When comparing Basecamp vs Pivotal Tracker, the Slant community recommends Basecamp for most people. In the question“What are the best project management tools?” Basecamp is ranked 3rd while Pivotal Tracker is ranked 20th. The most important reason people chose Basecamp is:
They offer many ways to get support, such as FAQs, Help Guides, Sample Projects, Videos, Twitter, quick response ticket system, and more.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Provides several method for support
They offer many ways to get support, such as FAQs, Help Guides, Sample Projects, Videos, Twitter, quick response ticket system, and more.
Pro Easy navigation
Puts everything in one place. Rather than creating more navigation, such as using sub pages, the UI is sheet-based and uses layers instead.
Pro Flexible
While not perfect kanban, Pivotal is somewhat flexible in that you can mark sections of stories. So rather than (or in addition to) a normal sprint, you can put a marker in to define all cards above that point as part of something, for example a release. Further, you can override the auto tracker and define how many points in a sprint. So there is some degree of flexibility which sometimes you don’t find in “purist” agile or scrum tools.
Pro Great software to use in conjunction with a disciplined agile/scrum development philosophy
Pivotal Tracker has a Kanban feel to it, but takes a more opinionated “Agile” approach to feature management: It encourages items in the flow to be user stories with effort points associated to them to allow Pivotal to calculate your team’s velocity.
If you agree with the workflow, Pivotal offers a ton of functionality not provided by more generic tools like Trello. You can see your team’s velocity over time, organic smaller Stories into “Epics” (huge features) etc.
Pro Stories can contain media files
Easy to create features/bugs/chores with embedded files (screenshots, docs, videos).
Cons
Con Only free for a short period of time
Con Only free for a short period of time
Con Lacking communication tools
Basecamp lacks communication methods compared to other services.
Con Not for power users
Basecamp is designed for a really rudimentary skillset. You mostly see it used in creative agencies.
Con Lots of clicking to get to what you want
There is a proliferation of pages within Basecamp. You have to click all over the place to get to what you need.
Con No Kanban-board
To get a good overview often Kanban boards are used. You can somehow imitate a board, but it is not comparable to a real Kanban-board.
Con Limited Work Flow & Process
Few story states. If your process involves some sort of QA and sign off, forget it - you get started, deliver, accept/reject, and finished. No way to customize this to your process. Sad miss for an easy fix/configuration.
Con Non-Editable Default Templates
Templates for defining stories and bugs save time. Pivotal has a default for story and bug. However you can’t edit these. So when you go to add your own, the titles can be confusing to users. Maybe title like “Our User Story” and “Our Bug”? Users will see all templates in the drop down and it’s confusing, so you end up with peope using the wrong templates which adds to process problems.
Con No Saved & Shared Views
Everything is in a column. Aside from destroying Kanban, it also gets confusing. The real downside here is that there’s no way to save a set of columns and pin for others to quickly see. Everyone on the team is usually looking at a completely different set of work. This is literally the definition of not being on the same page.
Con Not usable for multiple projects
If you want / need to have an overview of all the tasks going on over different projects and if you have these organized in different projects, there is no way to get an overview beside reporting. Just take a look at the screenshot and you see what you can expect.