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Comparison · Collab
Smartsheet vs Whimsical
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Smartsheet and Whimsical — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Smartsheet vs Whimsical: at a glance
What is Smartsheet?
Smartsheet retires card view for Enterprise and moves AI into three named views.
An October batch ends a stretch of mostly navigation pages in this feed with real product changes. Card view is retired for Enterprise customers in favor of board view, and AI capabilities are now reached only from Table, Board and Timeline views. Around that sit a Workday sync through the Integrations panel, SharePoint file import, bulk attachment handling and new keyboard shortcuts in table view.
What is Whimsical?
Whimsical's pitch to Miro and Lucid users: paste your work in and keep editing it
Whimsical now accepts pastes from Miro, FigJam, Lucidchart, Lucidspark, Excalidraw, tldraw, Canva, Visio and Mural as editable objects rather than flat images. A week earlier it added multi-page files, which replace tabbed folders, along with expandable nested content in Docs and a persistent search sidebar. These sit on top of the Ask Whimsical agent and MCP access shipped earlier this year.
Smartsheet vs Whimsical: editorial side-by-side
Smartsheet
5.0COLLABPM
Smartsheet retires card view for Enterprise and moves AI into three named views.
◆ Current state
An October batch ends a stretch of mostly navigation pages in this feed with real product changes. Card view is retired for Enterprise customers in favor of board view, and AI capabilities are now reached only from Table, Board and Timeline views. Around that sit a Workday sync through the Integrations panel, SharePoint file import, bulk attachment handling and new keyboard shortcuts in table view.
◆ Where it's heading
Table view is being built into the primary work surface, with attachment management and shortcuts arriving there and AI access narrowed to a defined set of views. The Workday and SharePoint additions pull enterprise data in rather than leaving it to be re-keyed. The April Contributor seat was packaging; this batch is product consolidation.
◆ Prediction
Card view's retirement starts with Enterprise, so wider retirement is the logical next step, though the entries give no date. More table view parity work looks likely given how much of this batch landed there.
Whimsical
2.5COLLAB
Whimsical's pitch to Miro and Lucid users: paste your work in and keep editing it
◆ Current state
Whimsical now accepts pastes from Miro, FigJam, Lucidchart, Lucidspark, Excalidraw, tldraw, Canva, Visio and Mural as editable objects rather than flat images. A week earlier it added multi-page files, which replace tabbed folders, along with expandable nested content in Docs and a persistent search sidebar. These sit on top of the Ask Whimsical agent and MCP access shipped earlier this year.
◆ Where it's heading
The recent work is about capturing teams from other tools and keeping their files organized once they arrive. Paste import removes the rebuild cost of switching, and multi-page files let one file hold Boards and Docs together. MCP keeps growing in the background, gaining file moves, date search and direct link reading in the September release.
◆ Prediction
Expect more MCP capability on the same release cadence, since recent releases keep adding to it.
Alternatives to Smartsheet and Whimsical
Other Collab products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Smartsheet or Whimsical.
Staffbase
Staffbase's feed turns from employer brand to AI positioning, still with no release notes
HumHub
HumHub 1.19 has left beta, and its first patches are already carrying security fixes.
Pydio Cells
Cells 5.1 gives tag values their own access policies and endpoints.
Memos
Memos adopts calendar versions and rebuilds writing around one block editor.
Circle
Circle moves from building the community to selling inside it, with upsells and attribution.
See all Smartsheet alternatives → · See all Whimsical alternatives →
Recent activity from Smartsheet and Whimsical
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 7d agoSmartsheetManage your sheet and row attachments in table view
- 7d agoSmartsheetWork faster with keyboard shortcuts in table view
- 7d agoSmartsheetCard view has been retired for Enterprise plan customers
- 7d agoSmartsheetImport files from SharePoint
- 7d agoSmartsheetSync Workday data into Smartsheet
- 7d agoSmartsheetUse AI tools in Table, Board, and Timeline views
- 25d agoWhimsicalPaste from anywhere
- 1mo agoWhimsicalMulti-page files
- 1mo agoWhimsicalCode blocks in Boards
- 2mo agoWhimsicalBetter search and icons in flowcharts
- 3mo agoWhimsicalDark mode
- 3mo agoWhimsicalAsk Whimsical ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Smartsheet and Whimsical?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Smartsheet is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 2.5), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Smartsheet better than Whimsical?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Smartsheet is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 2.5), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Collab products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Smartsheet?
Top Smartsheet alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Smartsheet alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/smartsheet for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Whimsical?
Top Whimsical alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Whimsical alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/whimsical for the full list with editorial commentary on each.