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Notion vs Smartsheet comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

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

Notion
Ranking in Project Management Software
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Knowledge Management Software (4th), Document Automation Software (3rd)
Smartsheet
Ranking in Project Management Software
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Project Portfolio Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Project Management Software category, the mindshare of Notion is 2.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Smartsheet is 4.6%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Project Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

Iván Fanego - PeerSpot reviewer
Creates customizable systems and improve team collaboration
Notion is a very flexible and customizable platform, allowing users to create whatever they need. The most impactful feature for project management is the ability to invite multiple client stakeholders without complication. Once I understand the basics, it's easy to use despite an initial learning curve. It also significantly improves team collaboration through customized views and visualizations of data.
PaulDiaz - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ability to create and organize notes, plans, and technical content in a single platform is the product's most valuable feature."
"The initial setup is easy."
"It is easy to use, and I love its UI."
"The product has a valuable feature for databases. It has a table and a calendar view and saves various documents in the system."
"Notion has a lot of integrations."
"Notion is heavily used in my workflow."
"Notion is a very flexible and customizable platform, allowing users to create whatever they need."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its flexibility...The initial setup of Notion is easy."
"I think Smartsheet would scale fine."
"The most valuable feature of Smartsheet is it can be highly customized."
"Their support is awesome. We are on an enterprise plan and there is a customer success at Smartsheet and anyone from our licensed users can just send an email to them and they respond as soon as possible."
"The most valuable features of Smartsheet are its collaboration tools, the ability to centralize and prioritize projects, and robust reporting capabilities."
"It is a stable and scalable solution."
"Smartsheet does a really good job of creating Gantt charts. Export to Excel feature was also very useful."
"The ability to build a quick dashboard and give management insight into the progress of the project itself is probably one of the most beneficial pieces."
"I prefer Smartsheet for its flexibility."
 

Cons

"There are a lot of things, but one thing that is absolutely necessary is the mobile application."
"The product could be integrated with external platforms."
"User management needs improvement. It's difficult to determine what information is private. It's a bit complicated for me."
"Adding more color options to the application would enhance its usability and flexibility, allowing users to better customize their content"
"Notion's UI could be better."
"It is complicated to connect Notion with external systems."
"The only problem I experience is that it often hangs."
"There could be an automation feature included in the product."
"The long-term timelines could be improved, especially the visuals on the projection Gantt chart."
"Smartsheet could improve the UI and integrations. Some of Smartsheet's competitors have more than 2,000 integrations while Smartsheet only has approximately 40 integration applications."
"I think it is all going to be about APIs in the future and I don't think Smartsheet is doing a lot in that regard. They have some integrations with Jira, but you have to pay for them."
"The downside of Smartsheet is that there are some security concerns. We were able to restrict people from sharing sheets with anyone who was not in our domain, but it could be easier. We also found it hard to restrict certain user groups from adding attachments to sheets."
"I'd like to see them add more features to their automation."
"Lacks the ability to edit attachments within the solution."
"The product must include more modules for project management."
"Smartsheet is a cloud-based tool similar to Google Sheets in that multiple stakeholders can work on a document simultaneously. However, unlike Google Sheets, which saves changes in real time, Smartsheet requires users to manually save their changes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing depends on the usage plans."
"The solution's pricing can seem steep, especially when you work with a lot of people. If you are working on your own or for another business, the solution's price won't affect you much."
"I pay around $100 per year."
"Notion offers a free plan that covers most functionalities. Clients are only prompted to upgrade if they require AI capabilities, priced at $10 for unlimited usage, or if they need to add team members, typically around $10 per member."
"The product is affordable compared to other platforms."
"Notion is free to use."
"The product has good pricing."
"I rate the product's pricing a three out of ten. We only need to pay for it if we use it in the workspace."
"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."
"The solution is too expensive."
"There's a license for Smartsheet, and the enterprise plan comes down to about $750. My company also pays an extra $60 monthly apart from the standard licensing fee."
"I would assume there is a licensing fee. I don't think that it is free."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"The tool's monthly fee is 25 dollars, which is within the range of most cloud-based project management tools. I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
University
9%
Media Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
44%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Notion?
I like the high level of customization in Notion.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Notion?
It's affordable and offers community support if I get stuck. I can find help through community forums like Google, where people share insights on navigating problems. Many people understand it, off...
What needs improvement with Notion?
It is easy to use, and I love its UI. The only problem I experience is that it often hangs. I might find myself trying to load a new page, but I am unable to move from one page to another due to fr...
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...
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...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Startups like Loom, Mixpanel, Blinkist, Adobe, Deel and Education facilities such as USC, Dartmouth and The University of Chicago.
Sony Music, ESPN, Hilton, Unisource, Colliers, Extreme Networks, Groupon, Netflix
Find out what your peers are saying about Notion vs. Smartsheet and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.