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Company Background — Why It Matters

Before comparing features, it's worth understanding where each tool comes from, because the company behind a piece of software tells you a lot about where it's headed.

ClickUp

Founded in 2017, ClickUp has raised $537.5 million over multiple rounds, including a Series C completed in October 2021. With a team of 500 to 1,000 people and a valuation over $1 billion, ClickUp is firmly in unicorn territory. It's well-funded, well-staffed, and has been in market long enough to have a large, established user base and a robust feature set.

SmartSuite

Founded in 2019, SmartSuite took a radically different approach. Rather than launching early and iterating publicly, SmartSuite spent years building in secret — quietly assembling a team of developers and creators to build a near-finished product before introducing it to the market at all. As of this review, SmartSuite has no venture funding on record, though that's expected to change soon.

Company legacy verdict

ClickUp wins this category by a significant margin — more funding, more history, more stability. But SmartSuite's deliberate, unhurried build approach is worth noting. It explains why the product feels more considered than what you'd typically see from a tool this early in its lifecycle.

Design and Interface

SmartSuite's design

SmartSuite has a clean, spacious feel that sits somewhere between Airtable and Monday.com. The interface prioritizes wide viewing areas over sidebars, which works well given SmartSuite's database-leaning structure. Inside individual records, collapsible sections let you expand and collapse data without things getting cluttered. There are very few hover-activated icons — what you see is what you get.

ClickUp's design

ClickUp has more — more features, more options, more activity on hover. The interface is dense with fine text and a lot of sidebar navigation that can feel overwhelming until you know where everything lives. ClickUp is well-known for hiding features in places users don't think to look, which contributes to a steeper learning curve even for day-to-day use.

One thing worth noting: ClickUp does offer multiple layout options, including a Modern View, that can bring the interface closer to Monday or SmartSuite's aesthetic. But the default experience is meaningfully more complex.

Design verdict

SmartSuite wins on design — cleaner, more spacious, and easier to navigate for new users.

Ease of Use

SmartSuite is easier to get started with. Templates come pre-populated with real-world examples, and the interface doesn't require much onboarding to understand. The flat structure and minimal hover interactions mean new users can get productive quickly.

ClickUp's learning curve is steeper — and not just for advanced features. Even basic day-to-day use requires knowing enough about the platform to avoid accidentally breaking things. There are a lot of features, and unfortunately you need to know most of them to use the tool confidently. That's part of why ClickUp consultants and trainers exist.

Ease of use verdict

SmartSuite wins on ease of use.

Language Support

This is one of the more surprising differences between the two tools.

SmartSuite — despite being the newer, smaller tool — has prioritized global language support from early on. The platform offers a significant number of interface languages plus localization for things like number formatting, phone numbers, and other regional details that matter for international teams.

ClickUp, by comparison, is available in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese — with Spanish and Portuguese still in beta at the time of this review. For a tool that's been in market since 2017, language prioritization clearly hasn't been top of the list.

Language support verdict

SmartSuite wins — and it's not close if your team works in languages other than English or French.

Pricing

Both tools offer a free plan. SmartSuite's free plan supports up to 3 users. ClickUp's free plan is more open, with unlimited team members available at the free tier.

From there, the comparison gets more nuanced. For smaller teams that don't need advanced permissions or higher-tier features, ClickUp tends to offer more for less. For larger teams or teams that need more granular controls, SmartSuite's Professional plan can actually come out cheaper than ClickUp's Enterprise pricing for the equivalent feature set.

Pricing verdict

ClickUp wins for smaller teams and those who want the most features at the lowest price point. SmartSuite wins for larger teams that need premium features and tighter permissions. It genuinely depends on who you are.

The free Operations Assessment can help clarify what your team actually needs from a work management tool before committing to a plan.

Which Tool Is Right for You?

These two tools serve different types of business owners. SmartSuite tends to be a better fit for teams that want a cleaner, more structured, database-style experience with less of a learning curve. ClickUp tends to be a better fit for teams that want maximum flexibility and feature depth, and are willing to invest in learning the tool to get there.

Both have a lot to offer. The best way to find out which one clicks is to get inside both and explore — affiliate links for both are in the description.

There's a lot more to both tools than what's covered here — drop any questions in the comments and the comparison continues.