Basecamp vs n8n Comparison 2026
Both cover project management. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Flat pricing that stops caring how big you get
Automation you can host on your own server
At a glance
- Basecamp starts cheaper, at $15.
- Only Basecamp has a free tier.
Side by side
Basecamp | n8n | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $15 | From $20 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free plan, paid tiers | Free trial, then paid |
| Free tier (they differ) | Yes | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | 30 days | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | None | None |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Basecamp
Flat pricing that stops caring how big you get
Basecamp organises work as projects containing message boards, to-do lists, files and a chat room, and it has stayed close to that shape for twenty years. The reason to choose it is the pricing rather than the features: above a certain team size it is one flat monthly fee for everybody, and clients and guests are never billed at all. That makes it unusually easy to reason about for a studio that grows and shrinks. The free package runs a single project, which is a real way to test it rather than a demo.
Only on this side
- Covers hiring & freelancers
n8n
Automation you can host on your own server
n8n is a workflow automation tool whose source is public and which you may run on your own machine, which matters when the data passing through is a subscriber list or a client's files. Nodes cover the usual services and a code node covers everything else, so a workflow does not stop dead at the first thing nobody built an integration for. Cloud plans are billed by workflow executions rather than by task, so a long chain costs the same as a short one. Self-hosting is free under its own licence.
Only on this side
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.