The honest table.
Every tool a planner might actually use to open, build or hand back a programme. Where a vendor's own page says a thing, we say the same thing — including the rows where we lose.
every row and list price re-checked 24 October 2026: Microsoft’s prices from its own pages, Primavera Cloud’s from Oracle’s own G-Cloud 14 pricing; Oracle publishes no P6 list price, so P6’s is a reseller quote| Capability | AimaveraStudio | Primavera P6Professional 26 | PrimaveraCloud, 2026 | MS Project2024 desktop | PlannerPlan 3, web app |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Getting in | |||||
| Runs in a browser | ●any OS | —Windows 11 | ● | —Windows | ● |
| Usable without paying | ●open, edit, check and print any size; export to 100 activities; personal/eval use | —30-day trial | — | — | — |
| Your file stays on your machine | ●nothing uploaded | ●desktop | —cloud | ●desktop | —cloud |
| Files | |||||
| Opens a P6 XER | ● | ● | ● | — | — |
| Returns a byte-identical XER | ●patches the original | —regenerates on export | —regenerates on export | — | — |
| MS Project XML both ways | ● | ● | ● | ● | — |
| Excel out | ●Studio plan: activities, links, assignments | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Scheduling | |||||
| Multi-calendar CPM | ●ten constraint types | ● | ● | ● | — |
| Critical float threshold you set | ● | ● | ● | — | — |
| Group and sort, nested | ●five levels, band totals | ● | ● | ● | — |
| Named, saved filters | ●sixteen fields, ALL or ANY | ● | ● | ● | — |
| Checking the work | |||||
| DCMA 14-point, built in | ●with one-click fixes | — | —configurable checks reported in 26.6; DCMA not stated | — | — |
| Monte Carlo risk | ●schedule and cost | —separate product | ● | — | — |
| Resource levelling | ● | ● | ● | ● | — |
| Earned value | ●earned schedule, SPI(t) | ● | ● | ● | — |
| Time impact analysis | ●AACE 52R-06 fragnets, typed or drafted by the assistant | — | — | — | — |
| Forensic delay analysis | ●impacted as-planned, collapsed as-built, windows; concurrency by party, never split | — | — | — | — |
| Getting it out | |||||
| Page setup, print and PDF | ●tokenised header, vector bars | ● | ● | ● | — |
| 4D view of the schedule | ●in the browser; the model stays on your machine | — | —through a partner | — | — |
| AI that edits the schedule | ●your key, your firm’s assistant, or the built-in one with no AI at all; validated edits | — | —a help assistant, not schedule edits | — | —Copilot drafts plans and status reports; a Planner Agent does simple tasks; +$30 |
| Where Aimavera loses | |||||
| Multi-project and portfolio | ●tabs, a folder rolled up — local | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Two people editing at once | ●live session, team folder — no server | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Enterprise resource pool | —shared dictionary, clashes across programmes | ● | ● | ● | — |
| What it costs | |||||
| Price | Free to open any size; export to 100 activities £15/user/mo Studio for Excel, CSV and larger exports |
$3,520 + $774 support |
£96/user/mo five-seat minimum |
$679.99 one-time |
$30/user/mo includes Project desktop |
One red mark, on purpose. Every comparison page is written by the company that wins it. The row we lose is kept in the same table rather than buried underneath, because a planner finds out in week one anyway and it is better said here. If you share one resource pool across every job in the firm, buy P6 or Primavera Cloud. Teams and portfolios here work from a folder you already share and sessions that go machine to machine: nothing is uploaded, and there is no seat minimum. What ours costs →
4D tools
The tools a planner is shown when a tender asks for 4D. Most of them hold the model on a Windows workstation or in their own cloud; Aimavera reads it beside the schedule in the browser and keeps it on your machine. “Not published” means we did not find it in the vendor’s public material; it does not mean the product lacks it.
| Capability | AimaveraStudio, 4D view | SYNCHRO 4D ProBentley, 2026 | Navisworks ManageAutodesk, TimeLiner | cmBuildercmbuilder.io | BEXEL Managerbexelmanager.com |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where the model lives | |||||
| Runs in a browser | ●any OS | —Windows desktop | —Windows desktop | ●“100% web-based” | —Windows desktop |
| Where the model is held | ●on your machine, never uploaded | ●on the PC; Control is Bentley’s cloud | ●on the PC | —their cloud | ●on the PC, or their CDE |
| Platform | Windows, Mac, Linux, Chromebook | Windows · 32 GB RAM, 16 GB GPU recommended | Windows | web | Windows |
| Links and updates | |||||
| How elements link to activities | ●suggested with a confidence, rules, or picked in 3D | not published | ●search sets | not published | not published |
| After a schedule update | ●links kept by Activity ID; a report lists what broke | ●re-sync | ●Rebuild Task Hierarchy or Synchronize | not published | not published |
| The schedule in the model | |||||
| Critical path in 3D | ●driving path, float heatmap | not published | not published | not published | not published |
| Editing the schedule from the model | ●effect previewed against the schedule checks | not published | not published | not published | not published |
| Risk on the model | ●P50 and P80 builds, chance by date | not published | not published | not published | not published |
| Crew density on the model | ●labour by zone and week, stacked trades | not published | not published | not published | not published |
| Clashes and hand-over | |||||
| Sequence clashes | ●built before what holds it up, fixed with a link | not published | not published | not published | not published |
| BCF out | ●BCF 2.1, written on your machine | not published | not published | not published | not published |
| Video export | ●video and a picture a week | ●video and images | not published | not published | not published |
| IFC 4D export | ●IFC 4.3 | ●IFC 2x3 only | not published | not published | not publishedreads IFC 4D |
| Where Aimavera loses | |||||
| Photoreal video | —sequence views, not renders | ●photoreal renders | not published | not published | not published |
| Multi-GB federations | —simplify first | ●64 GB enterprise spec, per its data sheet | not published | not published | not published |
| Clash breadth | —hard, clearance, in time, sequence, stacked trades | not published | ●broader clash checking | not published | not published |
| What it costs | |||||
| Public price | Free to open; 4D sample model free; export free to 100 activities £15/user/mo above Full 4D: £65/user/mo in Pro, 14 days free |
£3,892/yr list1 £3,571/yr G-Cloud2 |
$2,740/yr3 | $416–816/mo4 | €480–2,400/yr5 |
- SYNCHRO 4D: £3,892 a year, 12-month Virtuoso subscription, which also covers Control (web) and Field (mobile). bentley.com, cadjourney.com. As published, 4 Oct 2026.
- SYNCHRO on UK G-Cloud: £3,571 a licence a year. Digital Marketplace listing. As published, 4 Oct 2026.
- Navisworks Manage 2026: $2,740 a year ($340 a month). Capterra UK. As published, 4 Oct 2026.
- cmBuilder: $416 to $816 a month. cmbuilder.io. As published, 4 Oct 2026.
- BEXEL Manager: €480, €900 or €2,400 a year. Capterra UK. As published, 4 Oct 2026.
Where the other columns come from. Platform, hardware and IFC export for SYNCHRO from Bentley’s product page and data sheet; its update by re-sync from Bentley’s wiki; its video from reviews on Capterra. TimeLiner’s search sets and refresh from Autodesk’s help. cmBuilder from its own site; BEXEL from Capterra UK. Corrections to support.
Work packaging tools
The tools a planner meets when a contract asks for Advanced Work Packaging. Aimavera keeps the packages in the P6 schedule itself, in your browser. The other columns come only from our market survey of 4 October 2026; the notes under the table name the capability behind each row. “Not stated” means the survey’s capability table does not record it; it does not mean the product lacks it.
| Capability | AimaveraStudio, Packages tab | WorkPacksWork Packs Inc. | Octave OnSiteex Intergraph Smart Construction | SYNCHRO AWPBentley, ex ConstructSim | O3O3 Solutions | InEightPlan and Progress |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Packages and the gate | ||||||
| Package hierarchy | ●CWA › CWP › IWP, EWP, PWP, FWP as P6 activity codes | ●CWA, CWP, IWP | ●CWA, CWP, IWP | ●CWA, CWP, IWP | ●CWA, CWP, IWP | ●CWA, CWP, IWP |
| Constraints and release gate | ●P6 issues; a release with open ones asks why and is logged; release risk and a what-if on a copy | ●constraint register, release gate | ●constraint register, release gate | ●constraint register, release gate | ●constraint register, release gate | ●constraint register, release gate |
| In the field | ||||||
| Field pack | ●PDF for the crew, and a phone form | ●IWP document pack | ●IWP document pack | not stated | not stated | ●IWP document pack |
| Field progress capture | ●one HTML form, no network, photos stay on the phone; the return file is read back and proposes the status changes | ●mobile field capture | ●mobile field capture | ●mobile field capture, via Perform | ●mobile field capture | ●mobile field capture |
| The schedule and the data | ||||||
| P6 round trip | ●the packages are in the XER; round trip lossless | not stated | ●imports Level 3, exports back | not stated | not stated | ●XER both ways |
| Where the data is held | ●in your browser and the saved schedule; never uploaded | not stated | not stated | not stated | not stated | not stated |
| 3D model | ●optional: lists, rules, or a 4D selection | 3D or lists | 3D scoping; lists not stated | 3D scoping; lists not stated | 3D or lists | 3D or lists |
| Where Aimavera loses | ||||||
| Live materials link | —lists imported as snapshots | not stated | ●materials link | not stated | not stated | ●materials link |
| Release sign-off with roles | —one planner’s release, logged | ●roles and sign-offs | ●roles and sign-offs | ●roles and sign-offs | ●roles and sign-offs | ●roles and sign-offs |
| What it costs | ||||||
| Public price | Free to open; export free to 100 activities £15/user/mo above Work packaging: £65/user/mo in Pro, 14 days free |
not stated | not stated | not stated | not stated | not stated |
- Package hierarchy: capability 1, seen in all five. Constraints and release gate: capability 5, seen in all five.
- Field pack: capability 8, IWP document pack generation, seen in InEight, Octave and WorkPacks. Field progress capture: capability 10, seen in InEight, Octave OnSite, Bentley Perform, WorkPacks mobile and O3.
- P6 round trip: capability 12; InEight does XER both ways, and Octave imports a Level 3 schedule and exports back. 3D model: capability 3, graphical scoping, seen in all five; capability 4, non-graphical scoping from lists, seen in O3, WorkPacks and InEight.
- Live materials link: capability 7, seen in Octave and InEight among these five. Release sign-off with roles: capability 9, seen in all five. Where the data is held and price: not in the capability table.
Where the other columns come from. Only from the capability table of our AWP software market survey, researched 4 October 2026 from the vendors’ public material, such as the WorkPacks Plan page, Octave’s OnSite Construction Planning page, Bentley’s Work Package Server help and InEight’s Primavera integration help. The table records where a capability was seen, not how well it works. Corrections to support.
Forensic delay tools
The tools a planner is pointed to when a claim asks why the job finished late. P6 and Project have none of these methods built in; these do, and most of them read the programme in their own cloud. “Not published” means we did not find it in the vendor’s public material; it does not mean the product lacks it.
| Capability | AimaveraStudio, Delay analysis | SmartPMsmartpm.com | ClaimLogicclaimlogic.app | Deltek AcumenFuse, Risk, 360 | Nodes & Linksnodeslinks.com |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | |||||
| Runs in a browser | ●any OS | ●cloud | ●web app | not published | not published |
| Your programme stays on your machine | ●nothing uploaded | —their cloud | not published | not published | —versions pulled in and synced |
| Opens a P6 XER | ●and returns it byte-identical | not published | ●imports | ●reads P6 | not published |
| The methods | |||||
| Time impact analysis | ●fragnets, typed or drafted by the assistant | ●Controls tier | ● | not published | not published |
| Windows analysis | ●the updates recreated from the as-planned and the actuals | not published | ● | ●“half-step” comparison | not published |
| Impacted as-planned | ● | not published | not published | not published | not published |
| Collapsed as-built | ● | not published | —compares as-built with as-planned | not published | not published |
| Concurrency by party | ●counted, never split between parties | not published | not published | not published | not published |
| Where Aimavera loses | |||||
| A library of schedule metrics | —DCMA 14 and its own checks | not published | not published | ●600+ metrics | not published |
| What it costs | |||||
| Public price | Free in the studio; its printed report carries the free-plan mark £15/user/mo Studio for a clean report |
$12,000–25,000/yr1 | £49–179/mo2 | not published3 | not published4 |
- SmartPM: Essentials $12,000 a year (up to 50 projects, unlimited users), Controls $25,000 a year; time impact analysis is in Controls. smartpm.com/pricing. As published, 24 Oct 2026.
- ClaimLogic: £49 a month (1 user), £89 (3 users), £179 (10 users); time impact, windows and as-built against as-planned. claimlogic.app. As published, 24 Oct 2026.
- Deltek Acumen: reads P6 and others, 600+ metrics aligned with DCMA, DOE, NASA, GAO and AACE, and a forensic schedule comparison with half-step delay analysis; price on request. deltek.com. As published, 24 Oct 2026.
- Nodes & Links: a “Delay Navigator” whose methods are not named, with schedule integrity and risk; price on request. nodeslinks.com. As published, 24 Oct 2026.
Where the Aimavera column comes from. The methods are documented with their limits in the studio’s help and printed in the report: impacted as-planned and collapsed as-built after AACE 29R-03, windows analysis on updates recreated from the as-planned and the actuals, and concurrent delay counted and shown, never divided between parties. It is decision support for an expert, not a ruling. Corrections to support.
And the tools you are really shortlisting us against.
The first table is the incumbents. This one is the newer ring — and the honest summary is that they mostly analyse or generate schedules in the cloud on enterprise contracts, and then hand the result to P6. Aimavera is the editor you stay in. Three rows below say where that is not enough.
| Capability | AimaveraStudio | nPlannplan.io | Nodes & Linksnodeslinks.com | ALICEalicetechnologies.com | Karmenkarmenai.com |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Runs in your browser · the file is never uploaded | ●nothing uploaded | —cloud | —data pulled in | —platform | —cloud |
| No vendor-held copy of your programme | ●nothing to hold | —schedules uploaded | —versions pulled in and synced | —platform | —reads your documents |
| AI requests retained by no one | ●relay is no-store · local model skips it · your provider's terms apply | ◐ | ◐ | ◐ | ◐ |
| Works without a P6 licence alongside it | ●it is the editor | —works with yours | —reads yours | ◐ALICE Model builds from BIM | —exports to yours |
| You keep editing in it, rather than it handing off | ● | ◐claims create and edit | ◐claims full hands-on control | ◐canvas edits sequence and logic, then exports | ◐builds, then exports |
| Returns a byte-identical P6 XER | ●patches the original | — | — | — | —writes a new file |
| Price published on the website | ●£15/user/mo | —talk to us | —book a demo | —get a demo | —book a demo |
| Free tier you can evaluate on real work | ●to 100 activities | — | — | — | — |
| Your own model key · or a local model | ●keys stay local; works with no model at all | — | — | — | — |
| Learns from your own past projects | ●template mode · knowledge folder | ●your schedules | ◐your versions | — | ●your historic schedules |
| Draft durations cite where the number came from | ●9d ← 03 30 00 §3.11 | ◐from scope docs | — | — | ◐context from documents |
| Quantitative risk analysis — Monte Carlo, P50/P80 | ●with cost and weather | ●per activity | ◐forecasts | ◐scenario simulation | — |
| Risk ranges calibrated from your own actuals | ●planned vs actual, per band | ◐their dataset, not your bias | — | — | — |
| Forecasts calibrated on an industry-wide outturn dataset | —model priors, not fitted on outturn | ●750,000 schedules | ◐R&D foundations | — | — |
| Ingests thousands of pages of specs and drawings | ◐indexes by section, reads on request | ◐from scope docs | ◐documents synced | ◐drawings, multi-page | ●claims thousands |
| Generative optioneering across build strategies | — | — | — | ●millions of scenarios | — |
| Portfolio and programme analytics | — | ●control rooms | ●portfolio-wide | ◐ | — |
Read from each vendor's own site on 6 September 2026 — homepages, product detail and pricing pages, and for ALICE the Plan, Optimize and Model breakdowns and the FAQ. None of these four publishes a price, so every commercial row is what they say rather than what we can check — which is why the ◐ mark exists on this table and not the one above. Where they claim a capability we cannot test without a contract, it is marked as a claim, not as a fact. The two data rows are structural, not a feature any of them could add: a tool that reasons about your programme in its own cloud has to hold it, which is why they answer a security questionnaire and we answer it by having no server with your schedule on it. Corrections to support. The three red marks are real: if you need forecasting off an industry dataset, generative optioneering, or portfolio analytics, one of these is a better buy than us, and the row says so.
Where P6 is still ahead
Depth, and the rows where we lose in the first table. Reflection projects, the full reporting engine and enterprise administration are all real, and Aimavera has none of them. It is a single-project studio for a planner or a small team. The changelog shows what has closed and what has not.
Where Project and Planner are still ahead
Distribution. Planner is in every Microsoft 365 tenant and Plan 1, at $10, is the cheapest Gantt with a real vendor behind it; Plan 3 now has baselines, critical path and lead and lag, and bundles the Project desktop app. Neither opens a P6 file. Project Online retired on 30 September 2026, and Microsoft points its customers to Planner or to Project Server Subscription Edition on their own servers.
The nearest thing to us
InEight Schedule NOW, at $150 a month, is the closest browser CPM seat with risk and XER both ways. It uploads everything, and its AI suggests templates rather than editing the schedule. Many times our price, and the file leaves your machine.
Why the local row matters
A programme is commercially sensitive. Aimavera parses, schedules and autosaves in your browser, so there is nothing on a server to disclose, breach or subpoena. The route a file takes is short enough that we print it.
P6 Professional: Oracle's 2016 list was $2,500 + $550/yr; reseller quotes today are $3,520 + $774 first-year support, perpetual only. Primavera Cloud Schedule: £96/user/month, five-user minimum, in Oracle’s own G-Cloud 14 pricing (June 2025). Planner Plan 3 $30/user/month (£23.10 in the UK), Plan 1 $10; Microsoft 365 Copilot $30/user/month extra, all paid yearly, from Microsoft’s own pricing pages on 24 October 2026. Project Standard 2024 $679.99, Professional 2024 $1,129.99, one-time. InEight Schedule NOW: $150/user/month. ScheduleReader: $344/yr. Aimavera's own row is its own testing: the engine is regression-tested release by release against a fixed set of schedules, and the XER round-trip is asserted byte-for-byte. Corrections to support — we would rather be right than flattering.
Open the file and judge for yourself.
Free, no account, nothing uploaded.