Basecamp vs. Zendesk Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Basecamp
Score 8.7 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
Zendesk Suite
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk is a customer support solution with built-in ticketing, conversational messaging, and live chat, designed to help businesses of all sizes and industries deliver personalized service at scale. Zendesk's AI agents are trained in CX to help Service teams resolve customer issues faster and more accurately while still providing a human-centered experience. Zendesk ultimately aims to help businesses improve time to value, reduce effort per ticket, and keep costs low.
$69
per month per agent
Pricing
BasecampZendesk Suite
Editions & Modules
Basecamp Plus
$15
per month per user
Basecamp Pro Unlimited
$299
per month (billed annually)
Basecamp Free
Free
Limited Capabilities
Suite Team
$69
per month per agent
Suite Growth
$115
per month per agent
Suite Professional
$149
per month per agent
Suite Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BasecampZendesk Suite
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details20% discount available with annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BasecampZendesk Suite
Considered Both Products
Basecamp

No answer on this topic

Zendesk Suite
Chose Zendesk Suite
The Zendesk Support Suite interface is wonderful for tracking interactions with clients/customers etc. which is something that Basecamp does not offer.
Chose Zendesk Suite
Much easier to use, better organized, and aligns with business needs much better, so that it's more of a useful tool than a bottleneck.
Features
BasecampZendesk Suite
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Basecamp
8.9
124 Ratings
14% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Task Management9.3123 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management9.2103 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts6.843 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling8.699 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation8.772 Ratings00 Ratings
Team Collaboration9.7123 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology9.451 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology8.748 Ratings00 Ratings
Document Management9.6115 Ratings00 Ratings
Email integration8.4101 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access8.8100 Ratings00 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking9.248 Ratings00 Ratings
Change request and Case Management9.458 Ratings00 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management8.342 Ratings00 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
Basecamp
8.0
42 Ratings
3% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Quotes/estimates10.030 Ratings00 Ratings
Invoicing10.026 Ratings00 Ratings
Project & financial reporting8.034 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with accounting software4.028 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Basecamp
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.8
179 Ratings
7% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.4178 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings8.0122 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings8.7125 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings8.1126 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.5178 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings9.2177 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Basecamp
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.2
161 Ratings
2% above category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings8.2155 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.3148 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Basecamp
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.8
174 Ratings
10% above category average
Customer portal00 Ratings9.2142 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings8.273 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings8.2115 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings9.3171 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings8.9132 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BasecampZendesk Suite
Small Businesses
Stackby
Stackby
Score 8.9 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
InEight
InEight
Score 8.3 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
InEight
InEight
Score 8.3 out of 10
SysAid
SysAid
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BasecampZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
9.9
(150 ratings)
9.2
(208 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(26 ratings)
10.0
(43 ratings)
Usability
9.3
(20 ratings)
8.8
(82 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(5 ratings)
9.1
(14 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(4 ratings)
9.1
(11 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(28 ratings)
5.6
(31 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
5.0
(1 ratings)
6.4
(10 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.7
(4 ratings)
9.1
(19 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(4 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
BasecampZendesk Suite
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
Zendesk
Being a customer support agent, I found it very good when it comes to send an email or call or chat- with the user. I can do all that from the one single platform which is so easy and time saving for you. It does not take much time to use this, We can chat- with the user and at the same time we can send an email to them as well.
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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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Zendesk
  • UI/UX; mature macros and automations, slick and well thought out UI.
  • Reporting, reporting, reporting. With user, org, and ticket level tags, we can track every aspect of our ticket flow.
  • Extensibility; the app marketplace is a great resource for expanding functionality from the baseline offering.
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
Zendesk
  • Is there a way for AEs and CSMs to be informed in a weekly summary of all their accounts and any tickets? Example: Disney submitted a ticket on XYZ. Google has an urgent issue on X still unresolved.
  • Is there a way for CSMs or AEs to have a Dashboard that's specific to their accounts instead of seeing all the tickets in the queue that are not relevant to them?
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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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Zendesk
Zendesk is an amazing tool for communicating with your customers easily. The communication tickets from sellers to us or from us to sellers are stored, and there are statuses used to make communication easy. We have internal conversations between departments, linked with useful software such as Zingtree, Talkdesk, and Webs.
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Usability
37 Signals
It is easy to use, even for clients who have no experience with the platform. It can only get a little cumbersome to ensure that a client can't see certain documents you might want to keep in the Docs & Files folders. And sometimes, getting a client to actually use an unfamiliar platform can be a challenge.
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Zendesk
Pros: The agent interface is sleek, contemporary, and relatively easy to learn compared to many other enterprise tools. For common tasks, admins are given point-and-click options- adding fields, modifying workflows, constructing macros. The knowledge base (Guide) editor is easy to use for non-developers. Drawbacks: Once you move past the initial things - complex automations, reporting/analytics in Explore, and/or customizations integrating the API, it requires much more advanced training to use successfully. Navigating between the different modules (Support, Explore, Chat, Guide) can feel very disconnected; often you are reminded that it really is a "suite" of products brought together -not really one unified platform. If you're using multiple brands managing simultaneous support tickets, or heavily customizing workflows to meet your brand, you may run into a bit of struggle with usability. So: it's a lot more user friendly than the palaces (Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceNow), but is not used as quickly or with as much streamlined flow as a product made for a small shop. So if you are looking for a great balance, this is a good option if you are a net new organization or an organization on their way to scaling from 15 - 50 employee. Expect some elbow grease from the admin team once learning, adapting, and working efficiently once you move past the basics with your support tickets and initial customizations.
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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.
Read full review
Zendesk
In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
Read full review
Performance
37 Signals
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
Read full review
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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Zendesk
We rarely need to contact their support team, but when we do they are responsive. However there have been notable times when communication between myself and the support rep was challenging despite me providing clear explanation of the issue, screenshots, and a thorough explanation of the goal we hope to achieve. It took several back and forth attempt, on a few occasions, to get resolution on an otherwise simple request
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Online Training
37 Signals
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
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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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Zendesk
I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
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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
Zendesk
The customisable reporting every time. Our leadership reply on me to run my team and want to know what customers are telling us so they can elevate our products. We have extensive custom reports that tie up all aspects of our product and customer journeys. I've not found another product that allows me as much freedom as Zendesk Suite explore does, so far.
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Scalability
37 Signals
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
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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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Zendesk
  • Integrating other AI solutions for an organization with high volumes can cost about USD5000 monthly. With Zendesk AI and by building onto the same with AI powered apps built for Zendesk Suite we save a projected USD4000 monthly.
  • Robust Zendesk APIs have enabled us to integrate our internal system with a customized app saving us hundreds of hours every quarter spent loading customer profiles that are not loaded instantly from the app.
  • Plug and play apps like Round robin save us weeks of sprint delay timelines as they do not require additional coding or developer support to install and start using.
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ScreenShots

Zendesk Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of the Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations