liveplanner vs Smartsheet
A free Smartsheet alternative
Smartsheet brings spreadsheet-style work management to large organisations, with grid, Gantt, card and calendar views, reports and dashboards. liveplanner offers the everyday parts of that, sheets, boards, a Gantt chart of the cards, live dashboards and forms, in a free planner you can start without an account.
At a glance
| Feature | liveplanner | Smartsheet |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, every feature | Commercial, priced by plan |
| Start without an account | Yes, create and edit as a guest | An account to create a sheet |
| Views of the work | Boards, Gantt chart, calendars, charts by field | Grid, Gantt, card and calendar views |
| Spreadsheets | Sheet tabs with over 150 functions and charts | Sheets with formulas at the core |
| Dashboards | Dashboard tabs of live boards, sheets, charts and notes | Dashboards and cross-sheet reports |
Which to pick
Why pick liveplanner
- No seats or tiers: every feature is free for everyone.
- A Gantt chart drawn from the cards, with bars you drag to change dates, swimlanes by any field and a line for today.
- Sheet tabs beside the board, reading its cards or listing them as rows linked both ways.
- Dashboards whose slots stay live: work on the board, edit the sheet and watch the chart redraw.
- Forms on a public link whose answers land as cards or rows the moment they are sent.
- Real-time editing for everyone with the link, no account needed.
Where Smartsheet is the better pick
- You manage large programmes with cross-sheet reports, resource management and portfolio views.
- You need enterprise governance, approvals and administration across many teams.
- Your organisation already standardises on Smartsheet and its integrations.
The plan, the numbers and the timeline together
A liveplanner plan keeps everything in one place. The Project Planner template sets up a board of projects and their tasks; a Gantt chart draws every card with a start and a due date, filled to the share of its child cards that are done; a Sheet holds the budget; and a Dashboard puts all of it on one page. Because every view reads the same cards, changing a date on the Gantt moves the card on the board too.
Where Smartsheet goes further
Smartsheet is built for programmes that span many sheets and teams: reports that roll up across sheets, resource and portfolio management, and the administration a large organisation expects. liveplanner has none of that layer, and is the simpler choice for a team or a project rather than a whole portfolio.
Free, private, and yours to keep
Anyone can create a plan without signing up: a guest’s new plan is kept in their browser until they press Share, which syncs it in one step. A share link is an Editor, Participant or view-only link (a Participant can work on cards and cells, comment and vote without changing how the plan is set up), and it can carry a password or an expiry date.
liveplanner is free for everyone, with no paid tier, no ads and no third-party trackers. A board exports as CSV, an image, a PDF or a Markdown outline and a sheet as CSV, so your work is never locked in.
Smartsheet alternative FAQ
Is liveplanner a free alternative to Smartsheet?
Can I bring my Smartsheet sheets across?
Does liveplanner have a Gantt chart?
Can I work with people outside my organisation?
See how it feels
No sign-up, nothing to install, free forever. Start a plan and judge for yourself.
Comparisons reflect each product’s general positioning and may change. Check Smartsheet’s own site for current details. Last reviewed .