TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Discourse

    Score7 out of 10
    N/ADiscourse is a community management and moderation product.

    $20

    per month

    Smartsheet

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/ASmartsheet is an online project management and collaboration tool. It includes automated alerts, instantaneous updating and sharing across team members, resource management, nested tasks organized in a hierarchy, a Gantt chart view, exportable and automated reports, and integration with email.

    $12

    per month per user (up to 10 users)

    Pricing
    DiscourseSmartsheet
    Editions & Modules
    Starter
    $20
    per month unlimited members and 2 staff
    Pro
    $100
    per month unlimited members and 5 staff
    Business
    $500
    per month unlimited members and 15 staff
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    Pro
    $12
    per month per user (up to 10 users)
    Business
    $24
    per month per user (3 user minimum)
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    Advanced Work Management
    Contact Sales
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    DiscourseSmartsheet
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—A discount is offered for annual billing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    DiscourseSmartsheet
    Considered Both Products
    Civilized Discourse Construction Kit Inc.
    No answer on this topic
    Smartsheet
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    90%
    Would buy again
    62 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    58 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    88%
    Happy with the feature set
    61 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    47 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    51 Answers
    Features
    DiscourseSmartsheet
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of Discourse and Smartsheet
    Feature
    Discourse
    -
    Ratings
    Smartsheet
    9.1
    129 Ratings
    17% above category average
    Task Management00 Ratings9.8126 Ratings
    Resource Management00 Ratings10.0108 Ratings
    Gantt Charts00 Ratings9.0109 Ratings
    Scheduling00 Ratings9.8111 Ratings
    Workflow Automation00 Ratings9.2100 Ratings
    Team Collaboration00 Ratings10.0122 Ratings
    Support for Agile Methodology00 Ratings8.981 Ratings
    Support for Waterfall Methodology00 Ratings9.079 Ratings
    Document Management00 Ratings9.2101 Ratings
    Email integration00 Ratings9.0100 Ratings
    Mobile Access00 Ratings8.096 Ratings
    Timesheet Tracking00 Ratings9.762 Ratings
    Change request and Case Management00 Ratings8.169 Ratings
    Budget and Expense Management00 Ratings8.075 Ratings
    Professional Services Automation
    Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Discourse and Smartsheet
    Feature
    Discourse
    -
    Ratings
    Smartsheet
    7.9
    66 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Quotes/estimates00 Ratings8.144 Ratings
    Invoicing00 Ratings7.537 Ratings
    Project & financial reporting00 Ratings8.760 Ratings
    Integration with accounting software00 Ratings7.332 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    DiscourseSmartsheet
    Small Businesses
    Higher Logic Thrive
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Any.do
    Score8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Higher Logic Vanilla
    Score5.5 out of 10
    KanbanFlow
    Score7.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Verint Community
    Score10 out of 10
    Microsoft To Do
    Score7.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    DiscourseSmartsheet
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (3 ratings)
    9.3
    (146 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (24 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (17 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.1
    (45 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    DiscourseSmartsheet
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Civilized Discourse Construction Kit Inc.
    [Discourse is by] far the best online forum platform in the industry. It may be a little pricey for people looking for a cheap option for their hobby forum, but for any type of business that relies on a forum, the pricing is more than fair.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartsheet
    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
    Read full review
    Pros
    Civilized Discourse Construction Kit Inc.
    • User Privileges : Teams, Trust Levels, Moderation, Private and Public Threads make it possible to have as much transparency, privacy or power decentralization as one wishes.
    • Gamification: Badges and Achievements can be customized for User Activity and frequent readers and writers.
    • Mailing List mode: Users can choose to use forum threads without the User Interface by subscribing via mailing list mode.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartsheet
    • 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
    Read full review
    Cons
    Civilized Discourse Construction Kit Inc.
    • Some configuration UIs are difficult to follow
    • Not well-suited for managing workflows (grant management as an example)
    • Bulk operations across multiple threads either impossible or difficult to figure out
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartsheet
    • 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
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Civilized Discourse Construction Kit Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Smartsheet
    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
    Read full review
    Usability
    Civilized Discourse Construction Kit Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Smartsheet
    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
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Civilized Discourse Construction Kit Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Smartsheet
    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
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Civilized Discourse Construction Kit Inc.
    No answers on this topic
    Smartsheet
    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.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Civilized Discourse Construction Kit Inc.
    Vanilla's mobile functionality was downright awful and it felt like it was stuck in the 2000s. While they have similar features, Discourse blows them away in almost every department. We don't regret switching at all.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartsheet
    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
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Civilized Discourse Construction Kit Inc.
    • Community Members are eager to jump into the discussion.
    • Conversations can be tracked easier without the risk of being lost in a sea of messages as people tend to construct their posts more carefully than on any workspace messenger.
    • It's open source and configurable with many other add-ons to help integration with other services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartsheet
    • 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
    Read full review
    ScreenShots