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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
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Knowledge Management Software (2nd), Document Automation Software (3rd)
Smartsheet
Ranking in Project Management Software
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Project Portfolio Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Project Management Software category, the mindshare of Notion is 1.9%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Smartsheet is 4.3%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Project Management Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Smartsheet4.3%
Notion1.9%
Other93.8%
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 structure data is one of the most essential functions of Notion."
"The product is easy to use and has good responsiveness."
"We can install it on mobile phones, making it feasible to manage productivity."
"Notion is a very flexible and customizable platform, allowing users to create whatever they need."
"I rate Notion a ten out of ten."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its flexibility...The initial setup of Notion is easy."
"The ability to create and organize notes, plans, and technical content in a single platform is the product's most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of Smartsheet is it can be highly customized."
"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 deployment is very easy. All you need to do is log in."
"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."
"It is a stable and scalable solution."
"Smartsheet is a really good tool for collaboration."
"As I am in the corporate legal department, I have to deal with a number of contracts and sometimes it's hard to keep up with email transactions. Having the tracker sheet and being able to build dashboards and workflow has been quite valuable."
"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."
 

Cons

"The linked view of database, along with the sharing and permission settings, are areas with shortcomings in the solution that need improvement."
"It is complicated to connect Notion with external systems."
"There could be an automation feature included in the product."
"There are a lot of things, but one thing that is absolutely necessary is the mobile application."
"Notion has one big downside: the lack of an offline mode. If the internet or Notion's servers are down, I cannot access information. This is a big disadvantage."
"User management needs improvement. It's difficult to determine what information is private. It's a bit complicated for me."
"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 frequent hanging."
"The main problem with Notion is that it's not flexible enough for all of the use cases we intend to address. For instance, it is challenging to focus on a single KPI as it's mandatory to have a chart for this purpose, complicating some of our use cases."
"With a large quantity of data, the solution lags a bit."
"The integration with Microsoft products should be improved."
"Smartsheet could improve by having seamless integration with Azure Board."
"I think their support team is low quality. They're low and lack response, which is not good for customers. I wouldn't rely on their customer support at all."
"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."
"The solution should include integrations with other platforms or software."
"They provide a limited number of sheets which is not enough."
"Every feature for text mining, even process mining, would be a plus. We have about two hundred contract management events daily. First, I share specific documents. I talk about the search function because we assume it has a thorough search when we read the catalog. But when you test it, you realize it doesn't search within attachments. So, it's a great search function, but you need the brand folder. It has many options and can become complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's pretty affordable."
"The pricing structure is quite reasonable, and the basic plan covers the most essential features."
"Notion is free to use."
"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 product's pricing depends on the usage plans."
"The product has good pricing."
"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."
"This licensing is straightforward and they charge per user."
"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."
"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."
"I believe a licensed user costs between 300 to 400 euros."
"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 pay $ 120 or $ 128 a month for two to three users."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Government
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise22
 

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?
The licensing and setup cost for Notion is affordable for us as a small company.
What needs improvement with Notion?
The main problem with Notion is that it's not flexible enough for all of the use cases we intend to address. For instance, it is challenging to focus on a single KPI as it's mandatory to have a cha...
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: September 2025.
868,229 professionals have used our research since 2012.