10 Best Team Communication Apps for Hybrid Teams in 2023

Troop Messenger is a team communication app that helps teams chat or call each other, host audio or video meetings, and collaborate on projects. Their communication software is available in several service modules: as a SaaS (software-as-a-service) subscription, as an on-premise product that you self-host, or in a customized version for clients requiring specific configurations, such as those in government, defense, intelligence, or law enforcement agencies.

Why I picked Troop Messenger: Troop Messenger packs a full set of features into its well-priced software. Several unique offerings include their “respond later” feature, a “self-message” feature where you can send yourself to-do list items without needing to change apps, and their “forkout” feature that facilitates sending bulk messages to a large volume of users or groups simultaneously. 

For super sensitive discussions, you can use their “burnout” feature, which is a private chat window with a predefined timer. You and the recipient can have a quick confidential conversation, and once the time limit is reached, the text message vanishes forever to protect sensitive information. 

Troop Messenger Standout Features & Integrations:

Features include 1:1 messaging, group chats, audio messaging, self-messaging, flagging, a read indicator, an emoji board for message reactions, a message recall function that permanently deletes messages on both ends, a group profile log, group calling, screensharing, video meetings, @mentions, notifications, a mute conversation function, a searchable chat history, advanced filters, end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, and bio-metric system access via fingerprint or face recognition systems. 

Integrations include DropBox, Google Drive and Zapier. 

Staffbase is an employee communications management platform that gives organizations the flexibility to communicate instantly with the entire company, or with more specific, targeted groups. On the recipient side, employees receive a steady stream of digital communications, mobile news, and alerts directly within Staffbase’s internal communications app. 

Why I picked Staffbase: Their team communication software includes advanced features specifically designed for in-house communication teams. For example, their editorial calendar feature helps communication teams proactively plan, prioritize, and schedule their content in advance, within a flexible interface that all communication team members can access. From there, you can create campaigns for specific strategic initiatives to help support your organization’s goals. Once your campaigns are ready to go, you can publish the same communication across multiple channels, all from within a consolidated team dashboard. 

Their built-in analytics engine automatically generates an engagement report for each communication post in real time. This helps communication managers track which employee groups are engaging with different content types the most. There’s also a built-in resend feature that sends targeted notifications to any employee who overlooked your content when it initially came out, to make sure no one misses a crucial message. 

Staffbase also includes a message translation feature, which is a big plus for multinational and multilingual workforces too. 

Staffbase Standout Features & Integrations:

Features include email and push notifications, news and social feeds, custom branding, message personalization and targeting, content creation tools, an editorial calendar, campaign planning tools, automated communication, two-way communication and chat, an employee directory, employee surveys, auto-translations, and communication analytics.  

Integrations include Active Directory, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft SharePoint. 

Slack is a flexible and fun communication platform that works well for teams of any size, including remote and distributed teams. I can say this with absolute certainty, since I personally use it on a daily basis to communicate with my team. 

Why I picked Slack: Their user interface is intuitive and easy to use, with lots of flexible features. You can set up individual channels for specific purposes (such as topics, teams or departments), send direct messages privately to individual co-workers, or create group chats as needed too. It’s also easy to embed file links, images, and gifs etc., to make collaboration with your team members easier. Other features that help with team collaboration include integrated video conferencing (called “Huddles”), which includes screen sharing abilities, or simple voice calls. 

Another useful feature that I personally appreciate is the ability to tag specific co-workers in your messages with @mentions, to automatically flag them. This is a super helpful and quick way to get a response when you need one, and it’s especially useful when collaborating with team members who work asynchronously from you (i.e., in a different time zone), since they’ll see the notification whenever they login next. 

Slack Standout Features & Integrations:

Features include unlimited channels, instant messaging, group messaging, video calls, audio calls, file sharing, accessibility controls, a searchable message history, user access permissions, data encryption, multimedia support, and a whole library of fun emojis to keep team morale high.

Integrations include over 2,400 apps available through Slack’s App Directory, including popular work systems like Adobe Creative Cloud, Dropbox, HubSpot, GitHub, Google Workspace, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Webex Meetings, Zoom, and many, many others. Slack also has an API that you can use to integrate any custom internal tools you might be using too.

Spike is a conversational email platform that transforms your regular inbox into a more collaborative, chat-like experience. It helps teams stay productive by eliminating email formalities and centralizing collaboration features like email, chat, calls, docs, task management, schedules, events, notes, and calendars all in one place, synced across all your devices. 

Why I picked Spike: Their approach to team collaboration is unique, transforming your traditional inbox into a more interactive experience. Instead of a static inbox, Spike gives you three different conversation modes to choose from: People Mode organizes your messages by contact, Subject Mode organizes messages by subject line (much like Gmail’s threaded conversations feature), and Inbox Mode organizes things more traditionally, if you really want to stay old school in your approach. 

Spike also removes low-priority messages from your main conversation feeds automatically, and puts them into a separate inbox. These messages, typically a long list of company newsletters and product updates, can be reviewed at a later date, and easily deleted in bulk to save you more time. 

Spike Standout Features & Integrations:

Features include group chat, conversational emails, collaborative notes, a collaborative to-do list for task management, an integrated calendar, in-line RSVPs, video meetings, audio meetings, bulk actions, real-time messaging, a quick reply feature, a read indicator, keyboard shortcuts, light and dark themes, data encryption, notifications and a snooze option, customizable swipes, a “send later” feature to pre-schedule messages, multimedia messaging, text-to-speech, voice messages, built-in translation tools, note-taking abilities, and file storage. 

Integrations include Apple Calendar, Dropbox, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Microsoft Outlook, OneDrive, and many email providers.

Flock is a team communication and collaboration app that helps teams organize conversations and work productively together. You can organize individual communication channels for key topics or specific projects, to keep conversations focused. 

Why I picked Flock: In addition to chat, Flock supports in-app voice and video conferencing without the need to schedule meetings and send invitations through your calendar. Flock also offers the ability to pre-record a voice note and share it with your colleagues. This is helpful since sometimes tone of voice can be hard to interpret through exclusively text-based group chats, whereas a voice communication can help clarify or emphasize key points more effectively. 

You can also use Flock’s Me Channel as your own private information repository without needing to switch to a different app. Within your Me Channel, you can take private notes, save links, add reminders, save voice recordings and create to-do lists to keep yourself organized. 

Flock Standout Features & Integrations:

Features include focused chat channels (private and public), direct messages, video conferencing, voice notes, real-time file sharing, shared notes, to-do lists, reminders, polls, advanced search, a company directory, user authentication, and 24/7 customer support. 

Integrations include 50+ popular software systems such as Asana, Code Snippets, Crashlytics, Freshdesk, Giphy, Google Drive, Jenkins, OpsGenie, Pingdom, Poll, Runscope, Todoist, Trello, Zoho CRM, Zoom, and others. 

Chanty’s team chat app helps teams organize their communication streams and stay focused on their tasks. Their app features public conversation channels that anyone can join, as well as private conversations that are by invitation only, and direct messages for one-to-one conversations. 

Why I picked Chanty: Their app includes all the standard features you’d expect from a team communication app, including the ability to tag team members with @mentions, pin important messages for quick access later on, or share files, links, or gifs with team members easily. 

In addition, their task management features help teams stay more productive. Tasks are organized into a Kanban-style board that functions as a team-wide to-do list. Team leaders can easily assign tasks to specific team members, and set a due date and a priority level. To further help with collaboration, tasks even have a built-in “discussion” feature, that opens up a new task-related communication thread with only relevant team members included. 

To further improve productivity, Chanty allows users to control how they receive notifications to avoid constant interruptions. You can limit your notifications to only display 1:1, @mentions, or task updates during times when you’re trying to focus deeply. Or, you can set the system to Do Not Disturb or Silent Mode to prevent all notifications from coming through when you really need peace and quiet. 

Chanty Standout Features & Integrations:

Features include public and private conversations, direct messages for 1:1 conversations, group chats, audio calls, video calls, pre-recorded voice messages, pinned messages, file sharing, an activity timeline, task management tools, a kanban board for team tasks, due dates, priority tags, task-based discussions, multimedia content sharing, @mentions to tag team members, user permission settings, the ability to share code snippets, and 24/7 customer support.

Integrations include Asana, Bitbucket, Dropbox, Giphy, GitLab, Gmail, Google Drive, Jira, Mailchimp, One Drive, Slack, Trello, and Zapier.

Mattermost is an integrated collaboration platform that combines team messaging with project management and collaboration tools. Their software is purpose-built for technical teams, with apps for iOS and Android mobile devices, as well as desktop versions for Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems. 

Why I picked Mattermost: Their app acts as a consolidated information collaboration hub for technical teams, such as developers, programmers, and other digital operations specialists. Teams can set up thematic chat channels for group messaging, or host video meetings, initiate voice calls, or share files. 

More advanced collaboration features, specifically for technical teams, include the ability to code collaboratively within their interface, including markdown formatting, and syntax highlighting, with direct integrations with other technical platforms like GitHub, Jira and ServiceNow. Mattermost also supports technical actions and workflow automations using slash commands, bots, and other features to streamline repetitive tasks. Plus, their screensharing feature helps facilitate better collaboration between team members too. 

Mattermost is also built on an open-source platform, meaning technical teams can customize the application to suit their specific workflows and other requirements as needed. 

Mattermost Standout Features & Integrations:

Features include unlimited channels, unlimited teams, unlimited messages, 1:1 and group messaging, screensharing with audio, audio calls, a continuous message archive that’s searchable, file sharing, automations, slash commands & bot integrations, and Rich Markdown formatting and code snippets.

Integrations include a combination of native integrations, plugins, webhooks and APIs. Key integrations to note include CircleCI, Confluence, GitLab, Jenkins, Jira, ServiceNow, Zendesk, and Zoom. 

Workvivo is an employee experience platform that combines communication features and employee engagement tools within a social intranet style of platform. It was designed to act as the heart of your organization, with tools to collect feedback and give every employee a voice. 

Why I picked Workvivo: Through Workvivo’s central hub, employees can access company news, corporate documents, and a staff directory, or engage directly with colleagues through chats and shout-outs. Employees can also link company values to the communications they share, helping to strengthen your company culture. 

Workvivo supports numerous forms of communication, including social posts, comments, newsletters, podcasts, and livestream video calls, all accessible from mobile devices for teams on the go. Their platform also includes advanced engagement analytics to help you see which communications are the most successful on the receiving end. 

Workvivo Standout Features & Integrations:

Features include a personalized activity feed, company news and events, push notifications, crisis communication tools, live video streaming, multimedia interactions, podcast hosting tools, a dynamic staff directory with direct communication tools, public kudos and shoutouts, employee feedback tools (surveys, pulse checks, and polls), and engagement analytics.

Integrations include Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Slack, Workday, Zoom, and others. 

Empuls is an employee engagement and social intranet platform with a robust employee communication app that keeps employees connected with their teams from anywhere. Their user-friendly mobile app is an extension of their core platform.

Why I picked Empuls: Their team communication app captures the best features of their core platform, including a mobile social intranet, an engaging employee portal, and tools to recognize and reinforce peer achievements through a fun, social media-style interface with hi-gives, awards, and badges. 

In addition, Empuls allows employees to earn reward points for sharing peer-to-peer recognition publicly, to motivate productivity and improve team morale. These points are tracked on a publicly visible leaderboard, and can be redeemed for a number of prizes through their reward catalog with 20,000+ options to choose from.

Empuls Standout Features & Integrations:

Features include group chats, company news and updates, pending task reminders, contests and polls, employee surveys, peer-to-peer recognition, award nominations, a points-based reward system and leaderboard, public praise through hi-fives, comments and emojis.

Integrations include Azure Active Directory, BambooHR, Darwinbox, Google Workspace, Gusto, Keka, Microsoft Teams, Okta, OneLogin, Ping Identity, SAP SuccessFactors, and others. 

SnapComms is an employee communications platform that helps organizations capture their employees' attention through a variety of different communication formats. Their system is well-suited for internal communications from HR or IT departments, as well as emergency communications that require immediate attention. 

Why I picked SnapComms: Their platform supports team communication in a variety of different formats, including desktop alerts, ticker messages, screensaver or wallpaper announcements, lock screen messages, newsletters, quizzes, or surveys. For urgent notifications, their high-impact alert pop-ups take over an employee’s screen, ensuring they cannot miss it. To communicate with teams less intrusively, ticker messages run along the bottom of a computer screen, without interrupting your employee’s workflow needlessly. In addition to their screensaver-style messaging, SnapComms also offers digital signage software to create eye-catching visual displays in key locations.

Their branded team communication app makes it easy to connect with remote staff and frontline workers alike. Through the app, employees can read the latest company news, access the company directory, or message directly with team members in real-time. SnapComms also helps organizations collect employee feedback through their interactive sentiment surveys or post-training quizzes. 

SnapComms Standout Features & Integrations:

Features include a variety of alert notification formats, emergency communication tools, 60+ communication templates, two-way communication, team messaging channels, company news & events, social messaging, employee feedback surveys, quizzes, and a branded mobile app. 

Integrations include Google Workspace and Slack.