# Best Application Portfolio Management Software *By [Tian Lin](https://research.g2.com/insights/author/tian-lin)* Application portfolio management software allows administrative users to unify on-premises and SaaS applications to eliminate redundant systems and improve organization and efficiency. These tools provide a console for mapping an organization’s application landscape. The software helps users standardize technologies, rationalize use cases, and align service level agreements. They integrate with data from the applications in use to help IT managers identify an application’s value, reduce technology overlap, and mitigate risks. The tools present the landscape in a workflow or mapping model, which allows users to group technologies by use or department and visualize their entire company’s software and service stack. There is a strong relationship between application portfolio management solutions and [enterprise architecture software](https://www.g2.com/categories/enterprise-architecture). The difference lies in the fact that application portfolio management tools are geared toward aligning technologies in place, while enterprise architecture tools are inclined toward project planning and managing technological execution, policies, and organization. To qualify for inclusion in the Application Portfolio Management category, a product must: - Visually map out applications in use - Track application usage for each team - Rank applications based on their value to the business goals - Identify redundancies, overlap, and organizational inefficiencies ## Category Overview **Total Products under this Category:** 47 ## Trust & Credibility Stats **Why You Can Trust G2's Software Rankings:** - 30 Analysts and Data Experts - 800+ Authentic Reviews - 47+ Products - Unbiased Rankings G2's software rankings are built on verified user reviews, rigorous moderation, and a consistent research methodology maintained by a team of analysts and data experts. Each product is measured using the same transparent criteria, with no paid placement or vendor influence. While reviews reflect real user experiences, which can be subjective, they offer valuable insight into how software performs in the hands of professionals. Together, these inputs power the G2 Score, a standardized way to compare tools within every category. ## Best Application Portfolio Management Software At A Glance - **Leader:** [SAP LeanIX](https://www.g2.com/products/sap-leanix/reviews) - **Easiest to Use:** [CAST Highlight](https://www.g2.com/products/cast-highlight/reviews) - **Top Trending:** [ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management](https://www.g2.com/products/servicenow-strategic-portfolio-management/reviews) - **Best Free Software:** [CAST Highlight](https://www.g2.com/products/cast-highlight/reviews) --- **Sponsored** ### CAST Highlight By scanning the source code of your applications, CAST Highlight instantly maps your software, generating the insights to understand, improve, and transform it. CIOs, CTOs, Enterprise Architects use CAST to: - Get the true view of all technologies and frameworks - Quantify technical debt and the ways to pay it down - See what’s going to break next, and how best to fix it - Drive cloud adoption faster, knowing what to move and optimize - Prove progress to the board with facts and industry benchmarks Businesses move faster using CAST technology to understand, improve, and transform their software. Through semantic analysis of source code, CAST produces 3D maps and dashboards to navigate inside individual applications and across entire portfolios. This intelligence empowers executives and technology leaders to steer, speed, and report on initiatives such as technical debt, GenAI, modernization, and cloud. As the pioneer of the software intelligence field, CAST is trusted by the world’s leading companies and governments, their consultancies and cloud providers. See it all at castsoftware.com. [Visit website](https://www.g2.com/external_clickthroughs/record?secure%5Bad_program%5D=ppc&secure%5Bad_slot%5D=category_product_list&secure%5Bcategory_id%5D=1203&secure%5Bdisplayable_resource_id%5D=1203&secure%5Bdisplayable_resource_type%5D=Category&secure%5Bmedium%5D=sponsored&secure%5Bplacement_reason%5D=page_category&secure%5Bplacement_resource_ids%5D%5B%5D=1203&secure%5Bprioritized%5D=false&secure%5Bproduct_id%5D=58553&secure%5Bresource_id%5D=1203&secure%5Bresource_type%5D=Category&secure%5Bsource_type%5D=category_page&secure%5Bsource_url%5D=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.g2.com%2Fcategories%2Fapplication-portfolio-management&secure%5Btoken%5D=0005e376d46125216eee2123354e838e3241d5d02167501c6d0baa96bbacbff0&secure%5Burl%5D=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.castsoftware.com%2Ftryhighlight%3Futm_campaign%3Dg2_clicks_ads%26utm_source%3Dcast_highlight%26utm_medium%3Dtrial_request&secure%5Burl_type%5D=free_trial) --- ## Top-Rated Products (Ranked by G2 Score) ### 1. [SAP LeanIX](https://www.g2.com/products/sap-leanix/reviews) SAP LeanIX is a leading provider of enterprise architecture solutions that help organizations drive IT modernization and continuous business transformation, regardless of the underlying technology mix. Trusted by leading brands around the globe, SAP LeanIX offers AI-enhanced, software-as-a-service solutions enabling organizations to visualize, evaluate, and evolve their enterprise architecture for maximum business impact. From optimizing your current IT landscape to envisioning, designing, and guiding the creation of your future landscape, SAP LeanIX gives you the insight, flexibility, and foresight you need to ensure success. - SAP LeanIX Application Portfolio Management provides a real-time, comprehensive overview of your IT and business capability landscape - SAP LeanIX Technology Risk and Compliance helps you proactively identify and address technology obsolescence risk at scale - SAP LeanIX Architecture and Road Map Planning helps define your target architecture and create actionable road maps to get there **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 176 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.9/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 8.5/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 8.7/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.1/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [SAP](https://www.g2.com/sellers/sap) - **Company Website:** https://www.sap.com/ - **Year Founded:** 1972 - **HQ Location:** Walldorf - **Twitter:** @SAP (297,246 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/sap/ (141,341 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** Enterprise Architect - **Top Industries:** Retail, Financial Services - **Company Size:** 62% Enterprise, 20% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Ease of Use (9 reviews) - Integrations (8 reviews) - User Interface (6 reviews) - Easy Integrations (4 reviews) - Reliability (4 reviews) **Cons:** - Integration Issues (3 reviews) - Limited Customization (3 reviews) - Difficulty (2 reviews) - Learning Curve (2 reviews) - Missing Features (2 reviews) ### 2. [ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management](https://www.g2.com/products/servicenow-strategic-portfolio-management/reviews) ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) is a comprehensive solution designed to align organizational strategies with business outcomes by integrating planning, execution, and delivery processes on a unified platform. It enables organizations to prioritize investments, optimize resources, and accelerate value delivery, ensuring that all initiatives are strategically aligned and effectively managed. Key Features and Functionality: - Portfolio Management: Provides complete visibility into project, program, and portfolio performance, allowing organizations to prioritize and align investments with strategic goals. - Demand Management: Captures, evaluates, and prioritizes demands across the organization, automating the intake process with workflows for assessment and approval. - Resource Management: Optimizes resource allocation with advanced planning and scheduling tools, monitoring utilization and capacity to ensure project success. - Financial Management: Tracks budgets, forecasts, and expenses to ensure financial alignment with business objectives, offering insights into portfolio ROI for informed decision-making. - Scenario Planning: Models and analyzes various scenarios to evaluate potential outcomes, enabling dynamic strategy adjustments based on real-time data and shifting priorities. - Roadmap Planning: Visualizes and communicates project timelines, dependencies, and milestones with intuitive roadmaps, aligning stakeholders with clear views of priorities and progress. - Risk and Compliance Management: Identifies, assesses, and mitigates risks across projects and portfolios, ensuring compliance with industry standards and organizational policies. - Integration with IT and Business Tools: Seamlessly integrates with ServiceNow ITSM, ITOM, and other business applications for unified operations. - Performance Analytics and Dashboards: Provides actionable insights with real-time dashboards and performance metrics, tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success and identify areas for improvement. - Collaboration and Workflows: Enables cross-functional collaboration with automated workflows and task management, facilitating updates and alignment among teams. Primary Value and Solutions Provided: ServiceNow SPM empowers organizations to make informed, data-driven decisions by providing real-time insights into project and portfolio performance. It ensures that all work is strategically aligned, resources are optimally utilized, and financial investments are effectively managed. By consolidating processes and increasing visibility on a single platform, SPM enhances efficiency, accelerates value delivery, and fosters cross-team collaboration. Ultimately, it enables organizations to achieve their strategic objectives with agility and precision, adapting to changing business needs and market dynamics. **Average Rating:** 4.1/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 216 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.4/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 7.6/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 8.0/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.6/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [ServiceNow](https://www.g2.com/sellers/servicenow) - **Company Website:** https://www.servicenow.com/ - **Year Founded:** 2004 - **HQ Location:** Santa Clara, CA - **Twitter:** @servicenow (54,215 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/29352/ (32,701 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** ServiceNow Developer - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Hospital & Health Care - **Company Size:** 53% Enterprise, 27% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Project Management (37 reviews) - Ease of Use (30 reviews) - Visibility (23 reviews) - Project Tracking (22 reviews) - Features (18 reviews) **Cons:** - Learning Curve (24 reviews) - Learning Difficulty (22 reviews) - Not Intuitive (16 reviews) - Overwhelming (14 reviews) - Complexity (13 reviews) ### 3. [CAST Highlight](https://www.g2.com/products/cast-highlight/reviews) By scanning the source code of your applications, CAST Highlight instantly maps your software, generating the insights to understand, improve, and transform it. CIOs, CTOs, Enterprise Architects use CAST to: - Get the true view of all technologies and frameworks - Quantify technical debt and the ways to pay it down - See what’s going to break next, and how best to fix it - Drive cloud adoption faster, knowing what to move and optimize - Prove progress to the board with facts and industry benchmarks Businesses move faster using CAST technology to understand, improve, and transform their software. Through semantic analysis of source code, CAST produces 3D maps and dashboards to navigate inside individual applications and across entire portfolios. This intelligence empowers executives and technology leaders to steer, speed, and report on initiatives such as technical debt, GenAI, modernization, and cloud. As the pioneer of the software intelligence field, CAST is trusted by the world’s leading companies and governments, their consultancies and cloud providers. See it all at castsoftware.com. **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 85 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 9.1/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 8.7/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 8.8/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.2/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [CAST](https://www.g2.com/sellers/cast) - **Company Website:** https://www.castsoftware.com - **Year Founded:** 1990 - **HQ Location:** New York - **Twitter:** @SW_Intelligence (1,892 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/cast/ (1,259 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Computer Software - **Company Size:** 57% Enterprise, 24% Small-Business #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Ease of Use (8 reviews) - Easy Setup (4 reviews) - Cloud Services (3 reviews) - Efficiency (3 reviews) - Real-time Monitoring (3 reviews) **Cons:** - Complex Navigation (1 reviews) - Dashboard Issues (1 reviews) - Delayed Detection (1 reviews) - Difficulty (1 reviews) - Expensive (1 reviews) ### 4. [ServiceNow Enterprise Architecture](https://www.g2.com/products/servicenow-enterprise-architecture/reviews) ServiceNow Enterprise Architecture (EA) delivers the clarity and control needed to move with confidence when navigating constant change, fragmented systems, and the pressure to align technology with business strategy. Built on the ServiceNow AI Platform, ServiceNow EA brings together AI, data, and automated workflows in a single unified environment — leveraging AI Agents to autonomously generate architecture diagrams, Now Assist for conversational insights, and AI-powered rationalization to surface smarter decisions faster. The result: enterprise architects spend less time on manual tasks and more time driving strategic outcomes, while CIOs gain real-time visibility across the technology landscape to reduce technical debt, control spend, and accelerate business reinvention — all from the same platform already running their ITSM, ITOM, Risk, and SPM operations. Key Features & Benefits: · AI Agents for Architecture Diagramming — Automatically generate and summarize enterprise architecture diagrams from natural language prompts, reducing manual diagram creation and accelerating time-to-value for architecture planning. · Business Capability Modeling — Map business capabilities to applications and technology investments, giving CIOs and architects a clear line of sight between IT spending and strategic business outcomes. · Application Portfolio Management (APM) — Rationalize and optimize the application landscape by identifying redundant, high-cost, or end-of-life applications — enabling data-driven decisions that reduce costs and cut technical debt. · Technology Reference Model (TRM) — Define and publish technology standards across the enterprise, ensuring procurement, development teams, and business stakeholders operate from a single, always-current source of truth with no stale guidance. · Technology Portfolio Management — Track and manage the full lifecycle of every technology asset — hardware, software, platforms, and digital services — across the enterprise in a single, unified view. By surfacing lifecycle risk, cost exposure, and technology debt in real time, CIOs and architects can proactively retire aging assets, prioritize modernization investments, and ensure the technology landscape evolves in lockstep with business strategy rather than falling behind it. · Enterprise Modeling & Visualization — Visualize current and future-state architectures with support for BPMN, ServiceNow Common Service Data Model (CSDM), ArchiMate notation and diagram change analysis — giving architects the tools to communicate transformation plans with precision. · AI Governance Visibility — Gain oversight of AI agents and models across the enterprise, with lifecycle tracking and dashboards that ensure responsible AI adoption and regulatory compliance — critical for CIOs managing AI sprawl. · Single Platform Advantage — Because EA runs natively on the ServiceNow AI Platform alongside ITSM, ITOM, SPM, and Risk, there are no separate integrations to build or maintain. Architects get real-time CMDB data, asset intelligence, and cross-product workflows in one place — lowering barriers to stakeholder engagement and democratizing architecture across the organization. **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 35 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 7.5/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.5/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [ServiceNow](https://www.g2.com/sellers/servicenow) - **Company Website:** https://www.servicenow.com/ - **Year Founded:** 2004 - **HQ Location:** Santa Clara, CA - **Twitter:** @servicenow (54,215 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/29352/ (32,701 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services - **Company Size:** 46% Enterprise, 18% Mid-Market ### 5. [Oracle IT Analytics Cloud Service](https://www.g2.com/products/oracle-it-analytics-cloud-service/reviews) Oracle IT Analytics Cloud Service provides 360-degree insight into the performance, availability, and capacity of applications and infrastructure investments, enabling line-of-business and IT executives, analysts, and administrators to make critical decisions about their IT estate. This service is built on Oracle Management Cloud's secure, unified big data platform. **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 21 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.7/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 9.5/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 7.8/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 7.8/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Oracle](https://www.g2.com/sellers/oracle) - **Year Founded:** 1977 - **HQ Location:** Austin, TX - **Twitter:** @Oracle (827,868 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/1028/ (199,301 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** NYSE:ORCL **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 52% Enterprise, 26% Mid-Market ### 6. [ManageEngine Analytics Plus](https://www.g2.com/products/manageengine-analytics-plus/reviews) ManageEngine Analytics Plus (cloud and on-premises) is an IT analytics application with integrated artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing capabilities that enable you gain insights into your data simply by asking or typing out questions in plain English. Analytics Plus enables you to consolidate data from several IT applications, databases, local files and feeds, and cloud drives into a single console to get a unified view of the IT environment including IT service management, network operations management, project management, endpoint security management, and privileged access management. https://www.manageengine.com/analytics-plus/ Key features Quick setup Start creating visualizations from scratch in minutes using Analytics Plus with a drag-and-drop report builder. Over 400 out-of-the-box reports and dashboards Unlock instant value with more than 400 prebuilt reports and dashboards tailored for specific business scenarios. Analytics Plus intelligently reads imported data and runs correlation logic to generate reports instantly. You can also customize these reports further to suit your business needs. Powerful data blending from multiple applications and data sources Break free of data silos. With Analytics Plus, you can connect, correlate, and analyze data from several applications and data sources using cross-data analytics and advanced data modeling techniques. This enables you to look beyond independent components in IT and get insight into the big picture. AI-powered analytics assistant for code-free reporting and analysis Change the way you interact with data. No more codes. No more queries. Analytics Plus' built-in AI-assistant, Zia, interprets voice and text-based questions and responds with rich, visual responses. Zia also provides intuitive suggestions to customize your questions and narrow down your results. You can also teach Zia to understand commonly-used jargon and keywords conventionally used in your business. Real-time collaboration for faster decision-making Discover and communicate hidden opportunities and threats to your peers in real time using report comments. Notice an opportunity to reduce software spending in your IT budget report, or spot a possible security gap in your audit reports? Tag the right person in charge and discuss your ideas instantly. No need to wait for the monthly review meeting. Trend forecasting to enable accurate predictions Leverage the power of Analytics Plus' robust forecasting engine and predict the future accurately. Plan IT budgets by forecasting seasonal spikes in asset and resource requirements, prepare for downtime by predicting maintenance schedules of applications and networks, or make contingency plans by predicting deviations in day-to-day operational metrics such as service-level agreements (SLAs) or project backlogs. Fine-grained access controls for secure sharing Email, export, publish, and share slideshows with your teams to enable swift collaboration. Use role-based access controls to ensure your data is completely secure. Schedule emails and get insights straight in your inbox. Set up threshold-based alerts and get notified via in-app or email notifications of any change in your data. Interactive visualizations for granular data analysis Set up a data-driven culture where everyone can interact with data. Using Analytics Plus, your team can swap visualizations in seconds, view underlying data in reports, and drill down into specifics to understand data better and gain in-depth insights. Lower total cost of ownership Analytics Plus can save organizations up to 50 percent of their total cost of ownership when compared to leading IT analytics applications offering similar functionalities. Supported integrations Analytics Plus offers out-of-the-box integrations with the following applications: ServiceNow Jira Zendesk ServiceDesk Plus ServiceDesk Plus MSP SupportCenter Plus Desktop Central Patch Manager Plus Mobile Device Manager Plus Password Manager Pro PAM360 OpManager Applications Manager **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 12 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.9/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 8.6/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 9.6/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.6/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Zoho](https://www.g2.com/sellers/zoho-b00ca9d5-bca8-41b5-a8ad-275480841704) - **Year Founded:** 1996 - **HQ Location:** Austin, TX - **Twitter:** @Zoho (137,378 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/38373/ (30,531 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Phone:** +1 (888) 900-9646 **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 58% Enterprise, 33% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Dashboard Usability (1 reviews) - Ease of Use (1 reviews) - Easy Integrations (1 reviews) - Integrations (1 reviews) - Positive Experience (1 reviews) ### 7. [Orbus Software](https://www.g2.com/products/orbus-software/reviews) Founded in 2004, Orbus Software is a global leader in enterprise transformation technology, supporting more than 500 organizations and 60,000 users across 48 countries. With teams located worldwide, our technology helps enterprises navigate complex operational and technical environments, giving leaders clear visibility, greater control, and the confidence to make competitive decisions. OrbusInfinity, our cloud‑based enterprise transformation platform, enables strategy and architecture teams to break down data silos and model a unified view of the IT landscape and operating model. With unobstructed visibility, architects, project managers, and business leaders can align strategy with the data, solutions, and technologies required to achieve successful execution, reducing transformation risk, cost, and delays. This clarity supports major transformation programs, enables successful M&A, reduces technical debt, strengthens security and compliance, accelerates AI integration, and more. Powerful AI capabilities integrated into the platform’s centralized repository unify teams and accelerate collaboration. Templated intake forms, workflow automations, governed data, flexible visualizations, and on‑demand reporting streamline architectural processes and keep every stakeholder aligned. With ready‑to‑use toolkits and comprehensive support for a wide range of use cases, OrbusInfinity empowers architects to deliver the insights leaders need to understand business priorities and make confident decisions. For local, state, and federal government departments looking to upgrade to a cloud‑based enterprise architecture platform, FedRAMP and IRAP authorized versions of OrbusInfinity are available. **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 19 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 9.7/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 8.7/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.9/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Orbus](https://www.g2.com/sellers/orbus) - **Company Website:** https://www.orbussoftware.com - **Year Founded:** 2004 - **HQ Location:** London, England - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/1245913 (226 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 85% Enterprise, 10% Mid-Market ### 8. [Ardoq](https://www.g2.com/products/ardoq/reviews) Ardoq is the smarter way to EA, enabling organizations to automatically visualize their entire IT landscape by connecting live data from applications, systems, and business processes. Unlike traditional EA tools, Ardoq replaces static diagrams with connected, dynamic, and data-driven insights, helping teams map dependencies, model future-state scenarios, and align strategy with execution. By integrating real-time system data and crowdsourcing intelligence from stakeholders, Ardoq ensures architecture remains accurate, actionable, and accessible across the enterprise. Whether rationalizing applications, planning transformation, or optimizing IT spend, Ardoq helps teams make smarter decisions with confidence. **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 31 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.9/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 8.1/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.8/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Ardoq](https://www.g2.com/sellers/ardoq) - **Year Founded:** 2013 - **HQ Location:** Oslo, Oslo - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/ardoq/ (281 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Retail - **Company Size:** 41% Enterprise, 31% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Ease of Use (4 reviews) - User Interface (3 reviews) - Collaborative Sharing (2 reviews) - Features (2 reviews) - Flexibility (2 reviews) **Cons:** - Learning Curve (3 reviews) - Expensive (2 reviews) - Learning Difficulty (2 reviews) - Complexity (1 reviews) - Expensive Pricing (1 reviews) ### 9. [Planview Portfolios](https://www.g2.com/products/planview-portfolios/reviews) Planview Portfolios is an enterprise strategic portfolio management software solution that helps PMO leaders, portfolio managers, and project teams connect organizational strategy to day-to-day work delivery across programs, resources, and investment decisions from a single platform. Formerly known as Planview Enterprise One, it sits within the strategic portfolio management and project portfolio management software categories and is built for large organizations managing complex, cross-functional initiative portfolios across multiple business units and delivery methodologies simultaneously. For practitioners, the platform provides a structured environment where incoming demand can be evaluated against available capacity, work can be planned and tracked across waterfall, agile, and hybrid approaches, and financial performance can be monitored at both the project and portfolio level. Role-based dashboards surface relevant data to each user type — from team members logging time to portfolio leaders reviewing investment performance — without requiring manual report assembly. Key features practitioners interact with regularly include: • Demand and investment management tools that allow teams to collect project and program requests, score them against business objectives, and model prioritization decisions before resources are committed • Scenario planning and what-if analysis capabilities that let portfolio managers compare alternative staffing, timing, and funding configurations to assess trade-offs and adapt plans when strategic priorities shift • Hybrid work delivery support that accommodates waterfall project schedules, agile team planning, and lean portfolio management approaches within the same governance framework — reducing the need for separate tools across delivery teams • Integrated financial tracking including budgeting, forecasting, cost actuals, and agile costing that connect planned spend to actual delivery activity across the full portfolio • Embedded AI capabilities including natural language querying, automated workflow triggers, and sentiment analysis on project status updates that surface emerging risks and reduce manual oversight effort Planview Portfolios connects to enterprise systems including SAP, Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, and Microsoft tools, and includes more than 200 out-of-the-box reports and visualizations. Planview’s strategic portfolio management solution empowers enterprise PMOs, EPMOs, transformation leaders, and product portfolio organizations at organizations including FedEx, Dow Chemical, Endress+Hauser, and UPS to navigate their transformation journey, adapt with change, and accelerate on-strategy delivery. **Average Rating:** 3.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 85 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 7.4/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 6.7/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 7.1/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 7.7/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Planview](https://www.g2.com/sellers/planview) - **Company Website:** https://www.planview.com - **Year Founded:** 1989 - **HQ Location:** Austin, TX - **Twitter:** @Planview (3,054 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/7268/ (1,868 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Insurance - **Company Size:** 80% Enterprise, 25% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Project Management (2 reviews) - Project Tracking (2 reviews) - Automation (1 reviews) - Custom Fields (1 reviews) - Customizability (1 reviews) **Cons:** - Learning Curve (1 reviews) - Missing Features (1 reviews) - Poor Design (1 reviews) - Poor Layout Design (1 reviews) - Poor UI (1 reviews) ### 10. [Bizzdesign Horizzon](https://www.g2.com/products/bizzdesign-horizzon/reviews) Architect Your Change with Clarity. Leverage a flexible and versatile Enterprise Architecture SaaS platform to accelerate transformation. Start small, scale as you grow, and deliver value across your business. Bizzdesign Horizzon helps you: • Understand dependencies and map change with architecture insights • Align transformation initiatives with enterprise roadmaps • Design future state architectures with connected models • Discuss transformation scenarios with stakeholders • Drive faster decisions across teams and departments Core Capabilities: • Native, open-standards-based modeling (ArchiMate, C4, BPMN, ERD, UML) • AI-powered architecture design • Executive-ready presentations • Enterprise architecture governance • Enterprise-wide collaboration • Tailored dashboards and analytics Recognized Leadership • Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Strategic Portfolio Management • Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Architecture Tools **Average Rating:** 4.2/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 57 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.5/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 7.5/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.9/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Bizzdesign](https://www.g2.com/sellers/bizzdesign) - **Year Founded:** 2000 - **HQ Location:** Enschede, NL - **Twitter:** @BiZZdesign (2,300 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/bizzdesign (391 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** Management Consultant - **Top Industries:** Oil & Energy, Financial Services - **Company Size:** 66% Enterprise, 19% Mid-Market ### 11. [Avolution ABACUS](https://www.g2.com/products/avolution-abacus/reviews) The Enterprise Architecture Tool that transforms with you. Rated as Leader in the Gartner MQ and #1 in the Gartner Critical Capabilities for EA Governance. ABACUS users enjoy a fully-featured modeling, roadmapping and data analysis tool. Native canvas-and-stencil or automated diagramming and modeling, best-in-class roadmapping and business capability maps and customizable data analysis. Ships with a wide range of EA standards, frameworks and notations, so you can get started quickly. Set up dashboards for easy online collaboration and reporting. Configure in a day, integrate existing data via sync or API, and deploy globally to large teams, with fine grained permissions. **Average Rating:** 4.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 12 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 9.6/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 9.0/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 9.6/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Avolution](https://www.g2.com/sellers/avolution) - **Year Founded:** 2001 - **HQ Location:** NORTH SYDNEY, NSW - **Twitter:** @AvolutionAbacus (725 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://uk.linkedin.com/company/avolution (95 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 38% Enterprise, 31% Mid-Market ### 12. [ROI4CIO](https://www.g2.com/products/roi4cio/reviews) ROI4CIO is an online platform designed to facilitate interactions between IT vendors, distributors, resellers, and businesses seeking technology solutions. **Average Rating:** 5.0/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 6 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 9.4/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 9.4/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [ROI4CIO](https://www.g2.com/sellers/roi4cio) - **Year Founded:** 2016 - **HQ Location:** Vienna, AT - **Twitter:** @ROI4CIO (1,608 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/10951789 (17 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 67% Mid-Market, 33% Small-Business ### 13. [Cloudockit](https://www.g2.com/products/cloudockit/reviews) Generate the Technical Documentation and Complete Diagrams of your AWS and Azure Cloud Environment **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 4 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.8/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 9.2/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [UMAKnow Solutions](https://www.g2.com/sellers/umaknow-solutions) - **HQ Location:** Montréal, CA - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/10519341 (2 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 75% Mid-Market, 25% Small-Business ### 14. [Kabeen](https://www.g2.com/products/kabeen/reviews) Kabeen inventory and measures your IT from a business and technical perspective to help you make the best decisions **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 3 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 9.4/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 8.9/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Kabeen](https://www.g2.com/sellers/kabeen) - **Year Founded:** 2022 - **HQ Location:** Saint-Cloud, FR - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/79147588 (7 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 67% Small-Business, 33% Mid-Market ### 15. [Planview PPM Pro](https://www.g2.com/products/planview-ppm-pro/reviews) Accelerate PMO success with centralized Project Portfolio Management with Planview PPM Pro™ software. Planview PPM Pro enables PMO teams to focus resources on the work that delivers the most value to their organization. Project managers, program managers, PMO leaders, resource managers and CIOs can use PPM Pro to gain top-down visibility into their project portfolio and align work with business goals. A robust set of capabilities distinguish PPM Pro from less capable project management software and help you take your PMO to the next level of effectiveness. -Project Portfolio Management -Resource Management Tools -Project Time Tracking -Project Prioritization and Alignment -New Product Development (NPD) Management -Project Management Dashboards and Reports -Project Budget Management -Project Intake Management -Cloud-based Project Management -Predictive Portfolio Analysis -Gantt Chart Creation -Project Team Collaboration Tools -Portfolio Management for Agile To learn more, please visit: https://www.planview.com/products-solutions/products/ppm-pro/ **Average Rating:** 3.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 27 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.6/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 8.1/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 7.2/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.2/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Planview](https://www.g2.com/sellers/planview) - **Year Founded:** 1989 - **HQ Location:** Austin, TX - **Twitter:** @Planview (3,054 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/7268/ (1,868 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 57% Enterprise, 43% Mid-Market ### 16. [Prolaborate](https://www.g2.com/products/prolaborate/reviews) Sparx Systems Prolaborate is a web-based visualization and collaboration platform for Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect. It turns Sparx EA model information into interactive dashboards, charts, and stakeholder-friendly views, so people across the organization can understand and work with architecture insights without opening the modeling tool. Instead of sending static diagrams or documents, architects can publish curated views of the EA repository to a browser. Executives, product owners, portfolio managers, and delivery teams see the information that matters to them, in a format they can easily read and interact with. Key Capabilities • Web dashboards on top of Sparx EA models Build interactive charts and dashboards using data from Enterprise Architect repositories so stakeholders can quickly grasp landscapes, health, and status. • Role-based stakeholder views Create tailored views for executives, portfolio owners, architects, engineers, and business users so each group sees only the content and level of detail they need. • Browser-based reviews and collaboration Run architecture and design reviews directly in the browser. Stakeholders can view diagrams, leave comments, and participate in decisions without installing Enterprise Architect. • Application Portfolio Management accelerators Use preconfigured views and dashboards to analyze applications by lifecycle, criticality, cost, risk, technical health, or fit to strategy, all driven by data in EA. • Traceability and impact views Visualize relationships across capabilities, processes, applications, and technologies to support impact analysis and transformation planning. • Configurable navigation and landing pages Design navigation menus, landing pages, and collections of views that guide users to the most important architecture and portfolio insights. • Works with Pro Cloud Server and Enterprise Architect Prolaborate connects to EA repositories via Pro Cloud Server, forming part of a platform that combines deep modeling, secure access, and stakeholder-ready views. **Average Rating:** 4.2/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 3 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 9.2/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Prolaborate](https://www.g2.com/sellers/prolaborate) - **Year Founded:** 2015 - **HQ Location:** Chennai, IN - **Twitter:** @prolaborate (12 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/prolaborate/ (12 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 67% Enterprise, 33% Mid-Market ### 17. [Aplas](https://www.g2.com/products/aplas/reviews) Aplas is a flexible platform for sharing software asset metadata with a workforce. It can extract information from other metadata repositories (e.g. source control, service management or enterprise architecture tools) and store it in an Aplas “software index”. From here, a software map (unique capability within Aplas) can be generated, allowing anyone to understand your organization’s software landscape. The end goal of Aplas is to enhance your workforce's knowledge of your software landscape - empowering developers, testers, analysts, architects and management to make better decisions with software. To fulfil the needs of such a broad range of audiences, varied Aplas “publication interfaces” can be shared. Each interface presents your metadata differently and is always in sync with your software index. Storing telling is an important use case with Aplas. This is made possible with map styles, a flexible system for controlling how a map is rendered to screen. The end result could present application costs in 3d or light up the impacts of a major transformation. Aplas comes with a library of pre-packaged style templates, or styles can be built from the ground up to visualize your data in real time. **Average Rating:** 4.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 2 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Aplas](https://www.g2.com/sellers/aplas) - **Year Founded:** 2015 - **HQ Location:** Melbourne, AU - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/aplas (7 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 50% Mid-Market, 50% Small-Business ### 18. [Stackgini](https://www.g2.com/products/stackgini/reviews) Stackgini the leading IT demand management platform for medium and large enterprises. Our SaaS solution helps IT teams significantly reduce the workload for managing demands, promote the reuse of existing IT solutions, and automates compliance processes. By seamlessly integrating teams and tools from IT Service Management, Enterprise Architecture, Compliance, and Procurement, Stackgini aligns the IT decision process across all departments. It combines your internal IT knowledge with insights from over 52,000 software products and millions of data points. Powered by our proprietary AI models, Stackgini delivers deep intelligence into your IT portfolio—enabling smarter, faster, and more cost-effective decisions at scale. **Average Rating:** 4.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 12 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 9.9/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 9.3/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 9.7/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Softwaregini](https://www.g2.com/sellers/softwaregini) - **Year Founded:** 2022 - **HQ Location:** Hamburg, DE - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/softwaregini (14 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 58% Enterprise, 25% Small-Business ### 19. [Syncsort Capacity Management](https://www.g2.com/products/syncsort-capacity-management/reviews) Syncsort Capacity Management brings metrics from across client's enterprise into one place for a real-time 360-degree view of their infrastructure. **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 3 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 8.9/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.9/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Precisely](https://www.g2.com/sellers/precisely-0b25c016-ffa5-4f51-9d9e-fcbc9f54cc55) - **HQ Location:** Burlington, Massachusetts - **Twitter:** @PreciselyData (3,973 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/64863146/ (2,962 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 33% Small-Business, 33% Enterprise ### 20. [Axonius](https://www.g2.com/products/axonius/reviews) Axonius is the cybersecurity asset management platform that lets IT and Security teams see devices for what they are in order to manage and secure all. **Average Rating:** 4.2/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 7 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.6/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 6.9/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 7.8/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.4/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Axonius](https://www.g2.com/sellers/axonius) - **Year Founded:** 2017 - **HQ Location:** New York, New York, United States - **Twitter:** @AxoniusInc (1,859 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/axonius/ (764 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 57% Enterprise, 43% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Asset Management (2 reviews) - Centralized Management (1 reviews) - Continuous Improvement (1 reviews) - Ease of Use (1 reviews) - Easy Management (1 reviews) **Cons:** - Complexity (1 reviews) - Complex UI (1 reviews) - Difficult Learning (1 reviews) - Expensive (1 reviews) - Feature Complexity (1 reviews) ### 21. [bitFit](https://www.g2.com/products/bitfit/reviews) State of Your Hybrid Technology Stack **Average Rating:** 4.0/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 1 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [bitFit](https://www.g2.com/sellers/bitfit) - **Year Founded:** 2013 - **HQ Location:** Campbell, US - **LinkedIn® Page:** http://www.linkedin.com/company/bitfit (5 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 100% Mid-Market ### 22. [Bizzdesign Hopex](https://www.g2.com/products/bizzdesign-hopex/reviews) Gain control, insight, and resilience from a modern Enterprise Architecture SaaS platform that connects business, IT, risk, and data. Bizzdesign Hopex helps you: • Achieve 360 degrees insight across your digital core • Reduce operational risk and technology costs • Reinforce governance across the enterprise • Accelerate transformation with automation and AI • Enable collaboration across teams with one shared view • Improve decision-making with data-driven insights Core Capabilities: • Unified repository • Cyber resilience management • Automated data collection • Automated workflows • AI-driven data management • Reports, dashboards, and enterprise portal Recognized Leadership • Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Strategic Portfolio Management • Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Architecture Tools **Average Rating:** 3.2/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 3 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 9.2/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 2.8/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 6.7/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 6.7/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Bizzdesign](https://www.g2.com/sellers/bizzdesign) - **Year Founded:** 2000 - **HQ Location:** Enschede, NL - **Twitter:** @BiZZdesign (2,300 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/bizzdesign (391 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 100% Enterprise, 67% Mid-Market ### 23. [CloudPATH](https://www.g2.com/products/cloudpath/reviews) 30-50% Cost Reduction and Increased Scalability of Applications **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 1 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [CSS Corp](https://www.g2.com/sellers/css-corp-013e427e-8d3b-41da-aeaa-6e51c71dbf57) - **Year Founded:** 1996 - **HQ Location:** Lewisville, Texas, United States - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/movate (12,399 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 100% Enterprise ### 24. [Dragon1](https://www.g2.com/products/dragon1/reviews) Dragon1 is a repository-based SaaS platform for Enterprise Architecture to create a line of sight. It integrates processes, apps and tools. Everything you need for governance and execution of digital transformation. **Average Rating:** 5.0/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 1 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Dragon1](https://www.g2.com/sellers/dragon1) - **Year Founded:** 2006 - **HQ Location:** Bennekom, NL - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/1281390 (3 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 100% Mid-Market ### 25. [EOS ITPM](https://www.g2.com/products/eos-itpm/reviews) EOS ITPM helps enterprises build an Integrated Portfolio View of IT. **Average Rating:** 5.0/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 1 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Quality of Support:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) - **Ease of Use:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 8.7/10) - **Ease of Admin:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 9.2/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [EOS Software](https://www.g2.com/sellers/eos-software) - **HQ Location:** N/A - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/No-Linkedin-Presence-Added-Intentionally-By-DataOps (1 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Company Size:** 100% Enterprise ## Parent Category [IT Management Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/it-management) ## Related Categories - [Enterprise Architecture Tools](https://www.g2.com/categories/enterprise-architecture-tools) --- ## Buyer Guide ### What You Should Know About Application Portfolio Management Software ### What is Application Portfolio Management Software? Application portfolio management software allows companies to see what kinds of software applications are in their enterprise architecture to reduce redundancy and cost. Companies use a collection of software to optimize their business capabilities such as improving operational efficiency, winning key markets, or streamlining costs. Application portfolio management is the practice of identifying, monitoring, and managing the application lifecycle to achieve business objectives and maximize return on investment (ROI) for the IT budget.  The term application portfolio management, also known as IT portfolio management, is very similar to investment portfolio management. Financial firms actively manage their investment portfolio so they reduce the risk of huge financial losses. Similarly, companies need to actively manage their business application portfolio to avoid software cost overrun and resource wastage. It is important to build and maintain a cost-saving technology portfolio that actively contributes to the business objectives. As software demand continues to increase, application portfolio management software helps companies to remove underutilized software and prioritize mission-critical applications. ### What are the Common Features of Application Portfolio Management Software? The following are some core features within IT portfolio management that can help users manage their software inventory: **Software discovery:** Application portfolio management solutions need to automatically discover every software on all devices and the cloud. This includes on-premises software and SaaS applications. Manual entry of software is inefficient and doesn’t reflect real-time data.  **Software categorization:** While the user can categorize software manually, application portfolio management tools should auto tag software into different categories. This allows businesses to identify redundancy and gaps for each type of software.  **Software mapping:** There is no better way to understand IT stacks than mapping out all software and connecting to projects and teams. Visualization allows IT managers to see which software is used, who is using the software, and for what purpose.  **Software utilization:** IT managers need to understand how each software is being used and for how much time it is being used. Underused software might be outdated or not enough training is provided to use the software. Overused software may risk license compliance issues. These issues can’t be managed without utilization data.  **Software benchmark:** Advanced application portfolio management software collects comparison data and sends surveys to users to rank all software based on user satisfaction, performance, and contribution to the business objectives. This allows IT managers to see which software is important and which one is not. **Financial analysis:** Some solutions have software asset management capabilities that account for the total cost of ownership (TCO). This is the sum of all direct and indirect costs incurred by that software and is a critical part of the ROI calculation. Companies can identify the true cost of software by analyzing starting cost (software, hardware, migration, training, implementation, license, customization), operating costs (maintenance, upgrades, depreciation, downtime, support, security), and retirement cost (data export, data archiving, inactive licenses). A successful digital transformation must have risk management to prevent cost overruns.  **Opportunity identification:** After collecting and analyzing all the data, technology portfolio management software will provide reports with areas where companies can save money, reinvest in existing software, or buy new software that fills the capability gap. The ultimate goal is to align the software stack to the business objectives, not just getting chargeback and cutting the underutilized software. ### What are the Benefits of Application Portfolio Management Software? **Increase visibility:** Decision makers have immediate access to real-time data on the IT landscape from a single source of truth. Most solutions also have prebuilt reports and diagrams on a central dashboard to show the current status of all the software. This not only speeds up the decision-making process but allows for clear communication.  **Reduce risk:** IT portfolio management solutions reduce transformational risks by understanding when, where, how, and why to make changes in the software portfolio. Visual mapping and dependency reports allow consistent and transparent changes. **Lower IT costs:** A well-established application portfolio management practice will align IT spending to business strategy, maintain required capabilities, and discover new demands. By avoiding investing in redundant systems and software, IT managers free up resources that can be used to acquire new capabilities. ### Who Uses Application Portfolio Management Software? **IT managers:** The team that uses the application portfolio management solution the most would be the IT team since they manage software inventory. They will know which software to purchase, retire, and reinvest in. Also, they can use the IT portfolio management reports to better communicate software inventory status with other stakeholders.  **Purchasing team:** Purchasing team use application portfolio management software for software purchase negotiation. For example, by understanding which software is underused, the purchasing team can negotiate for the chargeback or lower price.  #### Software Related to Application Portfolio Management Software Related solutions that can be used together with technology portfolio management tools include: **Software asset management (SAM) software:** This type of software documents and manages on-premises software licenses used by a business. Companies use SAM software to complement application portfolio management for contract management and license management. **SaaS operations management software:** SaaS operations management software manages SaaS products to provide businesses with greater control and visibility over their SaaS portfolios. ### Challenges with Application Portfolio Management Software Software solutions can come with their own set of challenges.  **Long-term management:** IT portfolio management is not a one-shot application rationalization that focuses on cost and short-term technical problems. Cleaning up the software landscape just once and then forgetting about it will result in the same problems reappearing in the future. Companies need to take a lifecycle approach. Regular monitoring of technical and business use of applications and assessing future options are necessary to align the portfolio to business goals.  **Understanding dependencies:** Applications should not be judged as standalone but as a landscape. IT managers need to consider dependencies between applications and businesses they support. Dependency analysis will show the complexity, risks, and business value of the application landscape. Replacing or retiring an application in isolation results in unintended consequences that impact other teams and applications. **Determining objective metrics:** There is no one strategy or metric that can accurately reflect the value of every application. But on the other end, asking the users how valuable each application is extremely biased. Instead, IT managers need to study use cases that identify the value chains and workflows of the application. This shows how the applications support business and technical functionalities for products and customers. Then the IT team can assess the application with proper metrics that are relevant to these functionalities and may also discover new potential uses. ### How to Buy Application Portfolio Management Software Buying an application portfolio management solution can be complicated based on existing infrastructure and software compatibility. Many times when buying application portfolio management solutions, companies have encountered software cost overrun problems, so the desire to make a quick purchase while there is corporate interest and pressure can be strong. However, enterprise software purchasing requires dedication and time. If the company doesn’t like the software after the purchase, changing to another software is costly and time-consuming.  #### Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Application Portfolio Management Software Companies should have a good understanding of why they need IT portfolio management solutions. Other than simple reasons such as gaining visibility into the application landscape, there are usually deeper reasons why the company needs this capability.  An application portfolio management solution dedicated to the finance team could be much different than the one dedicated to the purchasing team—and their assumption as to why they need this capability could be wrong too. The finance team may think that an application portfolio management tool would help significantly with their messy budgeting process for new software, but the software can do much more than that, so the value and budget of the application should be higher than before. The best way to see a clear picture of the situation is to work with all the stakeholders for use cases to answer who wants to do what, and why is that important for the business.  With use cases, buyers can formulate desired features requirements and rank them objectively. Buyers should make a ranked list of the application portfolio management features that most directly address the problems they’re trying to solve, then reference that in the RFP. Prioritizing the desired feature set can help narrow down the potential pool of technology portfolio management tools, allowing teams to then apply further considerations for budget, ease of integration with other systems, security requirements, and more. This holistic approach empowers buyers to move forward with a focused checklist, which can be used in conjunction with G2 scores to select the best application portfolio management product for the business. #### Compare Application Portfolio Management Software Products **Create a long list** Buyers should start with a large pool of application portfolio management software vendors and inform the desired must-have features and budget, so they can respond if they are a good fit or not at the start. The goal is to have at least 5 to 10 vendors that fit the general criteria.  **Create a shortlist** Now is the time to cross reference the results of initial vendor evaluations with G2 reviews from other buyers, the combination of which will help to narrow in on a short three to five product list. From there, buyers can compare pricing and features to determine the best fit. **Conduct demos** Demos are the most important part of the RFP process because the buyer must make sure that their software is compatible with the vendor’s application portfolio management solution. Companies must inform vendors upfront that they need to see the data in their system and understand how that will work. Sometimes, vendors may take the buyer’s data and work quickly in the background and then come back with results for the buyer to explore. This is a mini implementation so not all the issues and capabilities are addressed in this type of demo. So, buyers must be sure to discuss the limitation with key stakeholders. Then the buyer should have the selected data ready to give to the vendor. Giving the vendors raw data is time-consuming and risky so it is not recommended.  During demos, buyers should ask specific questions related to the functionalities they care most about; for example, one might ask to be walked through an application dependency analysis by building an application landscape map to determine the value of the whole landscape.  #### Selection of Application Portfolio Management Software **Choose a selection team** Regardless of a company’s size, it’s important to involve the most relevant personas when beginning the application portfolio management software selection process. Larger companies may include individual team members to fill roles such as project manager, decision maker, system owner, and IT professionals and developers who will be working with the software most closely. Smaller companies with fewer employees might overlap roles.  **Negotiation** It is very likely that the buyer will choose SaaS-based technology portfolio management software. In this case, buyers must determine what kind of relationship the buyer and the vendor might have. SaaS vendors will be installing, configuring, upgrading, and interacting with the buyer in the long term, whereas with on-premises software vendors, it is more likely to be a one-time interaction. The buyer needs to determine the SaaS vendor’s customer service’s domain knowledge level, quality of support, and fitment to the stakeholders. There are also specific functionality and packages that the buyer might not need. These can all be negotiated.  **Final decision** After this stage, it is important to perform a trial run if possible with the stakeholder team. If the application portfolio management tool is well liked and well utilized, the buyer can take that as a sign that their selection is the right one. If not, reevaluation of the options may be necessary.  Before the final purchase, the buyer should also know what happens if the contract ends early. Application portfolio management solutions are evolving very fast so players are changing every year with new functionalities. The perfect fit may be the case for today but not for the next three to five years. Since the buyer will bring valuable data to the vendor, the buyer needs to know how the data will be handled if the contract ends early. What process and format will the data be extracted from? What rules do both parties have to follow? What are the costs and penalties? It is best to have clarity on these topics at the early stages of the buying process than when things go unplanned.