Planitude vs Smartsheet: critical path and .mpp files, free

Smartsheet is widely used by people who prefer to work in a grid, as in a spreadsheet, with Gantt, board and calendar views built on the same data. Planitude starts instead from the plan: dependencies, calendars, constraints and the critical path, as in Microsoft Project.

The two approaches address different needs. The comparison below is based on Smartsheet’s official pricing page.

Who Smartsheet and Planitude are for#

Smartsheet is designed for teams that organize work in shared tables and want to add different views on the same data; contributing collaborators are unlimited and free^[1].

Planitude is designed for those who need to manage time and dependencies:

• project managers who need to know which task drives the finish date;
• teams that receive or deliver Microsoft Project files;
• organizations that want a complete Gantt chart without a per-member subscription.

Comparison at a glance#

The data is the same as in our full comparison. “Not stated” means that Smartsheet does not list the feature on its pricing page, not that the feature is missing.

Scheduling#

Smartsheet manages dependencies between rows and offers baselines from the Business plan^[1]. Planitude is built around its scheduling engine:

• FS, SS, FF and SF dependencies with lead and lag;
• date constraints and deadlines;
• calendars with holidays and exceptions, including per resource;
• a critical path calculated and updated with every change;
• baselines included for everyone, with the variance of each task;
• multi-level subtasks created with Tab, as in MS Project.

The Summary, Gantt, List, Board, Calendar and Workload views work on the same plan.

Example: organizing an event

A conference involves booking the venue, preparing the speaker program, printing materials and setting up. In Planitude, printing cannot start before the program is finalized (finish-to-start), setup must be completed by the day before (deadline) and the venue has a calendar with its closing days. If a speaker confirms late, the program slips and Planitude automatically recalculates printing and setup, showing whether the deadline is still met. In a grid, the dates would have to be updated manually, row by row; in Planitude, they are the result of the dependencies. The client can also follow progress through the read-only public link, without creating an account.

Import, export and migration#

Planitude reads .mpp, Microsoft Project XML and Primavera .xer files, with a report of all items that could not be mapped, and exports to Microsoft Project XML, CSV for Excel and print/PDF. Smartsheet’s pricing page does not list .mpp import^[1]: if you work with MS Project files, check Smartsheet’s documentation for the capabilities available on your plan.

Collaboration#

Smartsheet includes free, unlimited collaborators^[1]. Planitude also charges no user fees: link invitations with roles (owner, editor, viewer), comments with mentions, unique task keys, a change history and a read-only public link.

Pricing#

Smartsheet Pro starts at €8 per member per month billed annually, for teams of 1 to 10 members; resource management is a paid add-on^[1]. Planitude is free, supported by advertising, with no limit on the number of users. The Workload view with overallocation warnings is included.

Languages, data and AI assistant#

Planitude is available in 10 languages and hosts data on servers in the European Union, in Germany. It includes an AI assistant that reads the plan, provides estimates and proposes changes for you to confirm, generates a first version of a plan from a description and integrates with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Cursor and VS Code through API keys and the MCP server.

How to move from Smartsheet to Planitude#

1. Export the sheet from Smartsheet to a spreadsheet format, according to the options on your plan.
2. Create a free Planitude account and a new project.
3. Copy the rows from Excel (name, duration, indentation for the hierarchy) and paste them into the Planitude grid.
4. Add the dependencies: the engine calculates the dates and the critical path.
5. Save a baseline and invite your team by link.

Conclusion#

Smartsheet excels as a grid-based platform with free collaborators. Planitude excels in a different area: planning with the logic of MS Project, reading and writing its files, and offering all of this free of charge to the whole team. If the schedule is at the heart of your work, Planitude is the better-suited tool.

Frequently asked questions#