Smartsheet vs. Airtable Comparability – 2023

Smartsheet and Airtable are two common spreadsheet-style challenge administration instruments that supply a variety of options and integrations. They each allow customers to simply set up, monitor, and collaborate on tasks in a single handy place. 

Firms of all sizes can use Smartsheet to handle tasks, monitor progress and maintain groups on job. It supplies a extra intuitive interface for many who love interacting with spreadsheet cells and viewing challenge progress. Strive any Smartsheet plan free of charge for 30 days.

Airtable, nevertheless, is greater than a challenge administration instrument—it’s a robust engine for managing any sort of knowledge at scale, offering customers with a strategy to customise how they set up, monitor and collaborate on their endeavors in a single place. Get began on Airtable’s free-forever plan to get a really feel for what this software program can do for you.

Smartsheet and Airtable In comparison with the Finest Mission Administration Software program

There are a ton of choices for challenge administration software program you may select from. We price Smartsheet extremely and use Airtable rather a lot for our personal inside knowledge monitoring and challenge work. However they’re hardly the one options that might suit your wants. Let’s check out three options that work for a variety of PM use circumstances. 

Monday.com sports activities wonderful customizability in a really pleasant interface, plus built-in CRM capabilities that make it notably nice for gross sales groups. Strive any Monday.com plan free of charge proper now.

ClickUp is the perfect distant work platform, the place collaboration and portfolio administration come simple irrespective of how far-flung your crew members could be. Get began on ClickUp for as little as $5 per person.

Teamwork is an ideal match for consumer companies, whether or not you’re a marketing consultant, a freelancer, or a complete company. Strive a Teamwork account out on a 30-day free trial.

Smartsheet In comparison with Airtable

Smartsheet and Airtable are comparable within the sense that they’re each spreadsheet-oriented software program platforms. However they’ve quite a few variations when it comes to person expertise and depth of functionality. Smartsheet has a extra intuitive interface for many who get pleasure from working with spreadsheets, and it’s nice for monitoring progress on a number of tasks. However, Airtable supplies a extra highly effective, database-style platform ultimate for managing any sort of knowledge, not simply challenge work, duties, and metrics.

Smartsheet Highlights

Smartsheet takes a well-known spreadsheet-style platform and permits customers to simply prepare duties and assets. It’s good for dealing with giant tasks involving many stakeholders or crew members. Moreover, Smartsheet showcases a powerful vary of automation capabilities, allowing customers to construct custom-made methods to make their workflows extra environment friendly.

You’re additionally getting extra methods to view info than simply sheets. Gantt charts and Kanban-style boards present clear visible representations of challenge progress. And, should you go for one in all Smartsheet’s paid plans, you can even faucet into superior reporting and larger file storage limits.

Not solely will Smartsheet unify all of your challenge info into one well-structured format that makes monitoring progress easy, however its superior enterprise intelligence options additionally assist you to spot points and take corrective measures in a well timed trend.

Airtable Highlights

Airtable took Silicon Valley by storm with its hybrid design of databases, spreadsheets, and challenge administration capabilities. The software program is eminently versatile and customizable to provide organizations in a wide selection of industries a platform for evaluation, job administration, course of constructing, and collaboration on deliverables.

It’s no exaggeration to say that it is likely one of the most well-rounded database platforms you will get your arms on. Use and retailer knowledge from a number of sources, create rules-based automations that can assist you keep on prime of workflows with out pointless handbook effort, handle your groups and duties, and way more.

You need to use Airtable for challenge planning, price range and monetary reporting, useful resource administration, and bug monitoring, simply to call a number of use circumstances. The probabilities are practically infinite. It’s constructed with the intent that any firm or particular person could make it match their functions immediately, although that entails a somewhat steep studying curve.

Smartsheet vs. Airtable: Professionals and Cons

Identical to some other challenge administration platform we’ve tried, there are many issues we love about each Smartsheet and Airtable, however there are drawbacks for sure forms of customers or wants. Our job right here is to place ourselves in your sneakers and assist you to make a strong buying resolution. Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of Airtable and Smartsheet’s advantages and shortcomings.

The place Smartsheet Shines

Workforce collaboration: With Smartsheet, you’re not simply getting challenge administration software program—you’re additionally getting its wonderful collaborative options. Your crew can simply share information and notes whereas preserving tabs on the progress of each job they work on, multi functional centralized hub. Smartsheet additionally delivers the pliability to decide on solely the collaboration options important to your crew and omit these pointless, preserving it streamlined but highly effective.

Reporting: We love Smartsheet’s strong reporting capabilities. They simplify the method of consolidating important knowledge from a number of sheets into one report. You possibly can detect tendencies and potential roadblocks to repeatedly refine efficiency. You can even share your experiences throughout a number of departments and with exterior stakeholders, which is nice if you should maintain the whole group or your shoppers up to date.

Safety and compliance: Smartsheet’s two-factor authentication, single sign-on (SSO), granular person entry controls, and AES 256 encryption be sure that your challenge and inside knowledge keep safe. It additionally presents GDPR, ISO, SOC II, ITAR, HIPAA, and FERPA compliance to place any worries associated to regulatory privateness and safety comfy. That helps any trade benefit from Smartsheet, whether or not healthcare, finance, or some other space that wants most safety.

Acquainted performance: In the event you’re a fan of spreadsheets and cells, Smartsheet is your knight in shining armor. Spreadsheets could also be primary, however Smartsheet is a tremendously versatile instrument, able to being tailored to challenge administration, stock management, price range monitoring, and plenty of different use circumstances. You possibly can put it to use for tons of of various duties or change out instruments you’re already utilizing inside numerous departments. In that regard, it’d act as a alternative for a number of of your online business instruments.

350+ templates: Dash planning, Agile challenge administration, new rent onboarding, price range monitoring—no matter you want, Smartsheet has pre-made templates that may be modified to satisfy the necessities of your organization. This makes it good for many who wish to hit the bottom working somewhat than spend time configuring a bunch of apps and options from scratch.

The place Smartsheet Wants Enchancment

Key options solely in add-on modules: Past easy challenge administration, you may add digital asset administration, useful resource administration, and a budgeting module to the core Smartsheet platform. However Smartsheet doesn’t provide these out of the gate, they’re every solely accessible as add-ons that include an extra value—one thing that a number of different challenge administration platforms embrace on their base paid plans.

Spreadsheets aren’t terribly fashionable: In the event you’re somebody who grew up despising Excel, Smartsheet isn’t going to be your cup of tea. Its reliance on spreadsheets is a turn-off for some customers who discover the interface tough to navigate. On the flip facet, it’s good for these clinging to their spreadsheet roots and in search of an improve that also feels snug. Plus, some methods of utilizing Smartsheet can translate effectively to the software program’s extra up to date views, like Gantt charts. Nonetheless, the place different fashionable PM platforms are typically Kanban board-first software program, Smartsheet’s core reliance on sheets and cells is probably not ultimate for each crew.

Greater value: Initially, Smartsheet seems to be fairly cost-effective—plans begin at solely $7 per person every month. In comparison with different instruments, although, its tiers aren’t precisely aggressive. And having so as to add on further options or modules can critically elevate the month-to-month price, sending you trying elsewhere for a greater deal. It additionally doesn’t have a free-forever model that so many different PM options provide, so it’s hardly ever your best option for micro groups of three or fewer customers.

The place Airtable Shines

Deep customization: Airtable permits customers to customise the platform they envision based mostly on their enterprise’s particular wants. It will possibly do absolutely anything you’d want it to. Use it because the backend of an internet site, program it to be a CRM, or faucet into its capacity to routinely gather and populate completely different buyer knowledge into particular areas based mostly on standards, key phrases, and actions. Or, do all three directly in numerous sections of Airtable.

Interface designer: That customization extends to a granular degree, as customers can tweak and radically redesign particular person interfaces. Customers can create {custom} views for various crew members tailor-made particularly to every person’s tasks. Plus, they’ll construct {custom} interfaces that pull knowledge from a number of different databases and make the most of widgets for workflow and approvals. 

Deep integrations: Not solely are you able to combine Airtable with a dizzying array of different platforms, whether or not it’s monitoring customer support inquiries through Zendesk, sending an issue to your dev crew in Jira, or saving new utility knowledge and updates from GitHub. And, with the way in which that Airtable collects and syncs info from these different platforms, each exercise your group’s members full stays seen and accounted for. That’s large for complicated challenge work or concurrently juggling a number of endeavors in a challenge portfolio.

Actual-time knowledge: In Airtable, there are a whole lot of methods to tug knowledge from different places and create dependencies for correct reporting, monitoring, and challenge monitoring. Thus, it’s a key advantage of the software program that a number of customers can work collectively or individually on the identical desk with out creating inaccuracies or conflicts. Customers can conveniently work collectively in real-time, and commenting, notification, and tagging options assist maintain everybody on the identical web page, even when they’re engaged on the identical desk whereas positioned midway the world over from each other. 

The place Airtable Wants Enchancment

Steep studying curve: Those that go together with Airtable are inclined to do due to the depth of what it may well adapt to and achieve. However getting it to do what you need will take some effort and time to study the ropes. This may be intimidating for less-experienced customers who could battle to grasp methods to use the product successfully. It’s not a “set it and neglect it” sort of deal—it takes time to study and onboard your entire crew or division, which is one thing that may trigger a protracted implementation in case your customers aren’t already savvy with software program like this.

Complexity resulting in muddle: In lots of circumstances, Airtable’s options and big customizability is seen as constructive. However, even after you’ve gotten the hold of getting probably the most out of this software program, it’s simple for that customization to float into bloat and muddle. New bases and interfaces could be made with ease for any function, however should you don’t keep on prime of the way it all clicks collectively, you can simply be compelled to play clean-up a number of months or quarters down the street. 

Costly for bigger groups: For small groups, Airtable is a rock-solid selection. It will possibly do rather a lot and doesn’t value you an arm and a leg. Nonetheless, the cost-per-user doesn’t get decrease as you method larger numbers of seats, whereas many options find yourself costing an excellent deal much less per person for 50 or extra folks than 20 or fewer. On prime of that, essential options for bigger groups, like expanded file storage and the next variety of supported information, are locked away on both the $20 per person Professional plan or the custom-priced Enterprise tier.

The Final Phrase on Smartsheet In comparison with Airtable

In relation to dealing with complicated challenge work, each Airtable and Smartsheet rise to the event. Every is modern and highly effective in its personal regard, and customers of each instruments are typically proud of the depth of options and capabilities on provide. But it surely’s vital to notice that every one has particular use circumstances it’s higher suited to than the opposite.

For individuals who desire a true challenge administration instrument, Smartsheet is the way in which to go. It will possibly deal with job and useful resource administration with aplomb, plus it comes with loads of automations. Organizations that want extra than simply challenge administration and are in search of a complete database answer that may deal with much more than day-to-day duties will discover Airtable a wonderful (if barely intimidating) addition to their tech stack.

In fact, there are a number of different choices past these two to contemplate to your challenge administration or different wants. To get the total scope of the options accessible, take a look at our full publish on one of the best challenge administration software program.