Comparison

How ScheduleInsight compares

There's no single rival that puts full DCMA quality, forensic comparison, Monte-Carlo risk and dispute-ready reports in one place — in a browser, parsed privately on your own machine, at a pay-per-report price. Here's how the field stacks up.

Comparison as of June 2026 · based on publicly available information & our own product.
£0 → £10
Free viewer → first DCMA report

The only tool with a permanent free viewer and pay-per-report. Browser rivals start at a paid subscription; enterprise desktops are 4–5 figures a seat.

7-in-1
Assurance breadth in one tool

Quality (18 checks) · forensic comparison · Monte-Carlo risk · Earned Schedule · Submission gate · Claim Brief · Executive Brief.

100% local
Client-side file parsing

The XER/XML is read in your browser and never uploaded. Every other browser tool sends your file to its servers.

Where the field stacks up

Our assessment across the seven dimensions that matter for schedule assurance (not authoring) — DCMA quality · forensic comparison · Monte-Carlo risk · deliverables · accessibility · data privacy · price — weighted equally and normalised 0–100. Deltek Acumen Fuse still leads on raw metric depth; ScheduleInsight leads on the breadth × accessibility × price composite. Grouped below by how each tool is delivered, because that decides whether a whole team can actually use it.

BrowserNo install, cross-platform — adoptable by a whole team.
ScheduleInsight
88
SmartPM
74
Nodes & Links
72
Planera
62
DesktopInstalled software — a licensed seat per user, Windows-first.
Deltek Acumen Fuse
68
Safran Risk
44
ScheduleReader
36
050100

Composite is a subjective, directional assessment — not an independent benchmark.

Functionality & pricing — who offers what

✓ full  ·  ◐ partial / add-on  ·  — not offered. ScheduleInsight column highlighted.

Capability ScheduleInsight Deltek
Acumen Fuse		 SmartPM Nodes &
Links		 Planera Safran
Risk		 Schedule
Reader
DeploymentBrowserDesktopBrowserBrowserBrowserDesktopDesktop
DCMA quality checks✓✓✓✓✓——
Metric drill-down & customisable reports✓✓✓✓◐——
Configurable checks · custom criteria & presets✓◐◐◐◐——
Forensic baseline comparison✓✓✓✓◐◐—
Compare 3+ revisions · trend over time✓◐✓✓◐——
Monte-Carlo risk (P50/P80/P90)✓✓✓✓✓✓—
Earned Schedule · SPI(t), no cost data✓◐◐◐———
Submission accept / reject gate✓◐◐————
Claim Brief — entitlement narrative (AACE)✓◐◐◐———
NEC compensation-event assessment✓——————
File never uploaded — parsed in-browser✓✓———✓✓
Permanent free viewer✓——◐——◐
Pay-per-report (no subscription)✓——————
Cross-platform (Mac / iPad)✓—✓✓✓—◐
Entry / priceFree → £10EnterpriseSubscriptionEnterpriseSubscriptionEnterpriseLow annual licence

Effective economics: check ~2 schedules a month and you pay only when you work — versus a fixed annual floor (≈£199 entry browser tools, ~$5k enterprise SaaS, or a 4-figure desktop seat) whether used or not.

Where ScheduleInsight is genuinely different

Privacy by architecture. The XER is parsed in your browser and never leaves your machine. Every other browser tool uploads it — for defence, CNI, nuclear or commercially sensitive work, that's often the deciding factor.
The widest assurance breadth below the enterprise tier. Quality + forensic comparison + Monte-Carlo + Earned Schedule + a Submission gate + Claim Brief + Executive Brief in one tool — work that usually means buying three separate products.
Your checks, not ours. Every threshold and weight is editable, add your own no-code criteria (subject → field → operator → value), and save them as reusable presets — so the Schedule Quality Score reflects your organisation's standard, not a hard-coded rulebook. Most tools bake their rules in.
Monte-Carlo, democratised. P50/P80/P90 risk historically needed a Windows desktop and a multi-thousand-pound seat. We run it in your browser, inside a £20 report.
Two deliverables nobody else packages for this buyer: a configurable Submission Scorecard (Accept/Reject gate for PMOs) and a browser Claim Brief (dispute-ready delay narrative).

Where we don't win (so you can plan around it)

Deep EVMS / DoD metric libraries vs Deltek Acumen Fuse. Acumen ships 500+ built-in metrics, EVMS integration and AI risk discovery that go deeper for defence-grade EVMS programmes. We cover what matters for the vast majority of construction and infrastructure work — and unlike a fixed library, our checks are fully configurable (see above) — but for a dedicated EVMS module, Acumen remains the specialist.
Read-only, session-based. We analyse schedules; we don't author or edit them, and we don't hold a persistent multi-project portfolio. Fix in P6 and re-import; for live portfolio monitoring across dozens of projects, an enterprise SaaS portfolio view fits better.

Head-to-head deep dives

Want the honest, feature-by-feature split against a specific tool? Start with the two most-compared:

Accuracy & disclaimer. This comparison reflects publicly available information as of June 2026 and our own product, and represents our assessment rather than an independent benchmark. Competitor features and prices change; items shown as “Enterprise” are quote-only. Please verify any figure directly with the relevant vendor before relying on it. ScheduleInsight is an analysis aid, not a formal compliance certification. Product and company names are trademarks of their respective owners; see the notice in the footer.
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