Microsoft’s Project Management software has been around for a long time and its one of the most popular project management software scheduling tools available in the market. It is a tool that has benefited from years of development and refinement. The downside being is that the retail price reflects this, with the standard version coming in at $859 per single user license. So what if your budget does not extend that far? Well, there are plenty of alternatives out there, but they all come at a price too. For those who have no access to funds for scheduling software, the fall back is usually using office productivity tools such as MS Excel – which is problematic if there is a lot of scheduling involved; however, it doesn’t have to be that way, there is an open source alternative out there.
Project Libre is open source software initiative that aims to provide an alternative to MS Project. You can find a link to download it here: https://www.projectlibre.com/product/projectlibre-open-source
Its layout is similar to MS Project Standard, so if you have used the former it is not too hard to adapt to the Project Libre. The product features a Gantt chart, network diagram, WBS and a task usage screen along with a resource sheet.
If you were to do a detailed comparison then MS Project will come out on top in terms of features etc, that’s not the point, it really comes down to a question of economics, and what represents the best value for your needs. If you do not have any budget or you are new to scheduling software and want to get try it out then Project Libre could be a great starting point.