SimpleGantt vs Basecamp

Basecamp's own help docs describe its closest thing to a status indicator, the Hill Chart, as “not metric driven” — a dot someone drags based on how the work feels. SimpleGantt computes On Track, At Risk or Delayed from the actual schedule, no feeling required.

Quick summary

FeatureSimpleGanttBasecamp
Best forSmall teams that want a schedule and a deadline to measure againstTeams that want shared to-dos, docs and discussion in one place
Gantt chart / visual timeline✅ Built-in❌ No Gantt chart — confirmed, and the single most common complaint in Basecamp's own reviews
Task dependencies✅ Automatic rescheduling when a task moves❌ Not available, confirmed
Automatic On Track / At Risk / Delayed status✅ Computed from the schedule❌ Hill Charts are a manual, feeling-based progress marker — Basecamp's own help docs call them "not metric driven"
Settable deadline forecast against the actual schedule✅❌ Scheduling covers due dates and milestones, but nothing forecasts whether you'll hit them
Flat pricing, no per-seat fees✅ Every tierPartial — Studio tier and above only; Free and Freelancer still cap users at 5 and 20
Cheapest tier with unlimited users$8/month (Premium)$59/month (Studio)
Free plan that never expires✅ 1 project, 10 users, 50 tasks✅ 1 project, 5 users max, 1GB storage
Team chat, message boards, docs❌ Deliberately out of scope✅ Core feature
Add a teammate before you know their email✅ Name onlyNot confirmed
Export (CSV / PDF / PNG)❌ Not built yetNot confirmed

SimpleGantt data current as of this page's publish date. Basecamp pricing and feature claims pulled directly from basecamp.com and its public help docs, 2026-10-07. Anything not independently tested against the live product is marked “not confirmed” rather than assumed.

SimpleGantt at a glance

A project is created for you the moment you sign up. Lay out tasks, connect dependencies, lock a deadline, and every task and the project itself show automatically as On Track, At Risk or Delayed. Move one task and dependent work reschedules on its own — nobody has to drag a dot to say how it's going.

Basecamp at a glance

Basecamp is built around team communication and accountability: message boards, to-do lists, group chat, docs and files, and automatic recurring check-in questions, all in one place. Its progress-tracking feature, the Hill Chart, plots a bell curve and lets someone manually drag a dot to represent how a body of work feels — by Basecamp's own description, it is “not metric driven.” There is no Gantt chart and no task dependencies anywhere in the product.

The biggest difference

Basecamp isn't trying to be a scheduling tool. It has no Gantt chart and no task dependencies — confirmed directly against its own feature pages, and the single most common complaint in its own reviews is some version of “the inability to create Gantt charts, or sophisticated project timelines.” What it has instead is the Hill Chart: a dot someone drags along a curve based on how finished the work feels. That's the definition of self-reported status. SimpleGantt doesn't ask anyone how a project feels — it computes On Track, At Risk or Delayed from the actual dates, continuously.

Both products reject per-seat pricing, but the floors land very differently. Basecamp's cheapest unlimited-user tier, Studio, is $59/month — more than seven times SimpleGantt's $8 Premium — and still caps you at 10 projects. Its Free and Freelancer tiers aren't unlimited-user at all; they cap at 5 and 20 people. SimpleGantt's $8 flat rate undercuts every Basecamp tier above its single-project free plan.

Pricing

SimpleGantt

  • ✓Free plan that never expires (1 project, 10 users, 50 tasks, no credit card)
  • ✓Premium: $8/month flat — unlimited users, unlimited tasks, 20 projects
  • ✓Enterprise: $75/month flat — unlimited projects, users and tasks
  • ✓No per-user pricing on any tier

Basecamp

  • •Free: $0 — 1 project, 5 users max, 1GB storage
  • •Freelancer: $25/month — 3 projects, 20 users max
  • •Studio: $59/month — 10 projects, unlimited users
  • •Pro: $99/month — 25 projects, unlimited users
  • •Unlimited: $299/month (annual billing only) — unlimited projects

Which tool should you choose?

Choose SimpleGantt if you want:

  • ✅A Gantt chart and dependencies, not a to-do list
  • ✅A status that's computed, not a feeling someone drags into position
  • ✅A deadline measured against your actual schedule
  • ✅The cheapest unlimited-user tier in this comparison — $8 vs $59

Choose Basecamp if you want:

  • ✅Team-wide message boards and chat in the same place as the work
  • ✅A tool built around communication and accountability, not scheduling
  • ✅Hill Charts, if "how far along does this feel" is the right question for ambiguous or creative work
  • ✅Automatic recurring check-in questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Is SimpleGantt an alternative to Basecamp?

Only partly — they solve different problems. If what you need is a schedule, dependencies and a deadline you can forecast against, yes. If what you need is team-wide communication and to-do accountability, Basecamp does things SimpleGantt deliberately doesn't try to do.

Does Basecamp have a Gantt chart?

No — confirmed directly against Basecamp's own feature pages, and it's the single most common complaint in its own reviews. Basecamp's closest equivalent, the Hill Chart, is an explicitly feeling-based progress marker, not a calculation from dates.

Is Basecamp cheaper than SimpleGantt?

Not for most team sizes. Basecamp's cheapest tier with unlimited users, Studio, is $59/month; SimpleGantt's is $8. Basecamp's Free and Freelancer tiers aren't unlimited-user either — they cap at 5 and 20 people.

Can I export my plan from SimpleGantt?

Not yet — no CSV, PDF or PNG export today. It's on our roadmap.

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