10 Best Remote Collaboration Software List
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 20 tools reviewed.
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With so many different remote collaboration software available, figuring out which is right for you is tough. You know you want a tool to support communication and collaboration within your team despite everyone working remotely, but you need to figure out which one is best. In this post, I'll help you make your choice easy by sharing my insights on the best remote collaboration software for bridging geographical gaps and ensuring smooth communication based on my personal experience as a seasoned remote worker for many years.
What is Remote Collaboration Software?
Remote collaboration software covers a suite of digital tools that facilitate teamwork for employees who work remotely and interact virtually. These tools achieve this through features like instant messaging, file sharing, co-authoring, video conferencing, task tracking, and brainstorming that replicate the ease, efficiency, and functionalities of working in a physical office and bring team members closer together regardless of their location.
Remote collaboration software has become critical to business success due to the increase in globally distributed teams. These tools help improve teamwork and collaboration across distances and time zones, and are easily accessed from anywhere, including from mobile devices.
Overviews of the 10 Best Remote Collaboration Software
Here’s a brief description of each remote collaboration tool to showcase each system’s best use case, highlight some noteworthy features, and explain their pros and cons. I’ve also included screenshots to give you a snapshot of the user interface.
Slack is a digital platform designed to facilitate team communication and collaboration, offering a suite of features that support both synchronous and asynchronous interactions. You can create organized spaces through channels, integrate with various tools, and provide a secure environment for your teams to collaborate on different projects and initiatives. Team members can easily catch up on what they missed and find important communications by filtering through threads and mentions.
Beyond basic messaging, Slack's advanced features cater to a diverse range of needs within a remote team. The platform supports voice and video calls, screen sharing, and has a robust search functionality that allows users to quickly find previous conversations and shared content. Furthermore, Slack's integrations with other software tools mean that teams can streamline their workflows by receiving notifications and updates directly within Slack. This integration capability extends to popular project management tools, CRMs, and development platforms, making Slack a central hub for project collaboration and updates.
Slack's adaptability to different team sizes and industries underscores its appeal as a remote collaboration tool. Small teams appreciate the flexibility and simplicity it offers, while large enterprises benefit from its scalable features, including extensive administrative controls and security measures. The platform's emphasis on creating a 'digital HQ' allows companies to maintain their culture and connectivity, fostering a sense of community and collaboration among remote workers. In essence, Slack is more than just a messaging app; it's a comprehensive solution that supports the dynamic needs of today's distributed teams, making remote work more efficient and connected.
Integrations include Google Drive, Trello, Asana, Zoom, Salesforce, Jira, GitHub, Dropbox, Microsoft Teams, and over 2,600 other tools.
Axero is a knowledge sharing platform that can be used to build out a customized knowledge base or intranet for your remote team. It provides all kinds of content creation options, letting you create blog articles, forms and surveys, discussion forums, and more. You can also send out mass broadcasts for important updates or timely news.
The software also has interactive elements to facilitate engagement and discussion. For example, live chat, commenting, like buttons, and @-mentions all allow employees to engage with content, ask questions, and share feedback. You can also set up notifications to make sure everyone receives essential information.
Additionally, the platform provides best-in-class mobile apps for both iOS and Android. This means you can make your knowledge base fully accessible on the go for your distributed workforce. Higher-tier plans also allow for white labeling of the mobile apps, so you can customize it to reflect your company branding and provide a familiar environment to remote staff.
The software integrates with lots of other tools including Outlook 365, Sharepoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, Slack, Zoom, Dropbox, Box, Unsplash, and Twilio, among others.
Paid plans start from $2,000/month for up to 200 users, and a 14-day free trial is available.
Miro offers a collaborative online whiteboard platform, well-suited for remote teams. It distinguishes itself by not restricting user access based on subscription plans, simplifying the process of sharing boards.
Other notable features include Miro's infinite canvas, flexibility in expressing ideas through various formats, and a planner tool for tracking projects. Additionally, the Miroverse provides a space for users to share and discover project templates from the community, encouraging a shared learning environment.
Some of Miro’s integrations include Confluence, Notion, Monday.com, Asana, Jira, Slack, and Trello.
Miro starts at $8 USD per user/month. There is a free version for unlimited team members but with limited features (such as 3 editable boards).
Focused specifically on board meetings, OnBoard is a useful collaborative tool to create actionable insights and help with coordinating board tasks. The tool provides a simple to use agenda and meeting minutes builder.
OnBoard includes a built-in Zoom integration and a secure messenger that allows you to focus on the meeting as opposed to things getting lost in email purgatory.
OnBoard integrates with ADP, Google Drive, Govenda, Zoom Meetings, and Microsoft 365, including Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint.
OnBoard offers customized pricing on request, as well as a free trial.
Best for aligning remote and hybrid teams on goals and strategic direction
Quantive Results is a strategy execution platform that's built to help leadership teams plan their business strategy collaboratively. It also has tools to set and track team and company goals, helping to keep everyone aligned on their shared objectives.
Whiteboards can be used for mapping out your strategic planning. You can also use the retrospective templates included in the software to evaluate what went well in a past timeframe, and what needs improvement going forward. With your strategy in place, you can establish OKRs and KPIs in the system that can be interconnected, cascading, and assigned to specific teams.
Another helpful feature included in the software are OKR and task alignment, which helps connect specific projects and tasks with established business objectives. Some other key features include commenting on KPI dashboards, automated notifications, advanced access permissions, and reporting and analytics tools.
The software integrates with other workplace tools including Slack, Microsoft Teams, Asana, Miro, Jira, SurveySparrow, BambooHR, Workable, Humaans, and Rally, among others. You can also access additional integrations with a paid Zapier account.
Creately takes a more data-driven approach for its smart visual canvas. This canvas keeps everything in one place as opposed to spreading things across daily tasks, wikies, and other places.
The free-form canvas allows you to add data, notes, and tasks anywhere. Creately allows you to create workflows with rules and formulas, with no codes needed.
Creately integrates with Github, Office 365, Slack, and more.
Creately starts at $4/user/month, and offers a free plan with limited features.
Ziflow is a cloud-based collaboration platform specifically designed to support creative teams. Their review and approval workflows enable creative teams of project managers, designers, developers, copywriters, photographers, artists, and other professionals to collaborate across multiple time zones, file formats, and media types.
Ziflow eliminates the need for unnecessary meetings or back-and-forth emails, saving both time and money while providing an efficient way to track project progress from start to finish. Users can manage and assign tasks, track project progress, and review feedback. You can also easily see which tasks have been completed or are still pending completion.
Their platform provides real-time analytics that summarize how much time each task took and how many people were involved in each task's completion process. This feature helps managers get a better understanding of their team's workflow process so they can optimize it for maximum efficiency over time. Ziflow also offers workflow automation tools that make it easier for teams to manage their processes. Users can create custom approval workflows that speed up decision-making and help ensure consistency across the organization.
Ziflow allows users to create digital asset libraries to store and manage their files. This makes it easy for users to access their files anytime without searching through multiple folders or drives. Additionally, its library system includes customizable tags and filters so users can quickly find what they’re looking for without having to wade through long lists of assets.
Integrations are available with Asana, Basecamp, ClickUp, DropBox, Google Drive, Jira, Microsoft Teams, monday.com, Oracle Netsuite, Slack, Trello, and Zapier. In addition, Ziflow has plug-ins for all your Adobe Creative Cloud apps (After Effects, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, etc.), plus their Webhook Zibots, which can integrate with other software systems that offer an API.
Ziflow starts at $40/user/month, billed annually. They also offer a 14-day free trial, and a free forever plan for personal use.
Using customizable kanban boards, Redbooth makes it easy to sort, track and organize tasks across your organization. Redbooth features thorough productivity reports to see task status, and how time is spent. It also allows you to zoom in on one specific task, or review the entire project all in one view.
When assigning tasks, Redbooth will recommend the best person for the assigned task and due dates through their “Smart Redbooth” tool.
Redbooth integrates with tools like Dropbox, Gmail, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zapier, and more.
Redbooth starts at $12/user/month. Redbooth also offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
From being used as a simple to-do list tracker, to full fledged project management software, Asana is a scalable collaborative tool that cuts back on email and keeps track of what’s being worked on, and by who, across an organization.
With a small learning curve, users can be up and running quickly with this collaborative tool. Asana’s user interface (UI) and user experience is also top in its class.
Asana connects with tools like email apps, Google Drive, Microsoft Office 365, Salesforce, Slack, and more.
Asana’s pricing starts at $10.99 USD per user/month. There is a free forever version with fewer features and team members that you can try too.
Podio
All-in-one project management tool with excellent automation capabilities.
Podio is a project management tool to help streamline your data collection and automation of document workflows all into one tool. Podio includes extensions and add-ons built for specific use-cases, such as time tracking or Gantt charts.
Podio’s advanced workflow systems help to reduce repetitive tasks. Podio allows you to easily migrate data across from other tools to be integrated under one centralized work hub.
Podio integrates with Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft 365, and more.
Podio starts at $7.20 per user/month. There is a free plan for up to five employees.
The 10 Best Remote Collaboration Software Summary
Tools | Price | |
---|---|---|
Slack | From $8.75/user/month | Website |
Axero | From $2,000/month for up to 200 users | Website |
Miro | From $10/user/month | Website |
OnBoard | Pricing upon request | Website |
Quantive Results | From $18/user/month | Website |
Creately | From $4/user/month | Website |
Ziflow | From $40/user/month | Website |
Redbooth | From $9/user/month (billed annually) | Website |
Asana | From $13.49/user/month | Website |
Podio | From $9/user/month (billed annually). | Website |
Compare Software Specs Side by Side
Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareOther Options
Here are a few more options that didn’t make the best remote collaboration software list:
- Milanote
Collaborative tool for creative projects through visual boards
- Bluescape
Collaborative space with emphasis on images
- Height
Best for collaborating within a project management software
- Workvivo
Best for improving employee communications
- ClickUp
All-in-one productivity tool with over 50 automated actions.
- MeisterTask
Best collaboration tool for team-based task management
- Guru
Best collaboration and knowledge management tool for improving remote work efficiency
- Smartsheet
Project management through user-friendly spreadsheets
- MediaValet
Best for collaborating on digital assets and files
- Lucidspark
Best for communication around charts, documents, and diagrams
Comparison Criteria
Wondering what I look for when selecting the best remote collaboration software for this list? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- Usability: I look for collaboration tools that are powerful, with features that are easy to learn. The last thing I want you doing is spending precious time learning the ins and outs of yet another tool.
- Integrations: I look for collaboration tools that play nicely with other tools in regards to integrations. A collaboration tool without integrations to common tools (think Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams or Microsoft Office) isn’t overly helpful.
- Value for $ and Ease of Free Trials: Just like taking a few cars out for a spin before deciding on what to buy, you may want to play around with a few of the tools out on the market before making a decision. A number of the tools listed below have a “free forever” version for a reduced amount of features and users, and some offer a free trial period of their paid plans to get a feel for them.
Remote Collaboration Software: Key Features
In regards to the main features of remote collaboration tools, here are the key features that I look for:
- Ease of Integrations: As your organization will have all sorts of data spread across a number of different apps, you’ll want a remote collaboration tool that pulls from these automatically instead of dealing with the pains of importing and exporting data manually.
- Project Management: All these tools in this list have some sort of project management aspect. Some are highly customizable with a steeper learning curve, while others take a simpler approach with less customization.
What Do You Think About This List?
This list is just a few of the many remote collaboration software systems that exist on the market to help you collaborate with your distributed team. Whether you’re a small organization working on small projects with a few remote workers, or a large enterprise with a remote team spread out across the world, at least one of these remote team collaboration tools will work for you.
As mentioned, many do feature a free forever version with limited users or features, along with free trials of paid plans (no credit card required), so if you need to get a better feel, you may want to play around with some of the tools available.
For more on hybrid working and best practices, check out our following articles:
- 6 Hard-Learned Lessons For Adapting To A Hybrid Working Model
- 27 Best Practices For Managing Remote Teams
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