Finding an Alternative to Basecamp: Unfuddle.com Review

After three years of using Basecamp for project management, we found something that suits us better. I suggest Habrap users to get acquainted with the project management service http://unfuddle.com , its advantages, disadvantages and its comparison with Basecamp.



Unfuddle.com we found by chance. One of the customers mentioned this service. I went, looked and I liked it. I liked it so much that now we are gradually transferring all of our 15+ current projects there.
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In the comments already appear questions like "is it not an advertisement?" No, this is not an advertisement. I have nothing to do with the site (except as a user). There are no referral links in the text.

At the beginning of the article I will describe the main advantages / disadvantages. Next will be a more detailed description.

Key benefits compared to Basecamp

• Advanced (compared to Basecamp) ticket support . Everything, of course, is not as cool as in JIRA or in Mantis. Nevertheless, the perfect balance between simplicity and functionality is maintained.
  
  • The sweetest thing is keeping a record of the ticket . Who added when. Who changed the status, etc.
  • Several ticket statuses (New, Accepted, Resolved, Closed)
  • custom fields for tickets.
• More flexible customization of people’s access rights to the project. The ability to give read-only access to some part of the project, such as messages.

Other advantages

• Unlimited number of repositories per project. Standard supported GIT and SVN.
• The ability to re-ticket and replay watches with comments when committing to the repository. For example, adding a line like this “resolved # 47 spending 2:45 on # 47” will signify ticket # 47 and add 2:45 to the time spent on it.
• Another principle of e-mail reminders. Receive all messages, tickets, etc. to which you have access with the ability to refuse to receive any type of messages (for example, tickets). You can also refuse to receive notification of changes that you yourself have made. Ability to select the interval for sending updates: immediately, once every 30 minutes, once an hour, etc.
• Mylyn Connector. We have not yet used it, but there is a possibility.
• The ability to automatically back up to your personal S3 account on Amazon. Also not yet used but the opportunity pleases.
• API for accessing projects

Spoon of tar (Disadvantages)

• Design in my opinion is worse than Basecamp.
• Little documentation. The community is not as big as Basecamp. Although the support service responds fairly promptly and adequately answers questions.

Further details about the site itself (many screenshots).

Prices

Prices are almost the same as Basecamp. A sane account costs the same magical $ 49 / month. At the same time, less disk space is offered (4 Gb instead of 15 Gb for Basescamp) and projects (20 instead of 35).

Dashboard

A fairly standard Dashboard. Offers an overview of recent project activity.
From pleasant it is possible to note a quick view of the status of tickets on the project ..

Project Overview

Same standard page as Dashboard.

Messages

The message section allows you to add messages. Messages can be divided into categories (categories are created in the project settings). Links to messages, commits in repositories, pages in Notebook can be added to messages. But the most delicious thing is that, unlike Basecamp, Textile and Markup are supported (selectable in the settings).

Milestones

When adding a Milestone, the date responsible is selected. The milestones are displayed on the calendar.

Tickets

Convenient list of tickets. You can do group actions (change attributes, resolve). There are 6 pre-installed reports by ticket (the list on the right side of the page). Very convenient is that you can create your own reports.


With such a flexible reporting system, you can get a list for any purpose. When creating a report, you can specify:

• grouping by one of the parameters (component, version, mailstone, date, etc.)
• field by which to sort and the direction of sorting
• ticket fields to be included in the list
• ticket selection criteria for the list

(via link full ticket page)
When viewing the ticket, the status of the ticket (New, Accepted, Resolved, Closed) is clearly displayed, as well as the time spent on running in comparison with the evaluation. Very convenient because It allows you to read the "health" of the ticket without any hesitation.

Notebook

The structure of the notebook is different from Basecamp. In Unfuddle, a notebook is created in which consists of data pages. I do not quite understand the logic of the creators of the service. Immediately after all, not a library but a project. How many large documents can you create here? ten? 15? All these documents could well fit in a simple list.


Pages can be added to each notebook.


It is possible to view the version of the page, compare with previous versions.

Repositories

List of repositories with an indication of activity for a certain time. Hovering the mouse over the columns shows the number of commits per tribute. If you click on the repository name, you can view the source of the project.

People

As I wrote above - one of the advantages of the system. On the left is a list of users who have access to the project. You can edit access to each of the sections of the project. Permissions can be: None (the section is not visible), Read Only, Read and Create, Manage (can edit what others have done).

On the right is a list of people in the system. You can add them to the project. while they are not in the project, they do not see the project.

Above there is a link "Invite a Person". Allows you to create an account for the user. Immediately sends the user an invitation letter.

Project Settings

Basic project settings: Name, description. In contrast, Basecamp allows you to specify a color for each project, and not for the interface as a whole. You can select default actions for tickets.

Below are settings for versions and components of a project, categories of messages, custom fields for tickets. There is also the setting of access to the S3 account to create a backup copy of the project. Backup can also be downloaded to your computer. And you can choose one of the last 4 backups.

Personal settings

Personal settings, name, password, time zone, etc. Immediately set up alerts by e-mail. They are global, affect all projects. Below is the key configuration for accessing the Git repository.

Account Settings

Settings for the used plan, time zone, default text markup languages. Useful bird "Force SSL" allows you to automatically switch to https when using the site.

It seems that he wrote everything that he investigated.
If you have little information, you can write to me. How can I help?
Or see for yourself: http://unfuddle.com/ , Unfuddle Support