Planyway for Jira is good at what it was built for: a roadmap, a team calendar and a workload heat map in one place, with time tracking alongside. Project Commander was built for a different question. This is a plain account of where each one is strong, taken from Planyway's own website and Marketplace listing and from Project Commander's own screens. Sources are listed at the end.
Every delivery team eventually gets asked the same thing: will this be delivered by the date, with the people we actually have — and if not, where does it break?
Planyway puts work from several boards on one timeline and one team calendar, colours each person's days by how the estimates on them compare with the daily hours you set, blocks out time off, syncs every drag back to Jira, and lets people log time with a timer. Its Rovo agent flags items it judges at risk and says why. Project Commander takes the work actually assigned in the sprints, the real people and the date, does the arithmetic, and tells you whether the plan holds — sprint by sprint, person by person, with odds — and keeps telling you as the plan moves. With or without sprints: a project with Sprint Mode off is read from its Issue filter and judged week by week, so a Kanban or date-planned team gets the same answer.
| Built to answer | |
|---|---|
| Planyway — Roadmap and Team Calendar | What is on the roadmap across boards, who is doing what this week, and whose days are over their hours? |
| Planyway — Time Tracking | What time did each person log, against what, and how does it compare with the estimate? |
| Planyway — AI Risk Agent (Rovo) | Which items look at risk, and why? |
| Project Commander | Can this be delivered by the date with the people we have — and if not, where, by how much, and what do we do? |
1. It plans with the people you actually have. Capacity is worked out per person — hours or points a sprint, how much of their time this project gets, booked time off, company holidays — and added up to the sprint. Teams that do not run sprints get the same arithmetic: with Sprint Mode off in the project's settings, a Kanban or date-planned team's work is read from its Issue filter and weighed week by week against capacity for a period of a length you choose. Planyway also works per person, with a maximum number of working hours a day set in its settings and time off blocked out. Its heat map compares the estimates on a day with those hours. Project Commander works per sprint, in the team's own unit — story points or hours — and compares the whole sprint's assigned work with the whole sprint's capacity, with each person's share of the project and the company holidays taken off.
2. Every sprint carries a verdict, and it means what it says. Deliverable, Tight or Overcommitted, with the load as a percentage, on every sprint row. For the sprint running now, it compares only the work still left against only the capacity still ahead — half a sprint gone means half the capacity gone. Planyway colours a person's day when the estimates on it exceed their hours. There is no verdict on the sprint, no percentage of the sprint's capacity, and no allowance for the part of the running sprint already gone.
3. It forecasts a finish date, with odds, not a wish. The forecast walks the plan sprint by sprint, carries overflow forward, and names the person who becomes the bottleneck. Then it runs the plan two thousand times against the team's real variation and reports the probability of hitting the target and a likely-finish range. Planyway's pages describe no finish date and no probability. Its AI Risk Agent flags an item and explains what is contributing to the risk; it does not state a date or odds.
4. It will tell you "never." If scope is growing faster than the team clears it, the forecast says the work does not finish — not a comfortable date two quarters out. Planyway does not make that call; it has no forecast to make it from.
5. It sees scope creep as it happens. From Jira's own change history it rebuilds what was added, re-estimated or removed after the plan was agreed — per sprint and over time — and flags a running sprint that has quietly grown past its commitment. Planyway shows the roadmap as it stands today. It does not read Jira's change history.
6. It finds the dependencies that break a plan, not just draws them. A task blocked by work that is not scheduled until later. Two tasks that block each other, so neither can ever start. A sub-task due after its parent. Each is an alert with a way to resolve it. Planyway draws dependencies on the roadmap. It does not detect two items that block each other, or an item blocked by work scheduled in a later sprint.
7. It names the data that would poison a forecast. Missing estimates, missing dates, unassigned work, items marked done with time still remaining, overdue items — thirteen kinds of alert in all, each from a rule. A forecast built on half-filled fields is worth nothing, so it says which fields. Planyway's Risk Agent flags items it judges at risk. Its pages do not list missing estimates, missing dates or unassigned work as rules it applies.
8. It shows you who is overloaded from the work, not from a timesheet. Per person, per sprint, against their own capacity — read from what is actually assigned to them. Across several projects, one person's shares add up and turn red past a hundred per cent. Planyway reads estimates, which is a fair start, but by the day. Project Commander reads what is assigned to the person in each sprint and compares it with that sprint's capacity for that person.
9. Auto-Level rearranges the sprints so they fit — and shows you before it touches anything. When sprints are overcommitted, Auto-Level moves work between them to fit the capacity that is actually there. It orders the work so nothing is placed before what it depends on, treats each person's own capacity as a hard limit, uses only the capacity still left in the running sprint, and offers four strategies — by priority, by size, by due date, or balanced across people — over a horizon you choose. Two tasks that block each other are flagged, not skipped. The result is a preview: every sprint before and after, the change to the forecast date, and a line explaining each move that a constraint forced. Nothing is written to Jira until you accept it. Planyway rearranges by drag and drop, and each drag writes to Jira at once. There is no automatic levelling and no preview of the whole plan before and after.
10. What-if you can feel. Sliders for velocity, estimates, scope and capacity; the date and the odds move as you drag. Planyway has no what-if.
11. Risks with a paper trail. A register of risks and dated actions, entered by people or proposed from patterns in the numbers with the arithmetic printed underneath, with owners and response strategies, and alerts when an escalation is waiting or a review is due. Planyway's Risk Agent flags risks. It keeps no register with owners, actions or escalation.
12. Every number is arithmetic. Nothing on any screen is inferred, sensed or guessed. Where AI is switched on, it explains and suggests, and never produces a figure — a guard in the code checks every quantity an answer states against the data it was given. Planyway's heat map is arithmetic. Its Risk Agent is an AI judgement of what is at risk and why; Planyway's pages do not describe a check of its statements against the data.
13. Your own AI provider, your own rules. AI in Project Commander is off until you add a key of your own, and you choose the AI provider — Anthropic, OpenAI or Google — on the Settings screen. Nothing is sent at all until someone presses one of the seven places the AI can be asked from. Planyway's Risk Agent runs on Atlassian Rovo. Your data goes to Rovo under Atlassian's terms, and you do not choose the provider behind it.
14. It runs inside your Jira, and nothing leaves. A Forge app: your project data stays in your Atlassian instance. Free during the beta. Planyway's listing does not say where its data is held. Ask before you assume either way.
Be as clear about this as about the rest.
Plenty of teams keep the roadmap and the calendar in Planyway and use Project Commander to check whether the sprints on it are actually deliverable. They are not in competition for the same job.
| Project Commander | Planyway | |
|---|---|---|
| Capacity per person, with time off and holidays | Yes | Yes — daily hours, time off blocked |
| Deliverable / Tight / Overcommitted on every sprint, with a percentage | Yes | Heat map by day per person |
| Running sprint judged on what is left against what is left | Yes | — |
| Forecast finish date | Yes, sprint by sprint, naming the bottleneck | — |
| Odds of hitting the date, and a range | Yes — two thousand runs | — |
| Says "never" when scope outruns the team | Yes | — |
| Scope creep rebuilt from history | Yes | — |
| Dependency conflicts: blocked by later work, circular loops, child after parent | Yes | Lines on the roadmap |
| Missing estimates, missing dates, unassigned, done-with-time-remaining, overdue | Yes | AI Risk Agent flags items it judges at risk |
| Who is overloaded, from assigned work | Yes, per person per sprint, and across projects | From estimates, by the day |
| Rearranging work to fit capacity | Auto-Level: per-person limits, dependency order, running sprint's remaining capacity, four strategies, preview before anything is written | Drag and drop, written to Jira at once |
| What-if | Sliders with live odds | — |
| Programs of several projects, shared people | Yes | Yes — portfolio view across boards |
| Works with sprints and without them (Kanban, date-planned) | Yes — Sprint Mode on or off, per project | Yes — roadmap and calendar by the day, no sprints needed |
| Risk register with owners, actions, escalation alerts | Yes | AI flags, no register |
| Baselines — how the forecast has moved | Yes | — |
| Roadmap, team calendar, time tracking with a timer | — | Yes — its core strength |
| AI — what it does | Explains and suggests; never produces a number | Flags at-risk items and says why |
| AI provider — whose, on whose terms | Your own: Anthropic, OpenAI or Google, your own key, off until you add one | Atlassian Rovo |
| Runs inside Jira; data stays | Yes | Not stated on the listing |
| Cost | Free during beta | Paid per user on the Marketplace |
Planyway lays the roadmap and the calendar out and colours the days that are over. Project Commander tells you whether the work in the sprints can be delivered by the date with those people — where it breaks, by how much, and what to do about it.
Planyway pages and listing, as of 5 September 2026:
Project Commander: projectcommander.app — features, documentation, and the live demo.