One of the last Microsoft products I used and actually endorsed in the 1990s was Microsoft Project. As a bona fide industrial engineer, I found Project to be pretty sensible and useful. It didn’t have graphics back then and stuck to its mission pretty well. I never was aware of any alternatives and, because I didn’t feel Microsoft was unnaturally suppressing its competitors, I endorsed it on its merits.
I was surprised, however, that a competitor didn’t arise, especially in the free software world. Many times I contemplated writing it myself; my interest was on projects that do not terminate such as found in a jobbing machine shop. Alas my need was not great enough and I pursued other things.
I just recently came across ProjectLibre which is described as "the open source replacement of Microsoft Project". I haven’t used it yet, but after anticipating it for 20 years I’m excited to see it finally here. I would definitely endorse trying this out if you need to plan a project or make a Gantt chart. Good luck to the ProjectLibre team!