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project management
06 Apr 2022
Project Management Tools and Software: Key Features, Pricing, and Pros and Cons
The evolving world didn't stop at social chat apps and social websites to make communication easier; it also expanded to business communication, such as effective office chat apps like Troop Messenger and project management tools that would make business and team communication easier.   Seven in every ten entrepreneurs believe that the biggest obstacle to their company's success is inadequate communication between the team members. Delegating tasks, managing mega-projects, and maintaining continuous collaboration with the team members are some of the most crucial responsibilities of a team leader. The same responsibilities can result in a ‘lost chance’ in the absence of proper communication with all team members and apt collaboration throughout the project. Of course, any task completion or project management becomes a lot simpler when the company has the right set of tools to execute, control, and manage all processes of project management. That’s the reason why all companies today swear by project management tools. With the majority of companies adopting software project management tools, there has been an increasing demand for team collaboration tools. But with over a  hundred project management tools available at a swipe of a finger, the selection of the right management tool can be a daunting experience. These tools are available with different features, unique functionalities, and distinct pricing-which can all be very confusing if you don’t know what will fit your business needs. To simplify the selection, we have made an unbiased comparison of the sixteen best project management tools and software. Follow this article, learn about the exclusive features of each tool, and make your decision after going over the pros and cons we've listed below: Table of Contents 1. ClickUp 2. Trello 3. Asana 4. Basecamp 5. GanttPRO   6. Bitrix24 7. Wrike 8. Redbooth 9. ProofHub 10. Nifty 11. Podio   12. Paymo 13. Teamly 14. Agantty 15. And CO 16. Teamwork 17. Freedcamp 18. Flow 19. Clubhouse 20. ProProfs Project 21. DashClicks 22. Financial Cents 23. Productive.io 1. ClickUp   ClickUp is a versatile project management platform that is designed to save your company one day each week. By helping your team plan and executes upcoming projects and collaborate on ongoing work, it lives up to that promise.   Why ClickUp is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   ClickUp is the ideal project management platform because it shows all the relevant information you need to accomplish your work from a single place, allowing you to manage the flow of your work with ease. Tasks store all the attachments, assignees, comments, due dates, statuses, and other info you need to get up-to-date on a project's progress. ClickUp offers built-in integrations with tools like Slack, Dropbox, Email, and Google Drive, in addition to 1000+ 3rd-party integrations. Updating in real-time, ClickUp keeps your entire team on the same page at all times.  ClickUp has five pricing tiers billed per user, monthly:  Free Forever (Free); Unlimited ($5); Business ($12); Business Plus ($19); and Enterprise (Contact Sales Team).    ClickUp Pros:   Customizable views  Affordable pricing for any team size Assigned comments Customizable Dashboards and reporting 24/7 Support   ProProfs Project Cons: Less customizable mobile app Unlimited storage only available on paid plans   Rating: 4.6/5 2. Trello   Trello, is hands down, one of the most popular task management tools with features that promise to boost your company's productivity, and make task assigning, project tracking, and management more straightforward than ever.   Why Trello is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:    Trello is best for project management as it allows the user to create a board, add steps in the workflow, assign tasks, invite the team, and track the work progress on the same card. The user can dive into detail by adding attachments, checklists, sharing files, and project due dates to each card-all of which make collaboration very easy. Integration with Slack, Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, and other productivity applications Irrespective of where you go, the tool stays synced across your devices. Trello has Business and Enterprise plans, both priced at $9.99 and $20.83 per user, monthly. Business and Enterprise plans have a per-file attachment limit of 250MB. Trello Pros   Unlimited team boards Unlimited scheduled commands Custom stickers and background 2-Factor authentication Easy Data Export   Trello Cons   No Gantt Chart Tasks get limited to only one board It’s available only on iPhone and Android   Rating: 4.5/5 3. Asana   This work management tool can scale your business tasks to a new level of productivity and efficiency. The platform is designed in a way a user can easily follow the assignments and projects through each stage, eliminate roadblocks, and structure projects as required.   Why Asana is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   Task assigning and organization is way more straightforward with Asana as it allows users to set goals and create milestones. One can assign tasks and share details with team members. Allows creation of visual projects, pinpoints risks, and implements changes. Premium and Business plans are priced at $9.99 and $19.99 per user, monthly. Asana Pros:   Task and list view Due dates and Assignees Calendar and board view Advanced search and milestone reporting Private projects and teams Asana Cons:   UI delays No-time tracking No multi-member tasks   Rating: 4.5/5 4. Basecamp   This tool covers all aspects of business management. It makes communication with the internal and external teams easy and allows project management on the board. It's great for managing small and mid-size projects because of multiple collaboration tools which help the job get done.   Why Basecamp is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   The tool has a very simple UI, and the support is excellent. The setup to manage the task, report to clients, and seek an update from team members is as smooth as it can be. The Automatic check-in feature allows the team leader to keep track of tasks in progress. The tool allows 500 GB of file storage with unlimited projects and users. Basecamp has a one-for-all plan of $99 per month, per enterprise. This is irrespective of the total number of people working in the company.   Basecamp Pros:   Centralized feedback and discussion Automatically progress summary To-dos One-for-all plan of $99 per month   Basecamp Pros:   Too much simplicity No tags No reporting and time tracking Cluttered organization of attachments   Rating: 4/5 5. GanttPRO     GanttPRO is one of the most popular online Gantt chart tools with more than 350K registered users. For individuals and teams from all over the world, it makes task and project management as well as team collaboration and resource management much easier and smoother.   The Gantt chart timeline gives a clear picture of a plan that is very simple to track and follow.   Why GanttPRO is suited as the best Project management software of 2023:   GanttPRO provides a visually appealing picture of all the tasks with their dates. It turns task assignments, progress and time tracking, deadlines,s and cost management into enjoyable activities. The tool allows teams to collaborate on critical issues right inside one workspace: comment on tasks, attach files, and receive notifications. Export and Sharing features allow having plans at hand at any moment. Projects can be managed with the most appropriate time view thanks to the Zoom option: from hours to years. The ready-made professional templates are a good start for most industries: software development, construction, marketing, event planning, education, manufacturing, and many more. GanttPRO has one of the easiest setups with a very intuitive interface. The learning curve is very short even for a novice.   GanttPRO pros:   Gantt chart timeline with a short learning curve. Kanban view as an alternative to Gantt charts. Resource management and team collaboration. Time tracking. Personal calendars. Tasks dependencies and milestone management. Reports.    GanttPRO cons:   No mobile app. Not rich in integrations.   6. Bitrix24   Bitrix24 offers state-of-the-art team communication with exclusive project and task management. With this online project management tool, companies have the freedom to manage clients, assign tasks, track project milestones, and enjoy secured internal communication.   Why Bitrix24 is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   It has the majority of collaboration and communication features like the social intranet, user groups, document management, chat, video, and email integration. Bitrix24 has an exclusive HR management system. A Customizable Kanban board is available for project tracking It’s a powerful CRM tool with features like lead and pipeline management and sales automation Online storage limits up to 50 GB and 100 GB in CRM+ and standard plans. CRM+ and standard plans are priced at $69 and $199 for all users of a company, monthly.   Bitrix24 Pros:   Gantt Charts Task Dependencies & Project Workgroups Multichannel customer helpdesk Automatic time tracking & Task templates   Bitrix24 Cons:   A bit complicated to use because of the extensive features Lacks fine-tuning configuration   Rating: 4.8/5 7. Wrike   This leading project management tool has features that simplify workflow, streamline project tracking, and increase the productivity of team members through centralized collaboration. It lets you create, collaborate, plan, customize, and plan everything that needs your team members to be on the same page.   Why Wrike is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   The tools allow a project plan to turn into a robust strategy and a schedule into a streamlined workflow. Wrike has advanced project management features that align your team and set priorities and work faster. The app allows easy integration with Google, Salesforce, Github, JIRA, Gmail, Microsoft One Drive, and Adobe Creative Cloud. The business plan allows storage space of up to 50 GB and a 15 GB monthly video upload limit. The professional and business features can be availed at $9.80 and $24.80 per user, monthly. Wrike has advanced add-on features like Wrike Extension, Wrike Proof, Wrike Resource, and Wrike Lock. Wrike Pros:   Shareable dashboards Subtask Management Gantt Chart and Graphical analysis Calendars and Time Tracking Real-time scheduled notifications and shared reports Advanced Integration   Wrike Cons:   Difficult breaking up of tasks Cluttered interface   Rating: 4.6/5 8. Redbooth   This management tool facilitates file organization ensuring smooth communication between team members. The best thing is easy accessibility and navigation which allows users to check, edit, and update ongoing tasks.   Why Redbooth is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   It has an interactive dashboard with all the necessary details One can create tasks, make comments, add files, edit due dates, and manage the task as needed. Managers can catch a glimpse of who’s doing what. All files are centrally located. Integration with Box, Slack, Dropbox, Google Drive, Zapier, and Zendesk. Pro and Business plans are priced monthly at $9 and $15 per user. The business plan has a storage limit of 50 GB, but with the Enterprise plan, it can be exceeded by up to 500 GB. Redbooth Pros:   Unlimited Workspace Resource Management Time Tracking Success Manager Advanced Subtasks Redbooth Cons:   No advanced feature for task management No recurring task Non-customizable workspace   Rating: 4/5 9. ProofHub   ProofHub is an all-in-one task management tool compact with numerous contemporary features that can address your business necessities in real-time. The unified business tool has features that can speed up your workplace processes, document review procedures, generate reports, simplify tasks through boards and workflows, and give a visual timeline through Gantt Charts.   Why ProofHub is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   Proofing, White-labeling, Custom roles, Multilingual interface, Kanban boards, Task management, Gantt charts, Time tracking, and file management are the elite feature. Proofhub allows integration with Google Calendar, Google Drive, Box, iCal, Freshbooks, Onedrive, Evernote, and Outlook applications. The Ultimate control plan allows unlimited users, unlimited projects, and a storage capacity of 100 GB with all the core features. The Essential and Ultimate Control Plan starts at $45 and $89 per month, per team. Users can opt for IP restrictions to avoid unauthorized access to their accounts. The supported platform includes Windows and Android.   ProofHub Pros:   Advanced Search Notes taking Project Manager and Templates Discussions and Chat In-app Notifications API to connect with third-party tools File Versioning ProofHub Cons:   Not very user-friendly Comparatively slow in uploading and downloading Too many notifications   Rating: 4.7/5 10. Nifty   Nifty brings entire organizations together by offering a single workspace to collaborate on and manage the different departments of the organization. A cross-organizational Project Overview feature gives leadership insights into high-level sprint timelines which can turn into a task-level deep-dive analysis of any project in just a few clicks. For regular team members, Nifty provides intuitive core features such as project discussions, milestones, tasks, docs, and files. In order to make their work easier and also to keep stakeholders aligned on project objectives. Direct messaging and group chats provide streamless teamwide communication to bridge the gap between planning and delivery. The nifty free version allows access to all core features, 3 members, 2 active projects, and storage of 1 GB per user, plus the Self-Serve Help Center. Nifty Pros:   Unlimited tasks and milestones Kanban and list task views Custom documents and Google Docs built-in Files Time tracking Team chat and discussions Nifty Cons:   No reach direct integrations No recurring task No calendar task view   11. Podio   This web-based task management software is one of the best business collaboration tools which has numerous customizable options that facilitate project completion on time. Companies can add different workplaces depending on their work requirement, and through these features team members can collaborate efficiently.   Why Podio is suited as the best Project management tool of 2023:   Podio assures streamlining your business tasks in a way everything is organized, and there is no room for distraction and confusion Structured task management is where one can assign work, discuss the details, attach files, and add comments. Seamless integration with GoToMeeting, Dropbox, Google Drive, Email, and Excel. Podio frontend is developed on the API, which makes integration of API operations simple. Podio is free for a team of five members. The primary plans are priced monthly at $9 and $14 per user.   Podio Pros:   Feedback and review workflow with clients Automated calculations and progress reporting Insight to improve operational productivity Compatible with iPhone and Android   Podio Cons:   No time tracking Difficult interface   Rating: 4.3/5 12. Paymo   This is one of the best project management tools that allow your team members to work efficiently by getting them all on the same page. The key features include project planning, task scheduling, time tracking, and project management.   Why Paymo is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   Prime features of the free version include Kanban and meta Kanban boards, to-do lists, file sharing, and community support. For small businesses, Paymo has features like advanced reporting, integrations, project templates, and advanced task management. Paymo supports integration and API with primary social interaction and collaboration tools. The small-office plan has a storage limit of 50 GB, whereas the Business plan offers unlimited storage. Small-office and Business plans can be availed at $9.56 and $15.16 per user, monthly. Paymo Pros:   Invoice and Estimate features API and Integration Resource Scheduling & Gantt Charts Online Remote Assistance Paymo Cons:   Difficult to navigate Difficult to learn for beginners   Rating: 4.2/5 13. Teamly   Teamly is a remote team management software that simplifies the process of managing a team remotely. With real-time chat, workflow, task management, screen capture video and audio recording, and employee time tracking and monitoring, Teamly is the perfect solution for managing your team efficiently and effectively.   Why Teamly is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   Has all the functionality you need to effectively manage a remote team Bypasses steep learning curves and eliminates team member frustration Makes team collaboration a snap with instant chat and virtual chat rooms Effortlessly stay on top of tasks, projects, & timelines with user-friendly Kanban boards Calculates payroll quickly & easily with built-in time tracking and monitoring   Teamly Pros:   The easy-to-use interface that makes remote team management simple Real-time chat and task management Screen capture video and audio recording Employee time tracking and monitoring Professional checklists and SOPs with done-for-you templates   Agantty Cons:   Not yet premiered   Rating: 4.8/5 14. Agantty   With Agantty, you can manage and organize projects, teams, and tasks through Gantt charts and Graphical representation. You can monitor and administer numerous tasks and teams through a single account, and look up to an organized dashboard.   Why Agantty is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   With Agantty, you can create as many projects as you want, and drag them to the Gantt chart view for visual tracking of the project process. The task can be grouped very easily, and multiple members can be invited to assign parts and access rights. The tool guarantees a high level of data protection and encrypted file transfer This is the only free tool with premium features.   Agantty Pros:   Project creation Task assigning Inviting partners and friends Teamwork Drag and Drop Task progress tracking Available for free Agantty Cons:   Difficult breaking up of tasks No API No Integration No Speed Optimization   Rating: 4.4/5 15. And CO And Co from Fiverr is one of the high-rated tools that have a great many features. Not only does this software has invoicing, proposal, and contract features, but it works more like a project management tool with features that help users manage ongoing tasks and completing the project within the due date.   Why AND CO is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   It is an excellent tool for freelancers who work on Platforms like Fiverr and require to keep track of their ongoing projects. Task management is made easy with features like proposal and contract, payment and invoicing, expense tracking, and time tracking and report generation. There’s a free plan that allows one active user, and the paid plan starts at $18 per user, monthly. Integration with Asana, Google Docs, Slack, MailChimp, and Dropbox.   AND CO pros:   Customizable invoice Set recurring tasks Time-sheet sharing Multi-device syncing and tracking Contact management and time-tracking AND CO cons:   No Gantt Chart Very Limited Integration   Rating: 4.3/5 16. Teamwork   Teamwork has an appealing and eye-catching design which is similar to Trello and Basecamp. Apart from the sharable notes, direct messaging, tagging, and invoice generation, some features let you create milestones for ongoing projects and assign tasks through email.   Why Teamwork is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   Gantt charts, reports, time tracking, and subtasks reporting are the key features. The tool facilitates integration with email, iCal, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Outlook. The tool allows excellent document management with Dropbox, SVN, FTP, and Google Drive. It is compatible with iPhones, Windows phones, and Android phones. There are monthly pro and premium packages priced at $9 and $15 per user. With the premium package file space of 250 GB is available, and with the Enterprise plan, the limit exceeds 500 GB.   Teamwork Pros:   Helpdesk for improved customer care Team communication software Documentation management Automated marketing workflows   Teamwork Cons:   Inability to import tasks of large size Comparatively slow and time-consuming   Rating: 4.2/5 17. Freedcamp   Get all your business needs in one place with Freedcamp as this is one of those tools that simplify business organization at an advanced level. Not only does this tool boasts task lists, Kanban boards, and Gantt Chart, but it also has all the other features you need to accomplish your business goals on time.   Why Freedcamp is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   Key Features include a drag-and-drop tool, task and subtasks management, and personal and private tasking. Task Management features include a calendar, milestone setting, discussion board, documentation, social communication, time management, and issue tracking. Supported Platforms are the App Store and Google Play Store. There are three packages titled Minimalist, Freelancer, and Business package, each priced at $1.49, $3.49, and $7.49 per active user, monthly, and billed annually.   Freedcamp Pros:   Invoice Generation for clients Project Templates CRM solution Task Board and Widget Board Backups White Label   Freedcamp Cons:   No reporting features No time tracking No Gantt Chart   Rating: 4/5 18. Flow   This is a visual task management app whose main functionality is to provide high-level project transparency to the team members. The tool covers all workplace task that involves delegating responsibilities, scheduling timeline for the work that needs to be done, and keeping track of progress made.   Why Flow is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   Key Features include project planning, priority setting, and task tracking. Kanban boards for simple checklists. Project dashboard for project tracking. Visual mapping of deadlines and task progress. Easy management of resources and workload balancing. The basic Flow plan is available at $4.79, and the pro plan starts at $7.099 per user, monthly.   Flow Pros:   Team Collaboration Resource management Project tracking Catch-up feature All Integrations Public API Unlimited tasks and Projects Flow Cons:   No Gantt Chart Difficult to get used to   Rating: 4.6/5 19. Clubhouse This is an easy-to-use tool specially designed for software development companies. The interface is straightforward, with no crammed features, and just a simple UI. What makes it great for Software developers is the predictive analytics, real-time project management, and tracking.   Why Clubhouse is suited as the best Project management software tool of 2023:   Anyone can create a project, add tasks, assign roles, set milestones, and track progress. Team members can reflect on daily chores through Kanban boards while focusing on the big picture. For teams of up to ten members, the monthly plan of $8.33 is available. For teams of up to ten members, a monthly plan of $8.50 per user is available. One can chart the project update and generate a progress report.   Clubhouse Pros:   API Access Unlimited workspaces App integration Dedicated account management Clubhouse Cons:   No innovative feature No time tracking functionality   Rating: 4.1/5 20. ProProfs Project ProProfs Project is a simple project management software that has an easy-to-use and understandable UI. The PM software also has all the tools to streamline workflow, improve team communication, monitor team performance, and bill clients automatically. Manage your projects, teams, clients, and other stakeholders on a single platform with ProProfs Project.   Why ProProfs Project is suited as the Best Project Management Software Tool of 2023:   It has two views - a single dashboard to view all your projects and their progress and a calendar view with which you can visualize milestones alongside your team easily ProProfs Project has features like time tracking and timesheet entries that help in project and resource management. Collaboration is really easy using ProProfs Project with features like Task Comments, Shared Calendar, Email Notifications, and File Sharing. Assign tasks to relevant teams and ensure they stay informed of all updates with task permissions. ProProfs Project offers four pricing plans, ranging from a Forever Free plan to an Unlimited Plan priced at $199/month.   ProProfs Project Pros:   Easy-to-understand UI Extremely feature-rich Instant, insightful reporting Accurate, automated invoicing   ProProfs Project Cons:   Kanban view still underway Non-customizable email notifications   Rating: 4.5/5 21. DashClicks   “Projects” by DashClicks is a project management software crafted especially for agencies. It offers the most convenient and robust way to manage your teams, projects, customers, and more.   With the help of the software, you can upload and manage files for your client’s projects. You can also create and manage notebooks for your client’s projects. Another remarkable feature of the Projects app is that it enables you to manage unlimited projects within it.   Why DashClicks is suited as the best Project management tool of 2023:   The software lets you automate the creation of a new project. You can automate the creation and sending of onboarding documents to your clients with the help of the software. You can view analytics associated with your client's marketing campaigns within the software. The software lets you manage your client’s website. You can choose a forever-free plan. Paid plans start from $97 USD a month.   DashClicks' Project Pros:   Available for a free trial; no credit card is required A forever-free plan is available Both the free and paid plans include unlimited projects Auto project creation Automate onboarding docs   DashClicks' Project Cons:   The free plan provides limited file storage (100 MB) Can be a bit complicated to use because of its extensive features   22. Financial Cents   This accounting project management software is a cloud-based solution that makes it easy for accounting firms to manage client work, collaborate with staff, and hit their deadlines. The software can scale your accounting firm task to a new level of productivity and efficiency.   Why Financial Cents is suited as the best project management software for the accounting firm of 2023:   Keep things from slipping through the cracks by easily tracking the status of client work, who’s working on what, and all your deadlines in one simple view. Use automated requests and reminders with a secure upload and no client login required. Keep all communication, documents, notes, email, and client info stored in one place so your team can access it and get their work done.   Financial Cents Pros:   Project management and task management Workflow Automation Email Management Client Database Client Portal Document Management Time Tracking & Billing Available on Desktop 14-days trial   Financial Cents Cons:   No mobile application   Rating: 4.8/5   23. Productive.io   Productive.io is a comprehensive project management platform designed specifically for agencies and professional service firms. With built-in tools for budgeting, time tracking, resource planning, invoicing, and collaboration, Productive helps teams manage everything from project delivery to profitability in one place.   It’s trusted by thousands of agencies around the world to streamline operations, boost efficiency, and ensure projects stay on track and within budget.   Why Productive.io is suited as one of the best Project Management tools of 2023:   Productive combines project planning with budgeting, time tracking, and profitability insights—all under one roof. The platform offers a clean, intuitive interface that makes it easy to plan, track, and deliver projects. Built-in collaboration features like task comments, file sharing, and real-time updates keep teams aligned and connected. With detailed forecasting and reporting tools, businesses can monitor performance and profitability in real-time. Productive is fully customizable to match workflows of agencies, consultancies, and service businesses across industries.   Productive.io pros:   All-in-one tool for project delivery and business operations. Real-time budget tracking and financial forecasting. Resource planning and time tracking in one place. Clean, user-friendly interface with powerful insights. Native integrations with tools like Slack, QuickBooks, Xero, and Google Calendar.   Productive.io cons:   May be more feature-rich than needed for very small teams or freelancers. Limited offline functionality.   Summing Up Companies trust in project management software to ensure all tasks are done on time, the project meets the deadline, and the workload is balanced for standard time management. Since these tools ensure project success, enhance the efficiency of resources, and increase organizational productivity, they are becoming an integral part of the majority of small, mid-size, and larger enterprises. Not only do these tools help with project estimation, tracking, and planning, but they also have collaboration features that make task assignment and resource scheduling very simple. Though we've shortlisted the best of the project management tools, the final selection of one app can still be overwhelming. Be advised to ensure compatibility, and examine your requirements with the tools and their features before selecting one.
The evolving world didn't stop at social chat apps and social websites to make communication easier;...
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02 Nov 2022
Top 11+ Slack Competitors to look out for 2023
In this fast pacing world, every piece of information is available with a swipe of a finger.   But this same information, when not delivered in the right manner and within appropriate timing, has the potential to cause considerable damage to the largest of the organizations.   And that is why enterprises today understand the importance of business collaboration tools. Famous examples of such a tool are Slack and the counterpart Slack competitors-all which facilitate instantaneous team communication for an organized workspace and a streamlined workflow.   Slack- The reigning champ of Business Collaboration tools   Slack is an award-winning, wildly popular collaboration and business messaging application that serves corporate teams as an excellent alternative to emails and phone calls. The powerful messaging features and the easy-to-use interface is not the only reason for its popularity. There are functionalities like threading, instant messaging for business, pinning, document tracking, and lightning-quick navigation that make this an excellent tool.   As impressive as Slack is in multiple functionality dimensions, this article is not about Slack. The article instead talks about Slack Alternatives —which might have you wondering why bother looking at the alternate options when Slack is so great. Well, the reasons could be plenty. It could be Slack pricing plan or the fact that it has few features and functionality gaps, or it could be some ‘extra-great' collaboration tools with extraordinary features that can boost your organization's productivity to new heights, or it could be a few Slack Competitors, which are likely to suit your company's budget affordably. Whatever the reason, there are two things we are very sure of —First, this article has a compilation of the best collaboration tools, and Second, you must not miss out on the outstanding features these tools can provide for your workplace organization.   Time to replace Slack with these top 11 Slack Competitors   Slack Competitors   1. Troop Messenger 2. Fleep 3. Microsoft Teams 4. Zoho Cliq 5. Blink 6. Ryver 7. Mattermost 8. Bitrix24 9. Quip 10. Glip 11. Facebook Workplace 12. Rocket Chat   Troop Messenger   Of course, we’re biased, but hey — it is our blog. Here’s our #1  Slack Competitor    Troop Messenger is a renowned business messenger application developed to empower communication and collaboration between team members. As Slack's biggest competitor, it provides organizations and businesses with features like instant messaging, video calls, and file sharing in an exclusive and secure environment. Much like Slack, the tool connects the users within their organization irrespective of their time zone, and location, and makes for a robust online-based workforce.    Why Choose Troop Messenger Instead of Slack?   With Troop Messenger, the team members get to avail of direct messaging capabilities and also leverage advanced features like audio or video calls, virtual meetings, screen sharing, and many productivity features that enhance collaboration. The software is lightning fast, as it connects the members working within an organization at an excellent speed. Troop Messenger is known for its highly secure firewall, which assures privacy to all the messages, conversations, and file exchanges happening between team members. End-to-end encryption is the reason why no unauthorized party can ever access the data and information shared within the troop messenger application. The tool has a ‘delete and recalls’ feature and multiple domain merging options. To save even more time, the tool has a speech-to-text option, which is again something that can boost productivity at your workplace. The troop messenger is strictly individual to your organization. The involvement of no external networks or third parties offers an extraordinary level of security. Troop Messenger is an affordable collaboration tool. The free version alone can fit the need of small businesses with 50 users’ access to all the features. The premium version is as low as $1 monthly, per user.   Fleep   Fleep is one of the team collaboration software that combines business chat with collaboration tools that make multi-tasking easier. The tool works across multiple devices and operating systems, and it is arguably one of the most flexible collaboration solutions for businesses today. The app allows users to connect and share files seamlessly.   Why Choose Fleep over Slack:   One can manage push notifications on both the app and conversation levels. It's easy to control the email notifications, choose a specific sound for the alerts, and set up silent mode. Fleep has affordable plans for team collaboration. ‘ Fleep has an elegant and very carefully designed interface. The paid plan starts at $5 per member per month.   Microsoft Teams   With Microsoft teams, team collaboration doesn't only get simplified, but it also gets protected to an advanced level. With security that is no match to conventional chatting applications, this software has all the potential to transform the way you are operating and managing business necessities. Not only does it facilitate effective communication, but it also allows the users to customize the workspace and collaborate on built-in Office 365 applications.   Why Choose Microsoft Teams over Slack:   Microsoft Teams team Allows a storage space of 1 TB per organization, and a file upload limit of 15 GB. Microsoft Teams office 365 package members can use MS teams for Free. It has in-built integration of all MS Office tools. The supported platform includes all the major operating systems like iOS, android, windows, and JIRA.     Zoho Cliq   This communication software aims at providing businesses with messaging features that go beyond the functionality limit of the conventional chat application. There has to be a solid reason why small and large companies are using Zoho Cliq as an official team communication tool. It supports multiple channels and displays all of them in one window for easy access and monitoring.   Why Choose Zoho Cliq over Slack:   Zoho Cliq has a wide range of security options that are designed to protect company data and confidential files against security breaches. Zoho has dedicated customer training features that assure a user makes the most of their investment. The tool allows users to compile multiple channels into one window for easy access and monitoring. The UI design and interface allow lightening quick navigation with easy drag and drop file transfer. The app allows ten effective integration in the free plan. It offers a free plan with file storage of 100 GB per organization and a searchable message limit of 10k. The paid plan allows file storage of 100 GB per user with a charge of $0.58 monthly, per user.   Blink   Blink’s product offering goes beyond your average internal communication tool; Blink combines powerful integrations, instant messaging, file storage, and more to make the lives of frontline workers easier. No more notice boards in the breakroom and boring paper-based admin forms. Blink is the best way to digitize old processes and for organizations with a distributed workforce to reach and engage their employees on a handy mobile app.   Why Choose Blink Instead of Slack?   Specifically created for companies with a deskless workforce, Blink is perfect for any company across transit, logistics, facilities management, retail, hospitality, construction, and more. Featuring enterprise-level security, data on Blink is always encrypted. Additional Blink security capabilities range from remote wipes to non-repudiable audit logs, making it a favorite tool for IT departments and HR alike. In addition to enabling two-way communications and giving digitally disconnected workers a voice, rolling out Blink has been shown to decrease employee turnover by 28% while increasing employee satisfaction. Blink is mobile-first, but a user-friendly desktop app is available for desk-based colleagues in regional offices and the company HQ. The admin portal provides internal communications and HR teams with access to engagement analytics, moderation capabilities, identity management, a company directory, and more.   Ryver   When it is to Integration, Slack wins the battle with easy-to-implement 1000+ integrations. But when it is to task and content management, we are not sure if there are tools that are as competent as Ryver. Through this tool, one can create a task out of inbox messages, start a topic thread, set a reminder, add a reaction, and pin it.   Why Choose Ryver over Slack:   Ryver has an in-built solution for video and audio conversations. And that’s one reason why the call quality is so much better. Search feature and functionality is very simple in Ryver. Unlike slack where the search limit is only up to 10,000 messages, this tool allows an unlimited search. Just type the word you want to look up, and the result will be displayed in a fraction of a second. Ryver allows users to manage push notifications on both the app and conversation levels. It's easy to control the email notifications, choose separate tones for the alerts, and set up silent mode too. Ryver has not a freemium plan. The premium plan starts at $99 per month, and the enterprise plan starts at $399 per month.   Mattermost   Mattermost, as premium business chat software, is dedicated to providing businesses with premium collaboration solutions. The hybrid, slack competitor's open source, private cloud allows the paid users to avail of configurable, highly encrypted, and scalable messaging solutions across mobile, web, and PC.    Why Choose Mattermost over Slack:   It has exclusive features like brainstorming, task management, discussion boards, discussion threads, push notifications, search, video conferencing, and file sharing. Mattermost is self-hosted and open source. The highly secure network assures no data is ever lost. Enterprise E10 starts at $3.35 per user per month, and Enterprise E20 starts at $8.50 monthly, per user.   Bitrix24   With Bitrix 24, you get to do this effectively and connect with your colleagues over the E2E open-source platform. The software allows team conferencing through video calls, social networking, and project management. It has an E2E secured and encrypted centralized repository that assures that all media shared between the team members are secured and encrypted from cyber-attacks of all kinds.   Why Choose Bitrix24 over Slack:   The tool has cool features like a reminder system, document storage, Internet chat integration, mobile access, and lead scoring. Collaboration features include social media integration, task management, and segmentation. The tool is super customizable with streamlined CRM and multi-pipelines. Bitrix24 has visual workflow tracking features. The vendor offers excellent community support. The standard plan is $99 per user per month, and the Professional plan starts at $199/per month monthly, per user.   Quip   Quip is a simple-to-use and straightforward application with an avenue of features that streamline the work process of an organization. The application makes for a perfect collaboration system that enables the user to become more efficient in project planning and task management, editing documents, taking notes, communicating with team members, and collaborating on team projects.   Why Quip is a great Slack Alternative:   The real-time messaging features are embedded with full-features spreadsheets. The app can be integrated with Google Docs, Google Drive, Evernote, Dropbox, and a lot many third-party applications. The documents and media attachments can be easily exported to .doc, .jpg, and PDF versions. Users can enjoy importing contacts from Google, Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and Gmail. Quip offers paid plan of $30 per month for a team of five members, and $10 per month for each additional member. For large businesses, the plan starts at $25 per month, per member.   Glip   This office chat software allows API integration, notes taking, video conferencing, file sharing, and project management. Using Glip, you can assign tasks, schedule deadlines, send and receive messages, and manage shared files. This application can be used as a central device for managing projects and communicating with the people working on them.   Why Choose Glip over Slack:   This unified productivity software revolves around task management, where the user can assign, edit, and share tasks. The team chat app has annotation features including creating and sharing notes, documents, and event schedules. You can attach files and upload them on the preferred cloud services. The app can be easily paired with the desktop version. Glip allows unlimited chat, unlimited storage, integration, and unlimited teams. The free plan allows shared video of 500 total minutes, and the paid plan ($5 monthly, per user.) allows shared video of 1000 minutes per user.   Facebook Workplace   When it is about facilitating communication, Facebook can never stay in the background. The Workplace by Facebook is a platform designed to file businesses of all sizes. Primarily it is a collaboration tool, but it works similarly to how the social media platform works. The only difference is the way it provides a secure workspace where team members can make groups, organize events and share media, and documents, and set reminders for ongoing projects.   Why Choose Facebook Workplace instead of Slack?   Facebook Workplace is known for its easy accessibility. The similar and straightforward interface makes even the novice user an expert. All the features are streamlined in a way that takes no genius to understand how things work. With easy integration of social media channels, the tool serves as an excellent platform for team collaboration, communication, and event schedule. The API capabilities of the application help the user to integrate with file storage providers. This internal chat tool also has live video streaming options and administrative control. The Standard package allows the user to use it for free, and the premium package costs about $3/user/month.   Rocket Chat   This comprehensive communication tool is developed to facilitate team communication within the workplace. What makes RocketChat better than Slack is its deployment within an organization's Intranet or the Internet. The tool is dedicated to reinforcing task management with the great many collaboration and management features.    Why prefer Rocket Chat over Slack?   It has several productivity tools that make the organization process a lot simpler. The software has API functionalities that make integration very simple and highly extensible. It facilitates unlimited integration. The E2E-secured communication feature assures that the messages exchanged between team members are on a private network. The users have complete control over the profile settings and dashboard appearance. The paid plan starts at $3 monthly, per user.    Final Verdict While Slack sure has been the prodigy of the revival of office collaboration tools, things are changing now with next-gen communication apps. If you are a small or medium organization, MatterMost Tool and Workplace by Facebook could be good options because these two tools are cheaper than Slack, and they provide similar and better functionality.   But if you want to experience something extraordinary and ‘strictly individual’ office software, our advice would be to switch to Troop Messenger. Because with this collaboration tool, you are in complete control of your workplace interaction with secure access to your data. Troop Messenger is an ultimate Slack Competitor. The free version alone can fit the need of your business (as long as your team has fifty or fewer members). Above all else, our final verdict will go in favor of Troop Messenger for the end-to-end encryption and extensive range of features.
In this fast pacing world, every piece of information is available with a swipe of a finger.  ...
alternative
05 Apr 2019
Need an alternative to Hipchat? Find it here
You are probably reading this article because you've learned about the discontinuation of Hipchat Server and Data Center and Atlassian's partnership with Slack.   With Hipchat going down, the ex-users of the app are in a fix about which collaboration tool to pick next. While some are migrating to Slack, others are looking for better Hipchat Alternatives that can meet their requirements. Slack sure has gained momentum as a team communication tool, and it has excellent features that guarantee secure collaboration. But it limits the context searching feature.Only 10,000 messages are searchable and viewable, and the file sharing is also limited to the total storage space of 5 GB.   However, there’s nothing to worry about because there are a lot many collaboration tools with extraordinary features and functionalities available at minimum pricing. Follow this article to find a list of best Hipchat alternatives. We've compiled this list after thorough research, comparison, and user experience tests of the best-rated team collaboration tools. These tools not only have been developed by renowned vendors, but they also have a significant market presence among the businesses operating remotely.   Table of Contents   1. Troop Messenger 2. Fleep 3. Microsoft Teams 4. Yammer 5. Flock 6. Mattermost 7. Bitrix24 8. Discord 9. Google Hangouts 10. Redbooth 11. Rocket Chat 12. Circuit 13. Wimi   Troop Messenger         Troop Messenger is the best in class, team communication application compact with excellent functionalities that address business needs of both small- and large-scale enterprises. What makes Its a great team chat tool is multiple contemporary features, IP ownership, Data Security, ease of use, and secured and monitored entry etiquette.   Features: Instant Messaging, Unlimited Groups, and Group chat, Free Email/Chat Support, Unlimited Message search and History, Face-to-Face interaction, Data record, File Sharing, Screen Sharing, Work Scheduling, and Analytics.    Integration: Allows Integration with multiple third-party tools.   Storage: Offers storage up to 1 TB for unhindered communication.   Supported Platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, and Mac. Troop Messenger is compatible with Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox.   Pricing: has free and low-cost plans. The basic plan starts at $0 per user/month, and the premium plan starts at $1 per user/month.    In general, Troop Messenger's intuitive interface and UI makes the collaboration tool a reliable alternative of Hipchat for team members to collaborate and communicate in a better way.   Fleep       Fleep is a flexible communication tool which can be integrated with email. Fleep offers task management features that allow the members to interact with other fleep users and share files.    Features: Instant Messaging, Unlimited Groups, and Group chat, Free Email/Chat Support, Unlimited Message search and History, Face-to-Face interaction, Data record, File Sharing, Screen Sharing, Work Scheduling, and Analytics.    Integration: Integration with multiple third-party tools like Email, Trello, Fleep API, Dropbox, Google Drive, JIRA, Slack, One Drive, GitHub, and mainstream social networks.   Storage: Business subscription have a storage limit of 100 GB.   Supported Platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, and Mac.   Pricing: $5 per member per month.   Overall Rating: 8/10    Microsoft Teams     While several tools boast of extraordinary features, it's hard to compete with Microsoft edge for the robust security it offers for the users. As a part of the 365 packages, this collaboration tool offers a great many features and MS Teams free plan offers few features that can match an individual requirements. Users can enjoy private and public conversations with the team members.   Features: Online meeting, web conferencing, file collaboration with all Office 365 applications, administrative control, integration with third party tool, and end-to-end data encryption.    Integration: MS package, Adobe Creative cloud, Trello, Google Calendar, slack, outlook, Survey Monkey, Wrike, Jira, and Folly.   Storage: Allows the storage space of 1 TB per organization, and file upload limit of 15 GB.   Supported Platforms: All the major operating systems like iOS, android, windows, JIRA and with all internet browsers like Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft edge, Google Chrome, and Firefox.   Pricing: Its free with Office 365 Business Premium and Office 365 Business Essential plans starting at $12.50 per user per month and $5 per user per month.   Overall Rating: 9.5/10   Yammer       Yammer is all about business networking and collaboration. The tool allows the users to collaborate with team members across geographies, departments, and content to solve problems and share ideas in real time. The tool can be used to share photos, videos, docs in context by adding people in conversations.   Integration: One-click integration with Office 365 and multiple third-party tools.   Storage: Each post at Yammer can have files up 100 files. The maximum size per attachment is 100 MB for free networks and 5 GB for the premium networks   Supported Platforms: Android, Windows, Linux, and iPhone   Pricing: The premium plan starts at $5 per user per month.   Features: Public groups, messages and content tagging, enterprise microblogging, company directory, file and link sharing, profile pages, high-level security, and automated notification. Other features include tagging, document distribution, search functionality, and instant messaging for business   Overall Rating: 9.3/10   Flock       Flock is for those who like to keep everything organized and at one place. Fleep can radically modify and improve your collaboration with your team members.    Features: Chat during the meeting, Video or audio conference, screen sharing, threading, and content sharing, and Skype for business.   Integration: Flock allows Integration with over sixty apps including Google Drive, Dropbox, Twitter, Google Analytics, Trello, and etc. It also gives users the freedom to build their own apps via Flock API.   Storage: 10 GB file storage for midsize companies, and 20 GB file storage for large enterprises.   Supported Platforms: All the major operating systems like iOS, android, windows.   Pricing: Flock has a free-plan for small teams with limited admin control, standard support, and 10 GB file storage. It’s free with Office 365.   Overall Rating: 8.9/10   Mattermost       This open-source communication tool is a business messenger and a private cloud tool that allows the users to meet their company collaboration need. Mattermost works by providing search, integration, and archive of hundreds of business applications to deliver a simplex workplace interaction solution. It makes for a good HipChat alternative because of the following features:   Features: The tool offers an extensive list of features including push notifications, file sharing, communication management, unlimited search history, Audio/video conferencing, authentication & security, Multi-factor authentication, and Open source & private cloud-ready.   Integration: One-click integration with hundreds of pre-built integrations, third-party apps, and company tools.    Supported Platforms: Android, Windows, and iOS, Linux, macOS, and Mattermost Server.   Pricing: Free Trial for 30-days. Enterprise E10 (plan for small companies) starts at $3.35 user per month, and Enterprise E20 (for large enterprises) starts at $8.50 per user per month   Overall Rating: 8.1/10   Bitrix24       Bitrix24 offers a highly secure collaboration solution for both small- and large-scale business. It makes for a well-protected data repository where team members can share files, sync them, and collaborate on the on-going projects.   Features: Calendar system, email marketing, Marketing automation Integration, Segmentation, Chat, Discussion threads, push notifications, video conferencing, file sharing, task management, discussion boards, brainstorming, and document management, and CRM management.   Integration: Integration with a broad range of third-party tools including CRM, Accounting, Project Management, and Business process tools.    Supported Platforms: Cloud, SaaS, Web, Mac, Windows, Android Native, iOS Native.   Pricing: Free Trial for 30-days. Enterprise E10 (plan for small companies) starts at $3.35 user per month, and Enterprise E20 (for large enterprises) starts at $8.50 per user per month   Supported Platforms: Cloud, SaaS, Web, Mac, Windows, Android Native, iOS Native.    Overall Rating: 8.9/10   Discord     Discord and Hipcat are very much similar since both are collaboration tools with the same interface. Discord is also an excellent place for a gaming community where one can look out for people with similar gaming interest. Though the prime concern of this tool is the voice chat features. It allows the users to join the ongoing conversations and posts by joining specific servers.   Features: Voice communication, file upload, push to talk, instant messaging, display sharing, and video conferencing up to eight users in the free plan. Users can connect with 5000+ online concurrent members.   Integration: API integration of social media apps, games, and other third-party services.   Storage: Unlimited storage with a file upload limit of 8 MB in the free plan, and 50 MB in Nitro plan.   Supported Platforms: All the major operating systems like iOS, android, windows, JIRA and with all internet browsers like Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft edge, Google Chrome, and Firefox.   Pricing: Nitro Classic plan starts at $4.99 per month, and the Discord Nitro plan starts at $9.99 per month, per user.   Overall Rating: 8.9/10   Google Hangouts       Are your team members working remotely? Do you need the cheapest medium to collaborate with your employees and team members? If yes, Google Hangouts can be a great tool for team communication. Besides sending text messages, video, audio call, this Google app also allows the users to share images. It has other exciting features for personal and business usage.   Features: The tool offers screen sharing options, instant messaging, auto screen focus, voice calls, custom administrative control, hangout on air, and HD group conferencing for a maximum of 15 people.   Integration: It allows integration with all Google applications like Google Drive, Google Docs, Maps, etc.   Storage: The G Suite user can store up to 30 GB of media and text content.   Supported Platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, and Mac, and Web-based.   Pricing: Hangout is available for free for making calls, video conferencing, and other features.   Overall Rating: 8.9/10   Redbooth       This office chat software provides a virtual workspace where businesses and virtual teams can organize and manage ongoing projects through real-time chat and workflow streamlining. It enables the enterprises, team, and departments to accomplish business goals efficiently.   Features: File sync and sharing, push notifications, direct messages, to-do-list, live-video conference, data encryption, and project tracking with detailed productivity reports.   Integration: Integration with API, native apps, emails, and productivity tools like Okta, Hub staff, and Zapier, Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, and Slack.   Storage: Storage capacity of 5 GB for paid users.   Supported Platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, and Mac, and Web-based.   Pricing: Redbooth pro and business plan of $9 and $15 per user per month.   Overall Rating: 8.2/10   Rocket chat       This open-source business communication solution makes it possible for colleagues to collaborate virtually. It allows the user to avail asynchronous team chat, share ideas, discuss an on-going project with the real-time document and file transfer.   Features: Screen sharing, Free video, and audio call guess access, E2E security, two-factor authentication, Live Meeting, Group Sync, and real-time translation.   Integration: The tool allows outgoing and incoming Webhook Integration and plugins with popular tools. There are Powerful APIs like Real time API, Live Chat API, and Rest API which make collaboration simpler.   Storage: The Bronze and Silver plan allows the storage limit of 1TB and 5TB, and the Gold plan has a storage capacity of 20TB.   Supported Platforms: You can download Rocket Chat on Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, and Mac.   Pricing: Rocket Chat’s Bronze and the Silver plan start at $2 and $4 per user monthly. For Businesses requiring high-level management, scalability, and unlimited features, the tool has a Gold Plan available at a Volume discount and Tiered pricing.   Overall Rating: 8/10   Circuit       Circuit enhances the efficiency of teamwork through a great many collaborative features like content management, discussion boards, brainstorming, and document management. The tools also have multiple functionalities that facilitate team communication.   Features: Chat, Discussion threads, push notifications, video conferencing, content management, discussion boards, brainstorming, and document management. 24/7 Help and Support.   Integration: Integration with a broad range of API, and workflow apps like Google Drive and Syncplicity, and Box.   Storage: Storage limit of 5 GB for paid users.   Supported Platforms: iOS, Android, and Windows.   Pricing: Team plan and professional plan starting at $3.95 and $6.95 per month per user.   Overall Rating: 7.9/10   Wimi     Wimi makes for a standard all-in-one collaboration tool built to make teams work efficiently and effectively. A great variety of features allows remotely working business teams to integrate many services, increase teamwork productivity, and save time.   Features: File sync and document sharing, private messaging, business chat, project management through project progress update, drag and drop interface, automatic reminders and notifications, To-do-list, live-video conference, group calendars, data encryption, Gantt chart, and Wimi Drive.   Integration: Entire Office 365 tools and Google apps integration, and 20+ service integration.   Storage: Storage capacity of 250 GB for the team plan, and 500 GB for enterprise plan.   Supported Platforms: All the major operating systems like iOS, android, windows.   Pricing: There is a free plan that allows collaboration of a team of three members. If you have a larger team, there is team and enterprise plan of $15 and $18 monthly per user.   Overall Rating: 8.6/10   In a Nutshell   While the extensive varieties of collaboration tools may seem daunting, we spent considerable time to shortlist the best HipChat Alternatives for your business needs and necessities. Not only do these tools have the same functionalities as HipChat, but they also have a better inventory of team chat features that can drive your company’s productivity to new heights.   If you are still confused about which tool to use for business communication, allow us to help you filter the best. If you are an MS Office 365 member, we recommend Microsoft teams for robust security and distinct collaboration features. But you'll have to compromise with few limitations of the tool. For instance, it doesn't allow a unified search for the conversations, the structure of files can be confusing, and permission setting can be somewhat daunting.   If your organization likes to collaborate the practical way (and you want to save money on expensive paid plans), Troop messenger might be the perfect HipChat Alternative. What makes Troop an excellent team communication and collaboration tool is multiple contemporary features including unified searches, easy organization of files, IP ownership, Data Security, ease of use, and secured and monitored entry etiquette.
You are probably reading this article because you've learned about the discontinuation of Hipchat Se...
guest post
01 Apr 2019
How Remote Team Work Increases Productivity
Whoever thought that there would be virtual offices? A virtual office is nothing but a company purchasing an address from where all the communication takes place with the remote teams. Having a remote team is another trend that is rising mainly because it reduces the cost of holding the team in an office space. The concept of remote work may excite many people and it may look very pleasing from a distance. However, remote workers face many challenges like isolation, the difference in time zones, interruptions at home, technical issues, and so on. These problems may have a detrimental impact on the productivity of a worker. The benefits of this kind of work setting exceed the shortcomings and this is why a large majority of employers are now sticking to remote teams. In 2012 – 2013, Professor Nicholas Bloom selected a group of 9 students to work from home for a Chinese travel agency. The study spanned 9 months and the conclusions drawn were truly mind-blowing. It was found that the remote workers were 13% more efficient than the in-office employees working for the travel agency. Also, 6 of the 9 remote workers took significantly fewer sick leaves and the remaining did not take any sick leaves. A similar study conducted in 2014 found that remote working improved performance when the work was given on a task basis. This eventually contributed to a healthy, positive, productive, and cohesive work environment. One of the remote workers from this group stated that they felt much more engaged in the processes of the company. Why there is such an inclination towards remote working? The main reason is increased productivity.   Apart from this, other reasons that contribute to the rapid adoption of remote workforce include; Table of Contents 1. Flexibility Increases Productivity 2. Remote Workers Put More Hours 3. No Distractions 4. Less Sick Leaves 5. Remote Workers Are Happy How To Ensure That Remote Workers Don't Fall Behind Time? Benefits And Challenges Of Remote Workers Conclusion 1. Flexibility Increases Productivity Remote workers have flexibility which basically means that they can work at any time of the day which suits them the most. Workers know when exactly they can work at the peak of their productivity level which helps to increase the overall productivity of the company. 2. Remote Workers Put More Hours Because of the flexibility, remote workers can work after business hours as well. They have the luxury to manage their personal commitments alongside business ones. This basically means that they have 24 hours to accomplish the tasks of the day. Office-goers are not entitled to this privilege. 3. No Distractions The office floor can get a bit too noisy at times which may hinder the performance. All employees do not have their own cabin spaces where they would not be disturbed by noises, people moving around, loss of focus, etc. Remote workers have a dedicated workspace at their houses where they can work with full concentration without any distractions. Also, they have access to everything starting from coffee to books to keep them motivated. 4. Less Sick Leaves As mentioned above also, the downtime of remote workers is way less than regular officegoers. Officegoers have a long day as they have to get up early to get ready and commute to the workplace. This can take a toll on the body whereas remote workers can utilize this time to rest, and do some exercises and if you are not into all this, you can simply start working early and finish the work on or ahead of time. A healthy work-life balance is a must to reduce downtime. 5. Remote Workers Are Happy According to recent research, it has been found that remote workers are happier than officegoers because they are autonomous and feel that the company values them. The research proved that 8 out of 10 remote workers were happy with their work whereas 6 out of 10 officegoers were happy with their work. How To Ensure That Remote Workers Don't Fall Behind Time? Working with remote employees who are out of the office or even in different countries can have a lot of benefits. It can save you money and space but you have to make that work for you. The below-mentioned pointers make remote employees very successful:   Meet Regularly 1-ON-1 Via Video: Skype is perhaps the most common and prevalent tool for conducting remote meetings. This allows you to convey non-verbal messages and make a little more human connection. Regular Reporting: This means that on a consistent basis, the employees have to submit to you a report to let you know what they have been working on and what challenges they ran into. Include Them In The Company Culture: Just because they are far away doesn’t mean that they can’t participate in the activities that your business is doing. Help them feel unified with everyone else. Use Task Management Software:  There are task management applications available in the market that bring you a snapshot of everything happening in your business in one spot. The employers can just log in and see what different remote workers are up to. This is perhaps the biggest win for any employer that has a remote team.    Benefits And Challenges Of Remote Workers It is expected that 50% of the workforce in the US will work from home. It is beneficial for the employees as they save time and money spent on the daily commute. For employers, there are many benefits of remote workers which are mentioned in the pointers below:   Employ Talented Workers From Across The Globe: By defining a region of hiring, you are really limiting your prospects of hiring the top talent. When you consider the world as a recruiting field, your company learns to work with a diverse workforce. People from different regions of the world look at things from a different perspective and they might be able to bring new ideas to the company.  Low Employee Turnover: Researchers have found that remote workers are happier than those working at the office. Happier workers tend to take fewer sick leaves and also the pressure of work is less. This causes the employees to stick around for a longer period of time. Savings For The Company: A company spends millions of dollars on employees working in the office space. This amount will decrease drastically if the company starts to employ remote workers. Also, the real estate requirement of the company declines along with the expenses of electricity, phones, computers, and so on. Increased Productivity: As mentioned above, remote workers have the flexibility and can work when they feel on top of their productivity level. Also, they can put more hours into work as compared to office-going employees.   Every coin has 2 sides to it and similarly, there are some drawbacks of remote workers. All the problems have a solution and it is crucial to find a way out to solve the problems related to remote workers. Here are some challenges faced by employers of remote workers:   Communication: This is perhaps the main worry of employers with remote workers. To solve this problem, employers can deploy a task management software where all employees and remote workers can log in to update the employer about the tasks they have completed, tasks on which they are working and what will they do after completing the task at hand. Also, they can mention the difficulties they ran into during accomplishing the tasks. Company Culture: Remote workers could be in different countries and this shouldn’t stop them from being a part of all the fun activities and meet-ups going in the company. Invite your remote workers to the office once a year so that they can interact with the rest of the employees. Also, conduct Skype meetings so that everyone can see everyone else’s faces. Performance Tracking: It is difficult for the employer to keep a track on the progress and performance of the remote workers. Use a work management software to track the performance of all remote workers.   To make work-from-home more effective, you'll need to use team collaboration tools and make sure you have got a separate workspace, a workable schedule, and internet services to meet your needs. Also, if you do not want to work remotely from home, here is a good article that describes a real example of remote work from anywhere. For example, popular virtual office services include iPostal1 in the US and MailMate in Japan.  Conclusion It all boils down to one thing and that is coordination. Remote teams will rule the future and now is a really good time to invest in work management software. This is a one-time investment and your organization will benefit hugely from such a system. The answer to all problems related to a remote team is work management software.
Whoever thought that there would be virtual offices? A virtual office is nothing but a company purch...
team collaboration
22 Jun 2022
20+ Online Collaboration Tools for Managing Remote Teams
Switching to remote work is a trend that dominates but still remote workers were able to maintain intact communication, thanks to online collaboration tools. The latest reports indicate a doubling in the number of remote workers in the past 10 years. And despite the famous Yahoo ban in 2015 that forced the employees to return to the offices, the trend for remote job opportunities keeps on expanding globally. Among the driving forces facilitating this growth, are new managerial practices and innovative tech solutions that enable top companies to increase hiring remote teams.   Lack of effective tools, however, might hinder the productivity of your team so making the right choice in terms of online collaboration software that would empower team collaboration, will save you from facing numerous challenges.   Below there is a list of online best collaboration apps you will find useful when working with a remote team.   Table of Contents 1.  Troop Messenger  2.  Document360 3.  GoToMeeting  4. ProProfs 5. Paymo   6. TMetric 7. BlogIn  8. Usernap  9. JotForm 10. SmartTask 11. Fyle 12. Ozonetel CX Platform 13. Tameday    14. Wrike 15. ClickUp  16. Parabol 17. I Done This  18. Monday  19. Clarizen  20. Quip  21. Teamwork 22. LeadGen  23. Helpjuice  24. Soapbox 25. GanttPRO 26. nTask  27. ScreenRec 28. 123FormBuilder 29. MyOperator Wrapping it up 1.  Troop Messenger  When searching for more interactive team collaboration, Troop Messenger comes as a leader. It is one of the few online team collaboration tools, that will satisfy any team’s needs due to the simplicity of its implementation in an entrepreneurial environment.      Working as a fully-fledged business communication platform, Troop Messenger gives you instant access to unlocking a great number of functions:    Instant messaging Making video calls Conducting video conferences Sharing files Desktop sharing Creating complex schedules. Arranging the work schedule within Troop Messenger will let you keep project info fully organized and, thus, secure all the project performance data.   2.  Document360 Document360 is a SaaS-based knowledge management software designed to help your team create, collaborate, and publish a self-service knowledge base for your software with ease. It’s one of the most popular tools in the knowledge management industry. It comes with an AI-based real-time search so users can access the document in a fraction of a second and keep track of all your team interactions using team analytics. Document360 allows internal collaboration and helps to create a productive environment and it is easy to maintain a synchronous workflow especially when the employees work remotely. Some of the key features are,   With a click of a button, you can convert your knowledge base into a complete private knowledge base making it secure. It allows employees to comment on internal articles so that authors can clarify any doubts.  You can create a separate portal for Readers Advanced security access at category levels  The team analytics features give some important metrics at the individual employee level. Search analytics is another important metric to maintain a healthy internal knowledge base An easy-to-use interface that supports a markdown editor for efficient and structured writing. It supports international languages and a wide range of third-party Integrations.   3.  GoToMeeting  It is optimal in case you need a tool for arranging online meetings. This workplace collaboration software works both ways, with customers and team members. The tool provides a high-quality connection and ranges as the most reliable software. With support assisting you 24/7 and instant availability of joining or hosting the meeting options, you can start a meetup, webinar, or a regular call hassle-free.   GoToMeeting is the ultimate communication choice for remote collaboration teams. A click on the link across any device will be a signal for activating various options:    Sharing the screen Making notes over the images Recording the conversations Settings for adjusting the visibility of participants’ faces    4. ProProfs ProProfs Project is not an over-the-top project management software but has made its name in the market for its easy-to-use UI and simple features.   From startups to enterprises, anyone can use this robust project management tool to streamline workflow, boost team communication, and improve team productivity.   ProProfs Project helps you to:   Create & track projects on one dashboard Track time spent on tasks by each team member Collaborate with your teams anytime, anywhere Create insightful reports in seconds Bill your clients automatically   5. Paymo Paymo is a full-fledged project management tool offering free invoicing, best suited for small businesses and freelancers.   Paymo helps creative teams and freelancers automate payments and spend less time managing their paperwork. In a nutshell, with Paymo, users can:   Generate unlimited invoices, estimates, expenses Send recurring invoices based on outstanding tasks, time, and retainer periods Customize their invoices thanks to its WYSIWYG editor and user-friendly interface Offers a native online payment gateway, PM Payments Keep track of project profitability margins and accounts receivable Integrates with accounting software la Zero and QuickBooks Online   For an in-depth analysis of invoicing tools, check out this list of free invoicing software.   6. TMetric When you have to arrange the effective collaboration of your remote team, the first issue you need to address is the means of providing accuracy of time calculations.  TMetric is an effective time tracking tool as it not only enables recording data on your work time in a single click from any gadget but also has additional functions coming in handy for remote work mode: Creating an invoice Generating various reports (including the ones that will summarize your team's performance on the project) Setting various pay rates for billable hours Offline time tracking Tagging projects for facilitating the workflow Available on Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Android, and iOS Integrating with 100+ apps remote teams use in their work.   This Timesheet software help allocate tasks to employees, track time spent, keep track of billable time to charge customers, calculate payroll, create invoices, and keep track of expenses. Here's a quick list of 10 different timesheet software solutions and how they can help you manage your team better.    7. BlogIn  BlogIn is a beautifully simple internal blog and knowledge-sharing platform for teams of all sizes. The internal blog acts as a central information hub or a ‘virtual bulletin board’ for the company, allowing all employees to stay in the loop with what’s going on in and around the office.   At the same time, the blog opens a new, transparent, two-way communication channel inside an organization, where everyone can ask a question and get the information they need to make faster and smarter decisions.   The internal blog is intuitive and easy to use, so everyone can quickly get on board, which is one of the reasons why it works so well as an internal communication tool.   Share internal news and knowledge Improve internal communication Share files Boost company culture Enables transparent, two-way communication   8. Usernap  "Show, don't tell" - use screenshots and illustrations to communicate issues accurately and quickly. Usersnap's widget can be easily installed on your staging website or use the browser extension to capture anything you see and want to share.   Microsoft, Facebook, and many web companies employ Usersnap for issue reporting, QA, user acceptance testing, and customer feedback. Visual bug reports and feedback saves you time and makes remote working so easy.   Browser screen capture and annotations Tickets include metadata (screen size, browser version, URL, and console logs) Assign, label, track, and close tickets easily Integrates with 30+ tools such as Jira and Asana Live commenting Unlimited guest access   9. JotForm JotForm is an extremely versatile online form builder which is suited for a team of any size. It doesn’t require any development skills as it’s essentially a drag-and-drop form builder. So, your entire team can benefit from it. It has a surprising amount of use cases that you can apply to your business or use to manage your team. You can use it to clock in the work hours of your employees, collect feedback, assign tasks, open bug reports and the list goes on, it’s all up to how creative you can get with it. The best part is that you have a wide variety of customization options for the forms you create. You can prevent things from getting boring for your team and have a sustainable remote team. As there are way too many templates and customization options you can check a form design guide they have prepared.   Easy to use and implement Makes collaboration seamless Loads of customization options Wide range of use cases    10. SmartTask SmartTask is a simple yet powerful task and project management tool, which will help your team be more effective and efficient than ever before. It brings the organization's tasks to one place thus everyone in a team has a clear overview of the team's progress, who's responsible, and has clarity on the deadlines. The tool enables you with the following features:   Tasks, Projects, and CRM in one tool Custom Fields to customize your tasks Multiple Projects in one single view with a Portfolio feature Real-time communication and notifications available on Desktop, Android, and IOS   11. Fyle Fyle is a powerful expense management software for businesses with seamless expense tracking features, credit card reconciliation, approval workflows, and robust integrations with accounting software like Sage Intacct, NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, and Xero.   With direct integrations with Visa and Mastercard, Fyle is the first expense management software to launch real-time reconciliations on credit cards you already have. Coupled with easy expense reporting and approval features, Fyle is a complete expense management package for SMBs.   Here's what Fyle can offer:   Track expenses from Fyle's robust mobile app or everyday apps like Gmail, Slack, Outlook, and Teams Reconcile credit card expenses in real time via SMS Approve team expense reports on the go via the mobile app, Gmail, Slack, and Teams Two-way integrations with accounting software like Sage Intacct, NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, and Xero Pre-submission policy checks and constant compliance   12. Ozonetel CX Platform   Ozonetel's cloud call center solution provides an ideal solution for businesses seeking efficient and personalized communication across channels. With a customer base of 2500 and growing, Ozonetel's unified CX platform empowers over 100,000 agents globally to handle more than 2 billion calls annually, consolidating its position as a leader in the CX space. The platform's interoperability is highlighted through its Open API, effortlessly integrating with CRM platforms.   Ozonetel CX Platform helps you to:   Ozonetel's personalized support, regulatory compliance, and AI-powered features like agent-assist and automated quality audits-—ensure optimal customer engagement and satisfaction. With flexible pricing plans The platform enables businesses to adjust headcount based on season, making Ozonetel a cost-effective and indispensable asset for businesses aiming to provide superior customer experiences. Ozonetel has achieved the 'Global Leader' Badge in multiple CX categories, earning accolades from G2 and high ratings on well-regarded software sites like Capterra.   13. Tameday  Tameday is the all-in-one workspace for teams and small businesses that are struggling to manage their projects and workloads with various separate tools and email- Bringing everything into one place   Tameday helps you to:   Get rid of using email for internal communication by using Tameday's built-in chat feature. Keep your work and to-dos in one place within Projects, Communicate and share files with your team who are working remotely. Keep in contact with your clients by allowing them to see how projects are progressing, Keep you on track with to-dos, discussions, project due dates, and your own personal calendar.   14. Wrike Wrike is a perfectly illustrative example of how to integrate a favorite task management tool with time-tracking software so that it could enhance your remote team's productivity.   Wrike helps prioritize projects easily due to its intuitive design. It keeps all the info on tasks you perform. Additionally, when applying integrations in Wrike, you can:   Estimate the project resources with precision, Adjust timelines for specific tasks, Reassign tasks to accommodate urgent requests Tailor your tasks to project goals.    15. ClickUp  It is a productivity platform that helps you create tasks and plan your projects. While implementing ClickUp, you have the unique opportunity to organize the scattered tasks into an unbroken workflow.  With ClickUp, you get an abundance of options pertaining to:   commenting on tasks, advanced task storing, agenda creating keeping your data as secure as you choose by regulating privacy settings.   16. Parabol Parabol is software not bloated with extra functions as its primary goal is to provide your team with ‘free online retrospectives’. This part of project management practice is crucial for further planning and better estimation of the coming projects. This tool provides transparency of team priorities and accountability for task performance.   It is a perfect tool for remote work enabling cross-functional cooperation within a team by synching tasks in a dashboard on a daily basis. With Parabol, you can:    plan the day/week, mark the milestones upon task completion (for monitoring the team's progress), edit org charts send retrospectives (‘summary of a meeting’) email to your team   17. I Done This  It is a tool suitable for remote teams of any size. It is of particular interest to managers who can monitor top team accomplishments in real-time, and, hence, save tons of time on holding meetings.    Applying this software, your team gets access inside the app to:   commenting on their tasks, generating word clouds marking the most frequent task components, notifications of a reminder email (‘What have you done today?’) for sharing the daily accomplishments "visuals," which break accomplished tasks with color coding   18. Monday  No one can deny the importance of project management and Monday is one of the best collaboration tools for this. Suitable for any team size, it is a tool that will let you plan your tasks on a timeline so that nothing will fall between slots, and point assignees and, thus, enhance accountability and collaborate instantly for increased business productivity. The featured Monday options that you will surely like include the opportunity:   to update the status of the task, to choose a customizable template for your sprints from the impressively big selection, Email notifications – get notified by email   19. Clarizen  It is a team management solution designed to facilitate remote team collaboration platform. The software provides instrumental features to unite resources for more productive planning.   Implementing this tool means that your team can apply:   reporting templates, creating their own dashboards, tracking tasks of various kinds in real-time adjusting the time and resource allocation to current business goals in terms of project profitability   20. Quip  It is a productivity suite that unites spreadsheets and documents into shared folders.   It is perfect in terms of goal setting for your remote collaboration tool. It facilitates collaboration by sending reminders and instant sharing documents from one place. Your team will not have to dig deep to retrieve the documents.   Quip is accessible across any device so that you and your team can work from any place. Applying Quip, you can create:   Project plans Territory plans Checklists Meeting notes Documentation   You can work over multiple projects: the sidebar is available from any screen in Quip so you can easily access your teamwork and collaboration, your favorites, and your teammates.   21. Teamwork Teamwork Projects is an intuitive, feature-rich project management tool that lets your team reduce the complexity of collaboration. It allows you to work together with context, transparency, and accountability — and with increased visibility and improved communication, you can keep collaboration at the core of everything you do.   Most Exciting Features:   Collaborative workspace Flexible and feature-rich Instant messaging with Embedded Chat Portfolio feature to help you oversee multiple projects Resource management   22. LeadGen  LeadGen App is a lead capture form-builder tool for digital marketers. It helps marketers build custom lead forms and test them for the best conversion rates. LeadGen App works via form embed code that works on all major landing pages and website editor platforms and via direct link sharing as well. This collaboration works across diverse platforms, enhancing engagement and conversion.   LeadGen App also provides an analytics dashboard to check and improve the performance of the forms. Run AB tests to compare conversion rates of different form variations on a single landing page. Maximize your lead generation potential by testing & iterating your forms.   23. Helpjuice  No matter where employees are working, they need to be able to access the information required to do their jobs. Furthermore, simple tasks like keeping on top of the latest company updates or working on a document collaboratively can be difficult for employees working remotely. This is where Helpjuice’s knowledge base software can help as it allows you to capture, store, and share company knowledge with ease regardless of where your employees are located. Your knowledge base can include HR procedures, training courses, team forums, webinars, and more – all of which ensure your remote team is able to effectively do their jobs. In terms of document collaboration, Helpjuice offers a clean and simple interface that lets employees quickly create documents and co-edit them while keeping track of previous versions and authors. Additionally, Helpjuice’s commenting feature helps facilitate additional collaboration as it allows authors to select any text within a document and leave a note with any questions or thoughts. Highlights:   Create an easy-to-use internal knowledge base with best practices, tips, and onboarding documents Allow multiple authors to work on a single article and have each revision recorded. Commenting features that include the ability to comment on any text within an article and have those comments emailed to all author collaborators. Advanced analytics provides article insights as well as the performance of users/groups to help you better understand what employees are looking for and the most common questions. Google-like search helps employees find information quickly SaaS-based software so that employees can access information regardless of location or device 24. Soapbox Imagine if every team meeting had a shared goal, agenda, notes, and follow-up. Soapbox's shared one-on-one and team meeting agenda software makes it easy to have productive and collaborative meetings. Some key features include:   Collaborate on shared online agendas Meetings notes are integrated with your agenda Real-time commenting Suggested meeting questions Assign and track the next-steps Post-meeting surveys to rate and track meeting effectiveness Integrates with Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google, mobile, Asana, Todoist, and more!   25. GanttPRO GanttPRO is a project management tool based on Gantt charts for teams of all sizes and from any industry. The software provides a visually appealing timeline where all tasks, dates, and assignees can be tracked easily.   GanttPRO offers a highly intuitive interface with a short learning curve, so even new project management team members will be able to start working on their tasks right away without additional time-wasting training.   With GanttPRO, you get a plethora of robust features:   team collaboration (comments, attachments, notifications), resource management and workload management, time tracking portfolio management. 26. nTask  nTask is a project management tool that helps remote teams to collaborate on tasks & projects to get work done. From project planning to execution and celebrating project success, nTask offers all the necessary features to bring teams into one place.   It enables individuals and teams to collaborate on tasks, assign to-do list items to team members and track the progress with the help of Gantt charts.   nTask helps you to:   Collaborate on tasks with comments Assign work to team members Time tracking and timesheets Project management and Gantt charts Meeting management Integration with Zoom and Slack   27. ScreenRec Seeking an advanced best collaboration software that helps ease the process of managing remote teams? Don't panic, all you need is a robust productivity tool like ScreenRec! Yes, ScreenRec doesn't just save time and ease communication, it makes every operation related to managing a remote team just like a walk in the park.   Unlike other team collaboration software you find online, ScreenRec supports instant private video messages and screenshots with high HD quality. Plus, this lightweight collaboration tool is loaded with avant-garde features that enable you to analyze, share, and manage content. And it also gives you full control over who can access content shared amongst your team, and anywhere in the world.   All-in-all, ScreenRec has high compatibility and can be used with desktop systems that run Windows or Linux, with a Mac version coming very soon. Plus, it has a clean interface that makes it easy to navigate through for users at all levels. This tool can be employed in almost every sector of a business and does one of the most important things for a business — save time.   A highly intuitive user interface makes it easy for employees and employers to navigate around the app without hassles. Lightweight software that supports screen capturing without lagging. Send video emails in seconds without uploading videos. Send annotated screenshots instantly. Advanced encryption protects your sensitive information.   28. 123FormBuilder 123FormBuilder is a secure and easy-to-use online form builder that you and your team can use for a wide variety of use cases, including those that help you collaborate better when working remotely.   No coding is needed to create forms and you have 2,000+ form templates to start from.   Built with security in mind, all forms are GDPR compliant and integrate with the tools you already use.   Some of the more common use cases include:   Collecting leads and sending them by email to the right sales representative. Collaborating on the data collection process with specific user access settings. Tracking employee time. Collecting signatures and generating automated PDF documents. Surveying employee satisfaction. Creating workflows for your projects. Collect information for tasks and assign them. Open bug reports.   29. MyOperator Sales and after-sales services are the bedrock for the success of any-sized business. Even today, over 80% of sales and customer service-related communication gets resolved over phone calls. An organized call management system is still a major challenge for many remote-working companies. This is where cloud-calling tools like MyOperator comes into play. MyOperator is a simple-to-use SaaS platform equipped with a suite of Business collaboration platform designed to manage both incoming and outgoing business calling initiatives.   Here are the key benefits of the remote-first MyOperator call management solution:   Greet your customers 24x7 like a virtual receptionist with a toll-free number. Streamline outbound calling with MyOperator Dialer App. Capture lost or missed business calls even when you or your team are away. Track call performance with live call recordings. Automatically route incoming calls to respective departments for faster resolutions. Use call reports for team training and development purposes. Sync MyOperator with a CRM of your choice for seamless lead and call management. MyOperator provides customized plans for businesses of any size, need, and budget. With a client base of 7000+, MyOperator caters to brands like Lenskart, Decathlon, Caratlane, Dominos, Apollo, etc.   Wrapping it up A trend for global cooperation and delivering your service internationally are motivating factors for many companies to increase remote hiring. With the tech project planning tools presented in our list, remote team collaboration is unlimited due to enabling uninterrupted workflow, effective communication, and full accountability of the work result metrics.   FAQs     1. What is the main focus of the "20+ Online Collaboration Tools" blog?     The blog provides an overview of over 20 online collaboration tools designed to enhance productivity and communication among remote teams. It highlights features, benefits, and unique aspects of each tool to assist teams in selecting the most suitable platforms for their needs.         2. What are the key features of Troop Messenger?     Troop Messenger is presented as a comprehensive business communication platform offering:   Instant messaging   Voice and video calling   File sharing   Desktop sharing   Scheduling capabilities   These features aim to streamline communication and maintain organized project performance data for remote teams.         3. How can you use collaboration tools to improve team communication?     Using collaboration tools like Troop Messenger can significantly improve team communication in the following ways:   Instant Messaging, Voice/Video Calls, File Sharing, Group Channels, Task Management, Search and History         4. How do collaboration tools improve team productivity?       These tools reduce time spent on back-and-forth emails, enable faster decision-making, and keep everyone aligned on tasks and deadlines. Features like chat, file sharing, and video calls make teamwork more efficient and organized.         5. Can collaboration tools support remote work?     Yes, collaboration tools are essential for remote teams. They provide a centralized platform for communication, project tracking, and document sharing, helping remote employees stay connected and productive from any location.         6. What are the best collaboration tools for teamwork?       Troop Messenger – Provides instant messaging, voice/video calls, file sharing, and task management, making it ideal for team communication and collaboration.   Slack – A popular tool with channels for different topics, direct messaging, and powerful integrations to streamline team workflows.   Microsoft Teams – A versatile platform that combines chat, video meetings, file sharing, and integrates seamlessly with Office 365.   Trello – A visual project management tool that helps teams organize tasks, track progress, and collaborate on boards.   Asana – Enables teams to manage projects, assign tasks, and track progress, ensuring better coordination.   Google Workspace – A suite of tools (Docs, Sheets, Meet) for real-time document collaboration, video calls, and file sharing.       7. What is the best SaaS collaboration tool?       Troop Messenger is one of the best SaaS collaboration tools, offering a wide range of features like real-time messaging, voice/video calls, file sharing, and task management. Its secure and user-friendly platform allows seamless communication and collaboration, making it ideal for teams of all sizes. With cloud-based accessibility, Troop Messenger ensures that teams can stay connected, share information, and collaborate efficiently from anywhere.       8. Best collaboration apps for companies?       Troop Messenger, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Trello,  Asana, Google Workspace         9. Best team collaboration software?       Troop Messenger is the best team collaboration software, offering features like instant messaging, file sharing, video conferencing, task management, and secure communication for efficient teamwork and productivity.       10. What are the benefits of using collaboration tools?     The benefits of using collaboration tools include:     Improved Communication, Increased Productivity, Better Organization, Remote Work Enablement, File Sharing and Storage, Real-time Updates, Enhanced Teamwork  
Switching to remote work is a trend that dominates but still remote workers were able to maintain in...
productivity
01 Mar 2019
15+ Top Alternatives to Evernote for Productivity [2023]
The Evernote open source has played a vital role in social media marketing. A social media manager has used the Evernote app to shape up the busy day in the most effective manner. It has been the most popular digital notebook to capture ideas through notes, visuals, and recordings, drafting articles, and saving materials to read later   In this blog we list out the best Evernote alternatives you must try this year.   The paid version of Evernote comes with a hefty price tag; hence, if you are looking for a reasonable alternative or a free alternative to Evernote, here are the top 14 tools which are worth a try. Evernote Alternatives 1. OneNote 2. Apple Notes 3. Bear Notes  4. Slips 5. SimpleNote  6. Dropbox Paper 7. Google Keep 8. CintaNote 9. GoodNotes 10. Notejoy 11. BoxNotes 12. Quip 13. iAWriter 14. Zoho Notebook 15. Joplin 16. nTask 1. OneNote     Price: Free   Storage: 5 GB Platform: Android, IOS, Windows, Web    Microsoft Onenote is an excellent free alternative to Evernote. The app comes with a pre-loaded Windows 10 operating system and a web application too. It is easily available in mobile apps for IOS, Windows phones, and Androids.  OneNote can synchronize the data from your Microsoft account and makes use of OneDrive to save all the data that you require. It has the capacity to store up to 5 GB of data and can help you gather and organize the links, images, high-quality texts, and drawings in the notebook.  Importing tables and text email content, images, and audio from other Microsoft Apps is also a great function Onenote has to offer. It enables recordings of audio and capturing of images too which Evernote does not offer. Evernote does not have an in-built audio capturing feature. 2. Apple Notes     Price: Free   Storage: 5 GB Platform: Web, IOS, Mac   The latest Apple Note comes with a full management tool. The main features include the tool organizer which organizes the notes into folders. It can attach videos, audio, and images and share them with contacts by simply dragging and dropping action. Unlike Evernote, it has a cloud-based operating system. The notes are accessible from iCloud and synced across all Apple devices on any platform. The iCloud notes which have been deleted around 30 days prior to work can also be recovered and edited on icloud.com. A user of the IOS9 device can also use the feature of a doodler and benefit from the various tools like drawing tools (pencil, felt tip marker, eraser, and pen). One can easily use these features to capture ideas and represent them using these visual aids. 3. Bear Notes      Price: Free     Storage: 5 GB   Platform: iPhone, iPad, and Mac    Bear is an Apple note device that syncs with cloud services. It has an aesthetically appealing design, with great UX. The navigation feels natural, and it is easy to create notes, find them, and organize the notes into folders.Unlike Evernote, Bear allows fairly easy conversion of documents and notes into other formats like PDF or Word documents. It has beautiful themes which are in-built, and style and links can be customized with just a keystroke. It is a low-cost note-taking app suitable for Apple device owners. 4. Slips   Price: Free   Storage: Offline Storage Devices supported: iOS, iPad   Essentially, we often look for a piece of paper to make instant and quick notes. Slips is an application developed to take quick notes. The tasks which are entered in Slips are quite manageable with timely reminder alarms.   Since it looks like a colorful pinboard, Slips is a great app for creating short cheat sheets for learning. Thus, it competes not only with Evernote, but can also be an alternative to a powerful flashcards base by Subjecto which is loved by many students.   Though there are many apps alike in the market, Slips is powered with a bunch of features like Text Decorations, Managing Contacts, Importing Images, Emoji Icons, Reminder Alarms, and Social Sharing. Slips have its footprint in Android and its iOS version is about for release. 5. SimpleNote    Price: Free   Storage: 5 GB Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, Web, web, Mac   SimpleNote is a completely free note-taking application and comes with cloud-based storage. Evernote only provides a limited free version, whereas Simple note is free. It runs on multiple platforms which include Mac, Linux, web, Android, IOS, and Windows. As the name itself implies, it is easy to use and runs fast on the system. It allows an instant search tags feature or shares a list option, unlike Evernote. You need to simply type in the requirement and the list updates instantly on SimpleNote. It lets you record innumerable textual notes and pin notes as per priority. It also streamlines the text note organization for its users.   6. Dropbox Paper     Price: Free   Storage: 5 GB Platform: Web, Mac, Linux, Windows, Android, IOS   Dropbox is a relatively new free alternative to Evernote. It promises to offer a superior user experience and better API integration. Dropbox creates a note and files it under the folders. It works in similar lines to a Google Doc system. Dropbox covers the basic formatting options such as bold, highlighting features, and lists in a less cluttered UI. The images too can be edited, along with the text. Dropbox supports the feature of LaTex and markdown which is very essential and popular among technical writers.  Dropbox paper provides a collaborative document editor where you can embed anything and work in real time without leaving the app. 7. Google Keep   Price: Free   Storage: 5 GB Platform: Android, IOS, Web   Google Keep is regarded to be a huge Evernote Competitor. It is easily available for Android, IOS, and web app platforms. Evernote provides almost similar features to users as the Google Keep, but the advanced features in Evernote are available at an additional price, whereas Google Keep is a great pick that comes free of cost. Google Keep users need to have a Google account to sync all devices which is a very useful option for Android Users. The individual notes and other file attachments like images, audio, text, and hyperlinks can be shared with the contacts one at a time. The files for sharing can only be shared after uploading them through Google drive which ensures full safety. Google keep has an intuitive and attractive user interface. It is extremely easy to use, and the navigation is arranged very well with links to reminders, notes, labels, and settings on Google Drive. The mobile app for Google Keep too is quite simple and easy to use. 8. CintaNote   Price: Free, Pro - $39/Year, Lifetime Pro - $119/Year Storage: Upgradeable according to the plan Platform: Android, IOS, Web   CintaNote is a smart alternative to Evernote. It has the function to capture the text from any applications, attaches the files and images to the notes, and also synchronize them on different devices. It is considered one of the best Evernote alternatives as this note can work and retrieve the notes both in online and offline mode. It encrypts the whole notebook with password protection and creates an automatic notebook backup.CintaNote includes features like full-text searching, text clipping, backup of notes, hierarchal tags, auto tags, and password protection. 9. GoodNotes   Price: $7.99 on the App store    Storage: Unlimited Platform: Android, IOS, Web   Goodnotes is available on the IOS platform for Apple device users. It allows for easy scribbling of notes, and also allows the user to create multi-media images, word documents, PDFs, and PowerPoint presentations all in a single file. The app also indexes the notes for quick searches. Even though the handwriting may be illegible, this app can index the notes and allow the user to search them when required instantly. It is one of the best handwriting apps on the market.   10. Notejoy   Price: Only the basic version is free    Storage: Unlimited Platform: Android, IOS. Web, Windows, Mac   Notejoy is a great alternative to Evernote. It is a collaborative platform, unlike Evernote where note-sharing with contacts can be done instantly and effortlessly. It is a real-time app that makes it easy to collaborate productively with the instant sharing of notes. It also syncs fast to different devices. It can be used on various platforms like Mac, Android, Windows, and IOS. Providing feedback and receiving them is very easy with Notejoy. It provides a lightning-speed of search to find notes effortlessly and is a greatly popular app for workplaces where a team needs to work in constant collaboration. 11. BoxNotes   Price: Only the basic version is free    Storage: Unlimited Platform: Android, IOS. Web, Windows, Mac   Box Notes is a great alternative to Evernote. This online note app works with a cloud-based storage system and a user-friendly interface. It is a real-time collaboration tool that provides faster access to notes from the web and desktop. The BoxNote is easily available and accessible from anywhere on the mobile, desktop, or web. BoxNote has integrated security features, unlike many other note-taking apps. It keeps a detailed log to track the access to documents viewed and edited. Global standards of security secure every note on BoxNote. 12. Quip   Price: Team of five users for $30 per month Storage: Unlimited Platform: Android, IOS, Web   Quip is a combination of spreadsheets, documents, and PowerPoint with its checklists and one of the greatest alternatives which have sprung into the market for Evernote. The quip docs can be viewed and simultaneously edited at the same time with real-time options in-built in it.  Leading companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Dell have shifted to Quip for faster real-time note editing and sharing.   13. iAWriter   Price: Free for Android. $19 for Windows, $29.99 for Mac, and $ 4.99 for IOS Storage: Unlimited Platform: Android, IOS, Mac   It is a minimum typing app that also serves a great purpose as a note-taking app. It supports the markdown feature and enables the user to flick between pages quickly. It also lays out the text in a coherent manner with an enhanced search feature. The fonts are well-spaced, and it is mostly used in conferences, lectures, and seminars. The text previews give a very good excerpt of the note. It comes with enabled features like night mode, an easy user interface, and a very light blue highlight to keep the app looking distinct. 14. Zoho Notebook Price: Free  Storage: Unlimited Platform: Android, IOS,  Mac, Linus   Zoho Notebook is a pretty looking alternative with a great UI to Evernote. The Zoho notebook securely stores all notes in the cloud storage system and syncs with available devices smoothly. It is easily accessible by mobile devices.   Unlike Evernote, the Zoho notebook has a built-in checklist card which makes it very easy to create them and the checklist automatically updates after every edit. The Notebook does not treat the audio notes like attachments as in Evernote. It has a built-in audio note which makes it a great alternative.   Zoho allows the user to set alarms for every individual note which can also be allotted as reminders on the registered e-mail. The recovery of deleted notes is another great standout feature of Zoho. It comes with a great lock feature for enhanced security. It lets the user lock each individual note with password protection. 15. Joplin   Price: Free  Storage: Unlimited Platform: Android, IOS,  Mac, Linus   Joplin is a free open-source note-taking app and a competitor of Evernote. Unlike Evernote, this note comes with a web clipper extension feature to save screenshots and web pages from the browser.   The notes can be easily synchronized with cloud services. The synchronized notes are saved and can be easily moved, and inspected and their backup can be taken. The notes are available in the markdown formatted text. It can also enable alarms for mobile apps and desktops. It has the ability to attach the geolocation metadata too. It focuses on end-to-end encryption too for enhanced security.    16. nTask               Price: Basic version is free. Paid plan at $2.99/month Storage: 100 MB on the Free plan, 5GB on the Premium, and 10GB on the Business plan. Platform: Web, Android, iOS   nTask is a close Evernote alternative for team collaboration and note-taking. Being a full task and project management app, nTask gives a simple user interface to help manage multiple projects at a time. It provides quick access to your notes and tasks and gives you the ability to assign work to your team. Users can get instant notifications and reminders of their notes so that nothing slips through the cracks. It lets you organize and manage your project documents with full security. Now, there is no need to use other apps to save your important information and files. Its robust features make it a favorite among the 100,000-plus users worldwide.   Bottom Line Note-taking apps are essential today for any platform. Evernote was the best note-taking app in the past decades but with the advancement of technology, new note-taking apps have taken the industry by storm. To overcome the cons which Evernote had, many Evernote Competitors have come into the market. It depends on the individual needs and the budget to decide which new note-taking app serves as the best Evernote alternative to switch to for better results.
The Evernote open source has played a vital role in social media marketing. A social media manager h...
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