The honest table. Every row is a 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.
list prices as published by the vendor or a reseller, checked 3 September 2026| Tool | Runs in | Free tier | P6 XER | MS Project | CPM | Risk | AI | Data stays local | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aimavera Studio | Browser, any OS | Free, no account | In and out — the original is patched | In and out | Yes | Schedule and cost, Monte Carlo | Edits the schedule — any model, your key, or local | Yes — nothing uploaded | $0 today · subscription planned |
| Primavera P6 Professional 25.12 | Windows 11 only | 30-day trial | In and out | In and out | Yes | Separate product | No | Yes — desktop | $3,520 + $774 first-year support |
| Primavera Cloud 26.7 | Browser | No | In and out | In and out | Yes | Yes | No | No — cloud | £96 per user per month, five-user minimum |
| Microsoft Project 2024 desktop | Windows only | No | No | In and out | Yes | No | No | Yes — desktop | $679.99 Standard · $1,129.99 Professional |
| Microsoft Planner Plan 3 | Browser | No | No | MPP in via Power App; Excel out | Yes | No | Drafts tasks with Copilot, +$30 | No — cloud | $30 per user per month |
Depth. Multi-project and portfolio work, enterprise resource pools, reflection projects, the full reporting engine. Aimavera is a single-project studio for a planner or a small team; the changelog shows what has closed since and what has not.
Distribution. Planner is in every Microsoft 365 tenant and Plan 1 is the cheapest Gantt with a real vendor behind it. Neither opens a P6 file, and Project Online retires on 30 September 2026 with no like-for-like path.
Oracle's cheapest editing seat is about $3,500 up front, or a five-seat cloud minimum near $7,800 a year. Aimavera's editor, CPM engine, analysis and risk are free with no account. The assistant uses your own model key, so you pay your provider, or run a local model and pay nobody.
A programme is commercially sensitive. Aimavera parses, schedules and autosaves in your browser; nothing is uploaded. 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 on UK G-Cloud 14 with a five-user minimum. Planner Plan 3 $30/user/month; Microsoft 365 Copilot is $30/user/month extra. Project Standard 2024 $679.99, Professional 2024 $1,129.99, one-time. Corrections to support; we would rather be right than flattering.
Free, no account, nothing uploaded.