5pm - project management on time. Moving to 5pm.

Hello, 5pm! Good-bye, Basecamp...

5pm Tour Import data from Basecamp to 5pm

Do you know you can import data from Basecamp to 5pm in one click?

If you are not familiar with Basecamp and the company behind it (37 Signals), you can check this recent article on Wired.

Looking for Basecamp alternatives?

This page is for those who are already using some kind of project management software (Basecamp in particular) but are looking for an alternative.

Basecamp is a great tool for managing tasks online. It gained a lot of popularity as one of the pioneers of web2 .0 with its "Less is More" philosophy. However, there is no tool to fit everybody, and a lot of users are looking for something more than "less" but still simple to use. With 5pm we are trying to create exactly such a tool.

There are a lot of similarities between 5pm and Basecamp, both being web hosted services. However, there is a significant difference in approach and techniques. Both applications put emphasis on good design and simple interface, though with very different results, which is easy to spot at first glance:

5pm approach

- Get more done by 5pm™!

Simple yet powerful. We believe that simplicity is about hiding the complexity behind an elegant interface, rather than stripping something down to a bare minimum.
Balance with reality. We do believe in agile development methods, creative thinking and innovative approach. Still, we are aware of the fact that everyday work involves managers, deadlines and other bits of a corporate structure. We try to embrace this necessary "evil", work with it and keep our sense of humor (hence the "5pm" name).
We are not religious about technologies and platforms. We use what we know and what works. We have both Mac and PC users in the team. 5pm runs on PHP/MySQL/Linux, while the old version was running on ASP/MS SQL/Windows. And, while many debate about AJAX vs Flash in the new web 2.0 world, we use both. Our Timeline is a Flash application, because we think this technology works best there, while the rest of the interface is built using the latest AJAX techniques.
We don't know everything. We don't pretend we know how to build the greatest solution. We just create something that works best for us and hope that others can benefit from it too. But we also believe that with all the users' feedback, we can take a good application and make it into a great one. Most of the features that we added since the launch came from multiple suggestions from our clients.

Where 5pm came from?

5pm was launched in November 2007 and is actively updated. With all the latest technologies it implements, it's still based on an older web1.0 version of our project management application - PTManager - that was developed back in 2003.

Project & Team Manager was developed by a manager and a developer. Both came from different backgrounds and had a totally different approach to project management tools. Developers like to spend less time in a project management application. They just want to see the list of their tasks and quickly mark the progress. Managers, on another side, like to run reports and see the big picture.

PTManager emerged from these two opposing views, with a very "glance-able" interface: most of the information is on a single screen with all the functions within a click or two. At the same time, it offers customization options to show more data on the screen, filter it in different ways, run reports and even see it in an alternative Timeline view.

5pm inherited the same approach, wrapping it in the newest interface and employing the latest technologies. It's simple but flexible - designed to work for managers and their teams and to fit into wide range of organizations. Get more done by 5pm™!

Who is behind 5pm?

We are a team of designers and developers with ties to the pre-web2.0 era but still embracing the newest technologies and techniques. We are split between two continents, speak five languages in total and like to watch the "Office Space" movie occasionally.
Feel free to drop us an email at support@5pmweb.com - we will answer as soon as possible.

We hope that 5pm will work for your organization. Here is how you can start:

No Credit Cards. Nothing to install. Set up in seconds.

The name and logo for Basecamp are trademarks of 37signals, LLC.

Bored in your cubicle and waiting for 5pm?
Play The Office Space game to kill some time

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