Basecamp vs. LiquidPlanner

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
LiquidPlanner
Score 8.3 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
LiquidPlanner is a cloud based predictive project management solution. Some key features include: Dynamic Timeline View, Workload View, and Real-Time Activity Stream.
$0
per month per user
Pricing
BasecampLiquidPlanner
Editions & Modules
Basecamp Business
$99
Per Month [Unlimited Users]
Basecamp Personal
Free
Limited Capabilities
Free
$0
per month per user
Essentials
$15.00
per month per user
Professional
$25
per month per user
Ultimate
$35
per month per user
Enterprise
CALL FOR VOLUME PRICING
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BasecampLiquidPlanner
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BasecampLiquidPlanner
Considered Both Products
Basecamp

No answer on this topic

LiquidPlanner
Chose LiquidPlanner
LiquidPlanner is far more robust. Basecamp worked great for managing smaller projects, but LiquidPlanner was a great improvement as our company and project management needs grew.
Chose LiquidPlanner
I have tried many project trackers, and in my opinion LiquidPlanner fits in somewhere in the middle of them. It's more powerful than some of the trackers I've used (such as Trello), but it's also more complicated and harder to navigate and collaborate with others on than some …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
BasecampLiquidPlanner
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Basecamp
4.0
118 Ratings
61% below category average
LiquidPlanner
8.1
15 Ratings
8% above category average
Task Management5.0117 Ratings8.711 Ratings
Resource Management3.898 Ratings8.69 Ratings
Gantt Charts2.940 Ratings8.68 Ratings
Scheduling3.993 Ratings8.810 Ratings
Workflow Automation2.968 Ratings8.47 Ratings
Team Collaboration4.4117 Ratings8.911 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology3.849 Ratings7.76 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology3.345 Ratings8.46 Ratings
Document Management3.9109 Ratings9.93 Ratings
Email integration4.096 Ratings7.914 Ratings
Mobile Access4.295 Ratings4.99 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking3.244 Ratings7.210 Ratings
Change request and Case Management3.455 Ratings00 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management7.139 Ratings7.66 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
Basecamp
7.8
40 Ratings
5% above category average
LiquidPlanner
8.3
5 Ratings
11% above category average
Quotes/estimates8.329 Ratings8.54 Ratings
Invoicing6.925 Ratings00 Ratings
Project & financial reporting8.034 Ratings8.45 Ratings
Integration with accounting software7.927 Ratings7.94 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BasecampLiquidPlanner
Small Businesses
FunctionFox
FunctionFox
Score 8.3 out of 10
FunctionFox
FunctionFox
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Quickbase
Quickbase
Score 9.2 out of 10
Quickbase
Quickbase
Score 9.2 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
BasecampLiquidPlanner
Likelihood to Recommend
6.5
(144 ratings)
8.5
(17 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(26 ratings)
4.4
(2 ratings)
Usability
7.8
(15 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(28 ratings)
9.0
(2 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
BasecampLiquidPlanner
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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LiquidPlanner
LiquidPlanner is amazing for any time of project management scenario where you have to manage several teams and details. Running a project through LiquidPlanner is so easy because it lets you break down the project into sections and folders and small tasks that you can assign to specific people. With a small to medium size team-- LiquidPlanner is amazing for organizing and tracking details. If you have a huge team or not a ton of details to track LiquidPlanner might not be right for you because it is a software that requires some good training to learn and has tons of functions that can be utilized so it seems better suited to be used by a smaller group looking to coordinate or for people who have lots of details that can be difficult to track.
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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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LiquidPlanner
  • Priority based planning. Every other planning software we've used relies on dates and therefore needs constant attention. Priority based planning means that the plan is always up to date.
  • Ease of use. LiquidPlanner has a very short learning curve. This is critical to getting team members to use it.
  • Forecasting. LiquidPlanner makes it very easy to run scenarios by simply dragging and dropping projects and reassigning resources.
  • Awesome Support. I get personal responses very fast. Usually within a couple hours. And, they listen and ask for more information.
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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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LiquidPlanner
  • The interface is messy and cluttered. The best way to find things and see what you actually want to see is the main Projects view which is also the most cluttered and hardest to maneuver in.
  • Clicking an external link someone posted in a comment or task description doesn't open in a new window by default, so we are constantly having to go back to get to LiquidPlanner again.
  • The way that the interface saves your state globally (rather than per tab instance) means that if you click a link from someone else to a task that's not yours, then it adjusts your filters on the Projects page. Then if you refresh another LiquidPlanner window where you were on the Projects tab, suddenly all of its filters are updated and what you were looking at may no longer be there.
  • It might just be the way that we use the system, but the Home and My Work tabs are fairly useless for us. They typically don't show the tasks we're actually looking for.
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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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LiquidPlanner
We may not renew LiquidPlanner's contract, but only because my company has recently been acquired and we'll be adopting some of the software that they're using to standardize process. LiquidPlanner's development team releases new features pretty often, so it seems like the gaps and inefficiencies are slowly getting smaller/less frequent
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Usability
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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LiquidPlanner
Easy to learn and utilize. Can export charts and reports for sharing with colleagues.
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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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LiquidPlanner
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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LiquidPlanner
They have been great in trying to come up with creative solutions to help us do what we want to do with the platform. I would say their support has been exceptional because we have hit them with some complex requests.
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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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LiquidPlanner
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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LiquidPlanner
Miro is a more versatile tool, but not quite made for planning and organizing. LiquidPlanner is very intuitive, fast to learn and easy to communicate. The added value of prioritizing tasks, personalized boards and gantt charts are really important during the planning and design thinking in the business. LiquidPlanner is simplified yet more helpful.
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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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LiquidPlanner
  • LiquidPlanner really forces you to map out your workflow. For me, honing into a template that I can later adjust as needed has been huge, as there is less time at the beginning of a project trying to assign and figure out what needs to happen when usually it never changes.
  • Communication between employees, especially ones not immediately available in the office has been very welcomed. It helps having conversations documented in a public, logical place that is easy to find and refer to as the project continues.
  • Our productivity has definitely skyrocketed as we've really gotten a feel and committed to using LiquidPlanner daily. As we move forward, we continually try to add more and more ways for us to use the service.
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ScreenShots

LiquidPlanner Screenshots

Screenshot of Project Dashboards allow users to build high-level views that help visualize data.Screenshot of Workload Views allow users to see an entire team's workload at once and make resource adjustments in stride.Screenshot of Time Sheets keep track of hours per task and automatically update project estimates.Screenshot of Project View allows users to view any project in detail, assign tasks, set their priority, and access schedule risk.Screenshot of My Work View is a personalized view of all work to always know what to work on next.