Basecamp vs Bitrix24

2020. Basecamp launches Hey, a hosted email service for neat freaks


Project management software maker Basecamp has introduced an innovative hosted email service named Hey. With Hey, the company aims to tackle the chaos and clutter typically associated with traditional email inboxes. One of its notable features is a built-in screener that prompts users to confirm whether they wish to receive emails from new senders. Upon consent, inbound emails are sorted into different trays. The central "imbox" (short for important box) exclusively contains communications designated as important by the user. Newsletters are organized in a News Feed-style tray called The Feed, where they are conveniently displayed in a partially opened format for casual reading. Additionally, email receipts are neatly arranged in a dedicated inbox view called the Paper Trail, serving as a reference for users.


2018. Basecamp adds recurring events and image galleries



Project management service Basecamp has introduced several exciting new features. The first addition is Recurring events, allowing users to schedule daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly repeating events within Basecamp 3. Users can choose to set the recurrence until a specific date or continue indefinitely. The second feature is Image galleries, which enables users to showcase their work or share photos in visually appealing side-by-side or three-in-a-row layouts. This enhancement makes it easier than ever to present visual content. Lastly, Basecamp introduces Automatic Check-ins, a simple and informal tool extensively utilized for team communication. The entire company can engage in queries such as sharing weekend activities and work updates, while smaller teams like Support can address specific questions related to common issues encountered during the week. These new features enrich the Basecamp experience, enhancing collaboration and streamlining communication within teams.


2018. Basecamp improves client collaboration



Collaborating with clients in Basecamp has been significantly enhanced, offering an improved experience. The latest updates enable you to effortlessly assign to-dos to clients, share files and folders, schedule events and meetings, engage in Campfire chats, and even automatically ask clients check-in questions. Within a project, all items are now clearly labeled as either "private to our team" or "visible to the client." To avoid any unexpected sharing mishaps and minimize concerns, every item within a project begins as private, accessible only to your team. When you post something new, you have the flexibility to specify whether it should be visible to the client or remain private within your team. These enhancements ensure smoother collaboration and allow for precise control over shared information in Basecamp.


2014. Basecamp app is available for iPad



The official app for iPad has been launched by the popular project management service Basecamp, expanding beyond its previous availability only on iPhone and the web for iPad users. This app enables users to conveniently access their projects from anywhere, providing updates on each project's latest news, facilitating participation in discussions and sharing thoughts, and allowing the viewing of team members' progress as they complete tasks and upload files. With all project-related information accessible, users can easily reference documents and make decisions regardless of their location. The app boasts a swift and responsive performance, featuring a clean and well-organized interface.


2014. Bitrix24 launches inter-company social messenger



The social collaboration tool Bitrix24 is introducing a new, complimentary instant messenger called Bitrix24.Network. This messenger facilitates seamless communication and collaboration among users from various companies, similar to the concept of "Skype for business." Users can establish free collaboration workspaces with both private and group chats, as well as engage in audio and video calls. Additionally, Bitrix24.Network will soon incorporate features such as file sharing, online document editing, and other tools that are already available in Bitrix24. Furthermore, Bitrix24 has incorporated an internal email server, powered by Yandex Mail, enabling the creation of mailboxes under the domain @bitrix24.com (or any custom domain) for each employee, with the option to add business mail to the portal menu.


2014. 37Signals renames to Basecamp, discontinues development of other products



37Signals emerged as one of the pioneers in the SaaS market. In 2004, they introduced Basecamp, a project management service that remains highly popular to this day. It boasts a user base of 15 million individuals and is often regarded as a trailblazer in web-app design. Notably, 37Signals CEO, Jason Fried, is widely recognized, and he has authored books such as Getting Real and ReWork. Jason's profound admiration for small businesses and the startup ethos is evident. Despite Basecamp's remarkable success, he has successfully maintained the startup mentality within the company, employing only 43 individuals. Jason even experimented with scaling back the customer base to control growth. Presently, he has conceived a new idea: to pause the development of other products (including the CRM system Highrise, group chat Campfire, task-manager Ta-Da List, wiki Writeboard, and organizer Backpack) and concentrate all efforts on Basecamp. Moreover, he has decided to rename the company from 37Signals to Basecamp, a concise and elegant title. If you are a user of 37Signals products affected by this decision, there is no need to panic. The products will continue to function and receive support in the future, albeit without further feature updates.


2013. Bitrix24 adds VoIP-webphone, live CRM stream, collaborative folders



Bitrix24, the versatile social intranet service, is launching its latest version. This new version introduces the ability to make customer calls directly from the system's web interface using a webRTC-softphone. These calls are recorded and logged in the customer profiles, and you also have the option to store call records. Bitrix24 utilizes Zingaya as its VoIP provider, offering even lower VoIP fees compared to Skype. Previously, Bitrix only allowed internal calls between colleagues within the company and relied on other desktop IP telephony applications like Skype, Lync, or others for external calls. The second new feature is the introduction of a separate activity stream in the CRM section. This stream enables real-time tracking of deals, salesperson activities, and customer interactions. Additionally, Bitrix24 Drive, the app that facilitates file synchronization between local machines and the intranet, has added a new collaboration feature. Previously, it allowed you to store all documents and files in the cloud, edit them offline, and sync changes once you connect to the internet. Now, this functionality extends to shared folders as well, enhancing collaboration within the platform.


2013. Basecamp launches mobile app for iOS



HTML5 has taken a backseat to mobile applications, at least for the time being. Jason Fried, the CEO of the highly popular project management service Basecamp, has always prioritized the effectiveness of his product over following trends or engaging in mere PR stunts. He previously held the belief that focusing on the web interface was the best approach rather than chasing the multitude of mobile platforms. As a result, Basecamp was only available as a web app for mobile devices. However, Jason has recently concluded that a native client would offer greater convenience. As a result, Basecamp is now accessible as a native app for iPhone and iPad. The app is free and showcases the new, visually appealing style of the web version.


2013. Basecamp Personal - SaaS with no monthly charges



37Signals, the maker of the popular SaaS project management app Basecamp, always invent something interesting and innovative. This time they coming up with the new service Basecamp Personal, intended for small teams (projects), for which the regular Basecamp is too expensive. Earlier Basecamp used to provide a free version for one project and it was very popular. But as you know, 37Signals want to have fewer clients and more money. Therefore, they decided to create a paid version for 1 project and 5 users. But how beautiful they did it... ***


2012. Bitrix24 - the most pumped up Facebook for Enterprise on the market



Russian intranet portal maker 1C-Bitrix is taking on Chatter, Yammer, Socialcast and other social intranet services with its latest product Bitrix24. And this service is not just yet another "Facebook for Enterprise" clone. It's created in the unique style of 1C-Bitrix. In fact Bitrix24 looks like "Facebook for Enterprise" only at first glance - on the home page there is an activity stream where you can post messages and comments and see the latest actions in the system. But under the hood of this home page you will find the common (for 1C-Bitrix) set of million functions: tasks, file storage (with version control), calendar, photo galleries, instant messager, extranet, CRM, workflow builder, time tracker, profiles, reports, mobile version ... Of course, it's cool on the one hand. But on the other - too heavy for SaaS. And during the first real stress test (on the release day) the service experienced big problems with scalability. ***