Zuuna vs Smartsheet: the spreadsheet as the foundation

Smartsheet starts from the spreadsheet and builds project features on top. If you are coming from Excel, it offers the most familiar surface on the market. That is its strength — and the reason comparing it with a board-first tool like Zuuna is interesting at all.

The licence model is the real decision

Smartsheet separates paid Members from Contributors and guests, who are unlimited and free. On top of that come minimums: the Pro plan is capped at 1–10 Members and is described as available to new customers only, Business requires at least 3 Members and Enterprise at least 10 (accessed 14 August 2026). The pricing page names no free plan, but does offer a 30-day trial with no credit card.

Deliberately without numbers: Smartsheet's pricing page switches currency and billing period dynamically and returned contradictory figures when read. We would rather print no number than a wrong one — check the prices directly with Smartsheet.

When Smartsheet fits

When your work genuinely is tabular: many rows, formulas, rollups across projects, and many people who contribute rather than plan. The contributor model is then worth real money.

When Zuuna fits

When the work is essentially items moving through states — and part of it ends up in code. Zuuna has a table view as one view of the same cards rather than as the foundation, plus git on the board, sprints and releases. And readers cost nothing here either: public links are not seats.

Migrating

Out of Smartsheet through Excel or CSV — precisely the case the import was built for: pick the header row, map the columns, and the status column becomes your board columns.