Where it sits
There are three tools on this desk. LumaPlan is trying to be one.
Scheduling software has split into three markets that do not talk to each other: heavyweight CPM engines that build the schedule, online Gantt tools that are pleasant and cannot do CPM properly, and analytics platforms that grade a schedule someone else made. Most teams pay for two of the three.
The three markets
Everyone is good at one third of the job.
P6, MS Project, Asta Powerproject
Real CPM engines that handle 40,000-activity programmes. Also: desktop-bound, expensive per seat, slow to learn, and weak at telling you whether the schedule they just produced is any good.
GanttPRO, TeamGantt, Smartsheet
Fast to pick up, priced for whole teams, genuinely nice to use. But the CPM underneath is shallow — calendars, constraints, out-of-sequence progress and float discipline are where they stop.
Acumen Fuse, SmartPM, Steelray
Schedule quality and forensic analysis done properly. Sold separately, priced in five figures a year, and usually needing a P6 or MS Project licence beside them just to open the file.
Feature by feature
How LumaPlan lines up.
| LumaPlan | Primavera P6 | MS Project | Online Gantt tools | Analytics platforms | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full CPM engine | Yes, minute-accurate | Yes | Yes | Partial — shallow float, limited calendars | Independent engine in some |
| MS Project and P6 date conventions | Both, per project | P6 only | MSP only | Neither, exactly | Reads both |
Opens .mpp and .xer natively |
Both, built in | .xer only |
.mpp only |
Usually import-once, lossy | Both, often via a licence you supply |
| Schedule health built in | 24 checks, every recalculation | Add-on / manual | No | No | Yes — it is the product |
| Monte Carlo | Built in | Separate module | Third-party add-in | No | Some |
| Resource leveling | Greedy + resource-constrained CPM | Yes | Yes | Workload views, not leveling | Analysis only |
| Time–location / flowline | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| 4D location timeline | Yes, tied to drawings | Via separate 4D product | No | No | No |
| Works offline | Web PWA + native build | Desktop | Desktop | Cloud only | Cloud only |
| Real-time multi-user | Yes, with presence | Via EPPM server | Via Project Online | Yes | Yes |
| What you install | One app | Database + app server for the enterprise edition | Windows desktop | Browser | Browser |
“Online Gantt tools” and “analytics platforms” are generalisations across several products, because these categories are more consistent than the individual tools in them. Where a specific product is better than its category, assume it is.
The other direction
What LumaPlan does not do.
A comparison table where one column wins every row is marketing, not information. These are real, and they matter more than anything above if one of them is your requirement.
Available to buy
LumaPlan is in active development and not open for signups. If you are evaluating tools this quarter, evaluate the ones you can buy.
An ecosystem
P6 has thirty years of consultants, training, certified schedulers and integrations. That is worth a great deal and cannot be built quickly.
Contractual standing
When a contract names the file format a submittal must arrive in, it names P6 or MS Project. LumaPlan writes both — but it is not the name in the spec.
Field execution
Daily reports, RFIs, submittal logs, photo capture — the site-management layer Procore and its peers occupy. LumaPlan schedules; it is not a construction management platform.
Enterprise administration
SAML single sign-on, directory sync and org-wide governance are the table stakes of an enterprise sale, and are not built.
The bet
A P6-grade engine that opens everyone's files and grades them.
The gap in this market is not another Gantt chart. It is that the tool that computes the dates, the tool that checks whether the dates are sound, and the tool that opens the file you were sent are three different purchases — and the analysis one usually needs a licence for the scheduling one before it can even read the file.
LumaPlan collapses that: one engine, native readers for every format that matters, and the quality assessment running on every recalculation — on a schedule you did not have to own the original tool to open.