10 Best Smartsheet Competitors And Alternatives: Reviewed In 2025
10 Best Alternatives To Smartsheet
I’ll take an in-depth look at the following Smartsheet alternatives in this review:
Get free help from our project management software advisors to find your match.
If Smartsheet isn't working out for you as a project management tool, there are plenty of Smartsheet alternatives out there to help you track project progress, assign work, and deliver project successfully.
Here are my picks for the best Smartsheet alternatives available, which I've chosen based on independent testing, evaluation, and my experience as a project manager. Find the right fit for your project and team needs below!
What Are Smartsheet Alternatives?
Smartsheet alternatives are project management and collaboration software solutions. They offer functionality similar to Smartsheet but differ in the features, user interface, and pricing plans that they offer, and can help with task management, project tracking, and team communication.
Within Smartsheet alternatives you'll find customization options to fit specific team needs, unique features for different project types, and, often, more cost-effective solutions. They'll also improve collaboration, scalability, and integration with your other business tools.
Why Trust Our Software Reviews
We’ve been testing and reviewing project management software since 2012. As digital project managers, we know how critical and difficult it is to make the right decision when selecting software.
We invest in deep research to help our audience make better software purchasing decisions. We’ve tested more than 2,000 tools for different project management use cases and written over 1,000 comprehensive software reviews. Learn how we stay transparent & our software review methodology.
Best Smartsheet Competitors And Alternatives Summary
Use this table to compare the specs on my picks for Smartsheet alternatives.
| Tool | Best For | Trial Info | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Best Smartsheet alternative for a cheaper cost | 14-day free trial + free plan available | From $8/user/month (billed annually) | Website | |
| 2 | Best Smartsheet alternative for teams for a free plan | Freemium version available | From $10/user/month (min of 2 seats) | Website | |
| 3 | Best for efficient project management through visual task tracking | Free demo | Pricing upon request | Website | |
| 4 | Best Smartsheet Alternative for business plan management with strategy experts | Free demo available | From $70/user/month | Website | |
| 5 | Best Smartsheet alternative for agencies | Free trial available | From $9/user/month (billed annually) | Website | |
| 6 | Best for detailed time tracking | 30-day free trial | From $6/user/month | Website | |
| 7 | Best for detailed and integrated budget and expanse tracking | Not available | Pricing upon request | Website | |
| 8 | Best client & stakeholder portals with shared project views | 14-day free trial | From $19/user/month | Website | |
| 9 | Organize your communication by topic, project, or even specific data point | 30-day free trial | From $24/user/month | Website | |
| 10 | Best Smartsheet alternative for collaboration with unlimited viewer-only accounts | Free plan available | From $9/user/month | Website |
-
Monitask
Visit WebsiteThis is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.4.4 -
monday.com
Visit WebsiteThis is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.4.6 -
Smartsheet
Visit WebsiteThis is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.4.4
Best Smartsheet Competitor Overviews
Here are my reviews of each Smartsheet alternative. I’ve covered advantages and disadvantages, free trial information, and cost, as well as provided my expert opinion.
Why monday.com is a great Smartsheet alternative
monday.com is the task management solution you need to make your agile team’s work a bit less burdensome. The interface is nothing like Smartsheet; it’s easy to use for anyone and requires minimal training. This makes it ideal if you’re considering switching and don’t have too much time to get used to a new platform. And it all comes at a considerably lower cost than Smartsheet, complete with a free plan if you want to give the tool an extended test run.
Why Wrike is a great Smartsheet alternative
Smartsheet doesn’t come with a free subscription option. Wrike not only has a free plan available, but also provides more-than-decent features within it, such as unlimited user numbers, task and subtask management, desktop and mobile app availability, and even a spreadsheet view so you won’t miss what you get from Smartsheet.
Parallax
Best for efficient project management through visual task tracking
Why Parallax is a great Smartsheet alternative
Parallax is a project management tool that's been making waves as a solid alternative to Smartsheet. It's a SaaS product that's designed to help teams manage their tasks, projects, and workflows more efficiently. It's got a clean, intuitive interface that's easy to navigate, and it's packed with features that make project management a whole lot easier. With its task management system, it's easy to create, assign, and track tasks, and you can even set up automated workflows to streamline your processes. This is a game-changer for teams that are juggling multiple projects at once, as it helps to keep everything organized and on track.
Best Smartsheet Alternative for business plan management with strategy experts
Why AchieveIt is a great Smartsheet alternative
AchieveIt is a good Smartsheet alternative for several reasons. AchieveIt is specifically designed to help businesses manage strategic initiatives and goals, while Smartsheet is a more general project management tool. This means that AchieveIt offers a more focused set of features and functionalities for managing strategic planning and execution. They collect and visualize multiple business plans across your organization and then deliver the data visualizations that matter most to your inbox every morning. AchieveIt also offers strategy consultations with certified experts on planning and reporting goals, which makes it stand out from virtually every other item on this list.
Why Bonsai is a great Smartsheet alternative
Bonsai is a strong alternative to Smartsheet for agencies looking for similar project management features while also taking advantage of a more holistic approach to business management. While both platforms offer task management and facilitate team collaboration, Bonsai goes a step further by integrating invoicing and billing directly within the platform. This feature allows users to enhance their financial workflows, from time tracking to sending invoices and receiving payments, without the need for additional software.
Why actiTIME is a great Smartsheet alternative
I like its focus on detailed time tracking and reporting. The platform allows you to log time spent on tasks, set estimates, and compare actual hours to planned ones. This level of detail helps in understanding where time is being spent and identifying areas for improvement. Additionally, actiTIME offers customizable reports that can be grouped by various parameters, such as project or team member, providing insights into productivity and resource allocation.
Why Kantata is a great Smartsheet alternative
While both Smartsheet and Kantata target fairly large companies, the latter also bring the financial management features to the mix: sending invoices, tracking expenses, and creating dedicated reports for accounts receivable. Plus, Kantata has the integrated time tracking options you’ll miss with Smartsheet to seamlessly handle work, budgets, and time allocation.
Best client & stakeholder portals with shared project views
Why Rocketlane is a great Smartsheet alternative
Running customer-projects on Smartsheet? Work can get overwhelming navigating through sheets just to stay in the know and deliver projects with the right visibility for leaders and your customers. Rocketlane is purpose-built to run customer-facing projects. It uniquely combines project management, document collaboration, and communication to help teams hit their project goals, accelerate time-to-value, and deliver a 5-star customer experience. Rocketlane additionally offers private and shared views for project plans and documents as well as a customer portal for stakeholder and client views. You can also codify your best practices with project and document templates to create them once and reuse them forever across projects.
Kintone
Organize your communication by topic, project, or even specific data point
Why Kintone is a great Smartsheet alternative
Kintone is an all-in-one project management platform that allows managers to track, prioritize, and review their team’s tasks for any given project workflow—no matter how complex. What sets Kintone apart from Smartsheet? You can organize your communication by topic, project, or even specific data point. It's got a simple and intuitive user interface. It offers a flexible structure for all your data. Customer support is included in all plans with a dedicated support rep. You can also secure your data with SSO, SAML, IP address restriction with no additional cost.
Visor
Best Smartsheet alternative for collaboration with unlimited viewer-only accounts
Why Visor is a great Smartsheet alternative
Visor is a great Smartsheet alternative if you want to go all-in on easy, unlimited, real-time collaboration. First of all, Visor offers unlimited viewer-only accounts (for free) so you can bring in any contractors or external stakeholders without paying for an extra seat. Secondly, Visor is ridiculously intuitive and easy to get up and running. This removes the 'training barrier' of adding new members to your plan, be they in the Owner, Editor, Commenter, and/or Viewer Roles. With Visor, you can get everyone on the same page and collaborating without much fuss.
About Smartsheet
Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-like project management tool. It has won a few awards on its way to becoming a favorite business app. It’s a nice option if you’re comfortable working in Excel but want a break from complicated formulas. Smartsheet performs all the calculations for you across multiple sheets. You can also add customized brand logos and set color themes for individual projects.
Additionally, it has useful project management features such as workflow automation and task visualization via Gantt, calendar and card views. Team members get instantly notified of critical changes, and the tool provides shared views, detail history, activity logs, automated alerts, reminders, and status reports to keep everyone aligned and informed.
The critical path feature also highlights all the tasks which directly impact your project completion date so you can keep an eye on important milestones. Smartsheet offers strong reporting features as well, such as editable summary reports that you can easily export to Excel.
Smartsheet integrations include Microsoft (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Excel) and Google apps, as well as development essentials like Jira, and useful business apps like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Box, and Tableau. The platform is extensible through a REST API and webhooks.
This tool costs from $7/user/month, with a minimum of 3 users and a maximum of 25 users. They also offer a 30-day free trial.
Why Might You Need A Smartsheet Alternative?
Your team’s not enjoying the interface
Members who are used to collaborating via spreadsheets and database-like tools won’t have an issue with Smartsheet’s design, but others might find the UI clunky. For a more enjoyable experience, look for customizable and colorful project management tools that meet today’s standards for what software should look and feel like.
You need to invoice clients
Smartsheet has a budgeting option so you can track time, budgets, and expenses using their 10,000ft panel but there’s still no way to send invoices directly from the app. 10,000ft is also sold separately from Smartsheet as a premium add-on product.
You’re finding it too expensive
Smartsheet is indeed one of the more expensive project management solutions on the market. This is in part due to its extensive project management features and enterprise-level target market. However, you can find similar functionalities at a much lower cost.
Smartsheet Alternatives Selection Criteria
When selecting the best Smartsheet alternatives to include in this list, I considered common buyer needs and pain points related to project management software, like the need for more advanced automation features and better scalability for large teams. I used the following framework:
Core Functionality (25% of total score)
To be considered for inclusion in this list, each solution had to fulfill these common use cases:
- Task and project tracking
- Collaboration and file sharing
- Workflow automation
- Reporting and analytics
- Resource management
Additional Standout Features (25% of total score)
To help further narrow down the competition, I also looked for unique features, such as:
- AI-powered project insights
- Native time tracking
- Advanced budgeting tools
- Seamless third-party integrations
- Customizable automation workflows
Usability (10% of total score)
To get a sense of the usability of each system, I considered the following:
- Intuitive user interface
- Minimal learning curve
- Responsive and modern design
- Customizable dashboards
- Mobile accessibility
Onboarding (10% of total score)
To evaluate the onboarding experience for each platform, I considered whether each tool has the following available:
- Training videos
- Pre-built templates for quick setup
- Interactive product tours
- Dedicated onboarding support
- Access to live or recorded webinars
Customer Support (10% of total score)
To assess each software provider’s customer support services, I considered whether each tool offered the following:
- 24/7 availability
- Multiple support channels
- Quick response time to inquiries
- High quality help documentation
- Availability of dedicated account managers
Value For Money (10% of total score)
To evaluate the value for money of each platform, I considered whether the tool offered the following:
- Transparent pricing structure
- Free plan or trial availability
- Scalability of pricing tiers
- Essential features in lower-tier plans
- ROI potential for businesses of different sizes
Customer Reviews (10% of total score)
To get a sense of overall customer satisfaction, I considered whether customer reviews highlighted the following:
- Ease of use feedback
- Quality of customer support
- Reliability and uptime reports
- Feature satisfaction
- Overall recommendation rate
Key Features For A Viable Smartsheet Alternative
Time tracking
Basic time tracking options are available through their 10,000ft integration, which costs extra, so you might prefer a tool with native time tracking capabilities that include timesheets and time reporting.
Task and workflow management
In spite of Smartsheet looking like just another database, the tool does come with advanced task management and view options like a Gantt chart and Kanban board. In an alternative, consider solutions that let you add subtasks, task priorities, and dependencies to handle complex projects without overcrowding a spreadsheet.
A friendlier interface
Talk to your team to see what kind of UI they would prefer to replace the traditional spreadsheet-style appearance. You’ll want advanced features like custom fields, a design any user can personalize, and a variety of add-ons to make use of on top of your team’s workspace.
Custom reporting
Smartsheet boasts a strong real-time report builder feature. For teams working with lots of data or needing to provide proof of their work to clients, you’ll want an alternative that nails reporting too.
What's Next?
Here are more alternatives and competitors lists for other software you might be interested in.