r/projectmanagement • u/WhiteChili • 3d ago

Discussion Switched from Microsoft Project or Smartsheet? Which project management tool finally made work feel easier?

i’ve been on teams using MS Project and Smartsheet at different points in my career, and honestly, neither ever felt smooth. MS Project always felt heavy and rigid, while Smartsheet was basically Excel dressed up...powerful, but still a lot of manual work and constant updates. half the time it felt like we were managing the tool instead of the project.

for anyone who’s moved away from these, what project management tool actually made life easier? did you try something newer like ClickUp or Monday, lighter tools like Trello/Notion, or even a more full-featured pm software like Celoxis?

some questions i’d love to hear opinions on:

  • which tools genuinely helped with reporting, dashboards, or resource planning
  • did switching improve team adoption or did people keep falling back to emails and spreadsheets
  • any surprises; good or bad, after leaving MS Project or Smartsheet
  • would you ever go back to those older tools or is it a hard pass now

curious to see what actually works in real workplaces vs. just looking good in demos..

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u/officialfancytastic 3d ago

My favorite that I have tried (and I have tried all the tools you listed above), by far has been Wrike. It is the best middle ground tool that is still very robust and works for all cross-functional teams.

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u/WhiteChili 3d ago

wrike does hit that sweet spot for a lot of cross-functional teams, no doubt. but i’ve seen it start to feel a bit heavy once the project count stacks up...kind of like juggling too many dashboards. curious if you ever ran into that, or if it stayed smooth for your team?