Microsoft Project vs. Smartsheet

Microsoft Project

Smartsheet

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Microsoft Project	Score 8.0 out of 10	N/A	Microsoft Project is a project management software. It provides core PM functionality, including agile workflow support and resource management. Project can be deployed in the cloud or on-premise.	$0
Smartsheet	Score 8.4 out of 10	N/A	Smartsheet is an online project management and collaboration tool. It includes automated alerts, instantaneous updating and sharing across team members, resource management, nested tasks organized in a hierarchy, a Gantt chart view, exportable and automated reports, and integration with email.	$12 per month per user (up to 10 users)

Pricing

Microsoft Project

Smartsheet

Editions & Modules

Project Server: $0
Planner Plan 1: $10
per month per user
Planner and Project Plan 3: $30
per month per user
Planner and Project Plan 5: $55
per month per user
Project Standard 2024: $679.99
one-time fee per installation
Project Professional 2024: $1,129.99
one-time fee per installation

Pro: $12
per month per user (up to 10 users)
Business: $24
per month per user (3 user minimum)
Enterprise: Contact Sales
Advanced Work Management: Contact Sales

Offerings

Pricing Offerings
Microsoft Project	Smartsheet
Free Trial
Yes	Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

Entry-level Setup Fee

No setup fee

Additional Details

Plans are billed annually.

A discount is offered for annual billing.

More Pricing Information

Community Pulse
	Microsoft Project	Smartsheet
Considered Both Products	Microsoft Project EG Edgar Garcia GCM Project manager Chose Microsoft Project Jira and Miro are very visual, they provide us a very friendly interface (specially Miro), and in the case of Jira, it give us very customizable workflows that suit team needs. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Project Our company already has our client and tracking database in microsoft 365 so it was the logical step to stay with microsoft although it is a bit lacking compared to other offerings. If our team was on the go one of these other products might work better. We needed something … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Project Honestly, I am not really using those platforms, but I am familiar with them. Thing is, I know that Microsoft platforms is game changer for everyone not just the Microsoft Project, that's why I chose this platform because I have been using it for a longer time even when I still … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Project Microsoft Project provided more robust, collaborative solution to Turnkey Project Management. With Excel like sheets for Project Task Schedules are used for contractors and users it was well accepted i.e good UI UX. Integration capability of Microsoft Project Online with Power … Incentivized Helpful? Aybuke Aynur Business Development Architect Chose Microsoft Project I do not use any other software Incentivized Helpful? Suvit Ahuja Project Manager - Digital Chose Microsoft Project Dependency tracking and automated task management helped its raking above other competitors in the usage. Microsoft support and updates are also reliable. Security is also good for this tool. UI is also good and task management is very effective. Integrations are also easy. Incentivized Helpful? Javier Silva SR MGR MFG & SC IT Chose Microsoft Project Microsoft Project will continue to be my tool of choice for high stakes high complexity projects with over 100 tasks and many requirements to control costs and delivery but the assumption is that a dedicated PM is needed to keep the file updated and manage communication with … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Project Better suited for everyone in the team due to an existing partnership with Microsoft for access to other software suite provided by them. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Project As our IT is based on Microsft Office 365, we have privileged access to MS Project licences, resources, training and support, so we didn't use any other PM software. Incentivized Helpful? Quratulain Habib, PMP Partner / Director / Head of Projects Chose Microsoft Project Initially, I tried using Smartsheet and then Wrike, all for Gantt Chart availability and task management. They don't come close to the flexibility or depth of features that Microsoft Project provides. Wrike does have better collaboration amongst team members and provides an … Incentivized Helpful? JJ Jiho Joung Director, IT and Operations Chose Microsoft Project Mostly I chose Microsoft Project due to the usage we're using for our clients. The primary reason for using Microsoft Project is because it's working well with our legacy in-house applications/solutions for our project management. We have many users who have multiple different … Incentivized Helpful? AS Alfredo Sanchez It Director Chose Microsoft Project Because is a powerful tool that include everything that you need to manage your projects also are on-line on cloud. On app very easy to use the other vendor offer minimal support and upgrades for the tool MS project is always improvement, new features a lots of information … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Project Microsoft Project was the most expensive project management software that we utilized aside from the costs associated with developing and in-house service. Microsoft Project provide a wealth of features for managing a large scale project like planning all of the tasks … Incentivized Helpful? Darrell Dunavan Project Manager / Document Control Chose Microsoft Project We picked Microsoft Project instead of Proofhub due to us already using Office 365. Microsoft Project was the cheaper of the two options and seemed to fit our needs better than Proofhub. It seemed to be easier to use on the front end since some of our less technology-savvy … Incentivized Helpful? Russell Voigt, PE Project Manager Chose Microsoft Project Microsoft Project is a reasonable price and provides all of the functions we need, and even more. The fancier tools will be more expensive but not necessarily be more effective, so sticking with the industry standard seems to be the reasonable choice. Incentivized Helpful? Fernanda Ministerio Especialista de Desenvolvimento Industrial Chose Microsoft Project I can't remember because it was many years ago. But Microsoft Project was very affordable and had a much larger set of features. Also the stability of its technology, as well as the number of existing users, the abundant documentation and the possibility of having well-defined … Incentivized Helpful? Matthew Smith Estimator and Project Manager Chose Microsoft Project ProjectLibre is a free or open source version of MS Project. It’s supported by a community of programmers that maintain its versions. It’s definitely not MS Project but definitely gives you a good idea what to expect from MS Project. I would recommend trying it first to see if … Incentivized Helpful? Kristen Silvan Project Manager & Chief Estimator Chose Microsoft Project Procore allows Microsoft Project schedules to be uploaded into it. It is not an easy feature to use. The uploading is a piece of cake, but changing anything after that is challenging and never seems to track correctly for me. Maybe I need more practice but it is not a feature I … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Project Microsoft Project had the strongest integrations and Gantt chart qualities. As a team that uses Outlook, Skype, DevOps and the Office Suite, it became clear that Project suited our needs best. Additionally, testing found that the user interface and security features pleased … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Project Microsoft Project seems more intuitive and user friendly than Agiliti. It helps with organization and planning. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Project Project is comprehensive and many project professionals are familiar with it, however the other tools are more business user friendly. Little training needed, Airtable and Trello are more intuitive so anyone can make updates and understand progress. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Project Microsoft Project needs to do better job on the flexibility and user interface of the software. The colors used by Monday.com and shortcuts they have provided are much smoother. However, Microsoft project is more compatible with other Microsoft products like excel which gives … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Microsoft Project Microsoft Project is similar in its setup, but as with other Microsoft products there are many features buried in the tabs. You have to know what you are looking for. Incentivized Helpful? Christian Oquendo Personal Trainer Chose Microsoft Project Microsoft Project is an excellent tool for most businesses to help visualize company progress. This software compares to many others out there, however it doesn't offer anything extra or "different". Since it is Microsoft brand, I will say it runs extremely smooth and you know … Incentivized Helpful? Henry Winchonlong Jefe de sistemas de información Chose Microsoft Project Microsoft Project has all the functionalities of the others and Microsoft Project responds to all our needs to control the projects. Additionally, Microsoft Project is part of our licensing of Microsoft products. This advantage is the main key to adopt Microsoft Project against … Incentivized Helpful?	Smartsheet DR Dustin Roberts Marketing Associate Chose Smartsheet I use both. Excel for more data/spreadsheet focused tasks and Smartsheet for our event planning and project management. Smartsheet allows for collaboration, has project management features like task tracking and the Gantt chart, and even has some handy automation features … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet I tried Miro for a while and it just didn't have the features Smartsheet does. If I'm going to pay for a "supercharged Excel," I expect to really do a ton more than Excel! Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet It allows team collaboration. Project monitoring is very easy. Dashboards are very good for the project reporting. Incentivized Helpful? TK Tomasz Kowalski Senior Program Manager Chose Smartsheet Asana and monday.com are typical project management tools where resources can be tracked based on the tasks, etc. Smartsheet does exactly the same but additionally allows people outside of PM to automate their data collaboration with other employees. The solutions that … Incentivized Helpful? Syed Ghufran Hassan Project associate Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet is user friendly with easy to use templates as compared to Microsoft project. Other thing is collaboration which cannot be achieved in Microsoft project. Smartsheet has different types of pricing for different types of users but Microsoft project only offers … Incentivized Helpful? Ehud Lehavi Quality Assurance Analyst Chose Smartsheet Jira is better on user interface and task tracking. However the dashboard isn't as versatile as on Smartsheet. That being said, it takes maintenance to keep the Smartsheet dashboard updated regularly (not automated). Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet Definitely a lot more intuitive and a lot less clunky and confusing. When I have to introduce Smartsheet to other team members who have experience with MS project they are overwhelmed with how easy it is and feel a lot more engaged when developing their own workbooks Incentivized Helpful? Angelo Liriano Cepeda Business Developer & Key Account Manager Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet enable users to build the more custom solutions that can include workflows, reports, dashboards, sheet data, reminders, etc. It allows to create the most complete reports and have available thousand of already built solutions on the Solution Center. Also, has the … Incentivized Helpful? Abigail Selebe Freelance Consultant Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet is a dedicated project management tool that is built on spread sheet principles. When compared to Microsoft's own offering, Smartsheet came out on top in some areas like dedicated project management features vs having to build custom features to Microsoft 365. … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet Jira and Redmine are much more robust and technologically advanced project management solutions. I enjoy using either when managing a very large project. However, I prefer to use Smartsheet for my smaller to medium sized projects. As for Google Drive - I would say that Google … Incentivized Helpful? David Chamberlain Executive Creative Director Chose Smartsheet It has been my favorite alternative; I can control Smartsheet from my mobile device since, as a manager, it allows me to visualize the files made through it, with the convenience of any time and space. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet Price and ease of collaboration was the deciding factor and since we made this decision quite awhile ago, Microsoft Project's collaboration features were not there yet, making Smartsheet the clear winner. Many of our Project Manager were comfortable working with Microsoft … Incentivized Helpful? Duane Thompson Product Development Lead Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet makes it simple to plan and budget on projects, streamline business workflows and improve overall customer service. The pricing plans are affordable and businesses that implement Smartsheet enjoy tremendous long-term value. Employee work performance is boosted and … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet I believe Smartsheet is much easier to use than Asana. There is a better way to collaborate with colleagues and track your progress on projects. There is a better structure on how to set up your system. It has better filters to see what you have accomplished vs what is open and … Incentivized Helpful? Brad Estes Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President Chose Smartsheet Functionality is far superior and very easy to use. Incentivized Helpful? GM Gloria Musuli Human Resources Assistant Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet is an exceptionally robust and ,offer unique hybrid solution to manage projects and automate workflows that is based on accurate data. It offers better time-saving functions that speeds up delivery of projects on schedule and using the allocated resources. Incentivized Helpful? Ben Pincus Sales Executive Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet has been a positive success; it has been easy to use and quite intuitive. It allowed us to foster collaboration between colleagues. Incentivized Helpful? EC Emily Caplin Senior Project Manager Chose Smartsheet Works more efficiently than MPP as updates can happen in real time in the cloud and be collaborated on with other team members. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet Before utilizing Smartsheet we utilized a combination of Quip and an in-house developed task management tool. Even though we did not utilize Smartsheet for all of our project management needs it did provide a useful structure for planning a schedule for routine tasks and … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet Other software's are more geared towards the construction process while Smartsheet is more geared to generic Project Management, no specific to the construction industry. We are using Smartsheet to communicate with our client and not to manage construction so from that … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet I prefer the more traditional usability of Smartsheet. It's like Microsoft Project or Excel, but far easier for my organization to access. We don't currently have it set up as our resource manager or integrate it with our timesheets (our problem, not Smartsheet), and I think … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet is much easier to collaborate on than Microsoft or Primavera in terms of scheduling software, but lacks the customizability of its competitors. You can also much easier link projects together when master scheduling which is a huge advantage compared to Microsoft … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet We use Basecamp for our day-to-day in-house operations, but need a more "rigid" structure (spreadsheet) for managing projects with clients. Everything is in one place in Smartsheet and clients are able to find and use it easily. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Smartsheet All the products seemed to perform the project and task management function adequately. The following factors were the keys to our selection: Ease of use - so similar to Excel everyone can figure it out. Flexible architecture lends itself to many different use cases beyond … Incentivized Helpful? Michael Rastall, MBA IT Project Manager Chose Smartsheet Smartsheet is a must to companies that are in need of automating key business processes that will save them time and eliminate productivity killers. This software enables teams identify bottlenecks early on tasks and projects that are due so that they are able plan on a course … Incentivized Helpful?

Features

Microsoft Project

Smartsheet

Project Management

Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
	Microsoft Project 9.1 Ratings 17% above category average	Smartsheet 9.0 Ratings 16% above category average
Task Management	10.00 Ratings	10.00 Ratings
Resource Management	10.00 Ratings	9.00 Ratings
Gantt Charts	10.00 Ratings	9.00 Ratings
Scheduling	10.00 Ratings	10.00 Ratings
Workflow Automation	10.00 Ratings	8.10 Ratings
Team Collaboration	8.00 Ratings	10.00 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology	6.00 Ratings	7.00 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology	10.00 Ratings	8.90 Ratings
Document Management	9.00 Ratings	8.90 Ratings
Email integration	5.00 Ratings	9.90 Ratings
Mobile Access	10.00 Ratings	8.00 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking	10.00 Ratings	10.00 Ratings
Change request and Case Management	10.00 Ratings	9.00 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management	10.00 Ratings	9.00 Ratings

Professional Services Automation

Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
	Microsoft Project 10.0 Ratings 28% above category average	Smartsheet 9.1 Ratings 19% above category average
Quotes/estimates	10.00 Ratings	8.80 Ratings
Invoicing	10.00 Ratings	9.80 Ratings
Project & financial reporting	10.00 Ratings	8.90 Ratings
Integration with accounting software	10.00 Ratings	8.90 Ratings

Best Alternatives
	Microsoft Project	Smartsheet
Small Businesses	Stackby Score 9.0 out of 10	Stackby Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies	InEight Score 8.3 out of 10	InEight Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises	InEight Score 8.3 out of 10	InEight Score 8.3 out of 10
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	Microsoft Project	Smartsheet
Likelihood to Recommend	9.6 (0 ratings)	10.0 (0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	10.0 (0 ratings)	10.0 (0 ratings)
Usability	10.0 (0 ratings)	9.0 (0 ratings)
Performance	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (0 ratings)
Support Rating	8.2 (0 ratings)	8.1 (0 ratings)
Online Training	- (0 ratings)	7.0 (0 ratings)
Implementation Rating	5.0 (0 ratings)	10.0 (0 ratings)

User Testimonials
	Microsoft Project	Smartsheet
Likelihood to Recommend	Microsoft Project is the perfect platform for medium and large companies. I do not recommend this software for small businesses, because all its functions in the work plans are high cost and this would cause the small business to not perform well in the use of MS Project in the long term. It is very easy to use software, it allows adding, modifying and eliminating all kinds of assignments and tasks for all employees, it allows monitoring the progress of all projects in real time and it also shows the gaps in the planned project. It has a very good performance, it does not take up many computer resources and all the information is stored in sync with the Office 365 service. It occasionally has crashing problems, but this is something that does not affect users as much. Incentivized Sasha Brito Marketing Director Read full review	The Smartsheet platform is extremely similar to Microsoft Excel, so if you are familiar with Excel, you will pick Smartsheet up quickly. Even if you aren't Smartsheet has a relatively simple user interface, meaning just about anyone can learn it. One thing to note is that the interface is that some may consider the interface so simple that they feel the need to look for more robust platforms. If you have a small to medium project that needs to be manages in a central hub, Smartsheet would be a great fit. If you have a very large project, I might consider looking into more advanced platforms. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Pros	It is part of Office365 subscription. The look and feel is similar to other tools like excel. Helps in creating project plans, Gantt charts, work break down structures etc. Helps in resource allocation and tracking the projects. There is an option to use it to capture timesheets too. Helps project managers in producing weekly status reports and integrates well with other collaboration tools like Skype, sharepoint etc. Incentivized Shiva Krishna Oracle Cloud Procure to Pay Consultant Read full review	The easy to use dashboard has enabled us get comprehensive view of projects across the entire business. It has streamlined internal communication with ease of sharing information across different teams. Smartsheet automates our workflows, enhances collaboration and ensures there are no data silos. I like that it saves time for us and ensures we spend less time switching between apps. Incentivized GM Gloria Musuli Human Resources Assistant Read full review
Cons	Remote work can be challenging - as Project must be downloaded to a specific computer. Upgrading to the top of the line version can feel like a requirement. There is a lot of functionality that is not available unless in the most expensive pay-tiers. Microsoft Project can be extremely expensive on a per user basis. Other tools can be much more cost-effective - especially for more basic project management needs. Incentivized Joshua Melder Process Optimization Analyst Read full review	Smartsheet set up is similar to Excel, yet when you upload an Excel file, things like conditional formatting are lost. Smartsheet has its own conditional formatting, and you have to reinstate the rules. It would be great if those would apply automatically once a file is uploaded Some Smartsheet management and access rules can take some tweaking to work properly. This may be a case of offering more info to admins so they can apply these better and with more efficiency Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Likelihood to Renew	I like using Microsoft Project. It simplifies building a schedule Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Smartsheet has made my work life easier. Reduced my email *significantly*. Smartsheet and SaneBox have got me leaving the office with 0... Yes 0 emails in my inbox. My inbox would reach 150-250 email per day. Smartsheet brought that number down significantly and SaneBox took it the rest of the way. Do yourself a favor and check out SaneBox, too. Kris Walsh Senior Marketing Manager Read full review
Usability	Microsoft Project is easy to operate because data could be inserted, changed and deleted like you are in an Excel timesheet. Besides, it provides a great level of automation beween his fields allowing few data changes. Also, its funcionalities are well defined and grouped in upper menus, so you can find a funcionality quickly Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Smartsheet is very easy to learn. However, while I have been able to pick it easily, Microsoft Excel and Project super users that I have trained on Smartsheet get bogged down in the differences and can find it frustrating. Explaining the differences ahead of time and why Smartsheet is being chosen instead of a different software seems to counteract those reactions Incentivized Meghan M. Prentiss Program Assistant, Epidemiology Planning and Communications Division Read full review
Support Rating	I’m giving MS Project an 8 because in general this is a solid scheduling program. It’s definitely designed with the professional in mind, and they have done well preparing the program to integrate with their other Microsoft products. The program is a workhorse so if you have serious scheduling needs then I would highly recommend MS Project. Incentivized Matthew Smith Estimator and Project Manager Read full review	They're a smaller company but they've always given great service when we rarely need to reach out. Pretty good online content but a bigger user base would help to produce more content in a self-sufficient community much as we see with Salesforce. To be fair we haven't needed their direct customer support very often. The sales guys are nice and not too pushy! Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Implementation Rating	I wasn't part of it so I don't know Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Work with the Smartsheet support team to get the best overall. If no one in your organization has used Smartsheet before, the support team will get things started. We had a couple of people who had used this product before and it was a great help in getting our framework together how we wanted to use it. Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Alternatives Considered	Microsoft Project provided more robust, collaborative solution to Turnkey Project Management. With Excel like sheets for Project Task Schedules are used for contractors and users it was well accepted i.e good UI UX. Integration capability of Microsoft Project Online with Power App and Power Automate + Share point made collaboration most useful. Security features of Microsoft Project is managed by Azure Active Directory Settings. Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Smartsheet is a dedicated project management tool that is built on spread sheet principles. When compared to Microsoft's own offering, Smartsheet came out on top in some areas like dedicated project management features vs having to build custom features to Microsoft 365. However when you compare them on price, Microsoft 365 definitely has more value than Smartsheet. Incentivized Abigail Selebe Freelance Consultant Read full review
Return on Investment	Since it is reasonable priced and flexible and fits into our Microsoft products, it meets our objectives It has prevented expensive scope creep, this has saved us money and had solid ROI Project does require light training cost to use it effectively Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Our positive ROI has decreased the overall cost in project management as it reduced the amount of MS project licenses we needed. We have also seen a positive ROI on using the cloud storage and it automatically supports proper version control. Incentivized JB Jesse Bickel Sr. Project Manager Read full review
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