Depentra vs Smartsheet
Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-style work platform with project sheets, reports and dashboards. Depentra is a planner built around dependencies: what links to what, what a delay moves, and what to do about it.
Last verified 1 October 2026 against Smartsheet's public documentation.
Choose Smartsheet if your teams think in spreadsheets and you want grids, reports and dashboards across many kinds of work, with projects as one part of it.
Choose Depentra if your plans depend on each other and you need links between projects, float on every task, and a way to test a delay before it happens.
This compares Smartsheet project sheets with dependencies turned on, in grid and Gantt view.
Dependencies and scheduling, side by side
| Capability | Depentra | Smartsheet |
|---|---|---|
| Dependency types | All four: FS, SS, FF and SF, on every plan, including Free | All four: FS, SS, FF and SF[1] |
| Lag and lead | Yes, on every plan, including Free | Yes, as lag or overlap[1] |
| Total float on every task | Yes, on every plan, including Free | Not described in the documentation we reviewed |
| Critical path | Yes, on the Standard plan and up | Yes, highlighted in Gantt view[2] |
| Baselines | Yes, on the Professional plan and up | Yes, with baseline start, finish and variance[2] |
| Dependencies between projects | Yes, in Programs, on the Standard plan and up | Predecessors work within one sheet; across sheets, teams use cell links and reports[3] |
| Simulate a delay without changing the plan | Yes, the What-If Delay Simulator, on the Professional plan and up | Not described in the documentation we reviewed |
"Not described in the documentation we reviewed" means we could not find it in Smartsheet's help pages, not that it is impossible. If something here has changed, tell us and we will correct it.
Where Smartsheet is the better fit
- A familiar spreadsheet grid, so teams used to Excel are productive quickly.
- Reports and dashboards that gather rows from many sheets.
- Broad use beyond projects: requests, trackers and operational lists in the same tool.
What Depentra does differently
- Every dependency type with lead and lag, and total float on every task, on every plan, including Free.
- The What-If Delay Simulator: delay any task and see what moves, the new finish date and the float used, without touching the live plan, on the Professional plan and up.
- Dependency analysis that shows how a delay travelled, task by task, and what sits downstream of any task, on the Standard plan and up.
- Programs that roll projects up and link tasks across them, so a dependency between two teams sits in one place, on the Standard plan and up.
- Pentra, Depentra's AI assistant, answers questions about your plan in plain language.
Depentra does not do automatic resource levelling or time tracking, and has no public API.
Moving a plan to Depentra
Export the sheet to Excel, then import it into Depentra; import from Excel or CSV is on every plan.
To see your own plan's dependencies first, paste its rows into the free delay simulator: no account needed.
Sources
- Smartsheet Help: Activate dependencies and use predecessors
- Smartsheet Help: Baselines and critical path
- Smartsheet Community: Can I link predecessors between sheets?
Smartsheet is a trademark of its owner. Depentra is not affiliated with or endorsed by Smartsheet's owner.