Just Plan It vs frepple

These two answer different questions about the same problem. Just Plan It takes the jobs from a whiteboard or spreadsheet, schedules them against machine and staff capacity, and lets a planner drag changes onto a board, but it only runs as a cloud service and shows no price. frepple has an open source core you can host yourself, with paid Cloud and Enterprise plans whose amounts our pages did not show. Choose by who will do the work: a planner at a screen, or someone technical who will model the plant.

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Both are reviewed in full in our production planning ranking: Just Plan It and frepple.

1. 01

   Whiteboard replacement or planning model

   Just Plan It imports jobs and their operations, schedules them automatically against finite machine and staff capacity, and shows what a new order does to the other jobs on the planning board. frepple names demand forecasting, inventory planning and finite capacity production planning as functions, a wider scope. Our data says Just Plan It does no material planning, so material-constrained plants get less from it than from frepple. A small shop starts faster with Just Plan It.

   Edge: frepple

2. 02

   Dragging a job when a machine breaks

   The Just Plan It page says you can change anything by drag and drop and the system recalculates, with shop-floor status and completed quantities pulled back in to update the schedule. For a planner reacting to a breakdown, that is the whole point of the product. Our data places frepple's interactive Gantt chart among the paid, closed-source features, so the free edition gives you no such board. That board favours a planner without modelling skills.

   Edge: Just Plan It

3. 03

   Running it on your own hardware

   Just Plan It runs only as a cloud service, the page rules out any on-premise installation, and it sits on Microsoft Azure. frepple is offered as a Frepple-hosted cloud or, on the Enterprise plan, self-hosted on your own hardware, and the homepage says it rests on an open source core. If keeping the planning model inside your own building matters, only frepple gives you that choice at all. Self-hosting also settles who holds the data.

   Edge: frepple

4. 04

   What the planning will cost you

   Just Plan It says payment is monthly or annual based on the package and features, shows no amounts, and our data adds a one-time onboarding fee. frepple's pricing page shows a placeholder where each amount should be, a yearly toggle labelled Save 15 percent, and paid services: a proof of concept at EUR 2,000 to 5,000 and a project at EUR 5,000 to 25,000. Sizing either one means talking to someone first. Expect to need a call before knowing the total.

   Depends on the buyer

5. 05

   Ways in for Excel and ERP data

   Just Plan It lists Excel import and export plus an API that the page says can connect to virtually any SQL-based ERP system, which suits a shop whose orders live in a spreadsheet today. frepple lists an Odoo integration offering, and our data mentions a REST API. A shop on Odoo has a ready path with frepple, while a shop on another SQL-based ERP has the clearer promise from Just Plan It. Check how your orders reach the tool today.

   Depends on the buyer

6. 06

   Where each one runs out of room

   Our category data says Just Plan It strains above roughly fifty resources and does no multi-site modelling. frepple's plans are tiered on fewer than 20,000 item by location pairs, and the Cloud plan is capped at 6 scenarios while Enterprise lists unlimited scenarios. Our data also warns that few consultants outside the vendor know frepple well. Growth favours frepple, and support depth is a risk there. Test your own resource count during a trial, not just the demo data.

   Edge: frepple

Does Just Plan It have a free trial?

The page shows a Free trial button in the header, but it does not state the length, the limits or whether a card is needed. It also offers a demo request and a 30-minute walkthrough.

Can I run frepple without paying anything?

The homepage offers a free open-source option built on an open source core. The licence name does not appear anywhere we looked, and our data says the interactive Gantt and changeover optimisation sit in the paid editions.

Which of the two is cloud only?

Just Plan It, which states there is no on-premise installation and that it is hosted on Microsoft Azure. frepple can be Frepple-hosted or self-hosted on your own hardware under the Enterprise plan.

• Just Plan It homepage: cloud-only on Azure, drag-and-drop rescheduling, Excel and SQL-based ERP connections, package-based payment without amounts, trial button.
• Boyum IT Solutions about page: Just Plan It listed among the company's product names.
• frepple pricing page: Enterprise, Cloud and Cloud PLUS tiers, scenario limits, item-location tiering, 15 percent yearly saving, proof of concept and project fee ranges.
• frepple homepage: open source core and the free open-source option.