Basecamp vs. Dropbox Paper

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
Dropbox Paper
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Dropbox Paper is a web-based, co-editing tool that includes word processing, document creation and coordination features. The tool is free to use and allows multiple people to collaborate on a document.N/A
Pricing
BasecampDropbox Paper
Editions & Modules
Basecamp Business
$99
Per Month [Unlimited Users]
Basecamp Personal
Free
Limited Capabilities
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BasecampDropbox Paper
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
BasecampDropbox Paper
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Basecamp
6.8
121 Ratings
11% below category average
Dropbox Paper
-
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 integration6.598 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
Dropbox Paper
-
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
BasecampDropbox Paper
Small Businesses
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.4 out of 10
Conga Composer
Conga Composer
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Planview AgilePlace
Planview AgilePlace
Score 9.4 out of 10
Conga Composer
Conga Composer
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Planview AgilePlace
Planview AgilePlace
Score 9.4 out of 10
Conga Composer
Conga Composer
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BasecampDropbox Paper
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(147 ratings)
7.5
(9 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(26 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(17 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(28 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.7
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BasecampDropbox Paper
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.
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Dropbox
When collaborating with a team on content creation with the purpose of bringing multiple inputs in a nonstructured or nonfixed media type, this is a great choice because of its diversity of content and collaboration tools, however, if you are looking to have high flexibility in a particular content creation stream, for example, sophisticated text editing or presentation, there are a lot of strong competitors out there.
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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.
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Dropbox
  • With Dropbox Paper, I can insert images and videos into your document, to make the document more visual, which is helpful for creating newsletters and simple flyers.
  • Once you create a document, you can save it as a template to be reused as a starting point for creating new documents.
  • Dropbox Paper has some basic formatting features like bolding text, adding links, and creating H1 and H2 headings.
  • You can insert tables into your Dropbox Paper document
  • Dropbox Paper also has an unusual but helpful feature, and that is the time line feature.
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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.
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Dropbox
  • No spell check feature.
  • No going back to "old versions" once changes are made they are permanent, with no restriction setting or ability to see previous versions.
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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.
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Dropbox
No answers on this topic
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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Dropbox
No answers on this topic
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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Dropbox
No answers on this topic
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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Dropbox
No answers on this topic
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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Dropbox
No answers on this topic
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.
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Dropbox
I was not part of the decision making to acquire the Dropbox tool against any of the other options and competitors. However, I can assume that the fact that we have been using Dropbox File Management for many years and many important files are stored and shared in the tool everyday, the adding of Dropbox Paper should have been felt very natural.
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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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Dropbox
  • Dropbox Paper has allowed all of our employees to be much more productive and on track even when we can't be in the office, which from a management standpoint is a huge positive impact. They know that productivity isn't slowing or lacking when everyone isn't actually sitting in the office under their watchful eye.
  • It has had a huge impact on our turn around time and speed of getting more work and projects completed. The more work you can effectively get done in a time period means more money for the bottom line.
  • It has made the majority of our team members more accountable and reliable when they know everyone is working together on something and each person has their own checklist of items to complete. It is especially helpful that everyone can see the same checklist, so everyone knows what each other is accomplishing.
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