Detailed Descriptions of Project Viewers

Each viewer listed here is able to open Microsoft Project .mpp files. 

Steelray Software. $34.95.
http://www.steelray.com

While some of the other products seek to clone Microsoft Project as closely as possible (and head into questionable legal territory), Steelray is the only viewer that was designed specifically for viewing projects. With innovative features like browser style navigation, back and forward buttons, and a built-in search engine, Steelray is the best choice over all other project viewers. Steelray supported Project 2007 long before the other project viewers, and in our tests they were the only viewer to open all of the files we tested with.

Steelray Software is the only company listed here that is a Microsoft Project Partner, and this deserves special mention because the company should always be an integral part of the evaluation process.

Bottom line: the best commercial viewer.

 K-SOL. $29.00.
http://www.projectreader.com

Project Reader is positioned as the cheapest project viewer among the commercial viewers. Along with its lower price, it is lacking some of the core views that a project viewer should have, like Calendar and Network Diagram.

Several features that project viewers should have are missing, like search, filters, and copy/paste. The window's size and position are not restored between sessions. The biggest problem with Project Reader is its performance opening large files. Our large file test (over 6000 tasks) took over two minutes to open, while the fastest viewer (Steelray) opened the same file in 11 seconds.

Licensing is unnecessarily complex. For example, to transfer a license from one PC to another, you have to "uninstall" the license from the old server. This is often impossible, because the first version may no longer be installed.

Bottom Line: Slow performance, missing critical views.

 Afinion AG. $46.00.
http://www.afinion.de

The interesting thing about Afinion Project-Viewer is that it can also open SAP PS files. Other than that, it doesn't compare well to the viewers listed above. The only view supported is the Gantt view, and basic features like search, export, and copy/paste are missing. The application does a nice job with filtering, making them easily selectable toolbar controls.

The application doesn't feel "finished." For example, double-clicking on a task brings up a small dialog that lists the name of the task. We're not sure what the purpose is of that feature. Performance was among the slowest of the viewers that we tested.

Bottom Line: Less features, higher price.

 Viewer Central, Inc. (Housatonic Software). $29.99.
http://www.projectviewercentral.com

Housatonic tries to clone Microsoft Project as closely as possible. As they claim on their website, "you'll barely notice the difference." Compared to Steelray, Housatonic doesn't quite measure up. For example, basic features like remembering customized views aren't supported. Their find feature copies Microsoft Project, which forces you to specify which field you are searching on. Steelray improved searching by making it similar to using a search engine, including clickable results links. Basic usability features that good Windows applications should have are missing. For example, Housatonic's viewer doesn't remember the size and position of your application window.

Housatonic's trial allows only 30 views of project files, and in the process of evaluating their viewer, we used all 30 views within a couple of hours. Most of the other viewers give you many days to test their product.

Housatonic may flirt with legal attention from Microsoft. For example, on their website, the product name is frequently referred to as "Microsoft Project Viewer Solo/PC", which raises obvious trademark infringement issues. Housatonic customers may want to consider purchasing Microsoft Project Licenses.

Bottom Line: Not as easy to use as Steelray.

 IECB. $30.00.
http://www.iecb.net

iProjectViewer is one of the newer viewers, and like Afinion Project Viewer above, it really only supports a Gantt view. Basic features like search, copy/paste, export, and customizing views are not available. It was unable to open one of our smaller test files, but didn't give any sort of error message. It just didn't open the file. The same problem occurred when we tried to open our large 6K task file, so we couldn't measure any time to open the file.

Bottom Line: Problems opening files, only one view.