Smartsheet vs Pivotal Tracker

Last Updated:

Our analysts compared Smartsheet vs Pivotal Tracker based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Project Management Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Pivotal Tracker Software Tool

Product Basics

Smartsheet is an enterprise-level SaaS management application that helps teams streamline processes through collaboration, project planning and task management. Users can set up tasks using a grid view, similar to a spreadsheet with automations, formulas, comments and mentions. 

It provides templates for projects and automations that can be modified and saved as a template to save time. Project views include a Kanban board, Gantt chart, timeline, calendar view, card view and a custom dashboard.

Its file and sheet sharing capabilities, comment feature and conversations remove team and data silos and give stakeholders insight into project details. A user-friendly interface helps managers and team members boost adoption rates, maintain consistency and increase efficiency. 

read more...
Pivotal Tracker is a cloud-hosted project planning solution that facilitates real-time communication and collaboration within cross-functional agile teams. Businesses can keep a tab on progress throughout a project’s lifecycle. It helps teams delegate and prioritize tasks, list actionable components and set deadlines. Project status, conversations and workflows are stored at a central location for easy accessibility and defining priorities.

It computes the time required to complete a project or smaller tasks based on previous data. Managers can use this data to estimate delivery time for every project subject to workforce availability and other conditions. It offers an iteration module that helps prioritize project tasks and divide them into manageable subtasks. Project status, everyday tasks and resource availability are displayed on a shared calendar.
read more...
$9/User, Monthly
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
$0 Monthly, Quote-based
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
Small 
i
Medium 
i
Large 
i
Small 
i
Medium 
i
Large 
i
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Use Familiar Spreadsheet Formatting: Move from regular spreadsheets to spreadsheets with versatile views and much less formula knowledge required for formatting. Make adoption and training smoother because you’re not starting from scratch with processes. We especially liked the ability to enter data using a familiar cell view and then convert it to, say, a Kanban board.
  • Create No-Code Automations: Use templates or build from scratch with a trigger, condition and action automation format. Save time on admin tasks with automations for alerts, approvals, document creation and sheet changes. Choose from four starting cell-related triggers and build from there. We thought the automation building was intuitive and straightforward. Check out our test in the “See It In Action” section below.
  • Access Multiple Views: Add dynamic views to your projects and filter and customize views to meet task requirements. For example, we added a card view organized by status and a Kanban Board sorted by task assignee. Create a customizable dashboard to pull data like task progress, workload and duration using widgets.
  • Share Proofs and Additional Information: Collaborate on team documents, provide context and add proofs and files to individual tasks or the entire sheet. We set a piece of content as a task and added extra files like logos and docs along with comments for specific client requests.
  • Train As You Go: Kick your project off with a checklist outlining best practices and research material. Use pop-ups and explainer icons with video links as you work to get a better understanding of features and capabilities. We popped over to the help center to learn how to set up baselines for our Gantt chart (you need to edit the start date and end date columns).
read more...
  • 360-Degree View: Control projects across the board with complete visibility into their status and progress. Synchronize updated information with team members to reduce reporting time. Generate a history of project developmental progress while highlighting critical aspects that need to be tackled. 
  • Effective Communication: Share documents as well as concerns with team members with clear and effective lines of communication. Deal with customer feedback effectively by providing feasible project delivery timelines. 
  • Real-Time Collaboration: Get access to a virtual environment that fosters conversation and doesn’t need constant refreshing. Get regular updates via email, RSS, Campfire or Twitter. Let developers attach mock-ups that could be turned into working tools. 
  • Integrations: Create a variety of integrations and tools with REST API. Seamlessly integrates with external modules like Slack, Jira, GitHub, Jenkins, Zendesk and others. 
  • iOS Compatibility: Access integrated mobile interface on iOS devices and tackle critical issues on-the-go. Record stories from anywhere and get access to all business aspects in offline mode. 
read more...
  • Dashboards and Reports: Customize your dashboard by adding widgets like reports, project-specific charts, shortcuts, images and text. Consolidate data from multiple sheets into a summary view using system reports. Track sheet changes using bi-directional functionality. Send reports via collaborative tools and change statuses to recur.
  • Multiple Views: View your tasks using the grid view, akin to a spreadsheet, a Gantt view as an add-on to your grid view, a Kanban board where you can drag and drop tasks and group them by assignee or status, a timeline view, a card view with customizable lanes and a calendar view that displays your tasks across its duration or by start dates only.
  • Task Management: Add your tasks and subtasks into each cell and use the indent and outdent buttons to divide tasks into groups that can be minimized to provide a project overview. Create or modify custom fields with your own text, dropdown lists and symbols to show status, assignees, priority, dates and latest comment. Attach files and proofs, write comments and mention users and set reminders for tasks.
  • Automations and Workflows: Save time with custom processes and workflows you can build by modifying templates for reminders and alerts, document generation, row changes, sheet changes and updates, and approval requests. Build your own workflow automations from scratch by choosing your trigger, setting conditions and adding actions. Manage automations by deactivating, deleting, duplicating or unsubscribing.
  • Templates: Use pre-built templates ranging from event management to HR workflows and marketing to streamline project creation. View complexity, task management and process before you apply a template. Build and save your own templates by customizing pre-built templates or creating them from scratch.
  • Integrations: Drive productivity with integrations like Office 365, Dropbox, DocuSign and Google Workspace and use iCal or Google Calendar to track project statuses.
  • Team Collaboration: Communicate with team members by commenting and mentioning users in individual tasks, adding files for additional information and chatting via the conversations tool where everyone with access to the sheet can see your comments. Integrate with Slack or Microsoft Teams to receive updates about your sheet and send messages to channels.
read more...
  • Stories: Use stories to track actionable work items and project progress. Customize stories with categories like features, chores and bugs to construct new features, prevent bugs and restrict technical debts. Gauge a story’s complexity while prioritizing and allocating points by iteration using drag-and-drop functions. 
  • Velocity: Businesses can measure their speed and trajectory using velocity. Find out the pace at which teams are completing stories and gaining points per iteration. Get a realistic picture of project delivery time based on points earned in recent iterations. Encourage a consistent rhythm within teams to meet stringent deadlines. 
  • Workspaces: Set-up an ideal workspace by arranging multiple projects and juggling responsibilities on a single screen. Use the drag-and-drop tool to move stories between projects and find things by searching backlogs. Store all work across teams and projects into the ‘my work’ panel. Have an accessible location that contains all stories to plan future to-do lists. 
  • Analytics: Gauge team performance with broad trends and minute details that illustrate a project’s health. Identify fluctuations and trends to get a reality check of team productivity. Drill down reports to monitor project health closely by iterations, releases, epics and more. Gather requisite data for the teams to detect and remove bottlenecks from the elementary level. 
  • File Sharing and Labels: Enrich stories with presentations, mock-ups and other files from Google Drive or a computer. Organize stories with searchable labels for a more visible workflow. 
  • Notifications: Stay updated by configuring message notifications on desktop or mobile. Users can involve people in conversations with mentions and follow stories they like. 
read more...

Product Ranking

#5

among all
Project Management Software

#15

among all
Project Management Software

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

81
we're gathering data
83
we're gathering data
80
we're gathering data
88
we're gathering data
Show More Show More

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Smartsheet
Pivotal Tracker
+ Add Product + Add Product
Customizations Dashboards And Reporting Mobile Capabilities Platform Features Project Planning And Scheduling Project Tracking Task Management Team Collaboration Time Tracking And Management 83 80 88 92 78 96 85 77 56 0 25 50 75 100
57%
43%
0%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
80%
0%
20%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
86%
0%
14%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
88%
0%
12%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
67%
8%
25%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
86%
14%
0%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
75%
17%
8%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
67%
8%
25%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
14%
57%
29%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A

Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

67%
6%
27%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
63%
0%
37%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A

User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 22301 reviews
Great User Sentiment 565 reviews
88%
of users recommend this product

Smartsheet has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 88% when considering 22301 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

85%
of users recommend this product

Pivotal Tracker has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 85% when considering 565 user reviews from 6 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (20)
n/a
4.4 (17366)
4.1 (95)
n/a
4.32 (122)
n/a
4.3 (117)
4.5 (3333)
4.3 (129)
4.7 (728)
4.6 (26)
4.3 (854)
4.1 (76)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Smartsheet and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Mobile Capabilities and Project Tracking.

Mobile Capabilities Award
Project Tracking Award

we're gathering data

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Automation: Reviewers appreciated the no-code automation and said that it helps to eliminate productivity killers and saves time.
Collaboration: Users liked the sharing option with level-based permissions that allow collaboration with non-users and help coworkers and external stakeholders stay up-to-date on projects and processes.
Ease of Use: A user-friendly interface and templates make it easy to set up, customize and access multiple views, according to reviewers.
What Users Like
Customization: “We can customize it to fit various projects, whether we’re tracking client cases, managing document revisions, or planning team tasks. For instance, I created a project tracker for a major client contract negotiation. The ability to set deadlines, assign tasks, and update statuses in real time has streamlined our communication and kept everyone on the same page.” - Russ Johnson, Founder of Linx Legal
Collaboration: “We had this one job in a high-rise condo that put Smartsheet to the test. The sliding door system was an older model with custom-sized panels that aren’t easy to source, and it needed specific adjustments due to the unique structure of the frame. Typically, coordinating the right parts, tools, and technician experience for something like this would require several phone calls and a lot of back-and-forth. With Smartsheet, we were able to set up the job details to track not only the special parts needed but also assign a technician who was experienced with that model. When the parts came in, the technician was notified directly through Smartsheet, so he knew the moment everything was ready. It saved us from potential delays and kept the customer fully updated on when the work could be done.” - Gal Cohen, Business Development Leader and Field Area Manager JDM Sliding Doors
Show more
Simple Interface: Pivotal Tracker's straightforward design makes it easy to learn and navigate, even for those new to project management tools. Users appreciate the intuitive layout and lack of unnecessary complexity.
Effective Prioritization: The platform's emphasis on prioritizing tasks helps teams focus on the most important work first. Users find the ranking and backlog management features particularly useful for maintaining project clarity.
Collaboration Features: Pivotal Tracker facilitates team communication and collaboration through features like shared workspaces, comments, and @mentions. This helps keep everyone on the same page and promotes efficient teamwork.
Iteration Planning: The software's iterative approach to project management allows teams to break down large projects into manageable chunks. Users find this helpful for setting realistic goals and tracking progress over time.
Show more
System Integration: Limited integrations and complex configurations were an issue for reviewers.
Premium Add-Ons: Reviewers noted that advanced features come with a price tag that can be prohibitive for some businesses.
Slow Loading Time: Users reported it takes time to display screens export formats occasionally.
What Users Dislike
Integration: “Despite its many benefits, integrating Smartsheet with other systems posed some challenges. Initially, we experienced issues with data syncing between Smartsheet and our CRM software, leading to discrepancies in our financial reporting. Recognizing this, I allocated specific time for thorough testing before our full implementation, allowing us to identify and resolve any integration issues early on.” - Austin Rulfs, Founder of Zanda Wealth Mortgage Brokers
Learning Curve: “While Smartsheet is powerful, it can feel a bit overwhelming at first. I found that investing time in training sessions helped bridge that gap, making it easier for everyone to adapt and use the tool effectively.” - Russ Johnson, Founder of Linx Legal
Show more
Limited Project Views: Pivotal Tracker's singular view can feel restrictive for teams accustomed to Kanban boards or Gantt charts, potentially hindering workflow visualization.
Estimation Challenges: The platform's story point estimation system, while promoting relative sizing, can be confusing for new users and may require additional training for accurate implementation.
Collaboration Constraints: The absence of real-time collaborative editing features can lead to version control issues and communication challenges, especially for distributed teams.
Show more

Smartsheet is a cloud-based work management platform that helps users streamline and organize processes with a spreadsheet-esque interface, flexible templates, multiple views and team collaboration. Apart from the grid view, you can visualize projects using a Gantt chart, Kanban board, calendar view, card view or timeline view. No-code automations are another note-worthy feature, where you can build from templates or scratch.It streamlines project creation with templates suited to different industries and end goals, so you have a jumping-off point instead of going in blind. Team collaboration is another area where Smartsheet shines, with comments, conversations and file and sheet sharing (even with people outside your organization). It also offers a customizable dashboard view, although I did find some of the chart widgets a little tricky to work, without training.Highlights for me were definitely the familiarity of spreadsheet formatting (but with more views and automations), robust collaboration capabilities and guided explainers throughout the setup. However, user reviews noted limited filters and integrations, lags and expensive add-ons as downsides.Overall, Smartsheet is a great option for teams familiar with spreadsheets but are on the lookout for more visualization and collaboration, along with the budget to spend on advanced features.

Show more

Pivotal Tracker shines as a project management tool built for Agile development teams, especially those using Scrum. Its strength lies in its intuitive interface and features tailored to Agile methodologies, like user story mapping and sprint planning. Users appreciate its simplicity and ease of use, making it a breeze to get started and manage projects without a steep learning curve. The platform's real-time collaboration features keep everyone on the same page, fostering transparency and efficient communication within teams. However, some users find Pivotal Tracker's simplicity limiting for complex projects that require extensive customization or advanced reporting capabilities. Additionally, while it integrates with popular tools like GitHub and Slack, the range of integrations might not be as extensive as some competitors like Jira or Asana. Pivotal Tracker's core strength is its laser focus on Agile principles, making it ideal for software development teams or organizations that heavily rely on Agile methodologies. Its user-friendly interface and collaborative features streamline sprint planning, backlog management, and progress tracking, ultimately boosting team productivity and project delivery. However, for teams with complex project needs or those seeking a broader range of features and integrations, exploring alternatives like Jira or Asana might be worthwhile.

Show more

Screenshots

Top Alternatives in Project Management Software


Airtable

Asana

Basecamp

ClickUp

Jira

LiquidPlanner

MeisterTask

Microsoft Project

monday.com

ProofHub

TeamGantt

Teamwork

Wrike

Zoho Projects

Related Categories

Head-to-Head Comparison

WE DISTILL IT INTO REAL REQUIREMENTS, COMPARISON REPORTS, PRICE GUIDES and more...

Compare products
Comparison Report
Just drag this link to the bookmark bar.
?
Table settings