternative I have tried. It looks very much like Project, and is sufficiently advanced. That is: you can create tasks and subtasks with dependencies and constraints, add work and duration separately, assign resources with an option to decrease duration or increase work, see how much work each resource has assigned, and add your own fields to each task, for which you can define the field type (e.g. checkbox, date, etc.) This last feature is why I dropped Omniplan - the devil's in the detail! I needed to add, and filter by, a number of checkboxes and custom dates next to each task (like "urgent" flag, "important" flag, date task was requested etc.). The only downside I found was being unable to save straight to mpp - you can save to xml and whoever has the latest Project version can open it, but older versions don't. And a quick note about Omniplan: a great feature for those who frequently change task dates and assignments is that you can define whether to adjust duration or work in a clear option button, rather than indirectly by adjusting dates and work/duration values. Hope you find this helpful!

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    • Hi Alice, Thanks for your comments. It seems like my review was out of date - I discovered a few improvements since I last checked it out so thank you!

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  • ProjExec (https://www.triloggroup.com) is the IBM-based alternative to MS Project with high fidelity compatibility with all versions of MS Project. It ships as an add-on IBM's Enterprise Social Platform IBM Connections both on premises and on the IBM Cloud. If your company is using IBM Connections for social collaboration, then ProjExec is the way to go. Usually the cost of upgrading existing MS Project licenses pays for an enterprise-wide license of ProjExec.

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  • Here's the challenge that I keep running into: as a company who from time-to-time runs defense/government projects, there are big questions with regard to security of web-/cloud-based programs. In the research that I have done, specifically related to ITAR/EAR regulations, it is not recommended to use cloud-based programs at all. This really limits my options to a program that we can host on our internal server. Anyone else run into this same issue, or am I just making it up?

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    • I've not encountered this challenge - why can't you just install something like MS Project on your local machine?

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      • That would be an option, and one that I have considered. However, the cost of setting up an internal server and the licenses for it, not to mention missing out on the incremental product updates, tends to make locally-hosted services less desirable. I'm still working on determining whether or not project planning data falls under ITAR/EAR regulations, but so far it is clear that we could not use document storage features of a cloud-based software.

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    • I am not sure if that really works but a possible solution would be to use a PM tool from a provider that runs on an AWS GovCloud (US) (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/latest/UserGuide/whatis.html). The service seems to be in compliance with ITAR: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/latest/UserGuide/govcloud-itar.html That would mean that instead of hosting the program on your internal server and handle version updates, the software producer would do it for you on a dedicated AWS GovCloud (US) machine and you would have the exact same benefits of a cloud/web-based PM tool. We haven't tried that yet with RationalPlan but it could be a viable solution... Interesting point of view, thanks!

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  • Hi Ben, I'm guessing there is a typo in Smartsheet as it's saying it could export as XML only, yet in your summary for Smartsheet it says it passes the export as .mpp. Thanks for the article, really helpful.

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    • Good spot! It doesn't export to mpp - https://help.smartsheet.com/customer/portal/articles/770623-exporting-sheets-reports-from-smartsheet#project

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  • I just used Gantter.com and man did love the intuitive old time feel . It worked beautifully for a basic 12 item 56 point steel construction schedule. Thanks for the Recommendation. I like bells and whistles as much as the next person but simplicity is also a wonderful thing sometimes. It was straight forward and quite like using MS project 2003. I also took a look at the Rational plan that is suggested above and as far as I can tell that too looks very good for a good price. i would likely purchase that if I did these schedules more often.

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  • Hi Ben, Great list! Thanks! We're a small company and we've found that our main criteria is we need "fixed work" resource allocation (versus "fixed duration"). https://www.project.net/blog/work-duration-calculation-types Other than Project 365 and OmniPlan, it seems all the other solutions use the fixed duration model. We're trying to get away from Project because we don't want to continue having to use an outside solution like Basecamp for file sharing and discussions, and we don't have Macs (OmniPlan also requires an outside platform for file sharing). We signed up for Wrike because we loved the feature set, only to find they are fixed duration only. Do you (or anyone else reading this thread) have any recommendations for a cloud-based DPM platform that uses/allows a fixed work model and also integrates discussions, file sharing, etc. so we don't have to run on two separate platforms like we are now? Thanks, Dan

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    • I'm just jumping on this one because Dan summed up my problem, except I'm searching for an alternative to ConceptDraw Project, which has the same obstacle. If you please, do keep me posted on what you find.

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    • Dan, RationalPlan will allow you to plan using Fixed-Duration, Fixed-Work and Fixed-Units just like MS Project does and also using Dependency-Driven for rare and special cases... You can also use RationalPlan within the cloud and will have concurrent access from multiple users, with file sharing but no integrated discussions (but very likely to be added). Give it a try and maybe it will solve your problem.

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      • Thanks for the tip, Tiberiu. I'll definitely check into it. Dan

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    • Hansoft also supports fixed work OR fixed duration: https://support.hansoft.com/hc/en-us/articles/205185731-Fixed-duration-and-fixed-work

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  • Thank you, Ben, for your review. I just start experimenting after using MS Project for a long time. How do you think is Arike good for small projects? I can also share with you my personal discovery - GanttPRO - user-friendly online project planning soft which is free and will stay free forever for everyone who sign up now (well, developers promise it :) ). For me I've found 5 features: - extremely untuitive interface - after using MS Project GanttPRO is like a child toy) - 360 view of my projects with a critical path and zooming - export to pdf, jpg, xlsx, ical - possibility to share my project plans with colleagues and clients giving the right to edit or the right to view project - perfect visibility - graphic interface is hotsy totsy))

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    • I tried installing GanntPRO, but everything leads me back to paying for an upgrade, in order to do anything useful (i.e., even save my project) :(

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      • If you're looking for a free solution, have you tried https://gantter.com/ ? TeamGantt - https://www.teamgantt.com is also free for one project!

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        • Ganttr is very very unstable. We've used it so for about 10 projects. It keeps blowing up our tasks & resource assignments. I'd not recommend Ganttr to anybody anymore.

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  • Ben, you should also take a look at RationalPlan as an alternative to Microsoft Project https://www.rationalplan.com/ You will see that the transition from MS Project To RationalPlan is flawless.

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  • Good article, thanks for the info!

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  • Ben, Really liked the article and the brief listing format for the comparisons, proved very useful and timely, just had the experience you open with…. MS Project …….. How much!……. is there nothing else out there etc? As a result, found your article. Coming from an equipment manufacturing environment, dealing with large scale consultants & Construction companies, the ability to develop, share and reiterate schedules in a consistent format, that they can readily import and export in and out of the clients larger project databases is important. (in some cases it's a contractual, project communications requirement). Hence the ability to import & export in .mpp is critical, it's a shame that the developers for some of the online packages don't provide this as a defacto standard feature. If there was consistent import/export format across multiple platforms, I think more of these smaller packages would be used more readily, especially by smaller contractors/equipment suppliers supplying into larger projects, where MS Project is simply not cost effective solution. Having said that, from this same perspective, Primavera Project scheduling software is also prevalent on these larger projects and having a similar capability would be useful. I know Excel data can be imported and passed around, but it can be a bit of nightmare, trying to maintain the spreadsheet structure, maintaining the correct data types in fields etc. I'd be interested to hear back from readers, if there are any workable, or proven standard file formats for transferring data between these smaller scheduling software packages, into the larger Project schedule software systems. Thanks again for a clear and informative article. Alan

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  • There are couple of apps you missed, for example bi-platformed ConceptDraw Project [which works with MS Project files] and Bugzilla - which is simple, but free https://www.conceptdraw.com/products/project-management-software/ https://www.bugzilla.org/ Cheers!

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    • Dear Adam, you can not consider Bugzilla as an alternative to MS Project...

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    • Thank you guys for the list and the comments supplementing it. Pretty much satisfied with CD PROJECT as it resembles MS PROJECTS so much. Due to the fact I used to work on Win platform and now that I switched to macOS - ConceptDraw software is a great alternative. Zillion of dashboard reports help me visualize my projects. https://www.conceptdraw.com/products/project-management-software/manage-plans-reports-and-changes

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  • Hi Ben, thanks for taking the time to review WorkZone. Just to clarify that in addition to our interactive Gantt Chart, WorkZone does indeed allow for importing/exporting of .mpp files and has reporting features to show a project overview. For more information on how WorkZone can help you better track your projects, please visit us at https://www.workzone.com.

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    • Thanks for this review. We just signed up for Workzone after reviewing solutions with more and less features - so far it's just right in terms of functionality for us. Rob Foster Profarma Specialty Group Brazil

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  • Hi Ben ! you got right list of Microsoft alternatives and summarized in detail. As you said you will love to hear about any other alternative :) I want to share proofhub. Its a feature rich tool and we are using it since 2012, we are quite happy with their service so i thought sharing can help your post to keep it refreshing ProofHub costs from $49/ Unlimited USERS /month Summary of ProofHub: Create a Gantt chart: Pass Create a project overview chart: Pass Import and export mpp files: Fail Export PDF’s or shareable project plans: Pass Overall score: 4/5 I will share more if i found more competitive alternative! Also please let me know where I am wrong.

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