Apache OpenOffice vs. Google Sheets vs. Smartsheet

In my opinion, Apache OpenOffice is best suited for writing, editing and proofreading texts in any language. You can also download additional language packages that really take up little space in your PC's storage. Of course, Apache OpenOffice is comprehensive of spreadsheet-/drawing-/database-related softwares and so on, but I primarily use it for writing and editing my own texts. I don't see any scenarios where it is less appropriate, at least so far.

Incentivized

Google Sheets is well suited in two main areas: is free to use and you don't need to buy a license to use it, comparing to the most direct competitors ; collaboration is in my opinion the best advantage, with multiple people working together and seeing others working in real time. It's less appropriate in low connectivity environments (offline capabilities)

Smartsheet shines for collaboration. When you have multiple people involved with planning events Smartsheet makes it easy to share and collaborate. For instance, multiple people can be in Smartsheet working at the same time. Also setting permissions for exactly those who need to know is quite easy with Smartsheet. For data analytics and general spreadsheet purposes Excel is better but for project management and event planning Smartsheet is superior

Incentivized

• The number one strength of OpenOffice is the flexibility it gives. We can open any file type, save any file type - it's pretty much invincible. Even if we're going to work on this in a different program, just being able to open some of these ancient files that we get from local city governments is a huge win for us.
• It's also administrator friendly - I'll use it a lot on the road because the licensing is so much easier to deal with than trying to check out a license from a server or make sure that everybody has internet connectivity.
• It just looks pretty! It's legitimately a quality product, the layout looks good, it's not nearly as pushy as "other suites," and for the money it's the best!

Incentivized

• Collaborative planning : In the initial phase of project, Team leads and architects create a permission matrix along with the naming convention simultaneously, seeing who is editing / adding the details in real-time.
• Cost tracking : We use this tool to track cloud resource usage monthly costs, so that we can analyse it and send out comms for high cost based resources. By storing cost data here, it's easy for use to store data of last couple of years.
• Flexible documentation : For change logging of different scenarios we would need different / ad-hoc columns to be added on the fly, which makes using this tool much simpler then reputed third party tools.

Incentivized

• Its hard to overstate the value of familiarity. Being able to use a tool that has some familiarity takes away the time needed to train and orient employees on a new tool and allows an organization to hit the ground running.
• Smartsheet covers most of the basics of a project management tool, the usual tasks, milestones and project viewing options.
• For data viewing, you get multiple data viewing options including a calendar view (good for marketing teams and those who work around scheduling), Kanban, Gaant etc

Incentivized

• Some people used to Microsoft products can feel it's a little bit old in its style
• I saves documents in its native format, which is incompatible with MS Word or Excel, unless you change that in the preferences tab
• The UI is not very pretty

Incentivized

• Ease of use - I collaborate with a lot of folks on these and a lot of them have trouble using it.
• Would love more live features; for example, being able to have cells react to other inputs (checkboxes, etc) with reactive formatting
• More cross-usability with other Google products; it's hard to think of drawbacks honestly, this is a pretty seamless software.

Incentivized

• Smartsheet set up is similar to Excel, yet when you upload an Excel file, things like conditional formatting are lost. Smartsheet has its own conditional formatting, and you have to reinstate the rules. It would be great if those would apply automatically once a file is uploaded
• Some Smartsheet management and access rules can take some tweaking to work properly. This may be a case of offering more info to admins so they can apply these better and with more efficiency

Incentivized

It is a cheap alternative; however, with Microsoft 365 licenses also dropping significantly, we might opt to go in that direction to maintain uniformity.

Incentivized

I am not involved in the purchase/selection process, but my organization is a Google shop, and Sheets meets most of our spreadsheet needs and works seamlessly with our other tools. I don't anticipate our switching anytime soon.

Incentivized

It definitely meets our needs as far as organizing and archiving our tasks and files. As we train more staff to view it, I see opportunities for more improvement, which I am sure this program can handle. I look forward to seeing continued improvement from Smartsheet on their capabilities and functionality.

Incentivized

It's good overall, just the UI it's not the prettiest, feels like an older version of MS office, but gets the job done. Once get the hang of it it's easy to use, besides it has great documentation on how to use it and there are many forums that discuss many related topics.

Incentivized

It can easily handle most uses and functions. It is only for very large datasets or advanced analysis that it either lacks the proper functions or performance begins to slow. Most employees who continue to use competitors' products do so out of preference, familiarity with the user interface, or other surface-level reasons.

Incentivized

Smartsheet is very easy to learn. However, while I have been able to pick it easily, Microsoft Excel and Project super users that I have trained on Smartsheet get bogged down in the differences and can find it frustrating. Explaining the differences ahead of time and why Smartsheet is being chosen instead of a different software seems to counteract those reactions

Incentivized

Like most Google products, Google Sheets rarely has outages or slowness, and when it does, connection is always momentarily restored. I can't recall a time when I've been unable to access Google Sheets but able to access other sites just fine. That said, errors aren't uncommon when handling large data volume. You know what they say about using spreadsheets as databases, but sometimes it's just the most convenient option, especially for smaller or one-off projects, and not being able to store large amounts of data hampers our ability to move quickly with scrappy prototypes or full solutions. It would be great if we could better integrate our data manipulation (Apps Script) with big data in the sheet.

Incentivized

Again, Google Sheets is no exception to Google's general high speed and reliability, but load times can be slow for larger amounts of data. I've used Sheets with Zapier and have used the Python API, and speed has never been an issue.

Incentivized

Is there really support? There is a user forum but I do not see much developer input. Support options are limited. The most recent (Sept 2019) version of the product seems to have issues operating under Windows 10, yet there are few recent comments in the community forum, most comments are regarding older versions.

Incentivized

I have never contacted Google Sheets support, but Google Sheets makes it very easy to report an issue or suggest a feature from Sheets itself (Help > Help Sheets improve), and I've had mostly good experiences with support for other Google products.

Incentivized

I give this rating because it fills a niche in the market. MS Project scares many away from proper task management but there are limited tools our there, especially cloud-based that are mobile-friendly. Smartsheet fills this market gap, especially for small to medium-sized businesses. IT is not fair to compare it to MS Project, but fairer to see what gaps it fills.

Incentivized

We found that it is possible to use Open Office to accomplish everything we need. Some tasks required searching for steps on Google.

Incentivized

It's absolutely paramount to take a few minutes to actually play with the software. It's nearly impossible to do anything wrong or make a mistake which cannot be fixed easily. Under the help menu is Live Training option. After you familiarize yourself with the commands, watch the live training for some in depth understanding of how to make the software fit your needs perfectly.

Apache OpenOffice is less intense on our computer systems and saves us a ton of financial resources. Since our document creation and editing needs are typical of a small business and not very complex, Apache OpenOffice is sufficient for us. We think that almost any smaller to medium sized business would feel the same way if they don't have a need to make or edit complex documents.

Incentivized

I have found that I can do almost everything I could have done in Microsoft Excel faster and easier in Google Sheets. We recommend Google Sheets in 99.9% of our use cases and feel it meets the needs of our workers very well. I am sure there are other spreadsheet creation programs out there, but because we are already in the Google environment, adopting Google Sheets in very easy.

Incentivized

Jira and Redmine are much more robust and technologically advanced project management solutions. I enjoy using either when managing a very large project. However, I prefer to use Smartsheet for my smaller to medium sized projects. As for Google Drive - I would say that Google sheets and Smartsheet are almost identical in my opinion when it comes to functionality. Personally I prefer to manage smaller projects via Google Drive, but it is a personal preference!

Incentivized

I'm not involved with the purchase, but I assume everything goes smoothly and that the pricing structure is predictable and reasonable. We do not get surprise fees.

Incentivized

Google Sheets works very well with multiple users. It's convenient to see in real-time who is collaborating in a sheet, down to the specific cell that they're viewing/editing. Linking Sheets across departments is convenient with the IMPORTRANGE function.

Incentivized

• Moving to OpenOffice will save the company the cost of 500+ of Microsoft Office licenses in our company.
• Because it is cross-platform, we could also save 500+ of Microsoft Windows licenses if we move everyone to Linux.
• On the negative side, the lack of online collaboration and browser support may be an issue when you use clouds like Box, Workboard etc.

Incentivized

• Don't need to pay for windows 365 license as it is free
• Has a positive impact since I am not cursing excel for annoying problems(I don't want the new Pivot table format, I want to use Classic and I don't want to expand/collapse arrows. "x$#%")
• [Haven't] looked at return on investment on work, but has "simplified" for basic and medium spreadsheets.

Incentivized

• This has really opened up collaboration across teams. A lot less working in silos.
• It hasn't fully replaced any one tool so it means having to go to another place. Hopefully, we can eliminate a tool or two in the next six months.

Incentivized