Free Project Management Software (Cross-Platform) Review

By Angsuman Chakraborty, Gaea News Network
Monday, March 10, 2008

GanttProject is a free project management software written in Java (cross-platform, runs in Windows, Linux, Mac etc.). The following is a brief review of the benefits and shortcomings along with download link.

GanttProject is a competitor to Microsoft Project, the de-facto project management software in many corporations.

Key Features of GanttProject - Project Management Software

Like any project management software you can create resources, create and manage tasks, assign dates, create sub-tasks and so on. You can link tasks by assigning predecessors. In short it works pretty much like MS Project.

The Gantt Chart view is comprehensive, functional and very customizable.

Few extras:

  • You have the ability to create custom columns to add additional data.
  • The resources are automatically created, as required, when you specify them in tasks. In resource view you can find the associated tasks.
  • You can automatically view and save project files from WebDAV repositories. This is a great way of sharing your project. You can also use ftp to upload.

GanttProject can import MS Project files and export them to MS Project format too. It also can export in XML format.

Shortcomings of GanttProject - Project Management Software

GanttProject is not as feature-heavy as Microsoft Project. However it is almost certain that you won’t miss anything as most MS Project extras and marginally useful, if at all. The only notable feature missing is the ability to automatically balance so your resources are not overbooked. Personally I hate that feature in MS Project. Every time I used it, it messed up my project plan and I had to manually modify it. I am glad that GanttProject decided to ignore it.

GanttProject Software Links

  1. Home Page
  2. Download

Gantt Project Review Summary

Overall GanttProject is a high quality project management software and a strong competitor to MS Project. I prefer it over MS Project and am using it currently. At its price (free) you simply cannot beat it.
Filed under: Company, Enterprise Software and Services, Headline News, Microsoft, Web

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Discussion

mbt sheos
August 5, 2010: 1:31 am

In javascript array if you add a comma after the last element in the array then Internet Explorer fails with a variety of undecipherable (Microsoft style) error messages

Jude
April 4, 2010: 4:31 pm

Another great free tool is PlanningForce Express Scheduler, it automatically schedules Microsoft Project and Omniplan files, you get 7 reports, just great :)


wedding dress online
January 22, 2010: 4:54 am

Nice post, thank you!

Project Management
December 24, 2009: 5:32 am

In today’s business world if one does not finish his project at time then he cannot reach to the edge of his business. And with the help of project management software we can complete the task of project easily in time.

Jairo J. Bohn
May 5, 2009: 7:18 pm

We had been using GanttProject intensively for several months in different research projects, as a potential substitute for MS Project. However, the software did not convince us for the following reasons:
1. GanttProject has severe stability problems, in particular, when handling dependencies between tasks. When editing dependencies using the graphical editor, for instance, error messages are very common, and as a collateral damage, previously defined dependencies and durations of tasks may get messed up, making it necessary to revert to the most recent good version (if available). So you constantly need to keep saving intermediate versions! However, there are times when you do not notice corruptions at first and continue editing until you notice the problems - that is one of the moments when you really develop a strong dislike for this software…
2. Another issue is that the import from and export to MS Project do not work reliably. For instance, in our case dependencies were not maintained when we tried importing GanttProject files into MS Project.
Conclusion: OK, I know GanttProject it is an Open Source solution, and one should never look a gift horse in the mouth. But the issues mentioned do exist, and if you need a serious solution and cannot afford losing much time trying to fix corrupted project plans, GanttProject doesn’t do the job IMHO.

Arturas
February 19, 2009: 11:32 am

You might want to take a look at ours pm tool - https://www.comindwork.com as well. It is a full featured project management tool, featuring gantt charts, task management, enterprise wiki, ACL permissions and much more.

Alex
December 23, 2008: 6:20 pm

another good option for free project management software is SantexQ online project management tool

Rohan
March 15, 2008: 12:06 am

For most personal and professional projects what is needed is a simple task tracking and sharing tool like https://www.statuswiz.com

Angsuman Chakraborty
March 12, 2008: 8:28 pm

Thanks Joel. OpenProj looks much more functional. I will write a review of it soon. I think I am already in love with OpenProj :)


Joel Palmer
March 12, 2008: 5:30 pm

OpenProj is a much better solution. https://www.openproj.org It is like night and day, I gave up on the good folks at GanttProject and went with OpenProj. I wish them luck as they are trying to help the market but OpenProj is much further along and available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows and has many features not found in GanttProject. Just my opinion after having switched.
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