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Smartsheet has been a favorite in the project and portfolio management circles for almost a decade now. It bridges the gap between traditional spreadsheets and project management software capabilities, giving teams a familiar, flexible project management experience.
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With pricing changes, feature gaps, licensing limitations, and an interface that some users feel hasnโt evolved to meet their needs, teams are exploring their options.ย
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In this guide, weโll explore eight Smartsheet alternatives that offer better-suited project and portfolio management capabilities. Letโs find a Smartsheet alternative that best fits your organizationโs unique needs by comparing key strengths, real user feedback, pricing differences, and more.
Whether you a more intuitive interface, stronger governance, or a system that works with Microsoft 365, there are some powerful Smartsheet alternatives you can consider.
Best for
Teams seeking an end-to-end project, portfolio, and innovation platform.
Key Strengths
Native Microsoft 365 integration with enterprise-grade project and portfolio management.
Pricing
Demos and free trials available on request, with pricing tailored to organizational needs.
G2
4.6ย out of 5
Best for
Teams who need a flexible all-in-one work management environment.
Key Strengths
Custom workflows, document management, whiteboards, automantion, and templates.
Pricing
Free plans with paid ClickUp plans beginning from $7 per user, per month.
G2
4.7ย out of 5
Best for
Spreadsheet-style project management.
Key Strengths
Offers familiar spreadsheet-style working with strong automations and reporting.
Pricing
Paid plans begin from around $9 per user, per month.
G2
4.4ย out of 5
Best for
Simple task management.
Key Strengths
User-friendly interface, automation with enterprise scalability.
Pricing
Free plans with paid Asana plans starting from $10 per user, per month.
G2
4.4ย out of 5
Best for
Visual project management.
Key Strengths
Visual boards, powerful automations, and easy customization.
Pricing
Free plans with paid Monday.com plans starting from $9 per user, per month.
G2
4.7ย out of 5
Best for
Agency and client-facing projects.
Key Strengths
Time tracking, billing, client collaboration, and workload management.
Pricing
Teamwork offers free plans, with paid plans beginning fromย $10 per user, per month.
G2
4.4ย out of 5
Best for
Lightweight project and documentation management.
Key Strengths
Flexible workspace offering knowledge management, templates, and strong collaboration.
Pricing
Free plans, with paid Notion plans starting from $10 per user, per month.
G2
4.6 out of 5
With changes to their licensing, a comparatively steeper learning curve, and features some users feel hold them back, there are several reasons why organizations are looking elsewhere in 2026.
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Important Note: The challenges outlined below are based on real user feedback identified across Smartsheetโs G2 reviews.
Smartsheet changed its pricing model in 2025, with changes to viewing limits and paid-user requirements. Since itโs one of the higher-priced solutions on the market, users are reconsidering and looking at platforms that offer similar functionalities at a lower cost.ย
Some users like the familiarity of the spreadsheet-style interface, while others feel the need for a more visual project management environment. According to G2 reviews, some users report that the learning curve can be steeper compared to other tools.ย
As organizations grow, they need better visibility across projects, initiatives, and programmes. Although Smartsheet supports portfolio reporting, organizations are taking a closer look at platforms that offer dedicated, comprehensive portfolio management capabilities.ย
Although Smartsheet supports features like time tracking and resource management, organizations needing advanced resource allocation, capacity planning, invoicing, or seamless collaboration, often require higher-tier licensing, additional configuration, or third-party integrations.ย
Built on Microsoft 365, edison365 is a flexible enterprise project and portfolio management platform that helps organizations move from strategy to execution. It brings together innovation management, project portfolios, demand management, and strategic planning together in one place.
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edison365 extends beyond ย traditional project management by helping organizations ย prioritize investments manage ย change, and align projects with strategic goals.
Smartsheet manages projects and workflows well, but organizations looking to bridge strategic planning, demand management, portfolio prioritization, and benefit realization may benefit from a more connected approach.
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edison365 fills that gap, providing a structured framework from start to finish. Built on Microsoft, it centralizes innovation and portfolio processes, and offers end-to-end visibility across portfolios, giving you everything you need to make informed decisions. Ultimately, edison365 offers capabilities beyond traditional work management solutions.
โWhat I liked most is its holistic vision of integration of all phases of the end to end, its ease of use, configuration, number of features and the human team behind it.โ
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โ Federico C
โEase of use, intuitive functionality, professional look to portal and great service from the Edison365 team.โ
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โ Verified User
If youโve outgrown spreadsheet-based project management and youโre looking to prioritize end-to-end visibility, edison365โs the one for you.
monday.com is a cloud-based work management platform that helps teams plan, track, and manage projects through visual workflows, dashboards, and automations.
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Unlike Smartsheetโs spreadsheet-centric approach, monday.com focuses on ease of use and collaboration, making it a popular choice for teams looking to streamline work across departments.
Organizations that want the flexibility of Smartsheet without the complexity of managing spreadsheet-like workflows prefer monday.com.ย
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Praised for its intuitive interface, ease of use, automation capabilities and collaborative features, itโs designed to support easy adoption. It comes at a comparatively lower cost, too.
โmonday.com is intuitive, highly customizable, and easy to implement across different teams Its automation features save a significant amount of time, while the dashboards provide clear visibility into project progress and team workloads.โ
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โ Radu C.
โMonday.com has given us visibility throughout our shop on the status of ordersโฆ Given the amount of growth weโve seen Iโm not sure how we would have managed without the organization and process this cloud based software has given us.โ
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โ Julian W
Monday.com is an excellent choice if youโre looking for a more visual, simple and collaborative alternative to Smartsheet.
ClickUp is an all-in-one work management platform that combines project management, task tracking, documentation, goal setting, dashboards, and collaboration tools in a single workspace.ย
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Itโs designed for teams that want to consolidate multiple tools and manage work from one platform.
ClickUpโs flexibility, extensive feature set, and its ability to replace multiple tools, are the reasons why itโs popular among users. Simply put, in comparison to Smartsheetโs spreadsheet-based project management, ClickUp offers a wider range of tools, all within one platform.ย
โThe flexibility is great. Having a full canvas for creativity in how I structure things works really well for all kinds of planning and tracking.โ
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โ Ramona M R.
โWhat I like most about ClickUp is how it helps me schedule tasks, track time, and communicate with my team in one place. It saves me time and makes it easier to manage all my tasks in a better, more organized way.โ
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โ Karishma R.
If youโre looking to move beyond spreadsheet-centric workflows and consolidate project management, documentation, collaboration, and time tracking in one feature-studded platform, you should consider ClickUp.
Wrike is a work management platform designed for teams that need greater control over projects, resources, and workflows. Itโs popular with PMOs, operations teams, and enterprises managing multiple complex projects across the business.
If Smartsheetโs flexibility appeals to you but youโre keen on stronger project governance, resource management, and reporting, Wrike can be a strong alternative.
It offers many of the same capabilities while providing more structured project controls, which may make it a better fit for organizations managing larger teams, programmes, and portfolios, making it a good Smartsheet replacement.
โThe transparency. Everyone knowing whatโs happening without having to be told, thatโs the part that actually changed how we work. Iโd spend a chunk of my day just keeping people in the loop before. That time went elsewhere.โ
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โ Callum R.
โWhat I like most about Wrike is the visibility it gives me across projects, tasks, and my teamโs workloadโall in one place. The dashboards, reports, and task updates help me stay organized, follow progress more quickly, and keep team coordination running smoothly.โ
โ Dresler Z.
Consider Wrike if flexibility, enterprise-grade project management, and extensive integrations are on your checklist.
Asana is a project management platform built around simplicity, collaboration, and accountability. It helps teams organise work, track progress, and stay aligned on priorities without adding unnecessary complexity.
Smartsheetโs reliance on spreadsheet-style workflows can feel limiting for some teams. Asana takes a different approach.
Itโs widely praised for its clutter-free, user-friendly interface, which can support faster adoption with minimal training for many teams. It helps organizations manage projects, track responsibilities, collaborate, and stay aligned without needing advanced technical skills.
โThe project management and task assignments are very straightforward. Itโs been really easy to coordinate my team and keep track of which projects we currently have open.โ
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โ McCauley T.
โItโs a great project management tool to help you stay organized and to also collaborate across teams.โ
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โ Hannah R.
If you value simplicity, collaboration, and ease of adoption over feature depth, Asana is a worthy contender.
Airtable combines the familiarity of a spreadsheet with the power of a relational database. Building customized workflows, managing datasets, and creating tailored solutions is easy with Airtable.ย
Smartsheet focuses on project management, but Airtable is well suited to managing interconnected data and processes, while remaining flexible and customizable.
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Its inherent relational database structure allows businesses to connect projects, assets, resources, requests, and workflows in ways that can be more complex to replicate in traditional spreadsheet-based tools. Itโs great at adapting to a wide variety of use cases, too.
โRegardless of what your team does, Airtable is flexible where it can adjust to your needs. The addition of AI, automations, integrations, and interfaces make it an even stronger tool with consideration for the front-end users and organization of back-end data.โ
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โ Chris M.
โAirtable has become our new savior in handling the insanely complicated content priority lists, providing our marketing department with a concise and well-structured overview of the campaigns, timeline, and asset position in a single platform.โ
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โ Sabina K.
Airtable is a great choice if youโre managing complex workflows or vast, connected data, and if flexibility and customization are a priority.
As one of the longstanding solutions on the market, Microsoft Project remains a good choice for Microsoft-first PMOs managing large-scale projects.ย
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Although some users talk about a comparatively steeper learning curve when compared to newer platforms, the platform is widely recognised for its powerful planning and scheduling capabilities, making it a worthy Smartsheet competitor.
The level of scheduling and planning sophistication that Microsoft Project offers goes beyond Smartsheetโs typical offering. Its advanced resource management and forecasting capabilities make it particularly valuable for teams that need detailed project controls.
โThe connections to the rest of the MS suite, make project and outstanding option. It pins tasks to your schedule, learn from emails, and overall the best way to connect calendar to tasks.โ
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โ Javier O.
โThe ability to manage projects (primarily portfolios, resources, and costs), generate Gantt charts, assign programmers to projects, along with the native integration with other Microsoft tools is great (Power BI).โ
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โ Antonio H.
If you rely on project schedules, resource planning, and dependency management, Microsoft Project remains a strong alternative to Smartsheet.
Recommended Read: edison365 Vs Microsoft Projectย
Popular among large enterprises that need greater visibility, governance, and control, Adobe Workfront is an enterprise work management platform designed to help teams plan, manage, and deliver work at scale. It centralizes projects, resources, approvals, and reporting, standardizing how work gets done and delivered.
Smartsheet is all about flexibility in project management, while Adobe Workfront offers more structure and governance.
It standardizes processes, tracks resources, and maintains visibility across portfolios, improving consistency and oversight. Often praised for its powerful reporting capabilities and resource management features, it provides a more comprehensive work management framework.
โWhat I like best about Workfront is how it brings project planning, task management, approvals, and team collaboration into one organized platform. It helps teams see priorities clearly, track progress more easily, and reduce confusion by keeping communication and work details in one place.โ
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โ Emrah
โThe best part is definitely the visibility it provides across different workstreams. I love that I can jump into a project and immediately see the full audit trailโwho approved what and when.โ
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โ Erick J.
Adobe Workfront is a strong choice if you need greater governance, resource visibility, enterprise-level oversight, and standardized processes.
While these are some of the strongest Smartsheet alternatives, there are other Smartsheet competitors worth considering depending on your requirements, too.
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Ultimately, choosing the right alternative comes down to your organizationโs goals and level of project management maturity.ย
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The best thing you can do is take some time to thoroughly assess your requirements before making a decision. That should help you choose a platform that can support your team for years to come.
Answers to the most common questions about Smartsheet and alternative platforms.
The best alternative to Smartsheet depends on your organizationโs goals. You need to understand what youโre looking for in an alternative first.ย
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For innovation, project and portfolio management, and native Microsoft integration, edison365 is a strong choice. For visual project management, monday.com is a popular option. For organizations managing complex projects and portfolios, Wrike and Microsoft Project are often used.ย
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But if simplicity is your goal, Asana would be a strong choice. So, the right alternative to Smartsheet is the one that best aligns with your organization.
While Smartsheet is a powerful work management platform, organizations keep an eye out forย alternatives because theyโre looking for:
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โข A more intuitive, user-friendly experienceย
โข Advanced portfolio and resource managementย
โข Enhanced collaboration, team visibility, and custom features.ย
โข Innovation and idea management capabilitiesย
โข Scalability for growing teams and projectsย
edison365, Microsoft Project, and Adobe Workfront are all strong options for organizations looking to improve portfolio visibility, governance, and strategic alignment. The right choice depends entirely on your organizationโs size, maturity, goals, and requirements.
Asana, monday.com, and edison365 are known for their intuitive interfaces and ease of adoption. These platforms are designed to help teams get started quickly with minimal training.
Yes, several Smartsheet alternatives offer free plans, including ClickUp, Asana, monday.com, and Airtable. These free tiers can be a good option for individuals, startups, or small teams looking to manage basic projects and workflows without upfront costs.
Sarah is a Content Marketer at edison365. With a knack for sharp copy, engaging stories, and intriguing business content, she helps translates complex ideas into insights that resonate. When not knuckle-deep in drafts or decks, she's probably chasing her next big ideaโor a good cup of matcha.
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