Free Viewers
There are some options available for free project viewers. Because of the essentials (see right sidebar), we make this recommendation:
Is There a Free Project Viewer from Microsoft?
Microsoft does not offer a free viewer, and there are no decent free viewers. However, viewers like Steelray are low-cost and better for viewing project files in many cases.
Why Doesn't Microsoft Make a Project Viewer?
This is conjecture, but if a significant number of Microsoft Project purchases are for people who use viewers, why would Microsoft want to lose that business by releasing a free or low cost viewer?
Why Aren't There Any Decent Free Viewers?
It's expensive to develop and maintain a decent business-class PC application. If project viewers were inexpensive to develop and maintain, there would be many free options.
Some of the free viewers we found were "defeatured" editions of the company's commercial viewers. In each case, it was obvious that the company is using the free version to entice you to upgrade and pay for one of the non-free versions. The version were stripped down to the point of being unusable.
We found the following project viewers:
| Afinion |
Best free option, but still not acceptable. Afinion makes three versions of their project viewer: full, light, and free. Notes on the free version:
- Installer starts off in German only.
- Extremely slow.
- One view (Gantt), and the columns cannot be changed.
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| Projette |
This is the exact same viewer as Afinion. |
| Above and Beyond |
Not Free. In an article asking about free project viewers on Expert's Exchange, the accepted answer points to a product called Above and Beyond.
According to its listing on download.com, it's "Free to try; $49.95 to buy."
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| Housatonic |
Really just a demo. To their credit, they do call their version a "demo" on their website. It only supports files up to 400KB in size, which excludes most "real world" project files. The application is web-based, which presents numerous performance and security issues. |
| ILOG |
Can't open MPP files. The ILOG Project viewer requires the project manager to export as XML, which means it isn't a true project viewer. |
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5 Project Viewer Essentials
These are the 5 things that every project viewer must have:
- Compatibility. The file format for Microsoft Project is not published. The best project viewers will open all of your project files.
- Ease of Use. Most people who need a project viewer are not comfortable using Microsoft Project, so a great viewer should be easier to use.
- Installed Base. If you don't have the time to evaluate project viewers, go with the leader, the one chosen by companies that did extended evaluations.
- Great Features. Project Viewers should have a core set of features, and the best ones should add innovative features. Put simply, the viewer should be great software.
- Support. Your company may use a project viewer for decades. Will the authors still be improving the viewer in ten years? Will the company still be supporting the viewer in ten years?
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