Airtable vs Smartsheet: Complete Guide (2025 Comparison)

Managing projects isn’t just about checking off tasks—it’s about keeping people, processes, and priorities aligned as things move and change. If you’ve been searching for the right tool to make that easier, you’ve probably come across Airtable and Smartsheet. Both platforms promise better organization and smoother collaboration, but they each bring something different to the table. 

In this guide, we’ll break down how Airtable and Smartsheet compare in real-world use, where each one excels (and falls short), and when it might make sense to consider an alternative like Knack for even greater flexibility and control.

Key Takeaways

• Airtable is ideal for users who want a flexible, database-style spreadsheet that supports extensive customization.
• Smartsheet is more structured, catering to users familiar with traditional project planning and workflow tools.
• Knack is a strong alternative offering custom project management apps with built-in databases and enterprise-level scalability.
  

Airtable vs Smartsheet: Quick Comparison Table

Feature	Airtable	Smartsheet
UI Style	Visual, flexible database	Spreadsheet + Gantt-style grid
Best For	Custom, data-centric workflows	Structured project planning
Project Views	Kanban, Gallery, Calendar, Grid	Grid, Gantt, Calendar, Card
Templates	70+ templates	350+ templates
Automation	Limited built-in, strong with Zapier	Strong built-in automation
Security & Compliance	Good, improving	Enterprise-grade, SOC2, HIPAA
Pricing	Starts free; paid plans scale fast	Competitive team pricing

What is Airtable?

Airtable is a flexible, low-code platform that merges the visual appeal of spreadsheets with the power of databases. You can structure your data in custom “bases” that adapt to any workflow. Built-in automations, integrations, and collaboration tools make it easy to keep everyone on the same page as projects grow in complexity. Its key features include:

• Customizable bases: Create tables with any field types (text, dates, attachments, checkboxes) and define relationships between records.
• Multiple views: Toggle between grid, Kanban, calendar, gallery, and Gantt to visualize tasks and timelines.
• Linked records: Connect tasks to projects, assets, or team members for seamless data tracking across tables.
• Automations & scripting: Set up triggers and actions—like sending notifications or updating records—without writing code.
• Integrations: Sync with Slack, Zapier, Google Workspace, and dozens more to streamline your existing toolset.
• Collaboration tools: Use comments, @mentions, attachments, and granular permission controls to keep communication clear and secure.
• Pre-built templates: Jumpstart workflows with ready-made bases for marketing campaigns, product launches, event planning, and more.

What is a Smartsheet?

Smartsheet is a versatile project management platform designed to help teams plan, track, automate, and report on work. With its familiar spreadsheet interface, it’s easy to get started, but its powerful features go far beyond basic grids. Smartsheet supports everything from Gantt charts to automated workflows, making it an ideal solution for teams managing complex projects. Its key features include:

• Grid, Gantt, and card views: Choose from grid, Gantt, card, or calendar views to visualize and manage tasks from different angles.
• Automated workflows: Set up rules for automating repetitive tasks like approvals, reminders, or task assignments, reducing manual effort.
• Collaboration & sharing: Easily share sheets with team members, leave comments, attach files, and track revisions in real time.
• Resource management: Assign tasks, track availability, and manage workloads to ensure projects stay within scope and deadlines.
• Forms & reporting: Use forms to gather input from stakeholders and create custom reports to track key metrics or status updates.
• Integrations & APIs: Connect with popular tools like Salesforce, Jira, and Microsoft Teams to centralize all your project data.
• Security & governance: Advanced permission settings, audit logs, and data encryption help ensure your project data is secure and compliant.

Comparing Project Views

A big part of choosing the right project management software comes down to how you want to visualize your work. Some teams prefer the structure of a spreadsheet, while others need a more visual, flexible way to track tasks and deadlines. Here’s how Smartsheet and Airtable stack up when it comes to project views.

Smartsheet’s Project Views

Smartsheet sticks closely to its spreadsheet roots but offers a few different ways to see your project data:

• Grid View: A familiar spreadsheet-style layout that makes it easy to manage rows of tasks, dates, and owners.
• Gantt View: Visualize your project timelines, set dependencies, and track progress with dynamic Gantt charts.
• Calendar View: Map tasks against a calendar to better plan around deadlines and milestones.
• Card View: Organize tasks into kanban-style cards for a more visual, board-based approach to project tracking.
  

Smartsheet’s views are ideal if you need traditional project planning tools like Gantt charts and a familiar spreadsheet interface for quick data updates.

Airtable’s Project Views

Airtable offers a more visual and flexible approach to viewing project data:

• Grid, Kanban, Calendar, Gallery, and Timeline Views: Easily switch between views to match how you think and work.
• 11+ Additional Views with Paid Plans: Paid plans unlock even more ways to slice and organize your data, including pivot tables and matrix layouts.
• Designed for Visual Thinkers: Airtable’s strength lies in its ability to present the same information in multiple formats, making it easier to customize workflows for different team preferences.

If you want your project management software to adapt to your team’s style, Airtable gives you more flexibility out of the box.

Templates & Customization

When you’re choosing project management software, it’s important to think about how much structure you need upfront versus how much flexibility you’ll want as your projects evolve. Templates can speed up your initial setup, but customization options determine how well the tool can grow with your team.

Smartsheet Templates

Smartsheet offers over 350 professional templates designed for a wide range of industries and project types. These templates provide structured, repeatable workflows that help teams move quickly, especially when managing onboarding, budget tracking, marketing calendars, and other common enterprise projects. Many of Smartsheet’s templates are geared toward complex or large-scale initiatives, making it easier to manage compliance requirements, reporting needs, and cross-team collaboration right out of the box.

Airtable Templates

Airtable offers around 70 flexible templates that act more as starting points than plug-and-play solutions. Each template is highly customizable, giving teams the freedom to tweak layouts, add custom fields, and redesign workflows based on their exact needs. This makes Airtable a great fit for niche projects or evolving processes where a rigid structure might be too limiting.

Integrations & Workflow Automation

Both Airtable and Smartsheet can connect your project data with the tools your team already uses. However, they differ in how much automation and integration power they offer natively versus through third-party platforms.

Airtable Integrations

Airtable integrates with a variety of popular apps to streamline collaboration and task management, such as Slack, Google Calendar, and Typeform. However, it doesn’t have many native integrations or automations, meaning you may have to use third-party tools like Zapier to make it match your exact needs.

Smartsheet Integrations

Smartsheet offers deeper native integrations with major enterprise platforms, such as Salesforce, Jira, Microsoft Teams, and ServiceNow. It has strong built-in workflow automation capabilities, meaning users can create alerts, reminders, and conditional actions without needing third-party apps.

Ease of Use & Learning Curve

No matter how powerful a project management tool is, it only works if your team can actually use it. Airtable and Smartsheet both aim to balance flexibility with usability, but they take slightly different approaches.

Airtable’s User Experience

Airtable has a visually intuitive interface that’s easy to pick up, especially for tech-savvy users who are comfortable with modern apps and customizable layouts. Basic tasks like adding records, switching views, and building simple workflows are straightforward. However, there is a learning curve when it comes to more advanced features like setting up complex formulas, linking records across tables, and building multi-step automations. Teams looking for high flexibility may need a little extra time to fully unlock Airtable’s potential.

Smartsheet’s User Experience

Smartsheet leans into its spreadsheet roots, making it feel instantly familiar for anyone with experience using Excel. This familiarity helps speed up onboarding, especially for traditional project managers who prefer a more structured and table-driven setup. While it’s less visually dynamic than Airtable, Smartsheet’s organized layouts and built-in project templates make it easy to get a project up and running without a steep learning curve.

Collaboration & Teamwork Features

Strong collaboration tools can make the difference between a project that stays on track and one that falls behind. 

Airtable

Airtable keeps collaboration simple and intuitive, with features that feel natural for teams used to modern apps. They’re most effective for small to mid-sized teams. These features include:

• In-app commenting on individual records to keep conversations tied to specific tasks or data points
• Activity log tracking to view who made changes and when
• Real-time editing with multi-user access, so everyone can stay in sync without overwriting each other’s work

Smartsheet

Smartsheet’s collaboration system is built for enterprise environments where clear accountability and detailed tracking are critical to success. Its features include:

• Discussion threads and attachments directly linked to specific rows or tasks
• Version control to track document changes and prevent errors
• Team alerts, approval requests, and automated notifications to keep everyone informed and projects moving forward

Security & Pricing

When choosing project management software, it’s important to look beyond features and think about how the platform protects your data and how it fits your budget.

Security & Compliance

• Smartsheet: SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, GDPR, and enterprise-level permissions
• Airtable: Basic compliance (SOC 2), no HIPAA (as of 2025)

Pricing Comparison

• Airtable: Free up to 5 creators; paid plans start at $20/user/mo
• Smartsheet: Starts at $7/user/mo; higher tiers for governance and automation

Alternatives to Airtable and Smartsheet

While Airtable and Smartsheet are popular choices, they aren’t the only options available. Here are a couple of other project management platforms to consider if you’re exploring alternatives.

Monday.com

Monday.com has an intuitive, colorful interface that makes managing projects feel approachable and straightforward. It’s a strong fit for small to midsize teams that want ready-to-use templates and simple workflows without a steep learning curve. While it’s less customizable than Airtable or Smartsheet at deeper levels, Monday.com works for teams looking for quick setup and visual project tracking out of the box.

Quickbase

Quickbase is an enterprise-focused low-code platform that allows teams to build highly customized applications and workflows. It’s a great option for organizations that need scalability and advanced process automation. However, its complexity can create a steeper learning curve, especially for non-technical users who might find setup and maintenance more challenging compared to more user-friendly platforms like Airtable or Monday.com.

5 Reasons to Choose Knack Over Airtable or Smartsheet

Knack’s no-code platform lets you build custom apps, databases, and workflows without needing spreadsheets, complex formulas, or external automation tools. It helps teams create work management solutions that fit their exact processes, not force them to adapt to pre-built templates. Here’s why Knack might be a better fit than Airtable or Smartsheet for your project management needs.

1. Custom App Builder Without Spreadsheets

With Knack, you’re not stuck working inside a spreadsheet-style interface. You can build fully relational databases, custom forms, reports, and workflows from scratch — no complicated formulas or hidden record-linking required. It’s a platform designed for real-world business processes, giving you the power to model your data exactly the way you need it.

2. Drag-and-Drop Logic & Automations

Knack makes it easy to build workflows that automate approvals, send notifications, update records, and more with drag-and-drop tools. Unlike Smartsheet’s conditional workflows, which can be rigid and hard to scale, Knack’s automation builder gives you total flexibility without needing any coding or third-party services.

3. Secure & Scalable for Any Size Team

Whether you’re managing a small team or a large enterprise, Knack provides the security and scalability you need. You can set granular permissions for different users, support unlimited user access as your team grows, and build advanced reporting dashboards—all while keeping sensitive business data protected and compliant.

4. Truly No-Code, Not Just Low-Code

Unlike many platforms that call themselves no-code but still require scripting or third-party tools, Knack delivers a truly no-code experience. You don’t need technical expertise or developer resources to build powerful, production-ready business apps, because everything you need is built right into the platform.

5. Purpose-Built for Custom Work Management

Airtable and Smartsheet offer great templates, but they still expect you to fit your processes into their systems. Knack offers templates, but is purposefully built to let you design a work management platform that matches your exact business model, workflows, and goals without compromises or forced workarounds.

Which Platform is Best for You?

Choosing the right project management tool comes down to how well it fits the way your team works. While Airtable and Smartsheet offer powerful features for certain types of projects, Knack gives you the flexibility to build a fully customized solution without limits. If you’re ready to move beyond spreadsheets and templates and create a platform that’s tailored to your business, sign up with Knack and start building for free today!

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Airtable or Smartsheet better for project management?

It depends on your team’s style and priorities. Airtable is better for teams that want a flexible, visual workspace with customizable views, while Smartsheet is stronger for teams that need structured, spreadsheet-style project tracking and detailed reporting at scale.

Can I use both tools together?

Yes, some teams combine Airtable and Smartsheet by using Airtable to manage creative workflows or custom data, then syncing key information into Smartsheet for formal project tracking and reporting. Integration tools like Zapier can help bridge the two platforms, though it may add complexity over time.

What’s the best Airtable or Smartsheet alternative?

If you want the flexibility to build custom workflows, automate processes, and manage data without relying on spreadsheets or coding, Knack is a smart alternative. It gives you the freedom to create a work management system that’s designed around your business.