What's New in Basecamp 5

If you opened Basecamp recently and the interface felt cleaner, faster, and a little different to move around, you were looking at Basecamp 5. It is the current version of the product, and most accounts now run on it. The short version: Basecamp 5 is the same Basecamp at its core, with a tighter interface and a focus on speed, not a pile of brand-new project-management features.

This post walks through what Basecamp 5 is, what actually changed in daily use, what the core tools still are, and the gaps people keep running into once the new-version shine wears off. We will be honest about all three.

The short answer

Basecamp 5 is the current major version of Basecamp, the project management tool from 37signals. It shipped as a refinement rather than a feature release.

What changed: a cleaner and more modern interface, faster loading and navigation, a reworked navigation structure, and closer parity between the mobile apps and the web app.

What did not change: the shape of the product. Projects still open to the same six tools, and teams that knew earlier versions had nothing to relearn.

What Basecamp 5 still does not include: tags on to-dos, custom fields, a kanban view layered over your existing to-do lists, time tracking, and card duplication. These are deliberate omissions consistent with Basecamp’s opinionated design, not oversights, and they are the gaps teams most often try to close with an extension.

What is Basecamp 5?

Basecamp 5 is the latest major version of Basecamp, the project management and team communication tool from 37signals. It is the version new accounts sign up to, and existing accounts have largely moved onto it.

The philosophy behind Basecamp has not changed across versions. The whole point of the product is to be simple and opinionated. Every project gives you the same six tools on the home screen, you do not configure a complicated workflow before you can start, and the company deliberately leaves out features that other tools pile on. Basecamp 5 keeps that philosophy. It refines the experience rather than reinventing it.

So if you came to this post expecting a long list of new features like custom fields, automations, or a kanban view, the honest answer is that those are not what this update was about. We will come back to that, because it is the part most teams actually care about.

What changed in Basecamp 5?

Here is what you notice when you use Basecamp 5 day to day:

1. A cleaner, more modern interface. The layout was tightened up, with clearer typography and more breathing room. Projects, messages, and to-dos feel less cluttered.
2. Speed. The app feels quicker to load and move between screens. Navigation between projects and tools is snappier than older versions.
3. A refined navigation structure. Getting around your projects and the tools inside them was reworked to be more consistent.
4. Mobile parity. The mobile apps stay close to what you get on the web, so jumping between phone and desktop is less jarring.
5. Voice notes. The new editor records voice messages right inside messages, comments, documents, Campfires, and Pings. They’re audio-only, though: there is no transcript and search can’t see what was said, which is a gap we’ll come back to below.

What did not change is the shape of the product. You still get a project home screen with the same set of tools, and you still work the same way you always did. If your team already knew Basecamp, Basecamp 5 did not force you to relearn anything.

We are keeping this general on purpose. We are not going to invent specific release dates or quote exact changelog lines, because the experience of “what changed” matters more to most teams than the version history, and the details shift over time.

The core tools are still the core tools

Basecamp 5 keeps the same toolset that has defined the product for years. Inside any project you get:

• Message Board for announcements and longer discussions, so they do not get lost in chat.
• To-dos for tasks, organized into to-do lists, with assignees and due dates.
• Campfire for real-time group chat within the project.
• Docs & Files for documents and uploads.
• Schedule for dated events and milestones.
• Card Table, Basecamp’s built-in kanban-style board with columns and cards. This is a separate tool from to-do lists, and it has its own rules. If you have not used it, our complete guide to Basecamp card tables covers how columns, cards, and the triage column work.

A couple of features people often ask about are worth being precise on, because they exist and Basecamp 5 keeps them:

• Project Templates are native. You can save a project’s structure and reuse it for new projects, which is genuinely useful for agencies and repeatable work. More on the edges of templates in our templates guide.
• Hill Charts are native, on to-do lists. They show whether work is still being figured out or moving toward done. Basecamp has Hill Charts, not a Gantt chart, and the two are not the same thing. We cover that distinction in does Basecamp have a Gantt chart.

What people still wish Basecamp 5 had

This is where most “what’s new in Basecamp 5” questions are really pointed. Teams upgrade, look around, and notice the same gaps that existed before. Basecamp’s simplicity is a feature, but it does leave specific things out.

The most common ones:

• Tags on to-dos. Basecamp has no native way to tag a to-do or a card with a label like “urgent,” “design,” or “client X” and then filter by it. There is no built-in tagging.
• Custom fields. You cannot add your own fields, like a priority level, an effort estimate, a client name, or a stage, to a to-do or card. What you see is what you get.
• A kanban view over your to-do lists. Basecamp has a Card Table, which is a separate kanban-style tool. What it does not have is a way to look at your existing to-do lists as a board with columns. The structure you already built in your to-do lists stays a flat checklist. People ask about this constantly, and the honest answer is in does Basecamp have a kanban view.
• Time tracking. Basecamp does not track time natively. Teams reach for Harvest, Everhour, or similar. See does Basecamp have time tracking.
• Card duplication. There is no built-in way to clone a card or a to-do to reuse its setup.
• Voice note transcription. Basecamp 5 records voice notes but never turns them into text. A spoken decision can’t be skimmed, quoted, or found with search; it can only be replayed. How to close that gap is covered in how to transcribe Basecamp voice notes.

None of these are bugs. They are deliberate omissions that keep Basecamp simple. But if your work is more complex than the simple case, these gaps are real, and Basecamp 5 did not close them.

Does Assistant for Basecamp work with Basecamp 5?

Yes. We built Assistant for Basecamp specifically for Basecamp 5. It is a Chrome extension that adds features inside the Basecamp you already use. Your data never leaves Basecamp, and there is no separate app to log into. You install the extension, open Basecamp, and the new features appear in place.

Assistant for Basecamp is aimed directly at the gaps above:

• Tags and statuses on your to-dos, cards, and messages, with colored badges so you can scan a list and see what is what. Walkthroughs: how to add tags and how to add statuses.
• Custom fields, single-select, multi-select, text, number, and date, so you can attach a priority, an estimate, a client name, or a stage to any item. See how to add custom fields to Basecamp.
• A real kanban board per project, where each of your to-do lists becomes a column. Your project’s existing structure is the board. There are no preset Backlog and Done columns to fight with. You also get grouping (by assignee, tag, or status), column colors, and a split-view detail panel. How to add a kanban board to Basecamp shows it in action, and the Kanban board for Basecamp page has the full breakdown.

• Automations driven by Basecamp’s own events and custom-field changes, which can set a field, attach an option, complete a to-do, assign people, or post a comment. To be clear about the limits: these do not accept inbound Zapier or Make webhooks. More in how to automate Basecamp without Zapier.
• An unread highlight for the day-to-day friction of staying on top of a busy project. See how to spot unread updates.
• Voice note transcription. One click under any Basecamp voice note returns the transcript, a one-line summary, and the action items, shared with the whole team and posted to the thread so even people without the extension can read it. See how to transcribe Basecamp voice notes or the feature page.

One honest limitation worth naming: the Assistant for Basecamp kanban is per-project, with a project picker to switch between projects. It is not a single cross-project board showing cards from every project at once. If a global, all-projects kanban is the one thing you need, Tracked is built around that and does it well. We would rather tell you that up front than have you find out after installing.

Assistant for Basecamp is $29/month or $290/year, with unlimited seats, so one admin pays for the whole team. There is a 7-day free trial and no credit card required. You can read the pricing or install it from the Chrome Web Store and see your own projects on a board in a couple of minutes.

The bottom line on Basecamp 5

Basecamp 5 is a faster, cleaner version of the Basecamp you already know. It refined the interface and the navigation without changing what the product is. If you liked Basecamp before, you will like it more now.

What it did not do is add tags, custom fields, a kanban view over your to-do lists, time tracking, or card duplication. Those are the same gaps that were there in earlier versions, kept out on purpose. If those gaps are slowing your team down, that is exactly the space Assistant for Basecamp fills, right inside Basecamp 5.