Microsoft Project 2024 Professional Review

Published February 14, 2025

Microsoft Project has been the gold standard for project management software for decades. Project 2024 Professional continues this legacy with modern features, improved usability, and — through our store — an incredibly accessible price of $29 for 3 devices. Here's our comprehensive review.

First Impressions

Project 2024 opens with a clean, modern interface consistent with the Office 2024 design language. The familiar Gantt Chart view greets you, with the ribbon providing organized access to all features. For anyone who's used a previous version of Project, the transition is seamless. For new users, the interface is logical and discoverable.

Gantt Charts: Still the Best

No project management tool creates better Gantt charts than Microsoft Project. The Gantt Chart view in Project 2024 provides task entry and scheduling, automatic dependency visualization, critical path highlighting, milestone tracking, progress bar overlays, and extensive formatting options. Creating a professional project schedule is intuitive — enter tasks, set dependencies, and Project calculates everything else. The critical path appears automatically in red, making it immediately clear which tasks drive the project completion date.

Resource Management

Project 2024's resource management remains best-in-class. Define team members with their rates, availability, and calendars. Assign them to tasks and Project tracks utilization automatically. The resource leveling engine resolves over-allocation conflicts intelligently. The Team Planner view provides a visual, drag-and-drop interface for managing who's working on what. For project managers responsible for team workloads, these tools are indispensable.

Task Board View

The Task Board (Kanban) view makes Project 2024 usable for agile and hybrid projects. View tasks as cards on a board with customizable columns. Drag cards between columns to update status. While it's not as feature-rich as dedicated agile tools like Jira, it provides enough capability for teams using agile or hybrid methodologies without requiring a separate tool.

Reporting

Built-in reports include project overview dashboards, burndown charts, resource utilization summaries, and cost analysis. Reports are professional-quality and can be exported to PDF or PowerPoint for stakeholder presentations. Custom reports can be built with drag-and-drop chart and table components.

Value Assessment

Cloud-based PM tools like Smartsheet ($25/user/month), Monday.com ($16/user/month), and Asana Business ($25/user/month) charge per user per month. A 5-person team on any of these tools spends $960-$1,500 per year. Project 2024 at $29 for 3 devices saves over $900 in the first year alone — with more powerful features.

Verdict: Essential for PMs

Microsoft Project 2024 Professional is the most capable project management tool available, and at $29 it's the most affordable serious PM tool on the market. Whether you're a certified PMP managing enterprise programs or a team lead coordinating a department project, Project 2024 provides everything you need. Rating: 9/10