Azure DevOps (formerly VSTS, Microsoft Visual Studio Team System) is an agile development product that is an extension of the Microsoft Visual Studio architecture. Azure DevOps includes software development, collaboration, and reporting capabilities.
$2
per GB (first 2GB free)
Microsoft Project
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Project is a project management software. It provides core PM functionality, including agile workflow support and resource management. Project can be deployed in the cloud or on-premise.
$10
per user/per month
Pricing
Azure DevOps Services
Microsoft Project
Editions & Modules
Azure Artifacts
$2
per GB (first 2GB free)
Basic Plan
$6
per user per month (first 5 users free)
Azure Pipelines - Self-Hosted
$15
per extra parallel job (1 free parallel job with unlimited minutes)
Azure Pipelines - Microsoft Hosted
$40
per parallel job (1,800 minutes free with 1 free parallel job)
I haven't used any other products, so I can't say how VSTS/TFS would stack against any competitors, but I know that for an SDLC management tool, VSTS/TFS has everything you need to help an organization meet the requirements needed to adhere to the specific/general practices …
Project is comprehensive and many project professionals are familiar with it, however the other tools are more business user friendly. Little training needed, Airtable and Trello are more intuitive so anyone can make updates and understand progress.
ADO is well suited for the visibility of day-to-day tasks and responsibilities as well as things such as Features, user stories, etc. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any scenario where it might not be well suited, as you can customize ADO to your liking to a degree.
Microsoft Project Online is suited to Turnkey Projects where more Collaboration is required in Project Progress monitoring, risk assessment and conveying, issue recording and tracking. It is less appropriate when ERP Suites other than MS Dynamics are used, i.e when Enterprises need to integrate Finance / Accounting with It and having straight project management workflow
Flexible Requirements Hierarchy Management: AZDO makes it easy to track items such as features or epics as a flat list, or as a hierarchy in which you can track the parent-child relationship.
Fast Data Entry: AZDO was designed to facilitate quick data entry to capture work items quickly, while still enabling detailed capture of acceptance criteria and item properties.
Excel Integration: AZDO stands out for its integration with MS Excel, which enables quick updates for bulk items.
I love the Gantt Chart that Microsoft Project offers me, because it provides me with a view from various aspects, it provides me with exact details about the fulfillment of tasks over a period of time, it also allows me to make comparisons with the necessary data and the fulfilled data. by the employees, in order to know exactly if the project's expectations have been met.
I love the Gantt Chart that Microsoft Project offers me, because it provides me with a view from various aspects, it provides me with exact details about the fulfillment of tasks over a period of time, it also allows me to make comparisons with the necessary data and the fulfilled data by the employees, in order to know exactly if the project's expectations have been met.
The alert system for the fulfillment and delay of assignments is perfect. Microsoft Project allows me to configure the task system, I can assign the necessary tasks to fulfill the project, and the software alerts me immediately if the managers are fulfilling the assignments.
I don't think our organization will stray from using VSTS/TFS as we are now looking to upgrade to the 2012 version. Since our business is software development and we want to meet the requirements of CMMI to deliver consistent and high quality software, this SDLC management tool is here to stay. In addition, our company uses a lot of Microsoft products, such as Office 365, Asp.net, etc, and since VSTS/TFS has proved itself invaluable to our own processes and is within the Microsoft family of products, we will continue to use VSTS/TFS for a long, long time.
Azure DevOps is a powerful, complex cloud application. As such there are a number of things it does great and something where there is room for improvement. One of those areas would be in usability. In my opinion it relies too much on search. There is no easy way to view all projects or to group them in a logical way. You need to search for everything.
Microsoft Project was for many years the reference tool when you were talking about project management software, even if it has some gaps. However, in the last several years, other tools emerged and covered those gaps and are getting more and more users. Microsoft needs to keep up with the trends as they did with adding Project Server. However, that needs a significant rework.
When we've had issues, both Microsoft support and the user community have been very responsive. DevOps has an active developer community and frankly, you can find most of your questions already asked and answered there. Microsoft also does a better job than most software vendors I've worked with creating detailed and frequently updated documentation.
Microsoft in recent years has transformed itself and gives a positive feeling when one interacts with the company. The company is focusing on its customers and willing to go extra mile to make customers happy.The company continues to invest in its products and bringing new features from time to time. Overall it is a positive feeling to be associated with such an iconic company.
Microsoft Planner is used by project managers and IT service managers across our organization for task tracking and running their team meetings. Azure DevOps works better than Planner for software development teams but might possibly be too complex for non-software teams or more business-focused projects. We also use ServiceNow for IT service management and this tool provides better analysis and tracking of IT incidents, as Azure DevOps is more suited to development and project work for dev teams.
While many of the above tools are extremely well-versed, Microsoft Project's largest advantage comes from it being related to the largest business productivity company in the world. Project does have its sharing limitations - but regardless, offers one of the most robust tools in the market today. Microsoft Project is built with large-scale projects in mind but is more than up to the task for smaller projects as well. However, there are options available (especially cloud-based options) that may be more fitting for higher-level projects that do not require going into the weeds.
Project saved me, as the project manager, countless hours of digging through tickets and schedules to plan everything out. It also saved me time in adjusting the project triangle as needed, since it does so much automatically.
It is costly, and since it requires extensive training to master, it's not just the high licensing cost that you need to take into account.
The reporting features - even just printing out Gantt charts - makes it far easier to communicate with stakeholders. That means less time for PMs doing all of this manually, and it means less follow-up questions and delays moving forward.
