Basecamp vs Smartsheet comparison

37signals and Smartsheet are both solutions in the Project Management Software category. 37signals is ranked #26, while Smartsheet is ranked #7 with an average rating of 7.6. 37signals holds a 1.3% mindshare in PMS, compared to Smartsheet’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 66% of 37signals users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Smartsheet users who would recommend it.

Basecamp

Read 3 Basecamp reviews

1,221 Views
940 Comparison Views

66% willing to recommend

Smartsheet

Read 43 Smartsheet reviews

3,198 Views
2,207 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Basecamp

Smartsheet

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Basecamp and Smartsheet compete in project management. Smartsheet has the upper hand due to its comprehensive features, which provide greater flexibility and automation for complex projects.

Features: Basecamp supports team communication with message boards, to-dos, and scheduling. Smartsheet includes project tracking, automation, data integration, and workflow customization, giving it an edge in handling diverse project needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Basecamp offers quick deployment and efficient customer service, focusing on simplicity. Smartsheet, though more complex to deploy due to its features, provides detailed support and resources, guiding users in managing intricate projects effectively.

Pricing and ROI: Basecamp's flat pricing is cost-effective and predictable. Smartsheet's tiered pricing can increase costs but matches its capabilities, offering a high ROI due to its advanced features, benefiting organizations needing sophisticated solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Basecamp vs. Smartsheet Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Basecamp vs. Smartsheet

April 2026

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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

26th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Smartsheet

Ranking in Project Management Software

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Project Portfolio Management (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 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 Smartsheet is 2.1%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Project Management Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Smartsheet	2.1%
Basecamp	1.3%
Other	96.6%

Project Management Software

Featured Reviews

Abenazzer Tadesse

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.

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DonatasSinkevicius

Project Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

Automation simplifies manual tasks and facilitates team communication

There are many useful features in Smartsheet. One can easily share plans with the entire team, and it functions similarly to Microsoft Project. Creating dependencies across all tasks is smooth, and team members can make adjustments if necessary. Automation helps by simplifying some manual work, saving time and facilitating communication.

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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 ease of use is valuable."

"The app functionality and ease of seeing the different functionalities parsed equally on the screen with consistent menu access to shift between areas."

"We keep all our timelines and projections on the software, so it's very effective for us."

"It operates as an enhanced and versatile version of Excel, offering a wide range of capabilities that allow you to accomplish various tasks and operations."

"The most valuable feature of Smartsheet is its intuitiveness, ease of use, and overall simplicity."

"Smartsheet does a really good job of creating Gantt charts. Export to Excel feature was also very useful."

"I prefer Smartsheet for its flexibility."

"This solution provides easy collaboration and allows non-building users to use the system without requiring a license."

"To me, one of the most powerful features of Smartsheet is being able to email others."

"The cloud-based program is so useful, as we used to be emailing Excel spreadsheets around, never knowing who had the most current version."

More Smartsheet pros

Cons

"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."

"The product isn't easy to use. It's not very intuitive."

"The solution could be more user-friendly."

"With a large quantity of data, the solution lags a bit."

"They provide a limited number of sheets which is not enough."

"More intuitive access without constant logins would be beneficial."

"There should be an option to minimize the amount of data on the homepage in order to ease access and downloads in areas with slow internet connection."

"The product must include more modules for project management."

"Smartsheet could improve the UI and integrations. Some of Smartsheet's competitors have more than 2,000 integrations while Smartsheet only has approximately 40 integration applications."

"An area for improvement in Smartsheet is that if you're in the government or you're a regulated customer, you're not allowed to use APIs due to internal restrictions, so there are specific things that you cannot connect to it. Another area for improvement in the solution is that because there's a capacity of how many records you can have, and there's a capacity of how many functions you can apply, Smartsheet has set up their system where they can force people into purchasing a $20,000 additional module that is called Control Center, that will create documents for them on the fly, so they don't use so many functions and automation. Smartsheet also needs to improve on training, because the training that is out there is very little. The solution requires a steeper learning curve. You have to do your own training and you have to work on your own solution."

"There are some pain points for me. I would like database functionality with it wherein if I bring in several Excel spreadsheets of data and load them into Smartsheets, I should be able to make a correlation between an index field and run a report against those two."

More Smartsheet cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The solution is expensive."

"Smartsheet only requires licenses for project managers. When we were using Asana, we had to purchase a license for everyone who wanted to access their tasks and use the system. That gets costly fast. It was one of the main reasons we left Asana. As Asana and these other tools scale, they become way more expensive."

"I pay $ 120 or $ 128 a month for two to three users."

"For a normal license, like the one I had: I had my own Smartsheet because I wanted to play with it and I didn't want to mess with what I was doing in Verizon, so I paid $200 monthly, and it gave me all the same functionalities, so I could do whatever I wanted for $200. The problem is if you have anyone else working on it or deploying on it, it's $200 a month for every single person who's deployed on it, that's working on it as an owner or an administrator, so owners and administrators are the only ones who can change, edit, and add data to worksheets and columns. Depending on the size of your organization, Smartsheet can be costly. As for implementing its Control Center, Smartsheet forces you to have three people come in: it's a minimum of three people from Smartsheet for three months who will provide you the solutions for the Control Center side, and that's $150 an hour, so it can become very expensive. For my company, not having the Control Center would save on the setup fees and then the $20,000 a year, because the Control Center of Smartsheet is a yearly subscription of $20,000."

"It is less expensive than Microsoft Project for enterprise or Oracle Primavera by an order of magnitude. If you buy a Microsoft Project license, it's probably $300 or so by itself, whereas Smartsheet is probably less than $50 per head."

"The tool's monthly fee is 25 dollars, which is within the range of most cloud-based project management tools. I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."

"There's a license for Smartsheet, and the enterprise plan comes down to about $750. My company also pays an extra $60 monthly apart from the standard licensing fee."

"The solution is too expensive."

More Smartsheet pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

23%

Security Firm

12%

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

Manufacturing Company

13%

Healthcare Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	22

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Smartsheet?

The tool creates shareable dashboards. These dashboards allow us to display project deliverables' status, their position in the queue, expected delivery timelines, and more. The best part is that t...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Smartsheet?

Licensing might be cheaper per user. I rate it as seven or eight due to its demanding nature. For personal use, I have a monthly subscription, while the company uses an annual basis.

See all answers

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Project Management Software

April 2026

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Smartsheet

March 2026

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Overview

Basecamp is a web-based project-management tool developed by Basecamp and launched in 2004, with a new version being launched in 2012. Basecamp offers to-do lists, wiki-style web-based text documents, milestone management, file sharing, time tracking, and a messaging system. Basecamp Classic also offers integration with Basecamp's own Campfire product, and features APIs that are used by a host of web and mobile apps. Basecamp Classic's interface is available in different languages (e.g. Spanish, French, Italian, German, Finnish and Japanese). The newer version of Basecamp currently only supports English as the interface language.

37signals

Smartsheet offers a comprehensive platform for project management, featuring real-time sharing, cloud accessibility, and a user-friendly interface, which enhance workflow efficiency and project tracking capabilities.

Smartsheet stands out in the realm of project management by integrating robust tools like Gantt chart creation and seamless compatibility with products like Jira and Microsoft Teams. Its dashboards, intuitive design, and flexible customization options support efficient collaboration and centralized management. Enhancements such as real-time change visibility without refreshing, advanced automation capabilities, and improved integration with APIs address user needs. Sectors spanning from strategic initiatives to operational tasks benefit from this customizable, cloud-based platform.

What are the key features of Smartsheet?

Real-Time Sharing: Facilitates immediate collaboration across teams.
Cloud Accessibility: Work from anywhere with cloud-based tools.
User-Friendliness: Simplified project management through an intuitive interface.
Gantt Chart Creation: Offers dynamic timelines for project tracking.
Integrations: Seamless connectivity with Jira, Microsoft Teams, and more.

What benefits or ROI does Smartsheet provide?

Enhanced Efficiency: Streamline workflows for quicker project completion.
Improved Collaboration: Centralized tools support teamwork and communication.
Project Tracking: Real-time updates keep projects on schedule.
Customizable Solutions: Adaptable to meet diverse management needs.

In specific industries, Smartsheet is leveraged for creating project plans, managing tasks, and compiling statistics. Teams use dashboards for data visualization to monitor multiple projects efficiently. The platform supports resource management, approvals, and collaboration, integrating features like automation and data export for comprehensive project oversight.

Smartsheet

Sample Customers

Ashland Addison Florist Co., Victory Auto Wreckers, Ideal Box Co., Hollymatic Corp.

Sony Music, ESPN, Hilton, Unisource, Colliers, Extreme Networks, Groupon, Netflix

Buyer's Guide

Basecamp vs. Smartsheet

April 2026

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