Microsoft Project Server vs Smartsheet comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Project Server and Smartsheet based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Project Portfolio Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Project Server vs. Smartsheet Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The solution scales well.""A single place for all our organisation's project records.""It can scale well.""The solution is scalable and easy to expand.""The product is user-friendly.""Microsoft Project Server is a scalable solution.""We use Microsoft Project Server for project management.""The usability is excellent."

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"The most valuable feature of Smartsheet is it can be highly customized.""Smartsheet is stable.""The ability to update in real-time before meetings is great.""The most valuable features of Smartsheet are its collaboration tools, the ability to centralize and prioritize projects, and robust reporting capabilities.""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.""Smartsheet does a really good job of creating Gantt charts. Export to Excel feature was also very useful.""The solution is scalable.""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."

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Cons
"The reporting aspects can be improved, which is one of the reasons why I'm using Qlik Sense. In the older on-prem versions, reporting was lackluster, to say the least. Project Online has a better handle on that. However, we will still be using Qlik Sense. We're also looking at an add-on app from a company called OnePlan that adds some additional functionality where Microsoft is not as clean in its approach for things such as portfolio management and some of the trends analysis.""It appears that Microsoft's primary goal is to migrate as much functionality as possible from the legacy on-premises Microsoft Project Server to the new cloud-based Power Apps solution.""This solution could improve by adding integration with Primavera schedules to allow the reading and management of them.""I'd like it if we could divide out the project calendars. On one project server, we might follow five projects or more at one time, and we'd like to see all of the items at once so that it becomes a long loop, but one where we can identify different projects in tandem and then focus on which we need to at the time. While I only have visibility into one, I'd like to see several at a time.""The cost could be lower.""When we started using this solution from scratch, we got lost. Microsoft should provide some templates for configurations for certain use cases.""It needs to be more collaborative from inside the application. It only does project scheduling for me. It would be good if it could do other things and be more collaborative, such as sharing tasks for users. It is not really incorporated into MS Office, so you can't copy-paste stuff. It is on its own, doing its own thing. It is only used for scheduling, and it doesn't work well with anything else.""Stability of the solution is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

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"They should improve the solution's integration with API.""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.""With a large quantity of data, the solution lags a bit.""A room for improvement I found in Smartsheet is the view, as it's currently row-wise. I should have the opportunity to view a full scale, top down list instead of just a column driven list. I shouldn't have to go just left or right. I should be able to view it top down.""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.""The dashboard is not user-friendly, it needs improvement.""Smartsheet could be improved to be a ticketing system. It would be nice to have a system to do everything.""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."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "I think they need more flexibility with licensing, because there are preconceived ideas that don't allow as much flexibility with the various licenses."
  • "The licensing was procured before my involvement."
  • "It has features that cannot be bought by other rivals, so cost does not matter."
  • "It is on the expensive side."
  • "There is a licensing cost."
  • "There is an annual license required for this solution."
  • "I cannot comment on the price as I was not responsible for purchasing the solution."
  • "I'm not quite sure about the licensing costs. We're probably paying somewhere in the neighborhood of about 80,000 to 90,000 a year for our current on-prem because we handle our own licensing. As far as Project Online is concerned, we're still trying to get a good handle on that. It looks like it is going to be in a neighborhood of about 120,000 to 150,000 a year, but we're getting a lot more capability out of it."
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  • "This licensing is straightforward and they charge per user."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "I would assume there is a licensing fee. I don't think that it is free."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "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."
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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that the tool's reporting is very good.
    Top Answer:The product's UI is not very user-friendly. From an improvement perspective, I want the tool to offer a user-friendly UI. Microsoft should attempt to match the capabilities offered by the other… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:Smartsheet is a really good tool for collaboration.
    Top Answer:The solution is too expensive. For what I use it for, it's too expensive. I wouldn't pay for it myself. I would prefer to buy Microsoft Project or use Zoho Projects.
    Ranking
    Views
    2,330
    Comparisons
    1,140
    Reviews
    24
    Average Words per Review
    330
    Rating
    7.5
    Views
    2,620
    Comparisons
    971
    Reviews
    26
    Average Words per Review
    693
    Rating
    8.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    MS Project Server
    Learn More
    Smartsheet
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    Overview
    Microsoft Project Server 2013 is a flexible on-premises solution for project portfolio management (PPM) and everyday work. Team members, project participants, and business decision makers can get started, prioritize project portfolio investments and deliver the intended business value from virtually anywhere. Requires SharePoint 2013, sold separately.

    Smartsheet is the enterprise platform for dynamic work. A leading cloud-based platform for work management, Smartsheet empowers organizations and teams to dynamically plan, execute, and report on work at scale, resulting in more efficient processes, innovative solutions, and better business outcomes.

    Today over 90% of Fortune 100 companies and over 75% of Fortune 500 companies rely on the secure, scalable Smartsheet platform to connect the entire enterprise. The single Smartsheet platform gives people a solution flexible enough to adapt to the changing needs of dynamic work across a broad array of departments and use cases.

    Sample Customers
    Magnachip, Gwinnett County Schools, CLEAResult, Medbit Oy, Intelbras S.A., ETS, CORE Construction, Keller Foundations
    Sony Music, ESPN, Hilton, Unisource, Colliers, Extreme Networks, Groupon, Netflix
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Manufacturing Company15%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company14%
    Government12%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    REVIEWERS
    Pharma/Biotech Company16%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Insurance Company11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization36%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Healthcare Company6%
    Computer Software Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise48%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise68%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise3%
    Large Enterprise55%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise41%
    Large Enterprise45%
    Buyer's Guide
    Microsoft Project Server vs. Smartsheet
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Project Server vs. Smartsheet and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Microsoft Project Server is ranked 6th in Project Portfolio Management with 55 reviews while Smartsheet is ranked 4th in Project Portfolio Management with 32 reviews. Microsoft Project Server is rated 7.8, while Smartsheet is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Microsoft Project Server writes "Provides holistic reporting and allows us to keep track of what's going on with projects". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Smartsheet writes "Has customization, data pulling, and cross-functional global communication features; it's a secure solution". Microsoft Project Server is most compared with Microsoft Project, ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management, Planisware, Oracle Primavera Portfolio Management and Knovos eZManage, whereas Smartsheet is most compared with Microsoft Project, Spreadsheet.com, ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management, Adobe Workfront and monday.com. See our Microsoft Project Server vs. Smartsheet report.

    See our list of best Project Portfolio Management vendors and best Project Management Software vendors.

    We monitor all Project Portfolio Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.