Planview AdaptiveWork vs Smartsheet comparison

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Planview AdaptiveWork

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Planview AdaptiveWork and Smartsheet are both contenders in the project management software category. Planview AdaptiveWork takes the lead for organizations needing detailed customization, whereas Smartsheet appeals with its familiar spreadsheet-like interface ideal for users looking for ease of use and integration capabilities.

Features: Planview AdaptiveWork offers features such as customizable project tracking, resource management tools, and advanced reporting capabilities, aligning with the needs of complex projects. Smartsheet includes features focused on collaboration and automation, with an intuitive interface, integration with other major tools, and ability to design workflows that enhance team tasks. Its easy integration and collaborative nature make it ideal for dynamic team environments.

Room for Improvement: Planview AdaptiveWork could enhance user support for its extensive customization options and streamline its initial configuration process to reduce deployment time. There is room to expand its integration capabilities with more platforms. Smartsheet could improve its batch processing capabilities and enhance data visualization tools. Adding more robust offline capabilities would also be beneficial, allowing users to work seamlessly without internet connectivity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Smartsheet's deployment is notably user-friendly due to its familiar layout, requiring minimal setup time. Its customer support offers a wide range of self-help resources, aiding in quick problem resolution. Planview AdaptiveWork, while straightforward, may demand more time for configuration but offers a highly responsive customer service team with comprehensive support resources to assist users.

Pricing and ROI: Planview AdaptiveWork generally involves higher costs upfront due to its customization needs, but it offers substantial ROI for organizations that can leverage its full capabilities. Smartsheet provides predictable pricing plans with flexibility, which supports its scalable collaboration approach. Its cost-effectiveness for team-oriented tasks can be a significant advantage, especially for those prioritizing quick, collaborative, solution deployment.

To learn more, read our detailed Planview AdaptiveWork vs. Smartsheet Report (Updated: July 2025).

Planview AdaptiveWork vs. Smartsheet

July 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

Planview AdaptiveWork

Ranking in Project Management Software

20th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Smartsheet

Ranking in Project Management Software

5th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Project Portfolio Management (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Project Management Software category, the mindshare of Planview AdaptiveWork is 1.3%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Smartsheet is 4.6%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Project Management Software

Featured Reviews

VishalSingh11

Director BPM at a marketing services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Has resources management and timesheets but could be more flexible

Compared to Broadcom Clarity, there was some flexibility with blueprints, etc. You can create a blueprint for different business groups or different customers. Planview AdaptiveWork doesn't have something like that. If they can build up something like a view price. It's still a traditional way where you have to create different instances for different customers. The PPM solution uses queries if I'm rolling out for different divisions. In that case, I have to create different instances for each region because each division may have a different look and feel. But if I have a blueprint, then it's very convenient. I can create multiple interfaces for different processes. Broadcom Clarity has some access control on those viewpoints.

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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

"I like the project management solution. It's really nice."

"Clarizen Slide Publisher has helped increase transparency and communication with project stakeholders for us."

"Clarizen's strength is reporting. Aside from reporting, I also like the ability to create customized workflow and custom actions. The workflow rules are handy. For example, you can create custom fields and dependent picklists."

"The feature that has improved our project planning the most is the ability to create custom workflows, which allows us to automate manual tasks that project managers need to perform. The collaboration feature enhances our team's productivity by allowing individuals to see the impact of their decisions on projects owned and managed by other teams."

"The most valuable features of Smartsheet are its collaboration tools, the ability to centralize and prioritize projects, and robust reporting capabilities."

"Smartsheet is stable."

"It is a stable and scalable solution."

"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."

"It's very user friendly."

"For doing project plans what was really valuable is the ability to do a predecessor."

"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."

"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."

More Smartsheet pros

Cons

"One specific area for improvement could be implementing a development environment to test workflows with live production data."

"I felt like the slide publisher isn't that user-friendly. I think it wasn't that easy to use or to figure out because of formatting constraints, or maybe we need to get better at understanding some of its limitations."

"If I start customizing too many things, Clarizen tends to get really slow in our environment and especially if I'm tunneled in an environment, like if I'm connected to my VPN."

"It could be more user-friendly. I think it is too overwhelming, initially, in terms of possibilities and so on."

"I'd like to see them add more features to their automation."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"With a large quantity of data, the solution lags a bit."

"It would be beneficial to enhance user-friendliness and make it less complex while maintaining its overall excellence as a product."

"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 intuitive access without constant logins would be beneficial."

More Smartsheet cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Its licensing is on a yearly basis. I was responsible for negotiating the price with the Smartsheet team, but I don't remember what the price was. Its standard license probably was around 5,000 to 6,000 a year. The enterprise version is significantly more 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."

"I believe a licensed user costs between 300 to 400 euros."

"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 reasonably priced."

"This licensing is straightforward and they charge per user."

"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."

"There's a trial version and a free version. Each license costs a decent amount, $25 per month or something."

More Smartsheet pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

15%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

12%

Educational Organization

11%

Government

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Planview AdaptiveWork?

The feature that has improved our project planning the most is the ability to create custom workflows, which allows us to automate manual tasks that project managers need to perform. The collaborat...

What needs improvement with Planview AdaptiveWork?

One specific area for improvement could be implementing a development environment to test workflows with live production data.

What advice do you have for others considering Planview AdaptiveWork?

Integration with other tools can sometimes be a hiccup, but this isn't necessarily a limitation of Planview AdaptiveWork. It's more often a result of company policies regarding integration with oth...

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.

Broadcom Clarity vs Planview AdaptiveWork

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Compared 17% of the time

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Adobe Workfront vs Smartsheet

Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Download Planview AdaptiveWork product report

Planview AdaptiveWork

June 2025

Download Smartsheet product report

June 2025

Also Known As

Planview Clarizen

No data available

Overview

AdaptiveWork services the project management software needs of more than 2,500 companies in 76 countries worldwide. They boast a robust client list, including companies such as: Chanel, Cisco, The Walt Disney Company, EA, FedEx, HP, UPS, and VMWare. Founded in 2006, their goal is to change the way collaboration happens within companies of all sizes. AdaptiveWork focuses strongly on the fact that transparency, communication, and idea sharing are key in effective business models.

AdaptiveWork uses the cloud and social communications in their software. This helps AdaptiveWork project management software provide real time updates, maximize efficiency of collaboration, and keep all team members productive and on the same page. AdaptiveWork is fully configurable, and is designed to scale and adapt to different organizational needs. Their task management software is easy to implement, meaning start up will not cost clients time away from their work.

AdaptiveWork offers an enterprise-class project management software solution that fits all businesses' project management needs. With a name created from the words "Clarity" and "Zen", AdaptiveWork's software is designed to help businesses collaborate effectively and create true peace of mind. Project management software doesn't just help get work done; it helps create stronger and more efficient teams. By keeping everyone on the same page, AdaptiveWork task management software helps your team stay focused on the goal of your project.

Planview

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.

Sample Customers

Cisco Capital, JLL, Conagra Brands, Cargill, JLL, IBM, IIROC, Siemens Energy

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