Pivotal Tracker vs. Smartsheet

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Pivotal Tracker
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Pivotal Tracker is a project management program primarily for software developers. It is built from the ground up to facilitate the agile development cycle, and is optimized for structuring projects in sprints, or “stories.” The solution is now owned and supported by VMware, and is part of the Pivotal / Tanzu product line up.N/A
Smartsheet
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Smartsheet 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.
$14
per month
Pricing
Pivotal TrackerSmartsheet
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Individual
$14
per month
Business
$25
Per User / Per Month
Enterprise
Contact Sales
Premier
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Pivotal TrackerSmartsheet
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
Pivotal TrackerSmartsheet
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Pivotal Tracker
-
Ratings
Smartsheet
7.7
123 Ratings
2% above category average
Task Management00 Ratings8.3120 Ratings
Resource Management00 Ratings8.8102 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings8.0103 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings8.5105 Ratings
Workflow Automation00 Ratings8.194 Ratings
Team Collaboration00 Ratings8.3116 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology00 Ratings8.476 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology00 Ratings5.674 Ratings
Document Management00 Ratings6.595 Ratings
Email integration00 Ratings7.994 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings7.390 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking00 Ratings6.257 Ratings
Change request and Case Management00 Ratings8.163 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management00 Ratings8.069 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
Pivotal Tracker
-
Ratings
Smartsheet
6.6
61 Ratings
12% below category average
Quotes/estimates00 Ratings5.639 Ratings
Invoicing00 Ratings6.132 Ratings
Project & financial reporting00 Ratings7.155 Ratings
Integration with accounting software00 Ratings7.629 Ratings
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Pivotal TrackerSmartsheet
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User Ratings
Pivotal TrackerSmartsheet
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(32 ratings)
8.5
(141 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(23 ratings)
Usability
6.0
(1 ratings)
8.6
(12 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(9 ratings)
8.1
(45 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(6 ratings)
User Testimonials
Pivotal TrackerSmartsheet
Likelihood to Recommend
VMware by Broadcom
The UI of the Pivotal tracker is really beautiful and amazing, which looks trivial, but we have it open all the time, so it's nice for us. In Pivotal tracker for me its very Easy to create tasks or stories anytime without facing any problems. Pivotal tracker provides us a ton of features to track the tasks and manage a team and the projects. Pivotal tracker allows for a entire team to be on the same page of the tool in regards to where is the project right now, right status of every task, what is being worked on and by whom.
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Smartsheet
For teams and users who are very familiar with Excel and its mode of operation, Smartsheet will feel like a walkover. If you have a number of users who use Excel or Google Sheets for their personal project management then you will find this tool to be very useful and somewhat familiar.
Teams that may be used to other project management suites or styles would find Smartsheet a bit challenging to adapt to, as formulas and formatting can be challenging to adapt to.
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Pros
VMware by Broadcom
  • It's great for tracking milestones and reporting team velocity per sprint.
  • Maintaining a prioritized backlog that is sharable with different members of your team is relatively simple.
  • There's a free version of the product for up to 3 collaborators working on 2 projects and the starting price for larger packages is relatively low.
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Smartsheet
  • The easy to use dashboard has enabled us get comprehensive view of projects across the entire business.
  • It has streamlined internal communication with ease of sharing information across different teams.
  • Smartsheet automates our workflows, enhances collaboration and ensures there are no data silos.
  • I like that it saves time for us and ensures we spend less time switching between apps.
Read full review
Cons
VMware by Broadcom
  • In-story task management is still a weak point. The ability to @mention users in tasks and mark tasks as 'in-progress' would go a long way.
  • Epics do not span projects. This becomes troublesome when scaling Pivotal Tracker's agile methodology to multiple teams.
  • Splitting stories is often confusing for team members as there is no concept of a 'parent' story with child stories that have split off of it. There are only two levels: Epic & Story.
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
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Likelihood to Renew
VMware by Broadcom
I love the simplicity, non-configurability, and price/performance of this tool. Hands down my favorite project management tool for agile.
Read full review
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.
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Usability
VMware by Broadcom
It works good enough. I didn't have many problems with that. The user interface is a bit confusing though. The team took some time to understand where some configurations were.
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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
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Support Rating
VMware by Broadcom
We've never had to request support in the 5 years I have been using it. A solid solution! Everything I have had questions about is on the website. New features are in their newsletter with more details on their website. Often I am using the new features within a few minutes of reading the article.
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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.
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Implementation Rating
VMware by Broadcom
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.
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Alternatives Considered
VMware by Broadcom
We have had employees in the past look at Drupal, and other open source project management tools to assist in our needs. Unfortunately each solution took too much time to implement, design and configure that we could not stop the work we were doing for clients to complete a full set up of a project tracker. Thankfully Pivotal is a predefined solution with no configuration needed. Simply input your projects, design your Stories with Tasks and begin your tracking.
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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!
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Return on Investment
VMware by Broadcom
  • Time is money with development and a lot of things can fall through the cracks. Having a good system for making sure you're building the most relevant product for customers is really important so it was well worth it for us.
  • The process we used worked for us and it helped us streamline our development which reduced a lot of things falling through the cracks and headaches. I'm sure there are other products that can do the same job just as effectively but Pivotal Tracker worked well for us.
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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.
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ScreenShots