OmniPlan for Mac

Overview of OmniPlan for macOS

OmniPlan is a project-management app built for macOS that helps teams design clear, executable project plans. It offers visual schedules, task breakdowns, milestones and critical-path analysis so you can turn high-level strategy into day-to-day activities and keep track of time and cost.

Core capabilities

• Gantt chart views and timeline visualization for planning and tracking.
• Resource balancing and workload distribution to avoid overallocations.
• Milestone and summary tasks that group activities into understandable chunks.
• Cost tracking and budget oversight that update as the project progresses.
• Critical-path calculation to highlight tasks that affect project completion.
• Ability to export projects to formats compatible with Microsoft Project.

Compatibility and trade-offs

OmniPlan can read and export files that Microsoft Project understands, making it feasible to share projects between macOS and Windows environments. That said, Microsoft Project is often less expensive and offers some advanced enterprise-level features OmniPlan doesn’t match. Conversely, OmniPlan’s user interface is more polished for macOS users and provides a simpler, more streamlined experience—appealing if you want a cleaner, OS X-native tool rather than the full power of MS Project.

Who it’s best for

• macOS users who prefer a native, visually polished project tool.
• Small-to-medium teams that need straightforward scheduling, resource leveling, and cost tracking without enterprise complexity.

Who might prefer something else

• Organizations requiring every advanced capability of Microsoft Project or a lower-cost licensing model.
• Users who depend on specialized MS Project-only features or very large enterprise deployments.

Alternatives

• Citrix Workspace (free) — suggested for remote access and collaboration scenarios.
• Consider Microsoft Project if budget and advanced feature parity are priorities.

Recent fixes and improvements

• Restored support for macOS 10.9 Mavericks and fixed several export-related crashes with MPP files.
• The export dialog now remembers your last-chosen file type by default.
• Reintroduced the “Clear Assignments” option in the Assign Resource toolbar menu.
• Resolved issues that caused Gantt chart row striping to fail; alternate row colors now display correctly.
• Corrected Quick Look column layout and fixed a few hangs that could occur during leveling.
• Improved CSV export default encoding to UTF-8 to match the user interface.
• Fixed multiple sandboxing-related problems that affected template up-to-date checks and use of custom CSS in HTML templates.
• Renamed styles in the Project → Styles inspector now update properly.
• Addressed localization issues: restored the German “Task : Schedule” label and set the German hour abbreviation back to “h”.
• Printing an HTML report no longer produces a blank output; other small export errors were also corrected.