Basecamp Reviews

Pros

Basecamp is the perfect solution for simplicity and efficiency. It has just what you need to manage projects, communications, and almost any collaborative work. You're not flooded with a ton of features that you'll never use.

The message board is simple, yet effective, with just enough customisability. Most importantly, it's a product built for their own use case - so Basecamp's authors are using the platform to build their entire business around it.

They have a ton of free resources, with my favourite being the Shape Up book about how Basecamp runs research & discovery on the platform.

Cons

They've improved many of the things I didn't like, so I think the only remaining issue is that you can't set tasks to recur every 8+ days. It caps out at 7. It's a niche use case, but I needed it a few times already and had to work around this.

Pros

Basecamp is a unified workspace that manages all areas of everyday operations and duties for our company's management. It provides dozens of sales and marketing automation rules, charts, reports and calendar which are most appropriate for our organization.

Cons

Very straightforward. It has maintained a clean reputation with us. I highly value Basecamp.

Pros

Basecamp has single page projects that are relatively simple to use. The to-do lists are easy to use as well. Basecamp can also handle large file transfers.

Cons

Basecamp isn’t the most user friendly software available. It’s quirky and somewhat difficult to figure out what to do if you aren’t familiar with the software.

Pros

It doesn't require any training for new users to jump on the platform to view their tasks and deadlines and communicate within the project.

Cons

Very difficult to project management across dozens of milestones when compared to Asana or SmartSheet.

Alternatives Considered

Asana and Smartsheet

Reasons for Switching to Basecamp

Its free and super easy for anyone to use without training since we only use it to assign a task with defined deadline.

Pros

Easy project setup
Easy communication between to do

Cons

Should show cards and boards as like jira

Pros

It saves you a lot of time and highlights what is important for task scheduling; and high performance to work on multiple projects, It works flawlessly, is very intuitive

Cons

Sometimes their customer support system is a bit slow

Alternatives Considered

Taskworld

Reasons for Switching to Basecamp

the good reviews of Basecamp in general and it has more features

Pros

Basecamp is a reliable tools when it comes to managing projects and tasks through real-time workflow automation.

Cons

I have had no bad experience with Basecamp on my user end.

Pros

I like the to do list it's having which helps me to understand what are the things i need to do to complete my project work. It simplifies my project and saves me time.

Cons

Sometimes the system can be quite slow but it is easy to implement and navigate.

Pros

The best thing about Basecamp is that it provides a central hub that is safe and easily accessible to projects. It makes it easy to invite all major project stakeholders and has the ability to discuss projects quickly and easily.

Cons

I'd like to add some project management features.

Pros

Easy project management without being bogged down with bells and whistles. If words will do, Basecamp will be perfect

Cons

There were not a lot of complicated features, and this led colleagues to search for a better fit. For most things, I was fine with BC.

Pros

Basecamp is incredibly intuitive and easy-to-use. New users can start using the system in a very short period of time. I love the ability to upload files to specific projects or teams and to organize them into folders and update them with new versions. I also really appreciate how Basecamp makes sharing news, messages, and schedules with members of the team. Basecamp is also very affordable, even for small teams.

Cons

I would like to see some additional project management features added. Specifically, project milestones and Gantt charts. A few of the features are not particularly useful, such as the Gaussian-looking completion chart.

Alternatives Considered

Jira

Reasons for Choosing Basecamp

For my purposes, Basecamp provided more capability and was simple and intuitive for basic project management.

Switched From

Microsoft Project

Reasons for Switching to Basecamp

In my last organization, we chose Basecamp over Jira because it was more flexible and suitable for the broad range of applications we needed. While Jira was much better for software development.

Pros

It was very easy to setup and get going. We just invited our team members in with each of their email addresses and it handled the rest. Our entire team found it easy to create their account or do a social login.

We use it primarily as a message board and chat system on our team. I really like how the entire message board is searchable, which is useful for finding things later on. "Remember when we talked about XYZ", and you can just search for XYZ and it shows up quickly. The calendar and file sharing has also come in handy for simple things, though it's not as robust as using something like Google Calendar or Google Drive.

Basecamp also has a useful API that we've used to pull some data out of their system and display it in our other systems.

The mobile app works great. It's probably one of the best designed apps I've ever used, to be honest. It makes it easy to talk with the team while on-the-go.

Cons

I was hoping for some kind of wiki system to be included with Basecamp. You can kinda make up your own wiki using specific categories on the message board and file sharing, but it's not quite the same. A wiki would be really helpful for internal documentation.

Alternatives Considered

Asana

Reasons for Switching to Basecamp

Basecamp seemed better suited for the team communication that we were going for. The Message Board has worked perfectly for us. However, if our needs were more focused on task management, then I think Asana would have been a better tool. Basecamp's task management is essentially a team-based to-do list that is fine but lacking some of the advanced features of its competitors.

Pros

My use of Basecamp is unique in that I personally don't need project management software as much as a client communication interface, and Basecamp is perfect for that! My work requires me to implement deadlines for both my team and my clients, and Basecamp allows me to clearly communicate that entire timeline while keeping all files and communication in one place. It really is a perfect "home base"!

Cons

I'd love to be able to customize which projects we receive updates on! Instead of just choosing email updates or no email updates, it would be great to have a newsfeed of only starred projects or even the ability to designate and filter by role within a project.
I also feel that the jump between Basecamp Personal and Basecamp Business is a bit too stark. I'd love to see, say, a Basecamp Entrepreneur option in between aimed at companies that don't need unlimited features and can't afford the $99 monthly price point. Basecamp 2's "10 projects for $20/month" package would be an ideal model!

Alternatives Considered

Jira and Freedcamp

Reasons for Switching to Basecamp

While I preferred the pricing structure of the alternative products, Basecamp can't be beaten in terms of client friendliness.

Pros

Basecamp does almost everything we need to do, with the ability to use the APIs we've managed to extend Basecamp to work with our internal and some external systems. Every single project is tracked and managed via the app, our project hours are recorded against each project using the API and we can report on these for costings at any point.
There are more competent project management software packages out there, but all of these charge per user and would be a lot more expensive.

Cons

There's a few small features missing, one of these is project management across multiple projects, we're not able to produce GANNT charts or assign people to projects with working hours to ensure the member of staff isn't overloaded. This is minor overall but would definitely be something great to have.

Alternatives Considered

Jira, Trello and Autotask PSA

Reasons for Choosing Basecamp

Basecamp gave us more flexibility and at a lower cost than Trello.

Switched From

Trello

Reasons for Switching to Basecamp

Mainly due to cost.

Pros

Basecamp makes my life so much easier! From tracking projects to communicating deadlines and keeping all our most important documents and information in an easily accessible place, there's no way I could keep track of everything as efficiently and smoothly without it.

Cons

There's a significant learning curve with Basecamp, and that can intimidate those who haven't used project management tools or cause people to feel like they don't have time to figure it out.

Alternatives Considered

Trello and Asana

Reasons for Choosing Basecamp

Basecamp had features that were more compatible with our needs.

Switched From

Trello

Pros

Basecamp is an online project management tool which can be accessed through a Mobile device by its app or directly through the web on both PC and Mobile devices. Managing multiple projects at the same time is very easy with Basecamp. Basecamp is featured rich web app where each and every feature such as Project Updates, Discussions and In-project Todo Lists/Tasks are on one-page and a user can easily find them directly by first look. The best thing in Todo list is multiple Todo lists in a single project for different department’s collaboration which makes it more powerful than the other available tools in the market. Document upload and sharing with others and receive feedback or comments makes it more versatile. The coolest feature which I like is the Catchup option for knowing about today and today’s progress in a single click. The best feature which keeps me update about the progress is the Progress feature, where the whole project is displayed as a timeline on one page, that’s just amazing. It’s so easy to see the milestones and progress right in one screen and scroll to see how much of done for the course of a day or month. The simplicity of Basecamp makes me love it; because Basecamp has a very lean user interface, the smooth learning curve for first-time users and scalability to use it for larger projects which makes it adoptable for everyone.

Cons

The workflow is not built around any specific industry so it may not be a very perfect for specialized companies but it can be used by anyone and it can be adopted easily because of its ease and more features.
The Calendar view/ Schedule doesn’t show a specific task's progress in details. it will make more sense to calendar/schedule view if the schedule is shown like the progress bar for every task.

Pros

It is so well integrated. For example, taking one action will also notify several team members who need to know about that action without me having to send numerous emails. The software makes it possible to track several or many projects with dozens of people without losing a step or forgetting anything.

Cons

A bit of a learning curve to get started, but technical support is good, and the program quickly becomes intuitive.

The other members of your team - not only your staff, but your client - must also be willing to learn Basecamp. On the other hand, once they do, they will love it - and you!

Pros

I love the ease of use, and the how it allows us to keep very complex projects organized via the To-dos etc. I love the fact it lets our teams collaborate in a single location and keep everything related to a project organized. (We use Basecamp B2 FYI)

Cons

DISCUSSIONS. If I had a way to turn off the ability to start a new discussion I would. I like the fact the discussion area shows the chronological listing of activities, but I DO NOT like the concept of a discussion.

Everything we do in Basecamp is in the TO-DO section because you can assign ownership and due dates. A DISCUSSION on the other hand, cannot be assigned to someone or a date added.

Anything we need to discuss, can be done inside a specific TO-DO item and at the point someone needs to take action it can then be assigned to someone for ownership.

A discussion without the ability to assign ownership and a time element is Just a bunch of talking and worthless to a business.

I'm also continually having customers go out there and open new discussions when they want something instead of opening a to-do because discussions are the first thing they see. If I could turn off the ability to open a new discussion I would.

Because of the issue I just mentioned, it would be VERY HELPFUL if there was an easy way to move an item from a DISCUSSION to a TO-DO. That would make it easy to deal with the situation if someone opened a discussion instead of a to-do and also would make logical sense that people are talking about something for a long time (Discussing it) and then when it's time to get off their butt and do something they could move it to a to-do (have the history of the discussion) and assign ownership.

Pros

Since switching to Basecamp we've seen better communication, collaboration, and better delivery on projects for our marketing team. The way Basecamp delivers information—keeping it all up front and easily accessible—makes it super easy to find out where a project is at at any given time.

We've also seen an increase in productivity. People are spending less time trying to figure out what it is they are doing and spending more time getting tasks checked off their list.

It has also improved team morale. PM software can be frustrating, but the user interface has made it more fun.

While we haven't rolled this out company wide, we are looking forward to it.

Cons

I think there is room to improve the educational components of Basecamp. Based on their customer experience, are there best usage stories? Are there best practices for implementation and usage that we can use? Key piece is communication. There's a lot of choices for where people can submit updates: Campfire, in the task list, in individual tasks. What are the best practices? Someone, please tell me.

Alternatives Considered

ActiveCollab and Wrike

Reasons for Choosing Basecamp

As a company, we had been using Wrike as our Project Management system. But one of our biggest issues was how we can have more widespread company usage of a PM system. Whenever projects needed to be reviewed, we would pull the assets out of Wrike and shift the conversation to email or Slack and would lose some of the data. We couldn't move everyone fully into Wrike because of the additional cost.

Reasons for Switching to Basecamp

Pricing and user interface

Pros

The integrations that Basecamp provides make communication for cross-departmental projects quick and effective. The integration we use the most is the support of Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Calendar. Within Google Drive, the folder system makes it often difficult to find documents, but Basecamp allows not only Google Docs and Google Sheets to be linked to, but conversations about that specific document to take place in one place. This makes it easy to hand off documents and files to another department, route items to our publication team, or to request feedback from partners.

As an original user from Basecamp 1, there have been so many improvements to the second and third editions. Basecamp certainly does an excellent job listening to its users.

Cons

The only change in version 3 that I am disappointed with is the elimination of the built-in calendar. What used to be "Events" with an interactive project calendar became the "Schedule." The Events interactive project calendar functioned a lot like a Google Calendar, which allowed someone to see all touch points on the calendar itself. The "Schedule" is mostly a list of upcoming events. However, the benefits of the folder systems, the access to resources, and the task assignments outweighs this issue. Plus, if you are a new user to Basecamp 3, you won't even be aware that anything is missing.

Pros

Basecamp has a very easy to use and intuitive interface. Managing and supervising projects is clean and efficient.
It allows us to share only certain resources with the client.
Groups allow team members to collaborate and share resources.
Members can communicate real-time with the chat or direct messages(pings) or by posting on messages board.
I can dismiss questions or responses if inadequate for the group.
We’re able to set a responsible and set deadlines for tasks.
I can quickly see the tasks we still need to do.
I like how I can have all communication with the client in one place. We don’t need to communicate by emails so often.
Calendar will tell us the time spent and the deadline of the projects.
You can define project hierarchies to break down projects and make them more manageable.
Sometimes I need to share something with a person who’s not on the team; for this I can create a public share link.
We can use templates to speed up the creation of similar projects.

Cons

There is no plan between Free and Business (99USD/month).
Grouping and following longer discussions is not that easy.
I would like to have the possibility to delete files in bulk.
The calendar is just basic, it lacks many features like exporting or syncing with external apps/tools.
I think there are too many email notifications.
I would like to correct or edit online an already uploaded document.
If you want to change the design after your company branding, don't expect that from Basecamp.
I miss a standard feature to prioritize the tasks so we can drop out our custom conventions.

Pros

I love how I pay a yearly fee and I can have unlimited users, projects, files, due dates, etc. We looked into other software and no one could match the ease of use and affordability for a city government on a budget. I love how you can search by keyword and find what you need, I love the chatting option between employees and I love how you can create projects and assignments with ease.

Cons

I wish you could integrate your google calendar with this software.

Alternatives Considered

When I Work and WhenToWork

Reasons for Choosing Basecamp

Cost

Switched From

Slack

Pros

Basecamp is a flexible program with a distinctive design, which enables the work team, by integrating jobs, to dispense with many of the tasks they perform, which contributes to saving time and effort and increasing productivity.
The team will be able to communicate through Basecamp from anywhere at any time and also via mobile phones.
Each team member will be able to list the tasks, their due dates, and the members who contribute to the implementation of the task, which makes the follow-up processes and measurement of achievement rates easy and clear to everyone. The application will provide you with notifications about the assigned tasks that you have to follow.
The application provides the ability to download files, documents and videos of a specific activity, and they will be saved for reference at any time. The application enables you to work on several projects at the same time, as you will be able to customize the tasks according to the project you are working on.

Cons

Everything is excellent, Basecamp is easy to use for everyone, it has a unique user interface, which allows you to know all the tasks that you are required to participate in and their due dates. Basecamp has an excellent support team and provides educational aids to everyone that helps with a clear understanding of how the app works. Basecamp provides a very large amount of freedom for users, enabling them to include and modify the list of people to send notifications to, ensuring that those notifications reach the people concerned at the specified times.

Pros

I mainly used this product when I was working in advertising but we still use it for the design of our program each year with our Communications team. You can create projects and determine who can see them - so, for example, I have a client (X) and my internal team (Y) and independent contractors (Z) for Project A. I can have an ongoing project named Client X where I've added all my internal resources to discuss every project we are working on with them where I can do everything from give SOW, get an estimate of time, create a timeline, receive rounds of work and communicate with my internal team with all changes in one place. I can remove people from conversations that they may not need to be a part of, but they can come see the conversation later if they choose/need to. I will receive email updates from Basecamp every time someone has sent me something on Basecamp. I can also have a Project named Project A where I add members of the client team. Here I can get approval for the cost, send a timeline and all drafts of the project. I can also have a Project named Z for the Independent Contractor. Here, I can get an estimate from this person, send them a proposed timeline, and receive their work. It keeps all of the documents in one place, all edits, all communication and can be organized however it suits you!

Cons

When I was in advertising, the main issue I noticed was that people who don't take the time to learn how to use Basecamp are it's biggest downfall. For example, we have everything from Account Managers who respond via email (which works, but inserts their signature unnecessarily into the comment every time) to creatives who create a new thread everytime they have an update to a project, which defeats the point of being able to look back at every edit/communication to see when a change was made or was supposed to be made but was missed etc. It can also be detrimental if you don't select the appropriate people to see your comment/document. If you just reply to the people who were on the previous comment without checking who was on it, you might not be sending the draft to the right people and it will get missed. Another thing we noticed is that people who did not want to acclimate or never properly learned how to use Basecamp would not read the messages in their email and assume that it was not for them. So you still have to manage up because if you want your higher ups to be looking at something, sometimes they still ignore it =)

Pros

Basecamp's communication device is additionally very accommodating since it offers a take-note board and the capacity to post declarations. It is basic to utilize, empowers collaboration over long separations, and permits you to plan and convey reports to your colleagues. I appreciate how straightforward it is for me to connected with all of the other staff individuals. With respect to corporate upgrades and data, I felt way better taught and educated. I like utilizing this program to put through with our plan team. It incorporates all the trade information coordination capabilities our group must arrange and keep an eye on ventures.

Cons

In comparison to other devices, it offers less modern usefulness. This gadget has the potential to be utilized as a micromanagement device by inadequate directors and pioneers. The need for a few essential functionalities and the interface's extraordinary cleanliness and snugness. In the event that you're utilized to this energetic in, for illustration, Gmail, the failure to file fabric might make sorting challenging. The updating of worker profiles after the initial maker has cleared out the firm is Basecamp's greatest source of inconvenience.