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Basecamp vs Microsoft Project comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Basecamp
Ranking in Project Management Software
25th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Project
Ranking in Project Management Software
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Project Management Software category, the mindshare of Basecamp is 1.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Project is 2.0%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Project Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Project2.0%
Basecamp1.3%
Other96.7%
Project Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

Abenazzer Tadesse - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Operations Officer at BeOnline ICT
An easy-to-use project management solution with good stability and scalability
The recent update on the solution has made it a little bit complex. For example, to create a team and a project, there is a separate button that you need to click. Recently they updated it with only one button making it difficult for us to create teams or supply teams other than a project. Hence the solution could be more user-friendly. Additionally, some additional features need to be integrated so it'll be easy for other companies or project managers to manage software projects.
Jacob-George - PeerSpot reviewer
Domain Consultant at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
Improved project scheduling has maximized resource utilization and has reduced delays
I think the licensing structure presents a significant area for improvement. The full features are not offered on the standard E4 license. This becomes problematic when distributing the project plan. I can export the plan as Excel and CSV files, but then I lose all the rich features, including dependency mapping. To recreate all that functionality without proper licensing is challenging. Microsoft Project offers a light version available for free, but when I try to distribute a project plan, it requires separate licensing. Microsoft Project Central used to be more of an enterprise product. Microsoft Project currently focuses on very low-level task management, and it could do much more. I do not see significant advancement happening because there is confusion about where Microsoft Project is heading. I believe Microsoft should bundle the license with Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This approach would result in more people using Microsoft Project. That is my opinion on how to improve adoption and the product offering.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The ability to network informally is great for communicating with colleagues."
"The app functionality and ease of seeing the different functionalities parsed equally on the screen with consistent menu access to shift between areas."
"The ease of use is valuable."
"The stability is good; there are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze."
"The most valuable feature is probably the Kanban diagram. People are familiar with the Kanban tools. When they do their scrum meetings, they have that Kanban board where you can see the different tiles for all the queries and move them from left to right. IT is familiar with that because, for development, most of the tools have that capability. It could also be more graphical, like Asana."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Project is status reporting."
"It can auto-connect based on the dates, which makes it easy. It auto-assigns people, and when you're starting to type in, it auto-fills and populates for you, which is great. It provides little time savers when you're typing everything out."
"The resource allocation features, which help allocate resources to tasks, are quite valuable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is time management."
"The solution is very straightforward and simple, and you can connect the license in less than 30 minutes on a desktop."
"I use all of the features that are there; there are quite a few that are very helpful and it makes it easier for me to project manage."
 

Cons

"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"The product isn't easy to use. It's not very intuitive."
"Formalized area to store contact information indexed in a way that can pre-populate other areas would be helpful."
"I would like to see both Time and Team based options improved."
"Its user interface could be a little bit more intuitive. Not everybody has the luxury of going to training and understanding which button does what and the functionality. The user interface should be improved to make it a little bit more intuitive. It is not user-friendly. I've dealt with it for a number of years, so it is not hard for me to figure it out, but you would need a quick reference guide or something to say, "Here are the basics. This is how you do X.""
"Project is not easy to scale. It isn't a cloud-based solution where everybody can utilize it at the same time without version issues when you save your file. We use it at the enterprise level, but you have to share the files to others within your organization through Teams or SharePoint. One improvement would be to transition to cloud-based functionality. However, that might limit the functionality in other ways."
"Microsoft Project could improve the interface, it should be more intuitive. It could be adjusted a little bit to make it a little easier to use and more user-friendly. It is a very powerful tool and it takes people a while to get used to it."
"It would be better if there were more access to Agile implementations."
"We'd like to be able to see different timelines as a part of one task."
"There are tons of tools that can do this way better."
"Time-based planning becomes very difficult because the big projects every task is related to each other, if you change some processes a little bit, every detail is changing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It was a three-year license deal that was reconciled on a quarterly basis. It is a reasonably priced product, and I consider that we got good value for money."
"The licensing model is somewhat complex."
"I rate Microsoft Project's pricing a five out of ten."
"Licensing costs vary depending on the user volume. The pricing is good, I'd rate it four out of five."
"The solution is expensive."
"I am not aware of any additional costs apart from the standard licensing fees of the solution."
"The license fees for the professional version, which is estimated to be approximately $1,600, and the standard version, which is approximately $1,200, may be considered expensive by some users. This is something that could be improved to make the platform more accessible to a wider audience."
"The solution is less expensive than other options."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
22%
Security Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise42
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Has anyone moved from Microsoft Project to Smartsheet? How has your experience been with Smartsheet?
Hi @Eire Zimmermann, I helped an organization evaluate both MS-Project and Smartsheet when they were conducting their PM tool RFP. The short of it is this, MS Project is not caught up with the mo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Project?
I would say Microsoft Project is affordable, but the standalone Project license should be included in the Office price to increase adoption.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Project?
I am not expert enough to explain areas of improvement for Microsoft Project because I have not explored it extensively or used it enough, so I am not the right person to comment on this. I have no...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Project Pro, MS Project
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ashland Addison Florist Co., Victory Auto Wreckers, Ideal Box Co., Hollymatic Corp.
Aston Martin, ABANCA, Airbus Group, Capita, Cardiff University, City of Saskatoon, Intel, Pegasus Airlines, South Australia Power Network (SAPN), Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing
Find out what your peers are saying about Basecamp vs. Microsoft Project and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.