Basecamp vs. Coda

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Basecamp
Score 8.1 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
Coda
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Coda, from Coda Project headquartered in San Francisco, is a template-based document generation solution, supporting a variety of use cases presented by the vendor as ideal for smaller companies that might otherwise be relying on spreadsheets to maintain (for instance) product development, or inventory tracking. It is available free, with paid editions to support teams, automations, or for more advanced collaboration and workspace features, as well as more advanced security features.
$0
per month
Pricing
BasecampCoda
Editions & Modules
Basecamp Business
$99
Per Month [Unlimited Users]
Basecamp Personal
Free
Limited Capabilities
Free
$0.00
per month
Pro
$10.00
per month per doc maker; unlimited editors (paid annually)
Team
$30.00
per month per doc maker; unlimited editors (paid annually)
Enterprise
Custom Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BasecampCoda
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsWith Coda, you only pay for Doc Makers. Often one person creates a doc, others edit it, and some simply observe from afar. Instead of charging for everyone, we only charge for the people who create docs. Interested in enterprise pricing? Visit coda.io/enterprise
More Pricing Information
Features
BasecampCoda
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Basecamp
6.8
121 Ratings
11% below category average
Coda
-
Ratings
Task Management8.2120 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management7.3101 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts1.941 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling6.096 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation6.371 Ratings00 Ratings
Team Collaboration8.7120 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology5.450 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology5.346 Ratings00 Ratings
Document Management8.6112 Ratings00 Ratings
Email integration6.498 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access8.698 Ratings00 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking8.546 Ratings00 Ratings
Change request and Case Management6.756 Ratings00 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management7.040 Ratings00 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
Basecamp
6.8
41 Ratings
10% below category average
Coda
-
Ratings
Quotes/estimates8.329 Ratings00 Ratings
Invoicing6.925 Ratings00 Ratings
Project & financial reporting8.034 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with accounting software4.028 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BasecampCoda
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Score 9.4 out of 10
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Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Planview AgilePlace
Planview AgilePlace
Score 9.4 out of 10
MSB Docs
MSB Docs
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Planview AgilePlace
Planview AgilePlace
Score 9.4 out of 10
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Conga Composer
Score 9.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
BasecampCoda
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(147 ratings)
8.4
(24 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(26 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(17 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(5 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(28 ratings)
7.8
(2 ratings)
Online Training
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.7
(4 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
BasecampCoda
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Read full review
Coda
Coda is great to build a place for your users to go to and see information. It is easy to navigate through and the variety of content creation is great. However, it is not always easy to create what you want and there is a lot of playing around and learning. Coda also sometimes misses some functionality which is expected. For example, downloading a list of users that have access to the platform. Being able to send push notifications when a new page has been created etc. Overall it is a good tool to use just be prepared to invest time!
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Pros
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.
Read full review
Coda
  • Flexibility. It's easy to get started on a small scale, but add more complex organization strategies as needed.
  • Integrations. It's simple to ingest data from sources like Zapier for time-saving automations.
  • Useful components. View table data across different formats like cards or custom detail views.
Read full review
Cons
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.
Read full review
Coda
  • It takes getting used to in terms of how the formulas per column is implemented, in contrast to how we build tables in Excel. For organization/team purchase, it would be worth considering having a training for the core team of users. Right now, we do a lot of self-learning.
  • Inability to email charts or image without these objects being hosted on a third party. The community has been great in providing workarounds but it would be much more convenient to be able to have such ability natively.
  • APAC Support. I'm based in Malaysia, due to timezone differences, even with a livechat implemented, the support for each step and conversation takes up to 24 hours per response. Having some hours covered in our timezone would greatly improve customer support experience.
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
Read full review
Coda
Coda is definitely something that has been proven to drive positive impact in our organization. We have many divisions that can benefit from this that we have yet to explore. It would definitely be worth renewing.
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Usability
37 Signals
I would give it a ten but we have some very minor issues. Those have all been easy to work around and I still really like Basecamp. We also have trouble with some clients who can only handle email—but those are rare cases when technology is just not their thing.
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Coda
Coda can seem either really useful or really useless. The extremes of both ends is driven by what our own understanding of what we want to implement. If we lack this understanding, it will be easy to misunderstand Coda's usability especially in the wrong context.
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Reliability and Availability
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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Coda
So far in the past year, we haven't had situations that Coda has gone down for us which is great.
Read full review
Performance
37 Signals
No answers on this topic
Coda
We haven't done any integrations - the initial part of our experience we found that for docs with complex formulas, the page tends to load slowly but in recent months, Coda has improved and optimized the loading times in general and we generally don't find any problems in terms of speed anymore.
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Support Rating
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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Coda
Mainly due to timezone differences. I think Coda's support in general is well implemented and executed. They know their stuff and are helpful. But since I'm not in the same timezone, solution rates are slower for me, and that's not something I prefer. I work in customer service, too, and more often than not, time is important. Shortening the solution time would be a much greater experience.
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Implementation Rating
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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Coda
I'm relatively inexperienced but this experience is meaningful. It would have been nice to have some guidance from Coda so that we understood more on Coda's purpose and potential.
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Alternatives Considered
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.
Read full review
Coda
While all of the products listed have great features and platforms, there was always one thing missing from them that I would need to get from another application. Coda was the first one we used that really combined some of the best parts of those products and allowed us to use it in one place. I also appreciate the flexibility of creating your own framework and workflow, unlike in other tools where you have to follow how they capture data and organize projects.
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Scalability
37 Signals
No answers on this topic
Coda
I think scalability is definitely good here since it's based on number of doc makers. Implementation into each dept becomes simpler. That being said, due to the nature of our work, we find it easier that we have a "super user" and then a team of other doc makers. This would make the doc creation and management more efficient.
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Return on Investment
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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Coda
  • Increased insight for all stakeholders involved--both in terms of overview and details
  • Better grip on issues and escalations--reduced friction, confusion, and higher clarity on status, next actions, and ownership.
  • Reduced time required by those who need to maintain all information. Record (a detail) once and use multiple times.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Coda Screenshots

Screenshot of One unified surface means ideas aren’t limited to a file type. A project doesn’t have to be split across tabs of documents, spreadsheets, and apps.Screenshot of Packs are a version of integrations or plug-ins. They connect the  doc to the apps in use every day, so as to pull live data in or push updates out automatically.Screenshot of Drag-and-drop templates provide a quick-start shortcut to commonly used templates like Upvote/Downvote, To-Do List, and Team Sentiment Tracker.Screenshot of Slice, dice, and chop data using Views. A View is a mirror of data that can be tailored to unique needs, all while staying connected to the source.Screenshot of When accessing the doc from a mobile device, it should feel like an app. Doc pages become tabs, buttons become swipe actions and doc notifications become push notifications.Screenshot of The Doc Gallery contains docs self-published by the Coda community. These published docs have a webpage-like interface and have varying levels of interactivity like view, play or edit. Find and share tools, templates, tiny apps, interactive handbooks, and anything else that can be built in Coda.