Microsoft Project is the gold standard for Gantt charts and waterfall project management. But when you go to buy a perpetual license (LTSC 2024), you are faced with a $600+ question:
“Do I really need the Professional edition, or is Standard enough?”
The price jump is significant. Project Standard usually retails around ~$700, while Professional pushes past ~$1,200. Here is exactly what that extra money buys you.
1. Project Standard 2024
- Target Audience: Individual Project Managers who work in a silo.
- Core Features:
- Gantt Charts: Fully featured. Create dependencies, critical paths, and milestones.
- Task Management: Assign tasks, set durations, and track completion %.
- Reports: Basic burndown charts and cost overviews.
The Limitation: Project Standard is a “Desktop Only” tool. It does not play well with others. You cannot sync it to a central server, and you cannot easily collaborate with a team. It is essentially “Excel on Steroids” for one person.
2. Project Professional 2024
- Target Audience: PMOs, Engineering Teams, and managers who need to coordinate resources.
- The “Pro” Features:
A. Resource Management (The Big One)
If you manage a team of 10 people and need to know who is overbooked, you need Professional.
* Team Planner View: A visual drag-and-drop view of your team’s workload.
* Resource Engagement: Request a specific developer from a Resource Manager. Standard cannot do this.
B. Sync to Project Online / Project Server
This is the dealbreaker for enterprises.
* Professional can publish projects to Microsoft Project Server or Project Online.
* Standard cannot. It saves .mpp files locally. If you want enterprise-wide visibility, you strictly need Pro.
C. Timesheets & Payroll
Project Professional allows team members to submit timesheets against tasks. Standard does not have this capability, meaning you’ll be tracking hours in Excel.
D. Advanced Reporting (Power BI)
While both have reports, Professional integrates natively with tools like Power BI for advanced dashboards and “Portfolio” views across multiple projects.
Comparison Table
| Feature | Project Standard 2024 | Project Professional 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Gantt Charts | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Manage Costs/Budget | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Team Planner View | ❌ No | ✅ YES |
| Sync to Project Server | ❌ No | ✅ YES (Critical) |
| Timesheet Submission | ❌ No | ✅ YES |
| Resource Engagement | ❌ No | ✅ YES |
| Inactive Tasks | ❌ No | ✅ YES |
Recommendation
- Buy Standard If: You are a solo consultant, a contractor, or a single PM managing a renovation. You just need to produce a timeline PDF for a client.
- Buy Professional If: You work in a corporate environment. You need to assign “John” to a task and see if “John” is already busy on another project. You need to sync data to a central server.
Bottom Line: Start with Standard only if you are 100% sure you will never need to sync your data. Upgrading later usually means buying a whole new license.