ActiveCollab vs. Basecamp

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ActiveCollab
Score 4.5 out of 10
N/A
Active Collab is a project management solution built around features such as task management, collaboration, time tracking, and invoicing.
$7
per member/per month
Basecamp
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Basecamp is a web-based project-management tool. Basecamp offers features standard to project management platforms, as well as mobile accessibility, unlimited users, and 3rd party integrations. Basecamp is priced by space requirements and concurrent projects.
$15
per month per user
Pricing
ActiveCollabBasecamp
Editions & Modules
ActiveCollab Project Management
$7.00
per member/per month
Self-Hosted Plan
$999.00
license
Basecamp Business
$99
Per Month [Unlimited Users]
Basecamp Personal
Free
Limited Capabilities
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ActiveCollabBasecamp
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$6.25 per member, per month, annual billingNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ActiveCollabBasecamp
Considered Both Products
ActiveCollab
Chose ActiveCollab
We chose Active Collab overall because we liked its easy to use user interface, project management suite and agency/vendor/client interaction capabilities. We also chose it primarily because it was offered as a web-based platform that offered very clean and easy mobile access …
Chose ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab has similar features to Basecamp for both project management and communication purposes. However, Basecamp has a better interface for organization of projects within clients and allows for linking to specific comments. However, ActiveCollab is more affordable than B…
Chose ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab is easier to use and simpler in its setup. It has the right mix of features and simplicity. It's also project-oriented which is important for our workflow. Other tools are often too task-oriented, making it hard to track projects. Overall, ActiveCollab has a great …
Basecamp

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
ActiveCollabBasecamp
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
3.7
13 Ratings
68% below category average
Basecamp
4.2
118 Ratings
57% below category average
Task Management6.112 Ratings5.3117 Ratings
Resource Management1.08 Ratings4.198 Ratings
Gantt Charts3.07 Ratings3.040 Ratings
Scheduling1.011 Ratings4.193 Ratings
Workflow Automation7.01 Ratings3.168 Ratings
Team Collaboration6.513 Ratings4.6117 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology7.07 Ratings4.049 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology7.01 Ratings3.545 Ratings
Document Management3.08 Ratings4.2109 Ratings
Email integration4.09 Ratings4.396 Ratings
Mobile Access1.510 Ratings4.595 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking2.09 Ratings3.444 Ratings
Change request and Case Management1.08 Ratings3.655 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management2.07 Ratings7.139 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
5.7
8 Ratings
26% below category average
Basecamp
7.8
40 Ratings
5% above category average
Quotes/estimates6.97 Ratings8.329 Ratings
Invoicing6.96 Ratings6.925 Ratings
Project & financial reporting1.07 Ratings8.034 Ratings
Integration with accounting software7.94 Ratings7.927 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ActiveCollabBasecamp
Small Businesses
FunctionFox
FunctionFox
Score 8.3 out of 10
FunctionFox
FunctionFox
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP Ruum
SAP Ruum
Score 9.0 out of 10
SAP Ruum
SAP Ruum
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Quickbase
Quickbase
Score 9.2 out of 10
Quickbase
Quickbase
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ActiveCollabBasecamp
Likelihood to Recommend
3.9
(13 ratings)
6.5
(144 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(26 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.8
(15 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(5 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
7.1
(3 ratings)
8.8
(28 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.7
(4 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
ActiveCollabBasecamp
Likelihood to Recommend
ActiveCollab
Scenarios where ActiveCollab works well 1) ActiveCollab works well for small teams specifically T&M teams.Its invoicing feature is unique & can make your life easy. 2) It is very easy to use & posses good range of filters like on the task list, we can drag/drop tasks, Filter by assignee's,
tasks lists, due dates, or completed tasks. 3) It has some simple but awesome features like when you're in
the middle of writing something i.e a comment on story and get interrupted,
it retains what you wrote. 4) It allows you to tag team members in threads of comments to grab their attention, its really needed when teams are distributed. Thus helping team members to collaborate easily & stay on same page. 5) It integrates pretty well with other web apps like quickbooks , Slack, Trello, HubSpot, Zapier etc Scenarios where ActiveCollab did not work well 1) Tasks can not have multiple assignee's here so if two members are working on same task it did not allow you to reflect that. 2) Sorting capability is not their under invoicing 3) It did not work well for larger teams 4) Search option is not very detailed & you may end up wasting lot of time searching one particular bug or issue.












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37 Signals
Basecamp is a wonderful tool for teams of varying degrees of technical knowledge, teams managing lots of different types of "agifall" and waterfall projects, and teams that are remotely distributed. It's probably less useful for more strictly agile-focused development teams, compared to other more flexible software applications like Jira and Asana.
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Pros
ActiveCollab
  • Great for project and task assignments, project workflow and communications.
  • Solid web-based platform that doesn't require software downloads, also includes great mobile platform.
  • Great reporting tools for managing billing, estimating, project workflow and other essential project details.
  • Allows for both the agency and its clients to interact on a single platform using role-specific permissions.
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37 Signals
  • Task management - It is very easy to add, organize and discuss tasks within Basecamp's interface.
  • The "Campfire" function is great for communicating when you just have a quick question for someone on the team.
  • Notifications - Basecamp lets you decide how often and about what you'd like to be notified. The ability to respond to messages in Basecamp directly via email saves a lot of time.
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Cons
ActiveCollab
  • It isn't possible to set members of staff as part time, so if someone is unavailable on certain days you must manually enter them as OOO every single day that they are not in, that other teammates work. Hours also can't be edited individually - everyone is treated as working the same hours in a day, rendering capacity planner useless for flexi working teams
  • Subtasks cannot be assigned their own hours and deadlines, meaning the To Do list view can't be seen in actual date order and capacity planner does not reflect all time allocated to an individual's schedule unless every task is set up as a separate task rather than subtask
  • There is no way to see all tasks of a certain type across multiple campaigns (e.g all copywriting tasks vs all technical tasks) - support team suggested exporting data and making spreadsheets
  • Kanban view isn't available for people's own task lists ('board' view here shows a list)
  • Not possible to have one task be assigned to more than one person
  • Notifications are not sent when tasks are updated, so you have to leave comments and tag people each time
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37 Signals
  • High Learning Curve. It's true that it can be easy to use, but to use well and effectively takes some time to learn. It's recommended to have an agreed-upon system in your team of what tools to use and when.
  • Notification Overload. If people aren't careful they could send a notification to everyone when only a couple people were meant to be prompted. And since emails are sent by default, you could have your mailbox overloaded with unnecessary updates. This is where it takes a bit of training in your team to have an agreed-upon system.
  • Lack of organization with Archived Projects. I will often need to reference an archived project to make a new one, but there is only a list of archived projects in alphabetical order, with no way to organize by archive date, or even search.
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Likelihood to Renew
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
37 Signals
When I bring new people onto a project, it's immediately obvious how to use Basecamp. I don't have to worry about teaching them the features or walking them through it, it's just incredibly user-friendly. For this reason, I'll continue to renew my subscription even as new people are brought onto production jobs or the client changes.
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Usability
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
37 Signals
Basecamp is a little tricky to learn. I've used it for quite a while but I feel like there's still so much I don't know. It took me a while to learn but having used it in college definitely helped me integrate it into my work career.
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Reliability and Availability
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
37 Signals
I've never experienced downtime while using Basecamp, or been unable to access it when I needed it. That's not to say they've never had downtime, but I've been lucky enough not to encounter any, and I work odd hours, including late nights when maintenance is often undertaken.
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Support Rating
ActiveCollab
We have not required support for ActiveCollab as it works pretty seamlessly. We didn't have any issues with using the platform or with any billing issues. The self-service aspect of the platform is robust and easy to navigate so we have not encountered any errors that required assistance from the support team.
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37 Signals
For the many reasons I've given, Basecamp is a very strong program. There are a few features I can imagine that might make it even better, but I don't have a basis for comparison to be able to say that there is definitely a better one out there. I've noticed that Basecamp has evolved a bit from the time I started using it until now, so that makes me think that the producer of this program values it and believes in continuous improvement. If you could use the features offered by Basecamp, I would think you could use it with confidence.
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Implementation Rating
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
37 Signals
Decide the process before implementation - i.e. when it's due 8/9 does that mean 8am, noon, 5pm, 11:59pm? Check your to-do list frequently Set-up templates - just not with the dates (they can be funky)
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Alternatives Considered
ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab is easier to use and simpler in its setup. It has the right mix of features and simplicity. It's also project-oriented which is important for our workflow. Other tools are often too task-oriented, making it hard to track projects. Overall, ActiveCollab has a great mix of simplicity with good features.
Read full review
37 Signals
Pretty good, but [Basecamp] has its drawbacks. Honestly I find the interface non-intuitive and sometimes have trouble figuring out how to change the status of a task. Perhaps it has something to do with the way it was originally set up by the admin, but I'm not sure. I liked Jira's drag and drop obvious functionality, but the project management side of the software was lacking. Smartsheet has excellent project management functionality, but the task management isn't as good.
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Return on Investment
ActiveCollab
  • Allows our team to stay organized and keep conversations on tasks.
  • The To-Do List email every morning helps me mentally prepare and know exactly what I should be doing as soon as I start work.
  • Powerful and useful integrations save lots of time (Google Drive, Slack, Dropbox, Zapier and more!).
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37 Signals
  • It has saved me time when having to get the same message out to multiple restaurants
  • It has helped us make smarter operational decisions because we can all collaborate on an answer in a shorter amount of time (instead of calling a meeting!!!)
  • The calendar function allows us to plot out our marketing agenda for the month and add/change it together as needed. The chef will post his recipe, the managers will cost it out, the social media manager will post pictures on it, and ultimately we will get that information out on an info sheet to the staff by printing the page.
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ScreenShots

ActiveCollab Screenshots

Screenshot of Dashboard and overview of projects.Screenshot of Multiple task views curently showing a Kanban view of the tasklists and tasks.Screenshot of Overview of all recent activity.Screenshot of Calendar view with task dependencies.Screenshot of Permission settings (owner, member, client, client+).Screenshot of List of available Add-ons.