Best Smartsheet Alternatives
Smartsheet's spreadsheet-native approach is a real strength for teams that already think in rows and columns. Here's where teams go when they'd rather start from a board, or need a permanently free tier.
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Why teams look past Smartsheet
Smartsheet's grid interface is genuinely well suited to teams coming from Excel, and its automation, forms and portfolio reporting have earned it a strong footprint with PMOs and enterprise operations teams. But a spreadsheet puts the burden of structure on whoever builds the sheet, someone has to design the columns and formulas before the tool does much for you. Smartsheet also discontinued its free plan, so new users start on a 30-day trial rather than a permanently free tier. Teams that look for an alternative are often looking for less setup, a board instead of a grid, or a free tier to actually start on.
Where teams actually go
Five tools, each offering a different alternative to the grid-first approach.
Board-native rather than grid-native: WIP-limited columns and a triage inbox work without any formula-building. Delivery forecasts come from measured velocity automatically, time logging takes about five seconds, and the Free plan covers up to 5 users and 2 projects permanently, not a time-limited trial. The clearest fit for a team that wants structure without building it themselves.
A database-spreadsheet hybrid that, like Smartsheet, gives teams a grid-like surface with real flexibility for custom views and relational data. It's a natural lateral move for a team that likes the spreadsheet metaphor but wants a more modern, app-like interface around it.
A highly visual, customizable board and automation platform, popular with marketing and operations teams that want configurability without a full spreadsheet grid underneath. It sits between Smartsheet's flexibility and a simpler board tool.
Another enterprise-grade platform with a strong PMO and portfolio-management reputation, built around configurable workflows and dashboards rather than a grid. A reasonable option for a team that wants Smartsheet's enterprise depth without the spreadsheet interface specifically.
A general-purpose work management tool with board, list and timeline views and strong cross-functional reporting. It's less spreadsheet-like than Smartsheet and asks for less setup, at the cost of some of the custom-formula power a grid offers.
How to actually decide
The clearest test is whether your team currently lives in Excel out of habit or out of need. If it's habit, mostly a task list with a status column and a due date, a board-based tool tends to feel faster once the switch is made, because there's nothing to build before it's useful. If it's need, real formulas, cross-sheet roll-ups, or a portfolio report your PMO relies on that nobody else has replicated, that's a genuine dependency worth respecting, and Airtable or staying on Smartsheet will serve you better than forcing that logic onto a board.
It's also worth being honest about who's maintaining the sheet today. If it's one person who understands the formulas and everyone else just enters data, that's a fragility worth addressing regardless of which tool you land on, since a board-based tool with automatic forecasting removes that single point of failure by design.
Common questions
Not a perfect substitute, honestly. Airtable is the closest in spirit, a grid with more modern views built in. ShipSprint and Asana move away from the grid metaphor entirely in exchange for needing less setup to get started.
ShipSprint's Free plan covers up to 5 users and 2 projects, forever, with no time limit. Airtable, Monday.com and Asana each have their own free tiers with their own limits; check each one's current pricing page, since free-tier terms change.
Not directly. Those are fairly specific enterprise portfolio-provisioning and app-building tools. If those specific capabilities matter to your organization, that's a genuine reason to weigh staying with Smartsheet more heavily.
Smartsheet supports its own exports on its side; on ShipSprint's side, every workspace supports full JSON export at any time on any paid plan, so nothing you build during a trial is locked in.
No, it's a well-regarded, enterprise-recognized platform for the job it's built for. Teams leave mainly because they never needed the spreadsheet flexibility in the first place, or because losing the free plan pushed them to look at what else is available, not because the product itself underperforms.
They stay in Smartsheet, since none of these alternatives import formulas directly. The practical approach is to identify which sheets are actually load-bearing versus which ones are just task lists with extra columns, recreate the task lists as boards, and keep the genuinely formula-dependent reporting in Smartsheet or rebuild it deliberately in whichever tool you land on.
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