is there a good alternative to Basecamp?

"belligerent brand of narcissism" is so very true. I:m planning to devlop my tool in 6 months from now, with ALL prinical things required on the 37 forum, that have been left never answered.
Seen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_... ?

The 37signals team is far from belligerent or narcissistic. Some may see their refusal to satisfy every whim presented to them regarding product or UI updates/changes as belligerent, but I just see it as them maintaining their vision for what they see for their product, without trying to bend in a million different directions. And no matter who (or what company) makes it to the top of their game, there will always be, by default, a number of people (or companies) who read too far into personality and cast wide-sweeping generalizations. In my opinion, I don't think any of us could survive at that level without a healthy disregard and a bit of attitude at times. So, in answer to the initial question above: Given that Basecamp is the best PM system out there for the things it accomplishes, I do believe for the things it does not accomplish, such as an on-board Reports function (and 37s often posts 3rd-party reporting apps...odd that they feel it unnecessary to offer this functionality, but are so quick to point out other companies able to fill this customer void, if only they are willing to spend more time and/or money and/or aggravation) you would be better served with a program such as DeskAway, which offers reporting across all projects, as well as reporting of any one individual's activity across all projects with which they are involved. Think of the implications of this. Imagine that you have even 15-20 projects under your management, with any given number of in-house employees, contractors, sub-cons, etc. With DeskAway's reporting features, you can very easily see what projects contractor #12 is involved with, how many outstanding Tasks he has across all his projects, how many issues he has assigned to him, the number of milestones he has been allowing to lapse, and how soon you need to terminate him. This is an arduous task, at best, using Basecamp. Now, of course, you must remember, 37s designed Basecamp with the small business in mind...a few projects...small team interaction, and so they continue to meet the needs of this constituency (and many large-scale clientele as well who don't seem to mind the lack of an on-board reporting feature). So you can't argue with the numbers if you are going to criticize Basecamp...they're obviously doing a damn lot of things right, or they wouldn't be number one. While I personally prefer DeskAway over Basecamp, I will add that Highrise and Backpack are unbeatable for the things they are able to accomplish and I couldn't live without them.

So, 37signals...belligerent? No.

Narcissistic? No.

Gnarly and steadfast? Yes, without a doubt.

And we're all better off for it.

Merlin is a rather daunting program that can do all sorts of wonderful things with project management. depending on what you want to do the learning curve can be steep but, it can do an awful lot. one aspect I like (and one of it's more under-documented and complex components) is the ability to export just about anything in a project to XML and then run it through custom XSLTs.

I've only worked with the desktop version, but it also works over networks. if you're using OSX (which the desktop version requires), it works very nicely with iCal and AddressBook.

An opensource alternative you can use is Teambox, at www.teambox.com

Then there's always activecollab. Which used to be a true open source project, but now has become a proprietary one. The main advantage is you host it yourself and pay what you would pay Basecamp once and be done with it. You can also enhance it further if you like. They provide you with all the sourcecode at the time of purchase.

If you want to move up to the next level and still enjoy the UI style/ajax speed of Basecamp, try

TeamWorkPM.com

You will not be disappointed - we use it and love it

BaseCamp WAS great - its helped start this online simplified PM tool revolution .. but it been surpassed so much now - if ONLY the 37Signals guys started LISTENING to their user requests they would win a lot of the customer they are now losing to products like:

TeamWorkPM.com (our favorite by far)
CentralDesktop.com
DeskAway.com
GoPlanApp.com (ver 2)
ZOHO.com (Projects)

These are the other 4 top products IMHO.

Check 5pm (). It can import data from Basecamp and opening a free trial account does not require a credit card.

So it's easy to try, plus the interface is much more flexible.

You should check out http://pm-sherpa.com/features/basecam... This is a site that lists about 50 alternatives to basecamp with reviews of many of them. If you need to get your data, files and writeboards out of Basecamp you should check out http://www.centripetalsoftware.com which can do a complete export of everything for you one time or on a recurring, backup type schedule.

You can check out freelancerKit @ http://www.freelancerKit.com
It's not an SaaS, you host it on your own site.

I am seeing this here and there. There seems to be a bit of hate for Basecamp... any specific reason(s)? I've seen a few good reviews, including Basecamp software review.

On any given day, I'm involved in the management of dozens of projects at different stages. Before Basecamp, I spent most of my time updating MS Project files, sending out status reports and pushing paper. Since we moved to Basecamp, we actually get work done! Our clients love it and we couldn't live without Basecamp now.

BaseCamp do seem to get you going with project management. But managing business online does not start and end with PM. Neither does BaseCamp. Rather than look for alternatives, why not make that leap into the next level. Try to find a business solution that bundle in all features under its collar. Explore new business crm software http://www.worketc.com/Business_CRM_S... that allows for pro-active customer support, market tracking and sales management, and many other impressive features.

Check out the post comparing ProjectSpaces to Basecamp here -- http://www.projectspaces.com/content/...

I believe there's more to online CRM and project management than Basecamp. I went out of my way to search for a better alternative and found Worketc (www.worketc.com). What Worketc did for my small sales company has exceeded my expectation. CRM project management has never been easy for me but Worketc helped me get through it and master virtual management. It taught me all the works. And what makes me happier is that is also handles my documents, emails, contacts, as if I had a full time secretary!

Well I think Bascamp sucks. I got suckered into using it. Seemed to be cool and what we wanted. So I spent a few hours on it. And then realised how very limited it is. Like the message system. No body in my team used it at all. Complete waste of time. And no prioritys for task? Wow. This is the market leader?

Anyway while googling for alternatives a couple of weeks ago I came across this thread and thought I 'd report back. The best best basecamp alternative we found was Dooster.net. It is great and deserves to be succesful.

I liked another one called manymoon. But it wasn't as good as dooster with the way tasks could be dealt with by email

Hope that helps

Another good alternative is (http://www.proofhub.com/). It includes many features like collaboration, time tracking, real time chat, milestones, documentation, online file proofing and many more. It is really good and easy to use and also it take less time for loading.

I think here is one of great alternative for Basecamp just check at http://www.bontq.com

Bontq is hosted issue tool that collaborate developers, testers and clients. There are nice prices for plans.

We tried proofhub and it was OK. But it didnt quite do as much for us as Dooster.net does. We have fully committed to dooster now

Hi Chris

I totally agree with Deepika, ProofHub is really outsanding Software for Project Management. We have been using ProofHub for 5 months.