Basecamp Vs Drupal Projects - who wins ?

It is a good question, and one I run into often. Right now I'm setting up a wiki. There are several great wiki services that have the functionality in place, but they lack some features I'd like. Also, they aren't connected to my site and my user base, so users need to create new accounts. I've also looked at this issue with project work.

My two cents is that it depends on your needs. If you find a turn key service that offers what you need out of the box then go for it. Basecamp does some things very well and has a nice interface. However, if you have some time to spend, and want more flexibility, go with drupal. Drupal can replicate most functions in Basecamp, but they aren't quite as pretty...however, you could make a nice interface if you have the time and inclination.

Another good thing about Drupal is that once you get content in your system as a node, it can go anywhere. You can setup a great single system that manages clients and content. So maybe a client question and your response is relevant to their website and would make a good faq item. So push it out to the client site and viola! New page and client question answered. The possibilities are truly endless; it is mostly a question of time and needs.

BaseCamp works out of the box.
Drupal requires you to make some changes....but with those changes comes the ability to customize.

I use drupal to manage all client interactions, document sharing, discussions about quotes, etc.

I think it greatly depends on your particular background and what your workflow is like. I believe in using the best tool for the job as opposed to the "eating your own dogfood" principle.

That said, I use Drupal with contributed projects such as CiviCRM, Case Tracker, Event, Organic Groups, Wikitools, Messenger, Comment RSS, and Search (extended with OpenSearch and Search Export CSV). For notes and todo lists I've been using Tasklist and Tasklist Advanced. Notepad looks promising.

Sometimes it's actually more important for my clients to login to their client area and feel and see what Drupal can do. This is a major reason why I manage my projects within Drupal.

I find Basecamp attractive in many ways, but it is too feature limited for me ~ and the price goes up when you begin managing more than the first, free project.

I think there's a reason why Basecamp is wildly popular with web designers in particular while Drupal has traditionally appealed to programmers. Drupal swept me off my feet when I started building sites with it, but then the candlelight faded and the violin-playing minstrels went home. I've been frustrated ever since with aspects of the UI and the general difficulty of theming.

I'm interested in seeing what people add to this discussion.

If you want free roll your own. Active Collab looks promising as does Dot Project and eGroupware... I like eGroupware prettier than DotProject...

I am forced to use Basecamp every day, since my clients already have set it up. It's a most royal PITA and doesn't have half the features that project.module or casetracker.module have. Granted, it /is/ very shiny.
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Drupal services
My Drupal services

We use JIRA at Four Kitchens. I really like it. Others don't.

Short stepin.

I have see a very interesting Video: (Basecamp Cloned In Drupal) and of course I did not let my hand off and started a testing on my local server. Even if the Video cannot answer and handle all dettails and tweaks necessary to getit run, shows that Drupal have all potentiality and features to deliver an exstremely powerfull platform. I hope the leading developer on Drupal.org decide to work on a full and simply to implement documentation on that project. I'm sure it will really boost Drupal implemantation worldwide.

Regards