Choose the right projects
Collect demand, score it, simulate investment scenarios under budget and resource constraints, then arbitrate. This is the strategic question a PPM is designed for.
Comparison PPM software comparison: strategic portfolio or operational steering?
This PPM software comparison sets Planisware, Planview, Sciforma (now Planview ProjectAdvantage), ServiceNow SPM and pylotik. side by side. The first four help a large organization choose its investments, arbitrate its resources and consolidate hundreds of projects. pylotik also covers portfolio steering and arbitration, and adds what a PPM is not designed for: the client, the suppliers and the day-to-day execution of contracts, projects and maintenance.
The family
What portfolio management software solves.
PPM stands for project portfolio management. This software first serves general management, the PMO and finance, who must decide where to put the money and the teams.
Balance capacity
Match resource supply and demand across the whole portfolio, spot bottlenecks and simulate slippage before it happens.
Consolidate to decide
Budgets, forecasts, actuals, portfolio health, status reports: an overall view for executive bodies.
A PPM looks at an organization's portfolio from the top. It is designed for its internal teams and its governance bodies. Execution carried out with an external client or supplier, with minutes to be validated, a contract and maintenance to keep up, is not its main purpose. This is often where spreadsheets and email exchanges reappear, between the moment the portfolio is arbitrated and the moment the project is delivered.
Selection guide
If your priority is…
pylotik covers portfolio steering and arbitration; a PPM keeps the advantage on a few specific needs. Here is which one to look at first.
| Your priority | Suitable tool | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Steering and arbitrating a portfolio run with clients and suppliers | pylotik | Portfolio view, workload, priorities, milestones, committees and decisions; projects linked to those of other suppliers; free client access; connection to project ticketing tools such as Jira. |
| Keeping contracts, projects and maintenance on track day to day, with the client | pylotik | Minutes validated by the client, the contract of each project, maintenance contracts with volume and committee. |
| Running an R&D pipeline in Stage-Gate | Planisware (or Sciforma, in phase-gate) | Stage-Gate, PERT, earned value and investment scenarios documented in Planisware Enterprise. |
| Staying within a Planview suite already deployed group-wide | Planview (including ProjectAdvantage) | Portfolios, AdaptiveWork, ChangePoint and ProjectAdvantage in one suite, with a broad catalog of integrations. |
| Managing the portfolio in an existing ServiceNow environment | ServiceNow SPM | Demand, projects, programs and a unified register of risks, issues, decisions, actions and changes. |
The players
Four portfolio tools.
Each profile draws on the vendor's public documentation, checked on the date shown under the table.
Planisware
A French vendor, Planisware offers Enterprise, for large-scale transformations, and Orchestra, preconfigured for PMOs. It stands out for advanced planning (PERT, WBS, earned value, Stage-Gate), scenario-based portfolio arbitration and a single-tenant cloud with a choice of data region. It is less suited to organizations without a PMO, and documents neither client invoicing nor client access. The pylotik vs Planisware comparison details these points.
Planview
Planview publishes a suite: Portfolios for portfolio and finance, AdaptiveWork for projects, ChangePoint for service companies, and now ProjectAdvantage. It stands out for its financial planning, more than 200 ready-made reports and a broad catalog of integrations. Some functions (external portal, invoicing, PSA) belong to separate products in the suite. The pylotik vs Planview comparison goes further.
Sciforma, now Planview ProjectAdvantage
Planview completed the acquisition of Sciforma in February 2025, and Sciforma Vantage was renamed Planview ProjectAdvantage. The tool covers demand, planning (critical path, baselines, dependencies between projects and programs), resources, time, risks and portfolio reporting. It documents neither invoicing nor a client portal, and it is being integrated into the Planview suite. The pylotik vs Sciforma comparison covers these points.
ServiceNow SPM
ServiceNow SPM brings together, within the ServiceNow environment, strategic planning, demand, projects, programs, resources, finance and time. It stands out for a unified register of risks, issues, decisions, actions and change requests, and for ready-made status reports. It assumes the ServiceNow environment; external access goes through Customer Service Management, not through SPM alone.
Feature by feature
From portfolio to execution, what each one documents.
"Not documented" means the vendor's public documentation does not mention it, not that the tool does not do it.
| Feature | pylotik | Planisware | PlanviewCloud Act | SciformaCloud Act | ServiceNow SPMCloud Act |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| European sovereignty | France | France | Non-EUUnited States | Non-EUUnited States | Non-EUUnited States |
| Project management (tasks, milestones, schedule) | YesWork packages, tasks, phases, milestones, Gantt | YesGantt, PERT, WBS, milestones, Stage-Gate, agile; Orchestra covers waterfall, agile, hybrid and phase-gate | YesSchedules, milestones, hybrid agile / waterfall; Gantt and WBS also in AdaptiveWork | YesGantt, critical path, WBS, baselines | YesProject Workspace: tasks, milestones, timeline |
| Multi-project steering | YesPortfolio steering and arbitration | YesCore of the offer: portfolios, scenarios, consolidation | Yes | Yes | YesPortfolios and Portfolio Planning Workbench |
| Linked or nested projects | Via moduleLinked projects, one level (Extended Project) | PartialWBS, cost consolidation of contributing projects and SAFe programs documented; generic program / project hierarchy not detailed | YesPrograms, projects, products, epics, features with multi-level funding | YesSub-projects and programs driven by several projects and products | YesPrograms grouping projects and demands; sub-projects in the grid view |
| Dependencies between projects | Via moduleMonitored, without recalculating dates | PartialAgile dependencies at team level and PERT network documented; dependencies between projects not explicitly described | YesDependency management at program level and a Connected Work Graph across teams and projects | YesDependencies between tasks and between projects, products, programs | YesDependencies between tasks, milestones and across projects |
| Resources and assignments | Yes | Yes | Yes | YesMatching of roles and skills, conflict detection | YesResource Management Workspace |
| Workload plan | Yes | YesSupply / demand / capacity views, over-allocations, what-if | YesCapacity planning, assignment views | YesCapacity / demand, balancing, forecasts | YesAvailability, allocations and capacity (vendor case study) |
| Time entry | YesWeekly, on web and mobile | YesPre-filled timesheets, mobile entry, Jira sync | YesTime entry on project and non-project work, desktop and mobile | YesActual vs planned time and effort, submission from Microsoft Teams | YesTime Card Management, included in SPM Advanced according to the pricing page |
| Client contracts | YesA contract for each project | Not documented | Via moduleThrough ChangePoint (management of contracts, rates and billing structures) | Not documented | Not documented |
| Maintenance contracts | YesVolume, catalogue, committee | Not documented | PartialChangePoint manages subscription billing models; no maintenance contract management described | Not documented | Not documented |
| Intervention scheduling | Via moduleInterventions module | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented |
| Financial tracking and margin | YesOrdered, invoiced, paid, margin | YesBudgets, forecasts, consolidated costs, P&L, NPV | YesBudgets, forecasts, costs and benefits; margin through billing rates in AdaptiveWork | YesPlanned vs actual budgets, costs and benefits | YesFinancial Management and Cost Management in SPM Advanced; cost overrun alerts |
| Meetings and minutes | YesAgenda, minutes | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented |
| Decision log | Yes | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | YesDecisions built into the RIDAC register |
| Action tracking | Yes | PartialWorkbox, social feed and "issues" listed under collaboration; no RAID register described | Not documented | PartialIssues and change requests tracked; no action log described | YesActions built into the RIDAC register |
| Risk register | YesShared or internal | PartialRisk indicators in the workflow templates; a third-party review (PeerSpot) describes risks tied to tasks or the WBS | PartialRisk register in AdaptiveWork; in Portfolios, risks handled at program level and by AI, with no dedicated module described | YesRisk tracking on projects and programs, AI help for severity | Yes |
| Client access | Yes | Not documented | Via moduleAdaptiveWork's External Collaborator portal (projects, files, conversations, requests) | Not documented | Via moduleThrough Customer Service Management and Customer Project Management: external CSM users see the projects of their account |
| Client validation | YesMinutes, amendments, interventions | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented |
| Dashboards | Yes | YesReal-time ad hoc reporting, dashboards, BI connection | Yes200+ reports, dashboards, embedded Power BI | YesConfigurable dashboards, KPIs, portfolio health | YesStatus reports, analytics, AI indicators |
Information checked in October 2026, against the vendors' public documentation. It changes: see the sources. The flag shows the vendor's country; the Cloud Act badge flags a vendor under US law, or owned by a US group, subject to the CLOUD Act; Non-EU, a vendor established outside the European Union.
What pylotik adds
From arbitrated portfolio to delivered project.
Arbitrating is not enough: once the project is decided, it has to be run, with a client who expects accountability and often with suppliers. pylotik holds both ends, portfolio arbitration and its execution.
- The portfolio and its arbitrations Workload, priorities, milestones, committees and decisions read across the whole portfolio, from the same data as the projects themselves. Technical work can stay in Jira: pylotik connects to project ticketing tools such as Jira, through a connector built to your needs, with no re-entry.
- The commitment to the client Each project links a supplier and a client, and carries its contract: fixed price with a payment schedule on milestones, or time and materials with a monthly schedule. What is ordered, invoiced, paid and still due is tracked without leaving the project.
- The relationship with suppliers With the Extended Project module, a project links to other projects on one level, including a project run by another supplier of which you are the client. Dependencies between projects and milestones are monitored, without automatic recalculation of dates. See multi-project steering.
- Project governance Agendas, minutes submitted to the client, decisions, actions and risks, shared or internal. See project governance.
- Maintenance Maintenance contracts track their volume in days, their catalog and their committee. In addition, the Interventions module schedules by the half-day on the actual workload, and the client accepts the work with their signature. See intervention management.
- The client portal The external client follows what concerns them and validates what is submitted to them, free of charge, without seeing your margins or your internal steering. See the client portal.
Frankly
Where pylotik is relevant, and where it is not.
Relevant when…
- Your portfolio involves clients or suppliers An external or internal client, in industry, construction, engineering, digital services or the public sector: as soon as human time is committed, someone has to see and validate.
- You want to arbitrate and execute in the same place Portfolio arbitrations, workload and priorities rest on the data of ongoing projects, not on reporting rebuilt every month.
- Contracts, projects and maintenance coexist The same client has a contract, a rollout project and a maintenance contract with its volume in days and its committee, and, in addition, interventions to be accepted.
- Execution must also be readable in the field and in France pylotik is designed and hosted in France, and its mobile app installs from the browser, without an app store.
- Your committees live in slide decks Progress, decisions and actions are already in the tool; the minutes are submitted to the client there.
A PPM remains preferable when…
- You run an R&D pipeline in Stage-Gate Planisware documents Stage-Gate and Sciforma phase-gate; pylotik does not claim this method.
- A PPM suite is already deployed group-wide If your organization lives in the Planview suite or in ServiceNow, of which SPM is an application, staying there avoids a second layer of tools.
Many organizations arbitrate their portfolio in one tool, then rebuild execution with the client and suppliers in spreadsheets, presentations and emails. pylotik brings the two together: workload, priorities, commitments, committees and validations rest on the same data, read from both sides. Where a PPM stays in place for R&D, the two tools coexist. This is what operational commitment management covers.
Frequently asked questions
What people ask before choosing a PPM.
Which PPM software should you choose?
It depends on your size and your environment. Planisware and Planview suit large organizations that arbitrate a strategic portfolio, ServiceNow SPM those already living in ServiceNow, Sciforma (Planview ProjectAdvantage) growing PMOs. If your portfolio is run with clients or suppliers, pylotik covers its steering and arbitration, and adds execution.
Is pylotik PPM software?
It covers the core: portfolio steering and arbitration, workload, priorities, milestones, committees and decisions. It adds what a PPM is not designed for: the client, the suppliers and day-to-day execution. It does not claim to manage an R&D pipeline in Stage-Gate.
What happened to Sciforma?
Planview completed the acquisition of Sciforma in February 2025. Sciforma Vantage was renamed Planview ProjectAdvantage, and sciforma.com redirects to the Planview site. The product is being integrated into the Planview suite.
Does a PPM let you work with the client?
Not directly in most documented cases. Planisware and Sciforma do not document client access; Planview goes through the External Collaborator portal of AdaptiveWork, and ServiceNow through Customer Service Management. In pylotik, access for external client organizations is free on all tiers.
Can you use a PPM and pylotik together?
Yes, for example when a PPM stays in place for R&D or at group level. pylotik connectors are optional and built as needed, according to clients' needs. It has no public API or SSO.
How much does pylotik cost?
Prices are public on the pricing page: Pilot and Contributor seats, three tiers, modules from the Business tier, free client access. We do not publish other vendors' prices.
Next
Going further.
- pylotik vs Planisware: the French PPM for large organizations, and when it remains preferable.
- pylotik vs Planview: a portfolio suite facing a tool that steers the portfolio with the client.
- pylotik vs Sciforma: what Planview ProjectAdvantage covers, and what it leaves aside.
- PSA or PPM, the difference: two families, and what neither covers.
- The product tour: contracts, projects, maintenance and committees in the same tool.
- The pricing: seats, free client access and modules.
- All comparisons: PSA, PPM, work management and interventions.