8 Best Smartsheet Alternatives

Smartsheet's strength is calculated tracking at volume. Its weakness is that a spreadsheet is not a great place for people to collaborate around work, and its licensing is hard to predict.

Quick answer: The key question before switching is how much of your Smartsheet use depends on formulas. If the answer is "a lot", most alternatives will be a step down and you should think carefully. If the answer is "hardly any", nearly everything on this list is an improvement on collaboration.

Why Teams Leave Smartsheet

Three reasons, and the first two point in opposite directions.

Licensing that is hard to predict

Smartsheet distinguishes between licensed users and collaborators, and working out what a real team costs requires more effort than it should.

Teams frequently find the bill grows in ways they did not model. That is a pricing-structure problem, and the fix is a tool with simpler per-member pricing.

The spreadsheet model does not suit everyone

Smartsheet suits people who already think in rows and columns. For teams that think in tasks, boards and stages, it feels like doing project management inside Excel.

Adoption suffers, and a tool half the team avoids produces incomplete data.

Collaboration around the work is thin

A row holds data well and discussion poorly. Conversations about work end up in email or chat, and the context separates from the record.

This is structural rather than a missing feature, and it is the most common underlying complaint.

The 8 Alternatives Compared

Tool Best for Formulas Dependencies Free plan Taskzin Dependencies and views, simple pricing Custom fields only Yes, critical path Up to 10 members Airtable Relational data and internal tools Good No scheduling logic Yes, record-limited Monday.com Friendlier grid, visual teams Limited Yes Limited ClickUp

ClickUp — most capability per pound

pound Limited Yes Yes Wrike Resource allocation across projects Limited Yes Limited Microsoft Project Contractual and formal schedules Limited Full, with levelling No

Asana Adoption and clarity No Yes Yes Google Sheets Teams that over-bought Extensive No Free

Verify current pricing and licensing for all of these before deciding.

The Alternatives in Detail

What each replaces well, and what you lose.

Taskzin — dependencies and views, simpler pricing

Six views over one dataset including Table for people who want a grid, dependencies with critical path recalculation, board WIP limits, and dashboards on Business. Flat per member with no seat tiers and unlimited free guests.

The trade: no formula engine. If calculated columns are central to your tracking, this is the wrong direction.

Airtable — if the data is relational

Where your sheets are really related entities held apart by lookup formulas, Airtable models that properly with linked records.

The trade: no dependency scheduling at all, and per-plan record limits that catch teams out.

Monday.com — if you want the grid to be friendlier

Keeps a table-like structure while being considerably more approachable and visual.

The trade: formulas are limited, and seat structure has historically meant paying in blocks.

ClickUp — most capability per pound Broad feature set including docs, time tracking and dashboards at aggressive pricing.

The trade: needs someone to own configuration, and its formula capability does not approach Smartsheet's.

Wrike — if resourcing is the real need

If the reason you built complex sheets was to work out who has capacity, Wrike solves that properly.

The trade: heavier implementation, and no meaningful formula capability.

Microsoft Project — if the schedule is contractual

Where your Smartsheet use is really formal scheduling submitted to a client or regulator, Project goes deeper — levelling, baselines, earned value.

The trade: assumes a trained scheduler, and collaboration is secondary.

Asana — if adoption failed

If the honest problem is that only two people ever updated the sheets, Asana is the most likely to be used by everyone.

The trade: no formulas, and less suited to large structured datasets.

Google Sheets — if you over-bought

Some teams pay for Smartsheet and use it as a shared spreadsheet with a Gantt view they rarely open.

If that is you, Sheets plus a lightweight project tool may cover it for less. Worth checking honestly before another procurement.

Matching the Alternative to Your Reason

Your dependence on formulas is the fork in the road.

If you need formulas, be careful

Audit what actually depends on calculation — cost roll-ups, weighted scoring, derived dates, variance reporting.

If that is a meaningful share of your usage, only Airtable and a spreadsheet come close, and neither does scheduling. Splitting into two tools may be better than a single weaker replacement.

If you need scheduling, most of these work

Taskzin, Monday.com, ClickUp, Wrike, Asana and Project all handle dependencies. Only Project does resource levelling.

Check whether you need levelling or just sequencing — most teams need sequencing and buy for levelling.

If you need collaboration, nearly all improve on it

Comments on the work, real notifications, ownership that means something, and discussion attached to the item.

This is where almost every alternative beats Smartsheet, because a row was never designed to hold a conversation.

Before You Switch

Three checks that prevent an expensive mistake.

Identify what depends on formulas

Go through your sheets and list every calculated column, cross-sheet reference and conditional formula that someone actually relies on.

That list is your constraint. If it is long, your replacement needs to accommodate it or you need to keep a spreadsheet alongside.

Export and inspect

Export while your account is active and open the files. Check that comments, attachments and the data you care about are actually present.

Most alternatives import via CSV rather than a direct connector, so expect field mapping work.

Keep the analysis in a spreadsheet

The most common good outcome: coordination moves to a project tool, calculation stays in a spreadsheet fed by export.

Where the new tool exports fully to CSV on any plan — Taskzin does — the analysis workflow continues unchanged while the day-to-day work gets a better home.