Basecamp versus Slack

Communication formats

Slack

• Immediacy of the chat format
• Terrible search
• Organization is hard to enforce, groups fracture, distraction galore
• Messages are short and context is lost all the time
• Integrations can be fun like giphy
• Planning is impossible except in tiny cases
• Overall distracting, but popular

Basecamp

• Somewhere between email and text message for immediacy, clearly not intended for continuous realtime conversation
• Search works and gives relevant results
• Organized for focused workflows
• Group membership and notifications are geared to keep information overload as low as possible
• Messages are much longer and can keep the context of the conversation
• Planning is accomplished with todos that are checked off for progress reporting
• Integrations are not on the same level as Slack
• Focused and opinionated on how you should work.  If you like the flow and format of reporting and focus times it is the best choice available.