Clarity PPM is the better fit when the portfolio is IT and finance wants cost plans, forecasts and chargeback in the same system the PMO uses. Planisware is the better fit when the portfolio is a product or R&D pipeline and phase gate decisions drive the funding. Both are quoted enterprise platforms with no public list price, so the choice comes down to the shape of your portfolio, not to a feature count.
That is the short answer buyers need before a demo. The rest of this comparison explains why the two products pull in different directions, what each one costs to buy and to run, and how to test both on your own initiatives before you sign a multi-year contract.
Key takeaways
- Clarity belongs to Broadcom, which acquired it with CA Technologies in 2018. Planisware is an independent French vendor listed on Euronext Paris since April 2024.
- Clarity's center of gravity is portfolio financials for IT. Planisware's is the gated product pipeline, with long cost and resource horizons.
- Neither publishes a list price. The only public per-user figure on either side is a Capterra listing of $45 per user a month for Planisware Orchestra, the lighter product.
- A proof of concept on twenty of your own initiatives separates them faster than any scorecard.
Clarity PPM vs Planisware at a glance
Start with who owns each product and who it was built for, because those two facts predict most of what you will see in the demos.
| Question | Broadcom Clarity | Planisware |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns it | Broadcom, acquired with CA Technologies in 2018 (formerly CA PPM and CA Clarity PPM) | Planisware, listed on Euronext Paris since April 2024 |
| Product line | One platform, sold inside Broadcom's ValueOps line | Five products: Enterprise, Orchestra, Nova, Horizon and Valoris |
| Typical portfolio | IT and enterprise project portfolios, often next to IT finance | Product development, R&D and engineering pipelines |
| What it does best | Cost plans, benefit plans, forecasts, chargeback and capitalization at portfolio level | Stage gated pipelines, scenario planning and long horizon cost and resource modeling |
| Deployment | SaaS, with perpetual on-premise licenses still in use | Cloud, with Orchestra as the turnkey option |
| Pricing | No published list price, quoted | No published list price, quoted. Capterra lists Orchestra at $45 per user a month |
| Where rollout effort goes | Investment types, financial structures and custom objects | Modeling the pipeline, gate criteria and cost structures up front |
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What is the difference between Clarity PPM and Planisware?
The difference is the kind of portfolio each was designed around. Clarity grew up inside large IT organizations, so its strongest functions are financial: cost plans, benefit plans, chargeback and capitalization across hundreds of projects. Planisware grew up in pharma, aerospace and manufacturing, so its strongest functions are the product pipeline, phase gates, and cost and resource plans that run for years.
You can see it in the first hour of each demo. A Clarity demo tends to open on an investment hierarchy and a financial plan, because that is what a CIO's office asks for. A Planisware demo tends to open on a pipeline with gates and a scenario comparison, because that is what an R&D governance board asks for. Both products can be configured toward the other's ground. The question is how much of your budget goes into that configuration.
Ownership matters too. Clarity is one product among many at a very large infrastructure software company, and it sits in the ValueOps line next to value stream management. Planisware does one thing, sells it under five product names, and reports revenue of EUR 198.0 million for fiscal 2025 across more than 600 client organizations. Neither position is better by default. A large parent brings stability and a wider contract; a focused vendor brings a roadmap that is only about portfolio management.
Which offers better features, scalability and enterprise support?
Neither wins across the board. Clarity is stronger on portfolio financials and has a far larger base of public reviews, with 136 on PeerSpot against 10 for Planisware. Planisware is stronger on gated pipelines, scenario planning and long range resource modeling. Both scale to thousands of users, and both sell support and services on top of the license.
| Capability | Stronger fit | What to probe in the demo |
|---|---|---|
| Cost plans, chargeback and capitalization | Clarity | Allocate one project's cost to two business units and show the chargeback report |
| Stage gate and phase gate governance | Planisware | Ask for gate criteria that differ by project type, and the history of a past gate decision |
| Scenario and what-if planning | Planisware | Run two funding scenarios side by side and export the difference, live |
| Long horizon resource modeling | Planisware | Model a three year pipeline by skill, not by named person |
| Timesheets feeding project financials | Clarity | Post a week of time and follow it into actuals and the forecast |
| Agile and value stream reporting | Clarity, through the ValueOps line | Ask which product holds the flow data and what it costs to add |
| Reference base and reviewer evidence | Clarity | Ask each vendor for two references in your industry and of your size |
| Demand and idea intake | Roughly even | Compare how a rejected request is recorded and reported |
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Read the table for the rows your portfolio depends on, and ignore the rest. An IT portfolio office rarely needs attrition modeling across a drug pipeline, and a product development board rarely needs chargeback to cost centers. If you find yourself needing both halves, check whether you really have one portfolio or two with different owners.
How much do Clarity PPM and Planisware cost?
Neither vendor publishes a list price, so both are quoted after a sales conversation. Broadcom sells Clarity as a SaaS subscription and still supports perpetual on-premise licenses with annual maintenance. Planisware quotes its enterprise products by named users, modules and services. The one public figure is Capterra's listing of Planisware Orchestra at $45 per user per month.
| Cost line | Broadcom Clarity | Planisware | Ask both for |
|---|---|---|---|
| License model | SaaS subscription, or perpetual on-premise plus maintenance | Quoted by product, named users and modules | The pricing unit and every user type, in writing |
| Public price evidence | None that holds up. Reviewer figures are single negotiated deals | Orchestra at $45 per user a month on Capterra. Nothing for Enterprise, Nova, Horizon or Valoris | Year one and year two totals for your exact scope |
| Services | Configuration of financial structures and custom objects, often through partners | Pipeline and gate modeling, where reviewers describe consultant rates as high | The services estimate as a separate fixed line |
| Support | Tied to the contract and the version you run | Reviewers report support as an extra cost | What support tier is included and what the next one costs |
| Renewal | Reviewers report rising renewal and maintenance costs | Price grows with users and reporting needs | An uplift cap written into the first contract |
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The reviewer comments in that table are reported experience, not published policy, and they should be labeled that way in your budget. Our Planisware pricing guide lays out the evidence behind each figure and works through a first-year budget. On the Clarity side there is no number worth repeating, which is why the only safe plan is to hold a Broadcom quote and a Planisware quote scoped to the same users and modules before you compare anything.
Is Planisware better than Clarity for R&D and product development?
Yes, in most evaluations where the portfolio is a real product pipeline. Planisware's customers are concentrated in pharma, medical devices, aerospace and defense, energy and chemicals, and the product reflects that with gated pipelines, attrition, long resource horizons and scenario planning. Clarity can hold product projects, but its data model was built around IT investments and their finances.
The exception is a company where product development is mostly software and delivery already runs through agile teams. There the pipeline looks more like an IT portfolio, gate decisions are lighter, and Clarity's financial structure can be the closer match. If your pipeline is physical products with regulated stages, shortlist Planisware Nova or Enterprise and compare it with the specialists in our guide to R&D portfolio management software. If the gate process itself is what you need to fix first, stage gate software is a much smaller purchase than either platform.
Should a Clarity customer switch to Planisware?
Only if the portfolio has changed shape. An IT portfolio does not become a better fit for an R&D suite, and switching to escape a renewal increase usually moves the cost into migration. Switch when the work you govern has become a product pipeline with phase gates, or when finance no longer needs Clarity's chargeback and cost plan structures.
The cost of leaving is easy to underestimate. Project and resource records export cleanly from Clarity. Custom objects, portlets, GEL scripts and approval processes do not move at all, and on a ten year old instance rebuilding them usually costs more than the first year of the new license. Our Clarity PPM alternatives guide has the full table of what migrates and what has to be rebuilt, and it also covers the claim you will hear from competing sales teams that Clarity is being discontinued. No Broadcom document we could find says so.
What the analyst reports say about each
Gartner split the old PPM market into two reports, and the two vendors are prominent in different ones. Broadcom announced Clarity as a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Strategic Portfolio Management. Planisware has announced Leader placements in the Magic Quadrant for Adaptive Project Management and Reporting, and we could not find a Planisware announcement for the strategic portfolio report.
Those placements are published by the vendors, so check a current licensed reprint before either one goes into a shortlist document. Use the reports to confirm that both companies are established at enterprise scale, which they are, and not to decide fit. We keep the editions and the methodology changes on our Magic Quadrant for project portfolio management page.
The proof of concept that settles it
Scorecards rarely separate two mature platforms, because both vendors will answer yes to almost every row. A two week proof of concept on your own data does. Give each vendor the same twenty initiatives, the same role list and the same finance export, and score what comes back.
| Test | What to hand over | What a pass looks like |
|---|---|---|
| The funding cut | Twenty initiatives with costs, and a budget below total demand | A ranked list, a visible line, and a reason for each item below it |
| Capacity by role | Your role list and one start date moved by a quarter | The gap per role per month updates without a rebuild |
| A gate decision | One real project at its next gate, with your criteria | A decision record with the approver, the date and the conditions |
| Actuals from finance | One month of ERP actuals for five initiatives | Variance by initiative with no spreadsheet in between |
| The executive view | Your current steering committee pack | The same pack produced from the tool, by your admin, in under an hour |
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Pay attention to the fourth test. Portfolio financials are only as good as the feed behind them, and a feed that silently stops or arrives half empty will put wrong numbers in front of the board for weeks. Ask each vendor how a late or incomplete load is flagged, and if your data team already monitors freshness and volume on its pipelines, add the ERP feed to that watch list during the trial.
You can run the first two tests before either vendor arrives. Our project prioritization tool scores the twenty initiatives on a weighted model and draws the funding line, and the resource capacity planning tool shows the gap by role for twelve months. Take that output into both proofs of concept as the answer each platform has to reproduce.
When neither is the right buy
Both products are built for organizations with hundreds of initiatives, a dedicated administrator and a budget line for implementation. Below that size the rollout dominates the value, and the PMO spends its first year configuring instead of deciding. If the unsolved problem is that more work gets approved than the teams can deliver, the fix is a shared scoring model, a funding line and a capacity plan by role.
That is a far smaller purchase, and it is what our workspace does, from $24.50 a month billed yearly. The four shapes this market sells in are sorted by portfolio size on our strategic portfolio management software page. If Planview is also on your list, the three-way picture is in Planview vs Planisware, and the vendors that replace Planisware part by part are in our Planisware alternatives comparison.