Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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

"We can install it on mobile phones, making it feasible to manage productivity."
"The product is easy to use and has good responsiveness."
"Notion is heavily used in my workflow."
"Notion has very strong integration capabilities."
"It is easy to use and very intuitive compared to Microsoft Project."
"Notion is a very flexible and customizable platform, allowing users to create whatever they need."
"Customer support is great, effective, and easy to reach."
"It is easy to use, and I love its UI."
"Smartsheet is easy to use."
"The dashboard and the layouts are quite good."
"Smartsheet does a really good job of creating Gantt charts. Export to Excel feature was also very useful."
"I like that Smartsheet integrates Excel with a cloud-based project management software."
"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 these dashboards can be shared with our clients without a license."
"It is a stable and scalable solution."
"What I found most valuable in Smartsheet is its project customization feature. It's a great solution because you can add in your own WBS. You can see it in Jira style, Kanban, and you can even do Agile and Waterfall. Another feature that's valuable in the solution is when you have those connections, you have that API, you have a sandbox, and you can make a solution, it's a tremendous product because you can pull data."
"The management aspect is the most valuable. You can also prioritize tasks and then view tasks by priorities as passports."
 

Cons

"It can be difficult to contact the people at Notion."
"The only problem I experience is that it often hangs."
"One area for improvement in the solution is the absence of integrated charts."
"User management needs improvement. It's difficult to determine what information is private. It's a bit complicated for me."
"The platform's documentation feature needs improvement."
"The product could be integrated with external platforms."
"The linked view of database, along with the sharing and permission settings, are areas with shortcomings in the solution that need improvement."
"User management needs improvement."
"The dashboard is not user-friendly, it needs improvement."
"Asana has a modern look and feel, particularly its agile project management interface featuring movable cards between columns."
"The solution should include integrations with other platforms or software."
"You were forced to create a new tab rather than add another sheet."
"Smartsheet could improve by having seamless integration with Azure Board."
"With a large quantity of data, the solution lags a bit."
"Smartsheet's export and print functions could be more seamless. Once I create the plan in Smartsheet, I need to import it into my corporate web presentations. This isn't always smooth. I have to save it in PDF format, then cut an image from the PDF version."
"Smartsheet should continue to expand the spreadsheet-type functionality because it's limited currently. Most business users are familiar with Excel and Office, so Smartsheet should adopt a similar way of navigating the program."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is affordable compared to other platforms."
"Notion is free to use."
"The pricing structure is quite reasonable, and the basic plan covers the most essential features."
"It's pretty affordable."
"The product has good pricing."
"I pay around $100 per year."
"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."
"The solution is too 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."
"There's a trial version and a free version. Each license costs a decent amount, $25 per month or something."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"The solution is reasonably priced."
"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."
"Smartsheet only requires licenses for project managers. When we were using Asana, we had to purchase a license for everyone who wanted to access their tasks and use the system. That gets costly fast. It was one of the main reasons we left Asana. As Asana and these other tools scale, they become way more expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Project Management Software solutions are best for your needs.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.