Smartsheet Review + 5 Great Alternatives

Is Smartsheet the right tool for you?

We’ll help you determine that in this in-depth review and buyer’s guide.

We’ll give you a comprehensive Smartsheet review to help you decide if it suits your project needs or not. We’ll also give you five great Smartsheet alternatives in case it doesn’t meet your requirements.

The Article Contains:

(Click on the links to jump to a particular section)

• A Smartsheet Review Containing:
• What Is Smartsheet?
• Smartsheet Features
• Smartsheet’s Drawbacks
• 5 Great Smartsheet Alternatives (including features, pros and cons, pricing and customer reviews)
• ClickUp
• Asana
• Trello
• Wrike
• Workzone

Let’s begin with our Smartsheet review.

What Is Smartsheet?

Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-based project management software that helps you manage, track and plan projects in real-time. It offers you tons of features such as project reporting and tracking timelines to help you stay on top of your project developments.

Here are a few Smartsheet features that facilitate effective project management:

Key Smartsheet Features

1. Organization and Collaboration

Smartsheet helps your team collaborate effortlessly with its advanced organizational capabilities. As all your files, notes and tasks are stored in one centralized location, Smartsheet users will find it easy to keep up with project developments.

Smartsheet users can easily access this information and collaborate with other assignees to get their work done in no time. Smartsheet also allows assignees to share PDFs, presentations and images to make collaboration easier.

2. Reporting

The Smartsheet software comes with powerful Smartsheet forms and reports to monitor project developments. Every report gives you a snapshot of your current status and how things are progressing.

As every report condenses tons of data into understandable bite-sized chunks, you won’t have to conduct too many project update meetings. You can see which tasks are due soon, what tasks are unassigned and where you’re falling behind.

3. Powerful Automation

Smartsheet can automate work processes to minimize project hiccups. For example, you can set up automated reminders to trigger whenever you complete a project stage. This will automatically inform your team that they have to work on the next stage of a project.

Not only does this save you tons of time, it also guards against employee oversight. As the tool automatically starts the process, there’s less scope of human error!

4. Security

Smartsheet users won’t have to worry about their data’s security. The tool employs state-of-the-art data protection to always keep your work private. With features like single sign-on and two-factor authentication, you’ll have everything you need to prevent security breaches.

Smartsheet even lets you customize the access rights of collaborators to ensure that only the right people access the right sections of your workplace.

5. Integration

Smartsheet has tons of integrations to boost your work management capabilities. Whether its an integration for a file-sharing app or social networking app, Smartsheet can support it. It can also integrate with cloud-based services like Google Docs and Google Drive to boost your productivity.

If that wasn’t enough, you can add your own integration to the Smartsheet software using its Open API.

Drawbacks Of Smartsheet

While the Smartsheet software is a capable project management solution, it’s far from perfect. Here are a few major drawbacks you’ll face if you have a Smartsheet account:

1. Not User-Friendly

The problem with Smartsheet’s spreadsheet-based interface is that it’s incredibly confusing to work with. As all your data is charted out on these detail-heavy sheets, taking stock of things can be difficult.

There’s no easy way to skim through data instantly to identify any changes or updates. You’re forced to carefully go through rows and columns to identify what’s going on.

Come on, do you really want to wrap your head around this?

Or would you rather work with an alternative like ClickUp — with this view?

2. Cannot Streamline Work Processes

As Smartsheet doesn’t come with a dedicated activity stream like other project management tools, you’ll find it hard to keep up with project updates and deliverables. There’s no way to instantly identify if someone has made a comment or needs your help.

As everything is spreadsheet-based, you’ll have to be persistent and rely on conditional formatting to get anything done!

3. Limited Calendar View

While Smartsheet’s calendar view adds some scheduling functionality, it’s too limited. It can only display a certain number of tasks/events at a particular time. This forces you to open multiple tabs to get a big-picture view of your upcoming schedule.

4. Smartsheet Pricing

While Smartsheet comes with a 30-day free trial with no credit card required, the Smartsheet pricing options aren’t very attractive.

Smartsheet pricing plans start with a basic individual plan at $14/month while their basic business plan starts at $25/month per user. The Smartsheet cost also goes up when you opt for advanced versions of these plans.

This makes the Smartsheet pricing structure costly for both individuals and larger organizations. There are way better tools for free!

5 Great Smartsheet Alternatives

Here are five powerful Smartsheet alternatives that have all the features you need to fulfill your project management requirements:

1. ClickUp

ClickUp is the world’s leading project management software. Used by giants like Google, Airbnb, and Nike, it’s one of the highest-rated tools on the market today.

With ClickUp’s productivity and collaboration features, you’ll have everything you need to manage your projects effectively:

(click on the links for a more detailed look at each one)

Collaboration Detection — to help your team work together in real time.

Docs — to create a detailed knowledge base for your organization.

Reports — for a detailed look at how your company and team is doing.

Native Time Tracking — to monitor your employee’s work and boost their productivity.

Dependencies — to help your team attempt tasks in the right order.

Priorities — to help your team recognize which tasks are more important.

Powerful iOS and Android mobile app — to help you stay productive on mobile devices when you’re on the move.

Here’s a closer look at some of the features that make ClickUp the perfect Smartsheet alternative:

A) Multiple Views

Your project management tool needs to adapt to your team’s preferences — not the other way around.

Different divisions in your company may prefer different kinds of tools. For example, your software development team may want an Agile interface, while your marketing team may want a checklist-based tool.

With ClickUp, you won’t have to use different tools for different divisions.

It adapts to your needs to give you multiple views to keep your teams satisfied. Here’s a closer look at these views:

1) Required Task Views

ClickUp gives you two required task views to handle two common project management approaches:

1. Board

This is the perfect view for fans of the Kanban approach. It’s drag and drop interface is perfect for moving things around with ease and coping with the needs of Agile development.

2. List

This is a great view for employees who like viewing their projects and tasks in a GTD-style to-do list. If you want to work with a checklist, this is the view for you.

2) Box View

ClickUp’s box view was built for project managers.

It gives them a high-level overview of what’s going on in their organization. As tasks are sorted by assignee, managers can keep track of everyone’s tasks and assignments easily.

Unlike Smartsheet — which forces you to dig deep to find out what’s going on, ClickUp gives you all the information you need in seconds!

3) Calendar View

ClickUp’s Calendar View blows Smartsheet out of the water. It’s incredibly useful for planning, scheduling and managing your resources in seconds.

For added customizability, the software lets you customize how you view your calendar. You can toggle between:

• Days: This shows you all the scheduled tasks on a given date.
• 4-Days: View all the tasks scheduled over a rolling four day period.
• Week: View your weekly schedule and move tasks around as needed.
• Monthly: To take a birds-eye view of your company and it’s monthly activities.

This way, no matter what your planning requirements are, ClickUp can handle it. You’re not forced to compromise and settle for a confusing calendar spread out over multiple tabs!

4) Me Mode

ClickUp’s Me Mode is the perfect way to stay focused on your assigned tasks and deliverables. This view only shows you folders and lists assigned to you. With it, you won’t be distracted by other people’s tasks and projects ever again!

You can also choose to view tasks where you have:

• Assigned comments
• Assigned subtasks
• Assigned checklist items

B) Assigned Comments

Are people forgetting to take action on comments?

Don’t worry.

ClickUp’s assigned comments are the perfect way to instantly notify a team member of something important. It lets you convert a comment into a task and instantly assign it to someone (or even yourself).

ClickUp notifies them of this and they can even mark the task as resolved when they’re finished.

C) Gantt Charts

Tracking your project’s progress in Smartsheet isn’t easy.

However, in ClickUp, it’s a piece of cake.

ClickUp comes with in-built Gantt Charts for powerful visual overviews of your project’s progress. All it takes is a quick glance at your Gantt Chart to determine if your project is on track or not. In case it isn’t, you can quickly make scheduling changes to get things back in shape.

ClickUp’s Gantt Charts can also automate tons of processes:

• The Gantt chart can automatically readjust task dependencies when you make scheduling changes.
• The Gantt chart can calculate your project’s progress percentage based on completed tasks/total tasks.
• The Gantt chart can compare your current progress vs. your expected progress.
• The Gantt chart can calculate your critical path to determine the most important tasks for a project’s completion.

D) Custom Permissions

Most work management apps only allow internal team members into your project spaces for security reasons.

If only team members have access, you’re limiting your chances of a data security breach, right?

But what if you want to include external collaborators in your planning session?

What do you then?

Do you risk your privacy or leave them out?

With ClickUp, you won’t have to choose.

ClickUp gives you customizable access rights to include clients and freelancers in your projects. You can customize their level of access — such as only giving them view access or allowing them to edit projects as well.

To protect your company’s privacy, collaborators only have access to the project you’ve added them to — they won’t be able to access anything else on your tool.

E) Statuses

Most project management apps give you a standard set of statuses for your projects.

However, is it really possible for your content projects to have the same statuses as your web development projects?

That’s why ClickUp gives you a fully customizable statuses for all your projects.

You get to customize each project’s status to accurately reflect the stage it’s in. You’re no longer limited to “Open,” “In Progress” and “Closed” statuses — you can get as detailed as you want!

With these detailed statuses, your team will have no difficulty identifying what stage a project is in and carrying on with their work.

F) Inbox and Profiles

Wish you could keep track of everything assigned to you in one, simple space?

ClickUp’s inbox is your go-to place to track your tasks, reminders, and notifications. It consolidates your past, current and future work into one easily accessible tab. As everything assigned to you is stored here, you won’t be confused about your duties.

So the next time someone asks you if you know what to do, glance at your Inbox and say:

With ClickUp’s profiles, managers can keep track of what their team has on their plate. They can view:

• The tasks they’ve finished.
• The tasks they’re working on.
• The tasks they’re scheduled to work on.

Managers can even reschedule their team member’s tasks and deliverables from their profiles. It’s a super-easy way for them to manage their team’s workload and stay in the loop.

ClickUp Pros

• Multiple views with saveable layouts.
• Custom statuses.
• Can collaborate with team members in real time.
• Can create detailed knowledge bases with ClickUp Docs.
• Powerful progress tracking features.
• Custom access rights.
• Can create a work template for quicker processes.
• Native time tracking.
• Powerful integrations.
• Fully-functional apps for iOS and Android.
• Feature-rich free version.
• Can automate tons of processes.
• Good customer support.
• Attractive pricing.

ClickUp Cons

• No native language translations.
• Relatively new in the market
• We can’t think of anything else. But feel free to sign up for the free version and tell us what you don’t like! We like nothing better than feedback!

Pricing

ClickUp has three pricing options.

• Free — Unlimited projects and members + 100Mb of cloud storage space.
• Unlimited ($5/month per user) — Unlimited projects and members + unlimited number of integrations + advanced reporting.
• Business ($19/month per user) — Unlimited projects and members + two-factor authentication + Google single sign-on.

Customer Ratings

G2Crowd — 4.7/5 (850+ reviews)

Capterra — 4.5/5 (1300+ reviews)

2. Asana

Asana is a popular project management solution that’s used extensively today. With a friendly user-interface and tons of integrations, Asana is one of the best Smartsheet alternatives.

Key Features

• Simple, intuitive UI.
• Powerful visual project overviews.
• Tons of integrations with file sharing and social networking apps.
• Built-in time tracking.

Pros

• Drag and drop functionality.
• Can collaborate with team members in real time.
• The platform has good dependency management.

Cons

• Cannot assign comments.
• No customizable statuses.
• Limited free version.
• Cannot add multiple assignees to a task.

Pricing

The Asana platform has four options to choose from

• A basic free variant.
• A Premium variant ($9.99/month per user) for smaller teams.
• A Business variant (1$19.99/month per user) for loads of features.
• An Enterprise variant (price on request).

Customer Ratings

G2Crowd — 4.3/5 (3500+ reviews)

Capterra — 4.5/5 (7000+ reviews)

3. Trello

Trello is a popular Kanban-based project management tool. Its simplistic drag-and-drop interface has impressed fans for years. Here’s a closer look at why this cloud-based application is a great Smartsheet alternative:

Key Features

• Convenient drag-and-drop interface.
• Can create highly customizable “cards” for projects.
• Tons of power-ups for added functionality.
• Simple collaboration structure.

Pros

• Powerful mobile apps for iOS and Android.
• Good collaboration features.
• Simple learning curve.

Cons

• Cannot manage complex project management.
• No reporting capabilities.
• Only one type of view — board.
• Cannot add multiple assignees to a project.

Pricing

The Trello platform has three options.

• A Free version for small teams.
• A Business variant ($9.99/month per user) for large teams.
• An Enterprise variant ($20.30/month per user) for larger teams.

Customer Ratings

G2Crowd — 4.4/5 (3600+ reviews)

Capterra — 4.5/5 (9000+ reviews)

4. Wrike

Wrike is another powerful project management software. Its enterprise-level features have made it a popular choice among project managers worldwide. Here’s why it’s a good Smartsheet alternative:

Key Features

• Enterprise-level project management capabilities.
• Powerful analytics to report on projects.
• Real-time data collaboration.
• Unique three-pane dashboards.

Pros

• In-built time tracking.
• Tons of integrations with file sharing and social networking apps.
• Good customer support.

Cons

• The user interface is complicated with a steep learning curve.
• Mobile apps lack the functionality of the desktop version.
• Cannot assign comments to team members.

Pricing

Wrike has three variants to choose from.

• Free — for teams of up to five members.
• Professional variant ($9.80/month per user) — for organizations up to 15 members.
• Business variant ($24.80/month per user) — for organizations up to 200 members with advanced features.

Wrike also offers you a limited free trial for their Professional variant with no credit card required.

Customer Ratings

G2Crowd — 4.1/5 (600+ reviews)

Capterra — 4/5 (1300+ reviews)

5. Workzone

Workzone is a popular project management tool that’s been around since 2000. Its simple project management capabilities make it a good Smartsheet alternative.

Key Features

• Simple work management capabilities.
• User-friendly UI.
• Good collaboration features.
• Powerful reporting.

Pros

• Simple learning curve for new users.
• Software with tons of customizability.
• Good customer support.

Cons

• Mobile apps for iOS and Android need work.
• Limited project views.
• Cannot assign comments.
• This app has no free version.

Price

Workzone has three different account types:

• Team Account ($24/month per user): For 100GB of cloud storage for uploads.
• Professional Account ($34/month per user): For 150GB of cloud storage for uploads + additional features.
• Enterprise Account ($44/month per user): For 200GB of cloud storage + single-sign-on and API Access.

Workzone offers you a 14-day free trial with no credit card needed.

Customer Ratings

G2Crowd — 4.4/5 (25+ reviews)

Capterra — 4/5 (40+ reviews)

Conclusion

Smartsheet certainly ticks off some boxes, but it isn’t an all-in-one project management solution for your company. With it’s confusing spreadsheet format and costly Smartsheet pricing plan, it definitely isn’t the best tool available today.

No brainer — ClickUp is a far better option for your company. With ClickUp’s features, you’ll have no trouble staying productive and meeting your deadlines.

So why not sign up for the free version today and experience it yourself?In the meantime, check out these handy tips and tricks to boost your productivity immediately.