Planisware vs Smartsheet comparison

Planisware and Smartsheet are both solutions in the Project Portfolio Management category. Planisware is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.1, while Smartsheet is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.7. Planisware holds a 10.2% mindshare in PPM, compared to Smartsheet’s 8.4% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Planisware users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Smartsheet users who would recommend it.

Planisware

Read 13 Planisware reviews

1,474 Views
737 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Smartsheet

Read 41 Smartsheet reviews

1,790 Views
655 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Planisware

Smartsheet

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Planisware and Smartsheet compete in the project management software space, each bringing unique strengths to the table. Smartsheet tends to be favored for its intuitive interface and flexible platform, which may give it an advantage for teams seeking accessible collaboration tools. Meanwhile, Planisware shines with its portfolio management and analytical capabilities crucial for expansive enterprise environments.

Features: Planisware offers advanced project portfolio management tools, comprehensive analytics, and strong integration capabilities guided towards extensive project oversight. Smartsheet, in contrast, provides a spreadsheet-like interface, simple yet effective collaboration features, and the adaptability to suit various workflows.

Room for Improvement: Planisware's complexity can hinder user interface experiences, and its comprehensive features demand a steep learning curve. Enhancing offline documentation could be beneficial for onboarding new users, and optimizing the user interface would significantly enhance intuitiveness. Smartsheet could improve by expanding workflow automation features, offering more advanced analytical tools, and refining integration capabilities with other project management software for enhanced functionality.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Smartsheet offers a straightforward cloud-based deployment model, encouraging rapid adoption with support from ample online resources and an accessible customer service team. Planisware, conversely, provides robust customer support but often requires considerable initial implementation efforts due to its extensive and complex feature set.

Pricing and ROI: Smartsheet offers a scalable pricing model, facilitating a quicker ROI with lower initial investments suited for businesses of all sizes due to its quick setup. Planisware might involve higher setup costs, but it delivers significant ROI for businesses needing comprehensive project and resource tracking, thanks to its detailed suite of tools aimed to maximize project efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed Planisware vs. Smartsheet Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Planisware vs. Smartsheet

March 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Planisware

Ranking in Project Portfolio Management

6th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Smartsheet

Ranking in Project Portfolio Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Project Management Software (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Project Portfolio Management category, the mindshare of Planisware is 10.2%, up from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Smartsheet is 8.4%, up from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Project Portfolio Management

Featured Reviews

John Andrew Kossey

Planisware configuration consultant at Comcast Business

Capably brings single source of truth to enterprise project portfolio management; provides consequential, flexible data display with effective visualization; integrated use of Agile, Kanban

Historically, some releases--even with extensive delays from initial announcement--had minor, yet troubling glitches. Planisware Enterprise has been addressing this shortcoming with more frequent releases that include helpful improvements. 7.0.0 release was January 2021; 7.0.1 March 2021; 7.0.2 July 2021; 7.0.3 December 2021; 7.0.4 March 2022. 7.1 became available in September 2023. Documentation has become much more thorough and clearly illustrated. Release notes for 7.0.4 has 133 pages. In my experience, small irritations I reported in E7 have been fixed in several days. SaaS provisions that Planisware provides in relation to security are superior to what smaller organizations can afford. Planisware SaaS no longer relies upon third-party providers. Faster data response time is a user benefit. Availability of Planisware software as a service (SaaS) contributes to operational stability; your team still needs to keep the configuration responsive to evolving business needs. Each customer has responsibility for continuing to grow "know why" as well as "know how." Investing in local capabilities on your customer side is vital--both for technical configuration and functional administrators. Over-dependence on the vendor can be needlessly expensive. Discussions with fellow Planisware customers conclude that commitment to achieving and sustaining product proficiency across versions is a key best practice. At-cost Planisware certification courses can provide training for a corporate customer's advanced users (those responsible for maintaining L1 level changes). One function I have requested for P6 and continuing through E7 is a comprehensive, detailed listing of attributes across modules--somewhat similar to attribute display in OPX2 versions (pre-P5). Some few attributes (e.g., Z-order) are difficult to document completely. Pull-down list of hundreds of attributes is insufficient.

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PaulDiaz

Project Manager at Amgen

Needs to improve baselines and changing dates can be frustrating

I like the dashboarding feature best, as it lets me assemble a workspace with source sheets, dashboards, and reports simultaneously. The standard reports and worksheets are most useful for team collaboration. People look at dashboards during presentations, but they go to the sheets to update projects, add comments, or make notifications. It's automated, so changes come to me or whoever needs to see them. I can send notifications from specific line items. The worksheet is key for tracking project progress, though we track it at a higher level rather than detailed work breakdown structures. Subject matter experts say when they'll deliver things, and that's what we track.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Planisware has introduced Agile concepts, making it capable of Agile management similar to Jira and other Agile tools."

"It has an inbuilt BI tool, which can be compared to Power BI or Tableau."

"There are two things in particular that I enjoy. The first is the portfolio planning section. Another advantage is that it is highly customizable."

"It stands out by automating the intricate mechanics of project execution, eliminating the need for highly technical individuals to manage and reconfigure models."

"We have a variety of different modules, but it is mainly used for costs, risks, and resources."

"Planisware offers integration with multiple tools and provides a good level of customization."

"Overall, our company has all disintegrated systems, and with Planisware, we are getting a very integrated view of my portfolio reporting, cost and load, and everything else."

"The solution is performance-oriented and easily customized accordingly to many areas, such as performance KPI."

More Planisware pros

"The most valuable feature of Smartsheet is it can be highly customized."

"The deployment is very easy. All you need to do is log in."

"Smartsheet is easy to use."

"It operates as an enhanced and versatile version of Excel, offering a wide range of capabilities that allow you to accomplish various tasks and operations."

"The ability to update in real-time before meetings is great."

"Smartsheet offers more than Project because it's similar to a table-based, database-type system. It's like a hybrid between Excel and project software. We were able to enter the formulas and do much of the automation. We added budgets to it and linked them to a vendor page. Smartsheet let us integrate the budget into the project seamlessly. With Project, we needed to open up Excel."

"Smartsheet is stable."

"The solution has subtasks and a rollup."

More Smartsheet pros

Cons

"The learning curve is steep and there could be more avenues for opening up learning materials to a broader audience, enabling individuals to gain practical experience with the tool."

"The solution's user experience and user interface need improvement because they are not that great and intuitive."

"I have experienced some issues, and that’s okay. It tends to be stable when the server's processing power and memory are adequate."

"More integration is needed with other kinds of products for better collaboration."

"The UI and UX of Planisware are not that advanced."

"The biggest con for Planisware is that if you are not a Planisware partner, you don't have access to their functions, making it difficult for beginners and new team members."

"Its stability should be improved. Its stability is the main issue, but we sometimes also have issues with calculations."

"The area that could benefit from improvement in this Planisware is the project management tool. I have previously used Project Server, which is a Microsoft solution, and I found it to be more user-friendly as it included a client solution. In contrast, with this solution, the only option available is the online version, making it difficult to create activities, milestones, and other necessary components. This is in comparison to Planisware, which offers a more comprehensive solution."

More Planisware cons

"The main challenge with Smartsheet is that when you start putting components on the Smartsheet dashboard, they don't know about each other. So, if I filter something in one widget, or if I click on a region or a project ID, the other widget or component and the visualization that's on that dashboard don't change. It doesn't know about the other component."

"I would like if Smartsheet allowed more formulas in its sheets. I don't think working with formulas is as intuitive as it is in Excel. I use Vlookups and index matches in some of my sheets, and I had to find an outside consultant to help me build out those formulas."

"Initially, there were issues like dropdowns. Those have been overcome."

"An area for improvement in Smartsheet is that if you're in the government or you're a regulated customer, you're not allowed to use APIs due to internal restrictions, so there are specific things that you cannot connect to it. Another area for improvement in the solution is that because there's a capacity of how many records you can have, and there's a capacity of how many functions you can apply, Smartsheet has set up their system where they can force people into purchasing a $20,000 additional module that is called Control Center, that will create documents for them on the fly, so they don't use so many functions and automation. Smartsheet also needs to improve on training, because the training that is out there is very little. The solution requires a steeper learning curve. You have to do your own training and you have to work on your own solution."

"Smartsheet could improve by having seamless integration with Azure Board."

"Every feature for text mining, even process mining, would be a plus. We have about two hundred contract management events daily. First, I share specific documents. I talk about the search function because we assume it has a thorough search when we read the catalog. But when you test it, you realize it doesn't search within attachments. So, it's a great search function, but you need the brand folder. It has many options and can become complex."

"The product must include more modules for project management."

"It already has a really powerful Export to Excel feature, but it can have an Excel add-on. The way to set up single sign-on wasn't too easy in the beginning, and it was hard to get hold of customer service. They should make it easier to set up SSO. Smartsheet's customer service also definitely needs to be improved."

More Smartsheet cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution could be less expensive and the cost of scaling is expensive too."

"There are training and certification costs."

"The solution is expensive and support is an extra cost. There are three license types to choose from, and we only pay for support and cloud services depending on our needs."

"It comes with a high cost."

"If I'm not mistaken, it was pretty manageable. It was about 200 bucks a seed. The business really felt a strong need for it. So, it was viewed as a safer and more straightforward cost that we were willing to pay as compared to Domo, which took some convincing."

"For a normal license, like the one I had: I had my own Smartsheet because I wanted to play with it and I didn't want to mess with what I was doing in Verizon, so I paid $200 monthly, and it gave me all the same functionalities, so I could do whatever I wanted for $200. The problem is if you have anyone else working on it or deploying on it, it's $200 a month for every single person who's deployed on it, that's working on it as an owner or an administrator, so owners and administrators are the only ones who can change, edit, and add data to worksheets and columns. Depending on the size of your organization, Smartsheet can be costly. As for implementing its Control Center, Smartsheet forces you to have three people come in: it's a minimum of three people from Smartsheet for three months who will provide you the solutions for the Control Center side, and that's $150 an hour, so it can become very expensive. For my company, not having the Control Center would save on the setup fees and then the $20,000 a year, because the Control Center of Smartsheet is a yearly subscription of $20,000."

"It is less expensive than Microsoft Project for enterprise or Oracle Primavera by an order of magnitude. If you buy a Microsoft Project license, it's probably $300 or so by itself, whereas Smartsheet is probably less than $50 per head."

"Smartsheet can be low-priced, with personal subscriptions around eight dollars a month, but I imagine it gets pricier for enterprise systems. Microsoft Project can be more expensive."

"The solution is expensive."

"The solution is too expensive."

"Smartsheet has many licensing models. You need to add the package that best suits your requirements. The license is paid per user and it is monthly. The cost was approximately $7 per PC, $15 for professional, and $33 for the enterprise plan."

"There would be more extensive usage if the solution were cheaper. It's really expensive right now, and that's why we provide a few licenses for admins. The rest of them are just users without admin privileges."

More Smartsheet pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

18%

Energy/Utilities Company

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Educational Organization

43%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Planisware?

I don't have any specific details, however, it might be expensive.

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What needs improvement with Planisware?

I haven't had the time to work with any other TPM tools, so I can't compare it to other tools just yet.

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What is your primary use case for Planisware?

We actually use it for project planning and estimating the cost for the projects, in resource management, and as a timecard application. Users can log their time using the timesheet.

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Has anyone moved from Microsoft Project to Smartsheet? How has your experience been with Smartsheet?

Hi @Eire Zimmermann, I helped an organization evaluate both MS-Project and Smartsheet when they were conducting their PM tool RFP. The short of it is this, MS Project is not caught up with the mo...

See all answers

What do you like most about Smartsheet?

The tool creates shareable dashboards. These dashboards allow us to display project deliverables' status, their position in the queue, expected delivery timelines, and more. The best part is that t...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Smartsheet?

The pricing is great and reasonable enough that I maintained my copy and bought it for my team independently.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

Planview PPM Pro vs Planisware

Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Project vs Smartsheet

Compared 7% of the time

Rally Software vs Smartsheet

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Planisware

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Smartsheet

March 2025

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Overview

Resource and cost scheduling, time tracking, risk and document management in a collaborative environment. Software solution that supports the end-to-end governance of company portfolios, from finance and resource planning, to the life cycle management of products.

Planisware

Smartsheet is a dynamic platform with features like real-time data sharing, Gantt charts, and integration with Jira and Microsoft Teams, offering valuable tools for efficient task management.

Smartsheet combines Excel-like functionality with cloud accessibility, making it efficient for tracking, reporting, and workflow management. Users benefit from its scalability and robust security, making it ideal for enterprise-level projects. However, improvements in data visibility, real-time collaboration, and user-friendliness can enhance its utility. Customizable dashboards, project management features, and seamless integrations offer great flexibility, though there is a demand for better automation, API enhancements, and new templates.

What are Smartsheet's most important features?

Real-time Data Sharing: Facilitates seamless collaboration between users.
Project Management Tools: Includes Gantt charts and task prioritization for efficient project tracking.
Integration: Works with major platforms like Jira and Microsoft Teams for comprehensive data flow.
Automation Capabilities: Reduces manual work with robust automation functionalities.
Customizable Dashboards: Allows users to tailor dashboards to meet specific needs.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?

Efficiency: Streamlines workflows with tools that enhance project tracking and collaboration.
Scalability: Supports growing enterprise demands with its scalable architecture.
Security: Provides robust, secure environments for data management.
Adaptability: Offers flexibility to customize workflows for improved resource management.

Smartsheet is utilized by organizations in industries like engineering, education, and IT for project management, task tracking, and data integration. It enables planning, scheduling, and team collaboration, facilitating dashboard creation and automation of processes. Its flexibility in customizing workflows is appealing to those managing projects and programs.

Smartsheet

Sample Customers

Apotex, Alstom Transport, HP, Stryker, Rexam, Jotun, Gelita, Kraton Performance Polymers, Abbvie, Rio Tinto Alcan, Maruho, Teva, SK Chemicals

Sony Music, ESPN, Hilton, Unisource, Colliers, Extreme Networks, Groupon, Netflix

Buyer's Guide

Planisware vs. Smartsheet

March 2025

Free Report: Planisware vs. Smartsheet

Find out what your peers are saying about Planisware vs. Smartsheet and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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