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Planisware vs Smartsheet comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 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

Planisware
Ranking in Project Portfolio Management
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
13
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
41
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 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"Planisware has introduced Agile concepts, making it capable of Agile management similar to Jira and other Agile tools."
"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."
"It stands out by automating the intricate mechanics of project execution, eliminating the need for highly technical individuals to manage and reconfigure models."
"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."
"Planisware offers integration with multiple tools and provides a good level of customization."
"We have a variety of different modules, but it is mainly used for costs, risks, and resources."
"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 has an inbuilt BI tool, which can be compared to Power BI or Tableau."
"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."
"It is a stable and scalable solution."
"The dashboard feature is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The solution is scalable."
"It's very user friendly."
"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."
"We like Smartsheet's workflows, automation, and low-code capabilities. I don't know of any other project management tool with low-code functionality designed for project managers."
"The solution is straightforward. Whenever a requirement arises, we create three things in Smartsheet: a project plan, a dashboard, and internal documents. It is done through the form and Smartsheet's automation services. This process shortens the time to market from seven days to less than 12 hours."
 

Cons

"They do not have anything that can assist customers with multi-year roadmap planning."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"If there was some way to store more complex files in the system, or if there was a back-end structure where you could store files, that would be ideal."
"The only reason we migrated to another application was the full integration available in other solutions. We never used the integration capabilities of Smartsheet."
"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."
"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."
"I think that the mobile interface needs to be improved. If you cannot access it through your laptop, I'd prefer to have that option on the mobile, but I don't think that it's user-friendly and easy to navigate."
"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."
"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."
"Maybe the solution could be a little bit more flexible."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution could be less expensive and the cost of scaling is expensive too."
"The solution is reasonably priced."
"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."
"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 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."
"The solution is too expensive."
"This licensing is straightforward and they charge per user."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Energy/Utilities Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Educational Organization
40%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Government
6%
 

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.
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.
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.
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

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Planisware vs. Smartsheet and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.