When making a decision about which project management and road-mapping tool to go with, if the wrong solution is chosen, the project will be most likely doomed to failure. This is especially critical in 2021 with the transition to distributed work where we are seeing that the expected speed of delivery is even more difficult today in the context of rapidly changing business priorities.
Some of the leaders in Project Management technology are Asana and Basecamp. As a project manager, you should settle for a tool that enables cross-functional teams i.e. Dev, QA, IT, Ops, Marketing, Customer Success, etc., to all work efficiently and continue delivering on time. However, often Project Managers are faced with the Basecamp vs Asana dilemma. An ideal solution should ensure that all the teams get the context they need about the value and business purpose of what they’re charged with delivering as well as potential roadblocks that may arise.
This article will introduce you to Basecamp and Asana. Moreover, it will dive into the Basecamp vs Asana discussion and will compare these tools using 5 key aspects. Read along to learn more about Asana and Basecamp and to discover which of these tools will deliver the best ROI (in this case, high team engagement and streamlined reporting to leadership) for your business!
Table of Contents
Introduction to Basecamp
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Basecamp offers an extremely easy to set up and flexible collaborative project management tool built on the same framework. The Basecamp cloud-based software provides small businesses with a centralized system that brings together internal communications, projects, and client work in one location. You can use Basecamp to keep track of all the tasks, announcements, discussions, deadlines, and files that are relevant to your work.
Basecamp provides all the functionality you need to break down your work into multiple projects. Within each project, you can then make use of tools like to-do lists, file storage, message boards, group chats, and schedules to assign work to the responsible parties, set deadlines, and get better visibility over your team’s progress.
To learn more about Basecamp, visit here.
Introduction to Asana
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Asana is a work management tool for managing tasks among a group of people. It was founded more than a decade ago back in 2008 by Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein (a former employee at Facebook and Google). To put it simply, Asana keeps track of who is responsible for what task and all the information related to it, including all the necessary steps, due dates, etc.
According to a global survey that they carried out in 2019, Asana found out that 60% of the average knowledge worker’s time is spent on coordinating tasks, like status meetings, checking emails for the latest updates on projects, getting hit up for status notification, and information gathering. They discovered that most workers spend more time coordinating work rather than doing the skilled work that they were hired for.
According to their Chief Product Officer, Alex Hood, Asana’s main goal is to enable productivity so that workers can spend more time on creative work and handling customer problems.
To learn more about Asana, visit here.
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Comparing Basecamp vs Asana
Basecamp and Asana are both popular tools however it is often difficult to choose between them. The following 5 parameters are crucial to clearly understand the Basecamp vs Asana Comparison :
1) Basecamp vs Asana: Pricing
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Basecamp has 2 plans, a free Personal plan, and a Paid plan. A Basecamp account will cost you $999 per year. You can use it with unlimited team members and you can also create unlimited projects. The Personal plan is limited to three projects only and a maximum of 20 collaborators. The Personal account doesn’t include all the features in the Paid plan. Furthermore, it offers a 30-day free trial.
How much does Asana cost? The answer depends on how much you use it. There are four plans in Asana: Basic, Premium, Business, and Enterprise. The Basic plan is free for 15 users. The Premium plan costs $10.99 and the Business plan is $24.99. You will get unlimited tasks, projects and conversations, basic dashboards, basic search functionality, and you can collaborate with up to 15 free (unlicensed) users.
On the upside, the free account does still give you a good understanding of how Asana works at the core level and you can use it with a small test group and decide whether it’s worthwhile.
- Asana Premium contains all the features of the free account. Moreover, it has add-ons as well. The Premium accounts include extra features such as custom fields, task dependencies, unlimited accounts, administrative controls, the ability to create private teams and projects, access to customer success webinars, and priority business support.
- Asana Business is suited for large organizations. With this service tier, you get everything in Premium plus Portfolios, Goals, Workload, Proofing, and integrations with some otherwise restricted apps (such as Salesforce and Adobe CC), and rule-based automation that eliminates routine tasks. An example of automation is, “Every time a due date changes, automatically notify the team manager.”
- Asana Enterprise plan includes these and other features, such as company-branded logos and advanced security features. The cost isn’t publicly available, so you’ll have to contact Asana for a quote.
Bottom Line of Basecamp vs Asana: Pricing
Price is the most important factor in the Basecamp vs Asana discussion. The price could be competitive, but this also depends on the size of your team. Asana uses a per-person-per-month rate rather than a flat fee. Basecamp on the other hand is cheaper if you have 10 or more people connected to your account.
A large and complex organization means a higher price for using Asana’s services. Small businesses can find that $10.99 or $24.99 per person per month to be quite competitive, given that you also get to add free users to your account.
Basecamp unlike Asana doesn’t offer a free plan, although its 30-day free trial can be extended if needed. The flat-pricing model means that companies need not worry about fluctuations in costs if they want to increase or scale down on the number of users and features.
2) Basecamp vs Asana: Ease of Use
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Sometimes users need a simple way to manage projects and Basecamp is super simple to use. Basecamp has a no-frills interface that allows for creativity and collaboration. It has all the basic features that can assist project members to know what to do and making sure nothing slips through the cracks.
Basecamp has made it very easy to share project progress and communicate with stakeholders. The stakeholders can easily see to-dos and milestones progress and this takes some pressure from the project manager to reassure clients and management that progress is happening.
Asana provides an efficient and responsive interface that is built using modern design. This makes it engaging and useful at the same time. Its kanban-style user interface is very straightforward, efficient, and responsive, and it gives you a centralized overview of all your projects. It has some unique features as well, like celebratory animations that appear on your screen when you complete tasks or certain goals. Asana also has templates for teams that want more guidance in setting up and using the app.
Bottom Line of Basecamp vs Asana: Ease of Use
Both Asana and Basecamp score highly on the usability scale, although Basecamp may be slightly easier to use. In particular, Basecamp has a much simpler design that lends itself well to a quicker onboarding experience. However, this simplicity does come at a great cost–it’s lacking many essential features that are considered the industry standard.
While Basecamp is pretty easy to use, Asana does a better job of presenting information and letting team members navigate around the app.
3) Basecamp vs Asana: Integrations
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Basecamp has third-party integrations that are listed at https://basecamp.com/extras. These apps and services expand how you use Basecamp by adding functionality such as Accounting, Invoicing, Marketing, Time Tracking, Planning, Reporting, Charts, Agile Development, etc.
Asana integrates with third-party applications that you already use to streamline processes and enhance productivity. Asana has a robust API and many developers have built apps or integrations that work with Asana. Some tools have been built specifically for Asana to deepen functionality while others are tools that you probably already use such as Slack, Dropbox, Google Drive, Zapier, GitHub, etc.
The Bottom Line of Basecamp vs Asana: Integrations
In terms of the number of available integrations, Asana has an edge in the Basecamp vs Asana discussion. Both solutions offer APIs that allow App integrations, but more apps currently integrate with Asana.
4) Basecamp vs Asana: Customer Support
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Basecamp provides clients with short video tutorials of the solution, as well as live classes. They also offer how-to guides and other resources, such as FAQs. Finally, users can contact Basecamp by email and expect a response time within a few minutes.
Asana has a knowledge base of frequently asked questions on common topics, such as troubleshooting software issues, billing or help with specific features. Users can contact Asana via their support page and expect a response within 24 hours.
For its Premium plan users, Asana provides clients with priority support via its Customer’s Success Management team. The Customer Success Manager also provides users with onboarding resources and webinars. Asana also offers how-to-guides, video tutorials, and downloadable resources that explain its features.
The Bottom Line of Asana vs. Basecamp Customer Support
When it comes to customer service and support, both Basecamp and Asana offer video tutorials, how-to-resources, and FAQs. Basecamp goes the extra mile here to offer live training classes, something that Asana doesn’t do. All support is included in Basecamp’s flat fee, but with Asana, users have to upgrade to one of their paid plans to enjoy priority support.
In both cases, the main place you need to go when you run into issues is the knowledgebase where you’ll find articles detailing how the programs work and suggesting solutions to common issues. Basecamp relies heavily on video tutorials to achieve this, while Asana generally goes a bit deeper with detailed documentation.
5) Basecamp vs Asana: Security and Privacy
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Basecamp runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS). When it comes to safeguarding your data, Basecamp is a bit transparent about its security policies and posture. Basecamp has in the past been hit by some aggressive cyberattacks which were unsuccessful and has acknowledged as much, coming forward to prompt customers to change their passwords and announcing changes to their security protocols.
Asana also runs its workloads (servers and databases) on AWS infrastructure. In terms of their security posture, AWS operates a secure cloud environment that protects your information, identities, applications, and devices. To ensure the security of your data at rest and in transit, Asana has implemented end-to-end encryption. They offer both single sign-on and 2FA (two-factor) authentication. They are also SOC 1, SOC 2, and GDPR compliant. Enterprise license users in Asana also benefit from advanced security features such as administrative controls.
The Bottom Line of Basecamp vs Asana: Security and Privacy
Asana and Basecamp are relatively similar, using the TLS protocol for security in transit and encrypting files at rest using AES 256 cipher. Both Asana and Basecamp use AWS to host data, which is safe enough.
While Asana is plenty secure and private, Basecamp does things a little better in this regard. Basecamp’s privacy policy is very easy to read, understand, and in our opinion, it’s more transparent compared to Asana’s privacy policy. Basecamp states clearly that customer data is secure and safe, regardless of whether the customers are on the free or paid plan. In Asana, free users’ data is treated a bit more loosely. It can be sold or shared with 3rd parties albeit anonymously. Basecamp’s approach to Data privacy is therefore better.
That’s it! After understanding the above 5 aspects, you are in a position to make an informed decision to conclude the Basecamp vs Asana discussion.
Benefits of Project Management and Roadmapping Tools
Product management and road mapping tools are a relatively new category of productivity software whose main goal is to provide a clear vision to teams. Most people think of tools like Slack, Zoom, TeamViewer, and Skype for collaboration, but while these tools are really great for conversations and meetings, they are actually tools for communication and not for coordination of action.
Product management and road-mapping solution like Asana or Basecamp can help to coordinate work across the organization providing clarity into who’s doing what by when. It can assist business teams with:
- Facilitation of ideas and requirements
- Decision making through an understanding of data, analytics, priorities, and consequences
- Definition of features and handling of backlogs
- Planning and tracking of releases
- Financial and budget management
- Collaboration on timelines
- Communication, negotiation, and updates
- Tracking resources
- Management of feedback from developers, teams, and users.
Conclusion
This article introduced you to Basecamp and Asana and provided a thorough discussion on their differences. It compared both these tools on 5 aspects namely, Pricing, Ease of Use, Integrations, Customer Service, and Security. Moreover, the article listed the benefits of using Project Management tools like Asana and Basecamp.
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Asana and Basecamp are both competent tools. While Basecamp can be nicely used for collaboration, by using different to-do lists for different projects, the advanced reporting, progress tracking, and project automation that you get in Asana give it an edge over Basecamp.
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What is your understanding of the Basecamp vs Asana discussion? Let us know in the comments below and, as always, thank you for reading.