NocoBase
NocoBase runs two release lines at once while the v3 client rewrite absorbs the AI work
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Bonsai and Hive — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
| Feature | Bonsai | Hive |
|---|---|---|
| Sector | PM | Collab, PM |
| Velocity score | 5.0 | 10.0 |
| Sparks · 30d | 0 | 0 |
| Top themes | crm, notes, email-sync, api | project-management, time-tracking, permissions, audit-trail |
| Last editorial update | 7d ago | 12h ago |
| Website | — | Visit → |
Bonsai is assembling a real CRM underneath the freelancer billing tools
Bonsai's recent work is system-of-record plumbing: a Notes section spanning contacts, companies and projects, an activity feed per company, and Gmail/Microsoft sync that files email and calendar events against the right record. Alongside it sit a self-serve API key and an MCP connector. Billing is no longer the centre of gravity.
Hive ships in batches, and this one is all planning accuracy and admin control.
Hive publishes its changelog as clusters of single-feature entries dated the same day — seven on August 18, three on August 14. The current batch splits between planning integrity (time estimates surviving assignee changes, a rebuilt Unsubmitted Timesheets view, reorderable Gantt columns), governance (a default restricted-member role applied across every onboarding path, custom-field edits appearing in activity feeds), and small chat conveniences. Nothing in the batch is a new product area; it is the existing surface being tightened.
Bonsai's recent work is system-of-record plumbing: a Notes section spanning contacts, companies and projects, an activity feed per company, and Gmail/Microsoft sync that files email and calendar events against the right record. Alongside it sit a self-serve API key and an MCP connector. Billing is no longer the centre of gravity.
The pieces landing are the ones a CRM needs before it can be trusted as the single place client history lives — cross-record linking, per-object permissions, automatic contact capture. The API and MCP connector point the same data outward, reachable from outside the app. Documents was rebuilt on that footing, folding proposals and contracts into one editor.
Expect the per-object permissions introduced with Notes to spread to the other record types, and the API surface to widen now that a key can be generated self-serve.
Hive publishes its changelog as clusters of single-feature entries dated the same day — seven on August 18, three on August 14. The current batch splits between planning integrity (time estimates surviving assignee changes, a rebuilt Unsubmitted Timesheets view, reorderable Gantt columns), governance (a default restricted-member role applied across every onboarding path, custom-field edits appearing in activity feeds), and small chat conveniences. Nothing in the batch is a new product area; it is the existing surface being tightened.
Two themes have been running through recent batches. The first is making planned time trustworthy — estimates that no longer vanish when work is reassigned, timesheet views built for scanning who has not submitted. The second is administrative control that scales: a least-privilege default that holds across SAML, SCIM, invite links and domain auto-join, and an audit trail that now covers custom-field edits. Both point at larger deployments, where the failure modes are silent data loss and inconsistent permissions rather than missing features.
The audit-trail and permissions work looks incomplete rather than finished — activity coverage for other object types and per-field visibility rules are the obvious next steps. Expect the same batched cadence, roughly twice a month.
Other PM products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Tap any card for the full editorial trajectory or compare directly with Bonsai.
NocoBase runs two release lines at once while the v3 client rewrite absorbs the AI work
Plane ships a fortnightly digest, and the AI layer is where the real work is going.
Ever Teams shipped ten tags in twelve hours and one of them touched the product
Asana's agent left the app — it now answers work questions inside Slack threads.
Apploye's feed is an SEO blog, and its running theme is defending monitoring on privacy grounds.
Notesnook ships steady 3.4.x patches across desktop and Android with the notes kept off-feed.
Other PM products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Tap any card for the full editorial trajectory or compare directly with Hive.
CommaFeed is patching its way through the attack surface a self-hosted reader inherits
SiYuan stabilises 3.8.1 after a seven-build beta run, all of it widening the agent surface it opened in 3.8.0
Teable ships daily, and the work has moved from grid features to platform governance.
Simpplr publishes the research that names the gap, then ships the product that closes it.
NetNewsWire's 7.1.3 train has moved from rebuilding sync to sweeping up what the rebuild disturbed.
Document360 rebuilt its API for agents; now it's turning the AI inward on authoring.
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Hive is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 10.0 vs 5.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Hive is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 10.0 vs 5.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other PM products to evaluate alongside.
Top Bonsai alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Bonsai alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/bonsai for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
Top Hive alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Hive alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/hive for the full list with editorial commentary on each.