GanttProject

Microsoft Project locks small teams into a per-user subscription just to unlock a critical path view or a baseline, and its higher plans assume a Microsoft 365 enterprise agreement most agencies never sign. GanttProject does the same core scheduling job — task hierarchy, dependencies, milestones, baselines, critical path — from a desktop app that costs nothing and never phones home to a license server.

Why GanttProject instead of Microsoft Project

GanttProject covers the part of Microsoft Project a small team actually touches day to day: build a task tree, set dependencies, drop in milestones, save a baseline, and watch the critical path shift as dates move. It generates a PERT network diagram alongside the Gantt view, tracks resource load per person so overallocation shows up before a sprint starts, and does rough task-level cost calculation. It also reads and writes Microsoft Project-compatible files, plus Excel and CSV, so a client still on MS Project can open what you send without a conversion step.

The gap is everything Microsoft Project bills for beyond scheduling: resource leveling that auto-resolves conflicts, portfolio-level financial rollups, and native Microsoft 365 integration. Cost-wise the comparison is stark — Microsoft Project's plan with critical path and baselines runs roughly $30 per user per month billed annually, while GanttProject's desktop app is free for unlimited users; the trade is that GanttProject stays a single-user editor unless you add the separately paid GanttProject Cloud service or run your own WebDAV server.

What it does well

• Full task hierarchy with dependencies, milestones and baselines, with no per-seat cost to turn any of it on.
• Generates a PERT chart from the same task data, useful when a client wants a network diagram instead of bars.
• Resource load chart flags overallocated people before a schedule slips, without a separate resourcing tool.
• Per-task cost calculation gives lightweight budget tracking for teams that don't need a full financial module.
• Exports to PDF, HTML and PNG, covering the client-facing timeline reports agencies send on a weekly cadence.
• Reads and writes Microsoft Project, Excel and CSV formats, so handoff to MS Project users needs no converter.
• Identical desktop build on Windows, macOS and Linux, works fully offline, and needs no account to run.