No matter how much responsible you are about your work, you are bound to forget tasks now and then . It becomes tedious to manage tasks of a whole team with a large number of team members; monitoring each one's task list view in realtime and also having a clear view as to how much progress has happened in work.
In such situations, team management apps come as a saviour. You sure must have heard of Basecamp as a project management tool, but today I am going to discuss some exclusive Basecamp alternatives.
App stores are flooded with apps that help in managing your team seamlessly.
But are all these apps worth trying?
How do you know which one will save your time and energy?
Basecamp and Basecamp Alternatives
I faced the same situation some 10 months back. As our number of projects and users increased, it became more difficult for me to manage tasks and track project progress, report to stakeholders , coordinate with my team members and the workload on the project managers was overwhelming.
Unknowingly time was wasted, the work speed lagged, project managers were confused, issue tracking became difficult, resource planning floundered and I found it hard to keep a track of which team member is doing what. My focus kept losing each passing day and I couldn't concentrate on different areas of my work.
Not just me, but each team member seemed to be oblivious of what the other person is doing and which task they are working on. That being said , I wanted to have proper communication tools for transparency and unified tasks board where I can view everything at a glance.
So, we decided it's time we start using team management apps or an apt software that can help track our progress in real-time and provide us with detailed project reports. Since the app market was already overflowing with team managing apps, based on the positive experience users shared about Basecampwe decided to start with it.
On right time 37Signals understood the need of web designer/agencies and came up with Basecamp - a clean, simple and elegant way of managing projects and collaborating with clients. I personally loved Basecamp so there was no need to start looking for Basecamp alternatives.
Frankly, $20 or so every month did not seem much compared to the services I was using. At that time I would have given my free software advice and asked everyone to use this tool even when this tool wasn't offering any heavy discounts.
I liked that Basecamp did not try to do everything. Rather it did one thing and offered resources for the same and was perfect. But in two months' of my experience with Basecamp , I started looking for other basecamp alternatives since it had some weaknesses.
As our projects and customers increased, I found Basecamp less useful. The one problem was, 37Signals did not try to improve Basecamp. Rather, additional services like Campfire and Highrise came into the market from them.
Some other pressing issues and limitations that forced us to looks for Basecamp alternatives and read more product review articles were-
- For using the chat services, I was asked to sign up for Campfire.
- Time tracking was missing - this feature can be availed by third party integration.
Sad that even the " New " Basecamp came with no trace of time tracking feature claiming that no one was using it. Well, we were using it to meet our goals and we loved it!
Basecamp refused to grow, but my team size was! I needed better options and other project management solution. Although I had a good experience with Basecamp but its limitations made me let it go.
Best Basecamp Alternatives that I tried:
While building a team during the last 10 months' time, I tried many team management software and other basecamp alternatives with my project manager .
Here I will discuss how to pick up the best work management platform for your business. The project management tool helps teams to manage the project by breaking it into parts or sections and avoid unseen risk factors, along with their pros and cons.
I tried to find the best option for projects and task management, but honestly, nothing is perfect. I realized every work management app has its strength and weakness. So, instead of searching for the perfect solution based on marketing gimmicks, I turned my focus on what problems I was facing with Basecamp. I started to look out for apps that will help me solve these problems first
TeamWork- Proven alternative to Basecamp
The next project management software on my list to git it a try was Teamwork. Why I tried teamwork as one of the Basecamp alternatives? I was browsing through reviews of different project management app when I chanced upon Topten REVIEWS.
There I saw Teamwork has received feedback or you can say verdict of 7.88 out of 10. I scrolled down the list of features and reviews featured against each. Hence, I decided to try Teamwork before anything as the price also seemed good to me.
The first thing I noticed in Teamwork is an entire page dedicated to a detailed comparison with Basecamp. Among its 100,000 companies mentioned like Pepsi, Forbes and EA. Here is an overview of the management features to love about this basecamp alternative:
- Sophisticated search - You just enter to search any term quite easily.
- Continuously updates iOS and Android mobile apps - These apps are loaded with the latest features.
- Time tracking option even available on the mobile app.
- Milestone Tracking - Enables to break large tasks into small achievable parts.
- Integration with 3rd Party Apps, like, Google Calendar, even Gmail and other Google applications.
- Teamwork has updated some of the features and has made the integration of the Teamwork projects and Teamwork CRM much better.
- You can also add the teamwork CRM home button to your smartphone and be updated about the details while on the go.
The best part about Teamwork is that it readily available Zapier integration, which opens up the wide integration of advanced web applications.
Teamwork's free plans allow a maximum of five users, two projects and 100 MB storage space. To upgrade, you need to have a paid plan at $9/mo per user. With that, you get 300 projects and 100GB storage. They have a premium plan that is $15/mo per user, offers 250GB file space, a total of 600 projects and can add up to 100 users.
The disadvantage of Teamwork projects is that its features are price-restrictive, especially those in regards to integration with storage apps like Dropbox and Google Drive.
Update: Teamwork has launched Teamwork CRM, the new CRM makes it easy for you to manage your leads and opportunities. Once you close a deal, you'll want to follow up and stay in touch with your customer.
Hive - Premier alternative to Basecamp
Hive is one more software tool like Basecamp which you should try-out for managing your team in your company. Hive project management systems have the potential with plenty of management features starting from planning and project scheduling to executing them with the team members, maintaining regular team communication, and monitoring the progress along the timeline.
Having a flexible project management system gets the job done with multiple views and actionable templates, you can quickly plan repetitive tasks. Using the intuitive interface, action cards, action lists, creating milestones and forms you can fasten up your project planning and execution and save time while switching back-and-forth the email mailboxes.
You can also share the forms and documents outside your organization, among clients, customers and more.
Built-in communication integrations with an instant messaging app like Slack and Zoom helps you instantly organize video conference and internal messaging and group chats.
File sharing with the team, teammates, partners invite for collaboration in a single project are some of the collaboration features that keep Hive head on head with Basecamp and other alternatives.
If you are already using Slack which has become a common tool for official team communication these days, Hive is a great option to consider.
Monitoring, project scheduling and tracking and resource scheduling with predictive alerts are some of the key features which make this task management tool visually quick to use within the complete team.
Upcoming management features of this basecamp alternative include 2-way email sync, meeting notes - to turn notes into actionable tasks, simple feedback loop process and approval workflows.
Update: Hive has launched Zoom notes! This Hive feature makes it easy for you to take collaborative notes, task tracking, right from within your zoom meeting only.
This Zoom notes feature help you to keep everyone on single page, updated with meeting agenda for better team collaboration. You can assign tasks, set deadlines, store private notes, team notes and track progress of team work right from Zoom meetings.
Apps and Integrations:
Hive instantly integrates with more than 1000+ tools, and also have integration available with Zapier, Dropbox, and more tools. You can immediately import existing tasks from other alternative systems like Asana, Trello, Basecamp systems - Incase you're looking for instant migration.
For a remote working team, Hive also has apps available for iOs and Android mobile phones, along with Windows and Mac operating systems.
Hive vs. Basecamp:
While comparing this project management solution with Basecamp, Hive management features include kanban board, analytics reporting and insights, resource management, Gantt Charts, single dashboard view combining all projects, request forms and time tracking.
Hive Price Plans:
Hive price plans are pretty straight-forward, they mention one plan available at $12/user/month billed annually, or $16 billed monthly. If you have more than 20 users you need to talk to their team for their quotes.
Hive also offers its users with Workspace add ons such as proofing and approvals priced at $3/user/month + base price, resourcing at $4/user/month and so on.
What is good?
Manage everything from one central board.
Cloud collaborative tool
Track progress through collaboration
Wrike - Most popular alternative to Basecamp
At one point of time, I also tried the popular project management software Wrike to manage my team. The fact that Paypal, Adobe, HTC, Disney, and Nissan use this, I thought to give this Basecamp alternative a try, check the features, that may meet my team and project needs.
From Wrike, I liked the fact that resources and deadlines are moved centrally which helps project teams to align fast.
Features of Wrike are worth mentioning here are:
1.) Elegant and simple to understand user interface
2.) Detailed time-tracking feature
3.) Integration with Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, as well as mobile apps
4.) Provide Free up to five users and with 2GB storage.
5.) Efficient resource allocation and management
6.) Customized automated workflows
7.) File widgets for efficient file management
Wrike management software has all useful charts including, Gantt Charts, Baseline Chart and Performance Chart which shows and tracks all progress and achievements according to the plan. With great collaboration with all the team mates, Wrike also includes real time team documents editing, where everyone can collaborate on a single sheet, similar to Google Docs.
Wrike also helps to avoid confusion and uncertainty amongst the team with the help of their activity streams and @mentions feature. It also allows integrations with instant messaging apps such as Slack and Gotomeeting. Another, very different offer from Wrike, came in the form of exclusive case studies, learning resources that can help you with issue tracking and industry performance benchmarks.
All these helped me and my project manager in gaining more knowledge about our industry and at the same time eased out the learning curve.
Wrike is a great option for:
- Marketing Teams
- Creative Teams
- Project Management Teams
- Product Development Teams in a company across the Globe.
- Business operations teams
- Service professional teams
Not only this, if your company uses Google applications then, Wrike has very close integration with them, you get to:
- Easily attach documents straight from Google Drive
- Save time with Gmail gadget inside your Google account
- Integrate tasks into your Google calendar
Now only these, looking at overall feature integration of Wrike with Google Apps, we can call it a Google Project Management software Tool. Its intuitive interface and its integration with Google integrations are two of the reasons for its popularity amongst its competitors.
The pricing plan of Wrike: The free trial plan allows you to use 5 users. The paid plans of Wrike starts at $9.80 per user month for 5 GB storage and unlimited projects. You might need to connect with their help desk project manto get the enterprise plan.
Wrike GDPR AND CCPA law:
To be able to put up with new GDPR and CCPA law Wrike is continually investing in new tools and features to make their product GDPR and CCPA compliant. These updates include improving the security infrastructure, an audit of the third party contractual terms and conditions, new tools for data portability and data management.
Asana - Reliable alternative to Basecamp
I had heard a lot about Asana. So, I decided to try this task management tool and one of the popular basecamp alternatives. Asana is a wonderful project management alternative like Basecamp and function as a great team management app.
It allowed me to add more than one person of my team to a task, track what others are doing, mark a task finished and also create different teams as per my need. I could also create custom fields to help me create task priorities.
Management features I loved about Asana:
- User-friendly interface, easy to understand (allows you to use various color schemes to color code your task views and task boards)
- Integration with Google Drive, Dropbox, messaging app like Slack, GitHub, WordPress and many more - these are all the apps we use day and night. It makes it something very easy to get the job done on these platforms.
- Perfect for Small and Mid-size businesses; especially for growing startup like us.
- Mobile and tablet compatible - One of the most required features for flexible team.
- Social Media sharing and Time tracking feature set available
- Ability to see team members' tasks and priorities
- Easy task management -Follow tasks and add followers to them
- Set due dates and goals - Reminder is a wonderful feature
- REST API for users to create custom-interfaces
The pricing model of Asana: Basic Model which is Free. The paid plans pricing starts at $10.99 per user per month and the business plan is priced at $24.99 per user per month both prices are when priced annually.
Asana offers open-source Chrome extension and its REST API can manage users, projects, tasks, workplaces, and stories! This Task management software serves companies like Twitter, Uber, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Rdio, NationBuilder, new york times and Airbnb.
Rosenstein from Hops & Hominy compares the working of Asana to a healthy human brain. He opines Asana is the future where coordinating collective actions will be hassle-free for every organization on earth. To Rosenstein, Asana has its heart in helping people self-actualize, help their fellow men and leverage their potential.
Asana was great for my team until the trial period expired. The paid plans seemed costly for us, since all these features I was getting by paying at Asana, I could avail them for free at Podio.
I always enjoy the drag and drop
Also, you can find my Wrike vs Asana review and Asana alternatives.
Asana has introduced several new features to make their products GDPR and CCPA ready. It includes everything ranging from data transfers, security, data management, and other portability tools. You can find everything related to that Asana update: here.
Podio - Trustworthy alternative to Basecamp
After a few days, I started with another on my list of basecamp alternatives Podio. I was impressed with this tool for Sony uses it. Found in 2009 and acquired by Citrix 2012, Podio is definitely a fresh take on team collaboration software. I will give a quick overview of features Podio offers -
- Android, iOS, and Web-browser compatible
- Integration with Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, Zendesk, GoToMeeting and Freshbooks
- Full open API
- In-built IM and video chat for team communication
- Includes private and open workspaces
- Management of files and sharing
- GoToMeeting integrations
I immediately took a liking to this cloud-based project management software Podio. Any app that connects me to Evernote and Freshbooks, is always welcome. So, my next alternative to basecamp to try was Podio.
Although Asana promised "Teamwork with emails", I still took a liking to Podio for its integration feature, especially its integration with Campaign Monitor, Dropbox, and Google Docs. The icing on the cake was our custom integration with Mailchimp alternative - Mailerlite.
Podio also has a freemium model. However, I would say this is where Asana out beats Podio. It offers a free version for limited access rights and functionality control to up to 5 users. After that, it is $9 per employee, per month. Asana definitely wins and I also like its price.
Pricing/ Billing plan of Podio: Upto 5 Employees and 5 External Users, Try Podio for free.
Comparison with Basecamp:
Basecamp vs. Asana
In the hunt for a perfect tool for project scheduling and management, I started with Basecamp, followed by using another alternative to basecamp over time; one by one. Here is a very first comparison of Basecamp vs Asana:
- Basecamp offers a flat rate of $99 irrespective of number of users you have. Asana, on the other hand, offers a free plan with generous features. The paid plans starts at $9.99/ month per user. So, if you're looking for a cheaper option for a decent team then go for BaseCamp.
- Basecamp offers 500GB space and allows a maximum file size of 2 GB which is more or less enough. Asana has a different take on storage. A company spokesperson quoted "Asana doesn't specialize in storage functionality, so instead offers integrations with cloud providers Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box. For individual files uploaded to Asana, there's a 100MB limit per individual attachment". But the good part is that there is unlimited file storage.
- Basecamp has a 'master' calendar for the whole team. Also, you can have specific project calendars. Asana hosts the option of having personal as well as project-specific calendars. Also another point worth mentioning is that Asana is quite popular amongst the tech teams for its strong project planning and tracking capabilities.
Next comparison I want to do with,
Basecamp vs. Podio
- Podio provides a review of all the tasks across the workplace, unlike Basecamp which reveals the 'To-do' lists only. In Basecamp you will need to navigate across all the Accounts to get the status view of your task.
- In basecamp 'Discussions' pick up from where To-dos take leave, but sadly these are separate features. Podio has the task management features like Task comment threads and descriptions features in contrast to Basecamp.
- Basecamp definitely has its priority set to clients engaging priority, and it is perfect. Podio has a weird way of showing the "contacts". They have something called "External Users" which are supposed to be either contacts, or clients! It is confusing, in other words.
- However much we negate emails, it ultimately boils down to one truth- emails are important. Your clients may have different systems to worry about. In such cases, emails are saviours. Basecamp does this most effectively and beautifully. The email notifications for project tracking are a seamless way to have control. Podio is a mixed bag in this case. There are a lot of features that keep project manager or the user wondering what's happening. The lack of integration of emails for actual conversations is where Podio lags.
After Podio, let's compare,
Well, Teamwork went on to have a detailed overview of how it has all the features that are missing in Basecamp. Starting with project boards, time tracking, , recurring tasks, task assignment of multiple people to one task, advanced privacy options- Teamwork kind of built itself keeping Basecamp in mind I think! To add to that, they also list down reviews from ex-Basecamp users who now use TeamworkPM. Seems like Teamwork took the Basecamp vs Teamwork bit too seriously!!
Features available in Wrike only are:
- Can include one task in several projects
- Several projects and subprojects can be viewed on one screen
- Cross-project prioritization available
- Office files can be edited without downloading
Wrike allows you to share a single task or the whole project, while Basecamp allows you to loop-in someone in a discussion topics only via email.
While Basecamp gives Newsfeed, Wrike has-
- Allows to create Custom reports
- Time-tracking
- Hierarchy of projects
- Recurring tasks
- Gantt Charts
- Customized project Dashboard
- Task dependencies
What is good?
Manage everything from one central board.
Collaboration and communication are very good.
Offers features that Basecamp has in addition to a lot more features.
More Basecamp Alternatives that I used:
Bitrix24 - Popular Basecamp alternative
It is a social Intranet for companies. It's also a task management app, integrated with document sharing and time-tracking with social network apps. What it offers include blogs, calendars, files, tasks, photos, workgroups, likes, task comments, kanban boards and more! It advocates a freemium model.
Get the free version of this task management software here. You can also avail the enterprise plan or the Enterprise Version of Bitrix24.
What is good?
Manage everything from one central board.
Great tool having all the project management features that small to medium-sized businesses need.
Help a lot with effective communication.
Zoho Projects - Valuable alternative to Basecamp
Break down your complex tasks into simple milestones and task lists with the capable task management of Zoho Projects. Advanced features that the project management software Zoho projects offers makes it a strong Basecamp competitor with time tracking.
Names like Techcrunch, PC World features in their customers' list. Its integration with Dropbox and Github, along with new mobile apps makes Zoho Projects a simple Basecamp alternative. People can sign up for free versions of Zoho that too without entering their credit card details. The professional plan with Zoho projects features price is Rs. 1200 month per user .
Atlassian Jira, another tool like Basecamp and its underrated competitor, has more than 23,000 consumers and a user-base of 30,000,000. LinkedIn and NASA are some of the most prominent names among others who use Jira. This application includes Google integration, time management, and tracking features, and also has a HTML5 enabled mobile interface. Jira also has self-hosted option for a one-time price of $10 for 10 users, $3500 for 25 users and so on. If you are to use Jira on an open-source project, Atlassian will let you use it for FREE.
Freedcamp - Recognized Basecamp alternative
Freedcamp is touted amongst the best alternative to Basecamp as recommended by some of my fellow users. It is most explicitly cited as "the closest free alternative you will ever get to Basecamp" that helps teams to grow. With 140,000 customers at bay, Freedcamp by Enavu has Google, ABC and Chase Bank on the list.
The simple interface, integration with social platforms, browser alerts, and other group conversations and communication tool makes Freedcamp a great management tool to track your project progress. Freedcamp is free for unlimited users, but it comes with a file size limit of 10 MB that some people may not like a lot.
It has three more plans the minimalist, business plan and the enterprise plan. All of these plans offer unlimited storage, project reports, and tasks that is something that a lot of project managers would like.
Chanty - Efficient Basecamp alternative
Chanty is a messaging app and pays emphasis on team collaboration and communication. If the requirements of your team are more than just sharing files and communication features Chanty is a more streamlined,task-oriented and goal-specific group collaboration tool.
The free plan of Chanty allows unlimited messages with a restriction of 10 users. The professional plan has more chat feature like audio and video calling priced at $3 per user per month.
Stackby - Strong alternative to Basecamp
Stackby is a management tool and one of the best basecamp alternatives that help teams and businesses to automate their projects and tasks and collaborate effectively. A powerful tool that brings in the capabilities of spreadsheets, databases, and API into a single workspace. With stackby, you can build spreadsheet-like databases with the help of pre-designed templates framework.
You can have things organized in rows and columns which is definitely an advantage for the owner or manager of all these files.
Also, for expense management, you can use their expense tracking templates. The basecamp alternative software Stackby also allows you to drag and drop both cards and panels on your Kanban view.
The best thing about Stackby is that it offers the feature that take and manage data from various sources such as sites, services, and other applications. You can gather them and put them in your pre-designed Stackby database. A layout feature allows you to organize and visualize your data and project activities as per your preference by adding your own custom fields. The paid plan starts at $5/user month and they have a scalable enterprise plan.
Table of Basecamp alternatives
While I think the above eight options are the closest collaboration tools and competitors to Basecamp, two more I think is worth mentioning as Basecamp alternatives are tom's planner , Proofhub , Trello and Glip. Both these project management tools make communication and customization robust enough adding them to the list of best Basecamp alternatives. They offer simplicity, good support and can be used by anyone.
Mostly all of these collaboration tools are mobile compatible in nature and offer social media integrations with Facebook, Instagram, and other related platforms.
Basecamp is good in the initial stage, but sadly Basecamp stood rooted to its original features, with no improvisation at all, and wasn't working that well for the advanced needs of service professionals.
These are few slick tools worth noticing if you have a smaller team size or is a solo-preneur. You can also check some of these open source project management tools for small business referred by Capterra.
I hope this post has helped you in some way for sure. As we come to the end of our article I would like to ask if you know of any other alternatives? Tell us in the comments.
