A little over a month ago I mentioned I was contacted by the team at PBWorks to evaluate their Project Edition of their Project Management tool. Had they not contacted me, I eventually would have most likely just purchased Basecamp. I must say, I consider myself very lucky that I was informed of PBWorks before I had the chance to do this. So, over the past 27 days I have been playing around with the Point Brake Network. Never having used a PM tool before, I must say that I’ve become incredibly more productive over the past month. I currently am ahead on all of my projects, and I am fairly certain that it is because of this tool.
During my trial of PBWorks I signed up for a free trial for Basecamp simply to compare the two. Here are the few things that I liked more in Basecamp:
Status of Users’ Last Log In – You can see when people last logged in to their workspace. This would be most convenient to assure that clients are actually able to log in and have received notifications that there is a new page for them to check out. Also, for larger companies than mine (sole prop), it would be nice to see if employees are actually using it.
# of days until deadline – Milestones and to-do (task) lists have a counter stating how many days until the deadline. This definitely helped to put things in perspective for me. Time seems to fly by faster and faster (I’m still thinking its July), and September 15th feels like a long time away. Adding a counter for the days left to complete a task or milestone would help me be more productive. It actually helped to not let me procrastinate.
Overall
Those two things are the only two that Basecamp has to offer that PBWorks doesn’t, for me at least. Neither seem to have the ideal organization for clients and projects that I would like, though. It makes sense to have client profiles within something like this, no? Some clients require multiple projects, and each type of project requires a different approach. It would only make sense to organize projects accordingly.
Overall, Basecamp and PBWorks are really rather similar, just with slightly different approaches to things. The main selling point to me as a sole proprietor is the pricing structure of each.
With one user, free guest/client accounts, and unlimited projects and storage, the choice for me was simple. However, when choosing a PM Tool, make sure to evaluate all options before deciding. I’m not saying anything negative about Basecamp by any means, it just doesn’t meet my needs as well as another product. I’m not going into the details of what I like and don’t like too much because your opinion might be just the opposite. However, if you would like a free trial of PBWorks, I will be holding a contest within the next week or two. Or, you can just go to PBWorks. Just make sure to do your homework before settling on one of these tools. Chances are the underdog has a couple tricks up their sleeve.
