SmartSuite vs. monday.com: Full Comparison (2023)
Smartsuite Vs Monday Dot Com
Dec 24
SmartSuite and monday.com are two popular options for your team's project management experience. Here's a breakdown and comparison to help choose which is best for your team.
Let's take a look at these two giant project management tools - one with more long-standing credibility in the market, and the other a growing powerhouse rivaling Airtable.
Quick Glance: SmartSuite vs. monday.com
Choosing the right project management tool is crucial for any team, big or small. In this guide, we will compare two prominent options: SmartSuite and Monday.com. We will cover features, pros, cons, and pricing to help your team make an informed decision.
SmartSuite
- SmartSuite offers a flexible user experience akin to Airtable, an app that allows for high customization of your data management. It enables your team to create "solutions" tailored to address specific business problems or enhance team productivity.
monday.com
- On the other hand, monday.com adopts a systemized approach complete with a variety of integrations and a smooth onboarding process. This allows your team to get started quickly, requiring less initial training compared to SmartSuite.
Both tools offer robust project management capabilities, albeit in distinct forms. Understanding the pros and cons of each is essential for selecting the right tool for your needs. Let's take a look at each individually next, but if you'd like to dig into reviews.
monday.com Pros: Rigid Project Management
Let's look into some of the best bits of monday.com and what it can offer to the average team that is looking to organize their projects and workload.
- User Experience: Provides a work-class experience right off the bat. With department-specific presets, like "monday.com marketer" or "monday.com Sales CRM," which makes getting started is a breeze and a huge timesaver. This feature is called "WorkOS".
- Templates and Time Savers: Templates within these experiences remove much of the grunt work involved in setting up a project, making it one of monday.com's hidden gems.
- Dashboards and Gantt Charts: Though some features are behind premium paywalls, monday.com excels in its customizable dashboards and Gantt charts, enabling insightful data presentation. This is such a quality feature that many teams will be tempted.
- Ease of Use: Compared to SmartSuite, monday.com requires less training, making it easier for your team to embrace and utilize different views like Table and Kanban.
Pros of SmartSuite: Airtable's Biggest Match
Let's dig into some of the elements of SmartSuite, despite expansive, that you'll fall in love with as a team managing records and information.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Priced reasonably at $12 per month, SmartSuite offers a robust feature set including "unlimited solutions" under its team plan.
- Functional Views: With options for Grid, Card, Calendar, Kanban, Timeline, and Dashboard views, SmartSuite offers extreme flexibility.
- Privacy Control: Public and private views let you manage data visibility within your team, serving as a draft space for work-in-progress projects.
- Onboarding Guide: SmartSuite has a unique feature allowing you to create a guidebook for each solution, making it an ideal tool for onboarding new employees.
monday.com Cons: Missed Opportunities
Now, some of the negatives about monday.com that we noted in our breakdown.
- Overwhelming: Despite its user-friendly interface, the wealth of features can initially overwhelm new users. But not as much as SmartSuite.,
- Premium Limitations: Access to certain advanced features, like dashboards and Gantt charts, is restricted to premium pricing tiers.
Cons of SmartSuite: Lot to Take In
- Steeper Learning Curve: SmartSuite's customization capabilities come at the cost of a steep learning curve, making it challenging for new users.
- Time Investment: Although the customization saves time in the long run, initially setting up the system can be time-consuming, requiring a dedicated person to configure it.
We recommend looking at Layla Pomper's SmartSuite course if you want to learn it.
Which one to Choose? SmartSuite or Monday?
Both SmartSuite and Monday.com have their strengths and weaknesses. Your choice will ultimately depend on your team’s specific needs, the level of customization you desire, and the time you can invest in onboarding.
- monday.com is better for more traditional project management. Something you assume more with the likes of Asana but maybe more customisable.
- Whereas SmartSuite is like Airtable, a powerhouse of optionality and flexibility, with great templates, but much more designed for data-based project management.
Whichever you choose, both options are capable project management tools worthy of consideration. These reviews below help dig even deeper into both of the tools.