Asana Vs Basecamp: Which One Is Better?

Asana and Basecamp are two of the biggest names in task management and collaboration. Major companies use both of these project management tools, and both come with ringing endorsements. Even so, there are important differences between the two that are important to take into consideration.

Which project management solution is the right one for your business? Let’s take a closer look, and find out!

Here’s What We’ll Cover:

Asana Basic Features

Basecamp Basic Features

Asana vs Basecamp Pricing

Key Takeaways

Asana Basic Features

Asana is designed primarily as a collaboration tool. The main purpose is to help teams stay organized, both in the same office and for remote collaboration between teams.

The native features are geared towards task management. You get access to a shared calendar, a Gannt timeline, along with a simple timeline view. Individual users can modify their own personal view to suit their style. Administrators can also choose from multiple project templates.

So far, this is par for the course for project management software. Asana stands out by offering a workload management tool for administrators. From here, a project manager can view each team member’s current task list. This lets you know which team members need help and which can take on more work. You can even set a limit on how many tasks any given user can take on.

Reporting features allow you to view complete tasks, and to receive alerts for overdue tasks. Asana will track your overall project progress as well, which gives you a rough idea of where you stand. The intuitive interface is easy to use, and has a minimal learning curve.

In addition to Asana’s native functions, you can also take advantage of a number of integrations for even more functionality. For instance, you can integrate with Google Drive for seamless document sharing across platforms.

You’ll also need to use integrations for budgeting and invoicing. This can be a good thing if you’re already using a service you want to integrate. On the other hand, if you don’t yet have a budgeting tool, you’re still going to need to find one.

Basecamp Basic Features

Basecamp is a more slimmed-down software that’s designed for collaboration. It offers task management, file sharing, internal project forums, scheduling, and a message board. When it comes to communication, these are all the tools you need to keep your projects on track.

Outside of communication and collaboration, however, Basecamp’s offerings are a bit bare. There’s no native support for resource management, time tracking, or budget tracking. There are also few reporting features. To be fair, there are plenty of integrations available for these features. But that’s more work on the back end, when compared to native functions.

Asana vs Basecamp Pricing

Basecamp and Asana have entirely different pricing models. Which one is the best deal will depend not just on what you need, but on the size of your organization.

On the surface, Asana pricing looks the cheapest, but that’s not necessarily the case. Their basic version is free, but it only supports a handful of features. You can access task lists, calendars, and Kanban boards, and that’s about it. You’re also limited to 15 users.

If you want to take advantage of any of Asana’s more advanced features, you’ll need to pay for the full version. There are two tiers, starting with the Premium service. This tier costs $9.99 per user per month, and gives access to timelines, custom field creation, and advanced searches. You also get to view Asana Academy lessons and unlock special administrative privileges.

For even more features, you have to upgrade to the Business plan. This plan costs $19.99 per user per month, and provides most of Asana’s full features. There’s also an Enterprise tier with custom branding and enhanced customer support. Asana determines Enterprise pricing on a case-by-case basis.

Basecamp has a single, all-inclusive service level that provides access to all its features. It comes with a 30-day free trial for up to 20 users. After that – or if you need to add more users – the license is $99 per month. That’s not $99 per month, per user; that’s $99 per month for your entire organization. For that price, you get unlimited users and unlimited projects.

The math is pretty straightforward. If you have five Asana users at the Business tier, you’re already paying as much per month as you would for Basecamp. If you have 100 users, you’d be paying nearly $2,000 per month for Asana, while Basecamp would still be only $99.

Key Takeaways

As you can see, there are a handful of important differences between Asana and Basecamp. Of the two, Asana offers more features, especially the premium plans. On the other hand, Basecamp does a fine job at collaboration. And based on the way the two services are priced, Basecamp is more affordable for larger organizations.

If you want to learn more about project management and other related subjects, visit our resource hub. It’s filled with dozens of informative articles just like this one.

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