Comparison

Mural vs Microsoft Planner

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Mural

This app provides a digital whiteboard for real-time and asynchronous team collaboration. It allows users to brainstorm, ideate, and align on projects from anywhere, fostering business-driving outcomes. Capture inspiration and share it with your team on the go.

Highlights
  • Real-time and asynchronous collaboration
  • Digital whiteboard for ideation
  • Freehand drawing and concept mapping
  • Sticky notes, shapes, and text boxes
  • Icon library for visual thinking
  • Voting sessions and reactions
  • Export murals as PDF, image, or zip
Read full description

Mural is a collaborative intelligence company powering effective ideation, innovation, alignment, and team building at 95% of the Fortune 100. Work together in real-time or asynchronously with a digital whiteboard and collaboration features designed to inspire better collaboration that leads to business-driving outcomes. The Mural app for iPhone and iPad keeps you connected to your team and enables you to capture and share inspiration on the go. Innovative teams at IBM, Intuit, Microsoft, GitLab, Steelcase, Thoughtworks, and Atlassian use Mural to collaborate from anywhere. Use the Mural iPhone and iPad apps to: * Bring your best ideas to life, wherever you work best * Invite your team to a collaboration session no matter where they are * Review content and provide feedback to keep work moving forward * Spark creative thinking with freehand drawing * Map concepts and ideas with your Apple Pencil Mural meets security standards for enterprise organizations with mobile device management and secure sign in supported by our Microsoft Intune Mobile Application Management integration. With the Mural app for mobile devices, you can: * Create a new mural * Add content in sticky notes, shapes, and text boxes with a variety of formatting options at your fingertips * Draw ideas and sketch notes with a number of colors and line sizes * Invite collaborators to your murals and easily change link permissions * Add, edit, delete, and mention other collaborators in comments * Enhance your visual thinking with a library of icons * Participate in a voting session * Share excitement and visual feedback with reactions * Export a mural as a PDF, image, or zip file * Add images from your photo library, take in the moment photos, or upload files * Send a mural to a touchscreen display for hybrid collaboration sessions * Organize content and ideas with frameworks * Change mural settings * Digitize physical sticky notes with Mural Scan or Post-it® App integration * Easily present with outline and presentation mode To use the Mural app, an account and sign-in is required. Learn more at www.mural.co.

About

Microsoft Planner

Organize teamwork visually with a simple, interactive board. Assign tasks, track progress, and collaborate with your team through integrated conversations and file sharing. Stay updated on all your tasks across different plans and devices.

Highlights
  • Visual task boards
  • Task assignment and tracking
  • Team collaboration and chat
  • File sharing
  • Cross-device synchronization
  • My Tasks view
Read full description

Microsoft Planner requires an eligible Office 365 work or school subscription. This app does not support Office 365 personal accounts (for example: name@outlook.com or name@hotmail.com). If you are not sure about your company’s subscription or the services you have access to, please contact your IT department. Planner provides a simple, visual way to organize teamwork. Planner makes it easy for your team to create new plans, organize and assign tasks, share files, chat about what you’re working on, and get updates on progress. -- Organize work visually -- Each plan has its own board, where you can organize tasks into buckets. You can categorize tasks based on their status or on whom they’re assigned to. To update the status or change assignments, just drag and drop tasks between columns. -- Visibility -- The My Tasks view provides a comprehensive list of all your tasks and their status across all your plans. When working together on a plan, team members always know who is working on what. -- Collaborate -- Built for Office 365, Planner lets you work together on the same tasks, attach captured photos directly to them, and even have conversations around tasks without switching between apps. With Planner, all your team’s discussions and deliverables stay with the plan and don’t get locked away across disparate applications. -- Works across devices -- Planner works across all your devices. And with Planner, everyone is always on the same page. Continue conversations and updates tasks while on-the-go or at your desk. Terms of service: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=846830 Privacy policy: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=521839 To learn more, please visit https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=849067 The Microsoft Planner app will request permission to access your photos and your camera: When you try to attach a photo to a Planner task, the app requests permission to access your Photos app in order to select images. If you choose to take a photo to attach to a Planner task, the app will request permission to access your Camera app.

Screenshots

Mural4 screens
Microsoft Planner4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Microsoft Planner at 4.6 against Mural's 2.4. Microsoft Planner also leads on monetization model (free vs freemium) and ratings volume (13K vs 68). Mural's advantage is iOS requirement (15.5 vs 17.0). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Microsoft Planner holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 2.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Microsoft Planner has 13K ratings behind it against 68, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 16% of Mural's written reviews are positive against 29% of Microsoft Planner's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Mural ships an update every 5 weeks, Microsoft Planner every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 7, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Mural versus Microsoft Planner: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMuralMicrosoft Planner
PriceFreeFree
Rating2.4 (68 ratings)4.6 (13K ratings) — better
Positive reviews16.2% of reviews29.1% of reviews — better
Number of ratings6813K — better
Update frequencyEvery 5 weeks — betterEvery 6 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreemiumFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.5 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size30 MB158 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTactivos Inc.Microsoft Corporation

Customer experience

Mural

All ratings68 ratings
Positive26.5%
Neutral10.3%
Negative63.2%
Written reviews210 reviews
Positive16.2%
Neutral9.0%
Negative74.8%

Microsoft Planner

All ratings13,168 ratings
Positive90.9%
Neutral4.1%
Negative4.9%
Written reviews447 reviews
Positive29.1%
Neutral17.7%
Negative53.2%

User reviews

Mural

From 68 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Intuitive and user-friendly interface
  • 🎨 Great collaborative whiteboarding tool
  • ✏️ Apple Pencil support for drawing
  • 📱 Mobile app allows work on-the-go
  • 🔄 Real-time collaboration features

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and freezes
  • ⚠️ App doesn't load or opens to blank screen
  • 🔌 Forced app redirect from browser on mobile
  • ❌ Missing key desktop features on mobile
  • 📉 Poor performance on iPad

Microsoft Planner

From 13K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Great for team collaboration
  • 👍 Easy to use and intuitive
  • 🚀 Helpful for personal organization
  • 👍 Good integration with Microsoft 365 suite

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Buggy and unstable
  • 🔒 Limited to work/school accounts only
  • 🔒 Lack of customization options
  • 🐛 Slow performance and sync issues
  • 🔒 Missing key features like calendar view

Bugs and requests

Mural

Reported bugs

25 issues
  • App crashes on launch or when opening boards
  • White/blank screen on startup
  • Stuck on logo screen indefinitely
  • Login failures and authentication errors
  • Microsoft authentication process hangs
Show 20 more
  • App won't open on iPad Pro
  • Forced logout during editing
  • Sticky notes disappear after creation
  • Text input hidden by UI elements
  • Pencil drawing lag and delayed rendering
  • Board resizing during pencil use
  • Images appear blurry or pixelated on mobile
  • Fonts not rendering correctly
  • Paste function not working in text fields
  • Objects snap unexpectedly to grid
  • Shapes change color inexplicably
  • Connector handles not functioning
  • Zoom and pan gestures not responsive
  • App freezes when scrolling dense boards
  • Connection timeouts and reconnection loops
  • Content not loading on boards
  • Synchronization issues between devices
  • Automatic zoom on sticky edit causes frustration
  • Camera permission dialog creates unescapable state
  • Placeholder text not clearing on input

Requested features

20 requests
  • Google and Apple login options
  • Full desktop feature parity on mobile
  • Proper keyboard and trackpad support
  • Folder visibility and management on iOS
  • Search functionality for murals
Show 15 more
  • Outline feature on mobile
  • Object linking and grouping
  • Landscape mode support
  • Better Apple Pencil pressure sensitivity
  • Undo/redo functionality
  • Multi-object selection
  • Template access on mobile
  • Activity log viewing
  • Improved pen tool options (thickness, color, style)
  • Browser access without app redirect
  • Language localization options
  • Full-screen mode without UI buttons
  • Copy/paste functionality improvements
  • Image import from device
  • Subscription management in app

Microsoft Planner

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Freezing on login screen
  • Inability to create or edit plans
  • Tasks disappearing or not syncing properly
  • Compatibility issues on older devices
  • Comments not saving or editable

Requested features

5 requests
  • Recurring tasks and calendar integration
  • Ability to copy/move tasks between plans
  • More flexible labeling and filtering options
  • Offline mode and export/import functionality
  • Deeper integration with Outlook and Teams

In-app purchases

None

Mural

No in-app purchases

None

Microsoft Planner

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Mural free?
Mural is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Microsoft Planner free?
Microsoft Planner is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Mural or Microsoft Planner?
Microsoft Planner is rated higher. Mural averages 2.4 out of 5 from 68 ratings, while Microsoft Planner averages 4.6 from 13K ratings.
Do Mural or Microsoft Planner have ads?
Neither Mural nor Microsoft Planner shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Mural or Microsoft Planner?
Mural ships an update every 5 weeks, and Microsoft Planner every 6 weeks. Most recently, Mural was updated on October 7, 2026 and Microsoft Planner on October 15, 2026.

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