monday.com vs Smartsheet: Spreadsheet power users, which is better?
We're a manufacturing operations team that runs everything in Excel. The team is very comfortable with formulas, pivot tables, and data manipulation. We need to upgrade to a collaborative platform but worried about losing the spreadsheet flexibility we rely on. Smartsheet seems like 'Excel online with project management' while monday.com seems like 'project management with some spreadsheet features.' Which better serves a team that thinks in rows and columns? We need: • Complex formulas and calculated fields • Conditional formatting • Data rollups and summaries • Gantt charts • Cross-sheet references • Import/export Excel compatibility
2 Answers
Former Excel power user who's used both extensively:
If your team thinks in spreadsheets: Smartsheet wins on familiarity. The interface IS a spreadsheet. Your team will feel at home immediately. Formulas work similarly to Excel. Cell references, cross-sheet formulas, and data manipulation are native.
If your team needs more than spreadsheets: monday.com wins on versatility. monday.com's strength is transforming data into visual workflows. The same data can be viewed as a table, kanban, timeline, chart, or dashboard — instantly.
Head-to-head comparison: • Formulas: Smartsheet ✓ (more Excel-like) • Conditional formatting: Both good, different approaches • Data rollups: Smartsheet's sheet summaries vs monday.com's dashboard widgets • Gantt: Smartsheet ✓ (more traditional, better dependencies) • Cross-references: Both support it, Smartsheet is more intuitive • Excel import: Both support it, Smartsheet preserves more formatting • Automation: monday.com ✓ (far superior) • Visual appeal: monday.com ✓ (night and day difference)
For manufacturing ops specifically: Smartsheet if you need detailed scheduling and formula-heavy tracking. monday.com if you need team collaboration, automations, and visual reporting.
Many manufacturing teams use both: Smartsheet for detailed operational data, monday.com for project management and team coordination.
Manufacturing engineer here. We chose monday.com over Smartsheet and here's why:
Our team was resistant to change from Excel. Smartsheet would have been easier to adopt initially. But monday.com's automation capabilities transformed our operations in ways Smartsheet couldn't.
Examples: • When a production order status changes to 'Quality Check,' automated notification to QA team • When inventory quantity drops below threshold, auto-create purchase order item • When a defect is logged, auto-assign to the responsible production line
None of these are possible in Smartsheet without expensive add-ons or Zapier.
The formula gap is real — we work around it with formula columns and dashboard calculations. It's not Excel-level, but it's sufficient for 90% of use cases.
Bottom line: Accept some spreadsheet capability loss for massive gains in automation and collaboration.