Wrike vs Smartsheet: Which Is Better in 2026?

Wrike vs Smartsheet: Quick Verdict

Wrike is the better choice for most growing teams and enterprises that want projects, requests, approvals, resources and reporting in one place. It wins on feature depth, planning and resource management, collaboration and Agile support in our scoring, and it is the more natural fit for marketing, creative, professional services and cross-functional teams.

Smartsheet is the better choice for spreadsheet-minded organisations, such as operations, finance, construction and many PMOs, that want to turn scattered Excel trackers into governed, connected plans. Its grid, Gantt view and cross-sheet reports are excellent, and Control Center is one of the strongest tools on the market for provisioning standardised projects at scale.

Both are mature, enterprise-ready platforms, and both tie on ease of use, value for money and scalability in our review. The deciding question is usually the working style you want: a configurable work platform with many views (Wrike) or a powerful spreadsheet-style planner (Smartsheet).

Wrike vs Smartsheet at a Glance

Scores are our editorial ratings using the same methodology for every tool. Prices and plan details in the prose below were checked on each vendor's pricing page on 7 October 2026; always confirm before buying.

What Is Wrike?

Wrike is a cloud-based work and project management platform founded in 2006 and owned by Symphony Technology Group since 2023. It organises work into spaces, folders, projects and tasks, and lets each team see the same work as a list, board, table, Gantt chart, calendar or dashboard.

Its strength is breadth: interactive Gantt charts with the critical path and baselines, request forms with conditional logic, custom workflows and item types, proofing and approvals, workload and resource planning, cross-project dashboards and, on higher tiers, budgeting, advanced reporting and BI. Wrike AI adds summaries, writing help, Copilot and configurable AI agents.

Wrike suits teams that want one system of record for all their work, rather than a task tool, a proofing tool and a resource tool stitched together.

What Is Smartsheet?

Smartsheet is a cloud-based work management platform launched in 2006 and taken private by Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners in January 2025. Work lives in sheets: grids of rows and columns where each row can be a task with an owner, dates, dependencies, a status and a discussion thread.

On top of sheets, Smartsheet adds Gantt, board, calendar, timeline and table views, forms, no-code automation, cross-sheet reports and dashboards. Enterprise customers get Portfolios and Scenario Planning, and Advanced Work Management adds Control Center, Dynamic View and Data Shuttle for running standardised portfolios.

Smartsheet suits organisations that already run projects and processes in spreadsheets and want them shared, automated and governed.

Key Differences Between Wrike and Smartsheet

The two tools overlap heavily, but they are built on different ideas. The table summarises the differences that matter most when choosing.

Prices are per user or member per month, billed annually, checked 7 October 2026.

Ease of Use and Learning Curve

Both tools score 7/10 for ease of use in our review, but for different reasons.

Smartsheet is quick to start for anyone who knows Excel. A sheet looks like a spreadsheet, you can import an existing file, and basic editing needs almost no training. The learning curve arrives later: cross-sheet formulas, report logic, automation and permission design all take time, and the grid is less visual than board-first tools, which can slow adoption among non-spreadsheet users.

Wrike is straightforward for creating, assigning and updating tasks, but its breadth means more decisions up front: spaces, workflows, custom fields, request forms, dashboards and permissions. Reviewers consistently praise its flexibility and visibility while mentioning onboarding effort and a dense interface. Once configured, though, most users only see the views and fields that matter to them.

If you are still writing your requirements, our guide on how to choose project management software sets out the questions to ask.

Views, Planning and Gantt Charts

Both tools are strong for date-driven work, which is one reason PMOs shortlist them together.

Wrike

Wrike's interactive Gantt charts are included from the Team plan. They support all four dependency types with lead and lag, automatic rescheduling, milestones, the critical path, float and baselines for planned-versus-actual tracking. Board and table views are available on every plan, including Free, and dashboards pull work together across projects.

Smartsheet

Smartsheet's Gantt view is available on all plans and sits on the same rows as the grid, so editing a date in either place updates both. It supports dependencies, milestones and critical path highlighting, and row hierarchy turns a flat list into phases and subtasks. Board and calendar views are on every plan, and timeline view starts on Business.

Verdict: a close call. Smartsheet's grid-plus-Gantt is excellent for people who plan in rows; Wrike adds baselines and more ways to view the same work, which suits mixed teams. Our free Gantt chart template is a useful way to sketch a plan before you choose.

Resource and Portfolio Management

This is the biggest functional difference between the two, and Wrike scores 10/10 against Smartsheet's 9/10 for planning and resource management in our review.

Resource and capacity planning

Wrike shows workload and capacity across the team, accounts for working hours, non-working days and holidays, and supports time tracking with approved timesheets. Advanced resource and capacity planning, role-based planning and budgeting are part of the Pinnacle plan, so organisations that need them get them inside the same platform.

Smartsheet offers workload tracking from the Business plan and Scenario Planning on Enterprise. Fuller resource management (capacity planning, time tracking, demand management, skill-based assignments and project budgets) is a separate Resource Management add-on with its own set-up.

Portfolio management

Smartsheet is very strong here. Portfolios on Enterprise give a standard view of related projects, and Control Center (in Advanced Work Management or as an add-on) provisions new projects from blueprints, pushes changes across existing projects and rolls up portfolio reporting.

Wrike handles portfolios through shared spaces, custom item types and fields, cross-project dashboards and, on Pinnacle and Apex, advanced reporting and BI. Its advantage is that portfolio data, resource data and the day-to-day work all live in the same system.

For background on the techniques, see capacity planning, resource allocation and program vs project vs portfolio management.

Collaboration, Requests and Approvals

Wrike scores 9/10 and Smartsheet 8/10 for collaboration in our review.

Wrike keeps conversations on the work itself: comments, @mentions, attachments, activity streams and formal approvals with named approvers. Request forms with conditional logic create and route tasks automatically, and external forms let clients submit work without a Wrike account. Built-in proofing lets reviewers mark up images, videos and documents, a long-standing strength for creative and marketing teams.

Smartsheet handles collaboration at row and sheet level: conversations, @mentions, attachments and notifications. Forms with conditional logic feed rows straight into sheets, and proofing is available on Business and above. Its user model is cost-friendly for stakeholders: Contributors are free and can view and comment, and Guests are free on Business and above.

If your work starts as a request from another team or a client, Wrike's intake-to-approval flow is the more complete experience. Our free work request template shows the information a good intake form should capture.

Automation and AI

Automation

Both tools offer no-code, trigger-and-action automation. Wrike automates assignment, status changes, notifications and request routing, with more advanced automation, AI agents and cross-tool automation through Wrike Integrate on higher tiers or as add-ons. Smartsheet automates reminders, approval requests, row updates and moves, and document generation; Pro is limited to 250 automations per month, while Business and above are unlimited.

AI

Wrike AI comes in two tiers. AI Essentials (content creation and editing, comment summaries, natural-language form and rule creation, AI highlights) is included from Team. AI Elite (Wrike Copilot, AI dashboard widgets, configurable AI agents and the Whiteboard assistant) starts with an allowance on Business that grows on Pinnacle and Apex.

Smartsheet AI includes Smart Assist (summaries, project health checks and actions), Smart Columns that apply AI to every row, an AI dashboard builder, formula generation and data analysis on all plans, plus an MCP server that connects sheets to external assistants from the Business plan.

Smartsheet's AI is especially handy for querying and summarising structured sheet data; Wrike's agents go further in automating workflow steps such as validating requests and routing work.

Reporting and Dashboards

Smartsheet reporting is built on roll-ups: reports pull matching rows from many sheets, dashboards present them to stakeholders, and Portfolios and Control Center add portfolio-level reporting. Pro dashboards are limited to 10 widgets. Data can also be pushed to Power BI or Tableau.

Wrike includes shareable dashboards from the Team plan, with widgets for status, overdue work, workload and progress across projects, and advanced reporting and BI on Pinnacle and Apex. In Capterra's topic summaries, around 96% of Wrike reviews that mention project visibility and dashboards are positive.

Both can produce a reliable weekly project status report without manual copying, as long as projects use consistent fields.

Integrations

Smartsheet says it has over 175 integrations, including Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Slack, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Jira, DocuSign, Power BI and Tableau. Bridge offers low-code cross-system workflows, the API is available on Business and above, and Data Shuttle automates imports and exports.

Wrike lists around 60 integrations, including Microsoft Teams, Slack, Salesforce, Google Sheets, Power BI, Tableau and Miro, plus an open API. Wrike Integrate automates workflows across other systems, and Wrike Sync offers two-way sync with 22 tools such as Jira, GitHub, HubSpot and Excel; both are included in Apex and available as add-ons on other plans.

If you depend on a long list of enterprise connectors, Smartsheet's catalogue is larger. If you need engineering and business teams to share live work across tools, Wrike Sync is a strong option.

Security and Administration

Both platforms are built for enterprise governance and score 10/10 for scalability in our review.

• Wrike: granular permissions, customisable user types (full, collaborator and read-only), locked spaces, admin controls and SSO on higher tiers. Wrike Lock (add-on) lets customers control the encryption keys that protect their data. Wrike's site displays AICPA, BSI and CSA STAR compliance badges.
• Smartsheet: its Trust Center lists SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, FedRAMP and HIPAA (with a BAA), with AES-256 encryption at rest, SAML SSO on Enterprise, SCIM and admin-enforced MFA. Enterprise customers can add customer-managed keys, data regions and Safeguard policies.

Smartsheet's FedRAMP listing is particularly relevant for US public-sector buyers. For any regulated use, confirm current certifications and plan availability in each vendor's trust documentation, and set up sound governance whichever tool you choose.

Wrike vs Smartsheet Pricing

Checked on vendors' pricing pages on 5 October 2026. Read the full Wrike pricing and Smartsheet pricing breakdowns.

Both vendors price per paid user per month, with lower rates when billed annually (checked 7 October 2026):

• Wrike: Free ($0); Team $10 (2–15 users); Business $25 (5–200 users, annual only); Pinnacle and Apex on quote. Add-ons include Wrike Whiteboard ($15 per user/month), Integrate, Sync, Lock and extra AI Elite actions.
• Smartsheet: no free plan; Pro $9 ($12 monthly, 1–10 members); Business $19 ($24 monthly, 3+ members); Enterprise and Advanced Work Management on quote. Add-ons include Resource Management, Brandfolder, Dynamic View (from about $125 per month), Data Shuttle (from about $100 per month) and Premium Support.

What it costs at your team size

List prices billed annually, before add-ons and discounts:

Smartsheet is cheaper per seat on list price, and its free Contributors can make it cheaper still if many stakeholders only need to view and comment. Wrike's higher per-seat price buys a broader base platform: AI Essentials from Team, an AI Elite allowance (Copilot and agents) from Business, and advanced resource planning and budgeting inside Pinnacle rather than as a separate add-on. Compare total cost for your actual mix of editors and viewers, plus any add-ons you need.

Wrike vs Smartsheet Feature Checklist

"Partial" means the feature is limited, plan-dependent or provided through an add-on or integration. For example, Smartsheet's full time tracking comes with the Resource Management add-on, and Wrike's docs are lighter than dedicated wiki tools.

Category Winners

Wrike wins feature depth (10 vs 8), planning and resource management (10 vs 9), collaboration (9 vs 8) and Agile and software teams (8 vs 6). The two tie on ease of use, value for money and scalability. In practice, that means Smartsheet is just as enterprise-ready and similar value, while Wrike covers more kinds of work in one place.

What Users Say: G2 and Capterra Ratings

Smartsheet has the higher G2 rating. Smartsheet has the higher Capterra rating. See reviews on G2 for Wrike, G2 for Smartsheet, Capterra for Wrike and Capterra for Smartsheet.

Smartsheet has slightly higher headline ratings and a much larger number of G2 reviews. On Capterra, Wrike is rated 4.4/5 from 3,041 reviews and Smartsheet 4.5/5 from 3,559 reviews (checked 7 October 2026).

• Wrike reviewers most often praise centralised projects, visibility across departments, flexible workflows and dashboards; the main complaints are the learning curve, a dense interface, notification volume and pricing for small teams.
• Smartsheet reviewers most often praise real-time collaboration, versatile project tracking and the familiar spreadsheet layout; the main complaints are cost and licensing, performance on large sheets and limited advanced formulas.

Headline scores differ by only a fraction of a point, so read critical reviews from organisations similar in size and industry to yours.

Which Should You Choose?

If you are between the two, start with Wrike when the work is varied and cross-functional, and with Smartsheet when it is mostly structured, date-driven plans and trackers.

Wrike vs Smartsheet by Team Type

PMOs and enterprise portfolios

Both are excellent. Choose Smartsheet if standardisation through blueprints and spreadsheet-style reporting is the priority; choose Wrike if you also want resource, budget and request management in the same system.

Marketing, creative and agency teams

Wrike is usually the better fit, thanks to request forms, custom workflows, proofing and approvals.

Operations and finance teams

Smartsheet is usually the more natural step up from spreadsheets: the data model barely changes, but you gain automation, forms and dashboards. Our project tracker template shows a typical starting structure.

Professional services and IT

Wrike's resource planning, timesheets and budgeting on Pinnacle suit firms that plan staff across many client projects; see professional services project management. IT teams use both, often alongside Jira.

Construction and engineering

Smartsheet's grid-based schedules, mobile forms for field data and roll-up reporting make it a common choice.

Small businesses

Wrike's Free and Team plans give small teams an easier start, while Smartsheet's lack of a free plan and 10-member Pro cap make it better suited to small teams that already think in spreadsheets.

How to Switch Between Wrike and Smartsheet

1. Pick one pilot project that represents your typical work, rather than migrating everything at once.
2. Map the structure. Smartsheet sheets, rows and columns map roughly to Wrike projects, tasks and custom fields; parent rows become tasks with subtasks.
3. Export and clean the data. Export the sheet to a spreadsheet file, remove formulas and keep one row per task with owner, dates and status.
4. Import. Wrike can import Excel files on Team plans and above (up to 5,000 tasks per import) and map names in the "Assigned to" column to users. Smartsheet can create new sheets from imported Excel files.
5. Rebuild what does not migrate: dependencies, automations, request forms, reports and dashboards usually need to be set up again.
6. Run both tools in parallel for one reporting cycle, then switch the team over and archive the old workspace.

Plan the move like any small project, with an owner, a timeline and a short training session.

Alternatives to Wrike and Smartsheet

If neither tool feels right, these comparisons cover the most common alternatives:

• Wrike vs monday.com: for a more visual, easy-to-adopt platform.
• Wrike vs ClickUp: for lower per-user prices with docs and sprints built in.
• Wrike vs Asana: for simpler cross-team task and goal tracking.
• monday.com vs Smartsheet: for a more visual alternative to Smartsheet's grid.

You can also browse all Wrike alternatives, all Smartsheet alternatives or every head-to-head on our comparison index.

Frequently asked questions