15 Best Online Collaboration Tools For Teams In 2023

monday.com is a collaboration and task management software that has been topping charts for best task management apps since it won the 2019 Webby Award for productivity platform. Its simplistic design and user-friendly features make collaborating within, and between, teams easy.

Why I picked monday.com: With this platform, you have one too many ways to collaborate. Its shared documents allow users to co-create meeting minutes, brainstorm, and engage with others in the team. The platform also has mentions and comments that promote team discussions around certain tasks and call on each other for input. And, if required, people can add attachments to tasks, instead of relying on emails. Everything related to the project can live in one place.

Additionally, monday.com has a whiteboard product called Workcanvas where you and your team can easily create mind maps, presentations, and workflows, and engage in real-time multiplayer activities.

monday.com Standout Features & Integrations

Features include project management, task scheduling/tracking, resource management, scheduling, budgeting, calendar management, Gantt charts, file sharing, time management, email integration, third-party plugins, and notifications.

Integrations include apps like Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Zoom, Typeform, and many more, accessible via Zapier.

They offer a free plan for up to 2 users.

Wrike is an award-winning, easy-to-use collaborative work management software trusted by 20,000+ organizations worldwide. It's suitable for teams of anywhere from five to an unlimited number. The tool is highly configurable and allows users to customize workflows, dashboards, reports, request forms, and more.

Why I picked Wrike: Its simple interface enables users to chat in real-time, and offers threaded messages and @ mentions for ease of communication. Wrike also features task lists, subtasks, calendars, shared workflows, and file sharing. Within Wrike, teams can share and assign tasks, have in-task discussions, and share and proof digital files together.

Wrike has an easy-to-use, intuitive interface and navigation with distinct spaces, folders, and tasks. Toggle quickly between the home screen and timesheets, dashboards, calendars, reports, and an activity stream. The tool also offers a variety of specific solutions depending on the type of team or organization — including marketing teams and professional service teams.

Wrike Standout Features & Integrations

Features include project management, task scheduling/tracking, resource management, expense tracking, API, budgeting, Gantt charts, marketing automations, collaboration support, and reporting.

Integrations include 400+ pre-built native integrations, including integrations with the most popular file management software from Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox, along with sales and marketing software from Salesforce and Marketo.

There are four different price points, including a free version and plans which offer the ability to invite free external collaborators to a paid account.

Confluence is a remote-friendly online workspace for team project collaboration, project management, and knowledge management. It allows for efficient access and flow of project-related information, giving remote teams the ability to collaborate, store and organize documents, and maintain project updates using a single unified platform.

Why I picked Confluence: It enables users to share relevant knowledge while managing communications for the entire organization by configuring various role-based permissions for user feedback and collaborator/contributor content.

Confluence is built on a simple structure of spaces and pages. Its pages are dynamic documents that enable users to create, edit, and discuss work-related knowledge and processes. The software also provides a workspace; i.e., a flexible area that features different pages for projects, teams, and departments. Its Macro feature is designed to enable users to incorporate interactivity into the pages for added functionality.

To deliver efficient and useful online collaboration tools for teams, Confluence enables real-time editing and co-authoring. It comes with a built-in page versioning feature that allows users to track the history of changes made to every page. This allows them to view changes and compare multiple versions or revert the changes. The software enables users to post in-line and page comments.

Confluence Standout Features & Integrations

Features include project management, data & document storage, powerful search capabilities, mobile support, collaboration, permission & access management, version history, and third-party integrations/add-ons. 

Integrations include other Atlassian products, including Jira Software, and Jira Service Management. It also connects with third-party tools like Jira, Slack, Trello, Google Drive, Zoom, and Microsoft Office. Additionally, Confluence has a marketplace where you can find other plugins and add-ons to extend its functionality.

A free plan is available for up to 10 users.

Developed by HR Cloud, Workmates is a cloud-based employee engagement software meant for startups and small businesses. This solution is designed to help build a corporate culture for different work environments, including the office, field, and remote work settings.

Employees can engage with each other, and their clients or admins can create directories to search for information about their colleagues. Employees can even nominate each other for recognition. It is also possible to store other information on a centralized shared repository that employees can freely access to further improve collaboration. It is hosted on the cloud and can be accessed anywhere via desktop, web, or mobile device.

Some other standout features include chat and messaging functionalities that allow team members to communicate with each other and access work-related contact details. Other relevant features for online collaboration include a centralized newsfeed, push notifications, calendar and productivity tool integrations, and real-time reports.

Workmates offers users seamless integration with different collaboration applications, including Google Suite, Slack, and Yammer, and also allows for on-the-go use through the Workmates app for Android and iPhone devices. If you’re interested in using the employee collaboration feature, you can contact the vendor to book a free demo or ask about any available subscription options.

Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-based project management software that helps you manage projects, automate processes and scale up to enterprise-level programs and portfolios.

Why I picked Smartsheet: It has collaboration features that make it a fit for almost any team, but especially a creative, content, design, or marketing team that needs to collaborate on content. For instance, you can use the “Forms” feature which offers the ability to create and customize forms to collect essentially any data from anyone in a structured format—you could use it for collecting information, including images and files, from clients in order to make briefs, for example.

For teams searching for lots of different files, Smartsheet offers searchable databases, multiple viewing options to see tasks, cards, files (etc). You’ll find version control, and proofing and approval workflows to help your team move work through the pipeline.

The tool is also easy to share, even with outside users. It has permission-based access which allows you to set permission levels to Owner, Admin, Editor, and Viewer. Similarly, you can create portals that give you customized views of your projects depending on what you want to track for each one.

Smartsheet Standout Features & Integrations

Features include member notifications of critical changes in real-time, shared views, detail history, activity logs, automated alerts, reminder, and status reports to keep everyone aligned and informed. There are content collaboration features like pinned feedback, approvals, and annotations that make it easier to collaborate on creative work.

Integrations include Microsoft and Google apps, as well as development essentials like Jira, and useful business apps like Salesforce, servicenow, Slack, Box, and Tableau. The platform is extensible through a REST API and webhooks.

ClickUp is a project management app where you can plan, track, and manage any type of work regardless of geographical location and using any device.

Why I picked ClickUp: This is a platform that puts a lot of thinking into what they develop. One of the most recent updates includes an in-app video recording tool that can help any team member record their screen, share a link to the video, and requires no downloads. The opportunity to collaborate in ClickUp includes comments, mentions, notifications, collaborative documents, whiteboards, and task management.

Task management features include task checklists, subtasks, reminders, priorities, and task templates, as well as the ability to filter, sort, search for, easily reorder, and view tasks in the manner most convenient for the team. Users can also create Gantt charts, calendars, and timelines to visualize tasks. ClickUp includes time tracking as well, both through integrations and natively.

ClickUp features color-coding for further organization and clarity, as well as multiple task views such as lists, calendars, Gantt charts, Kanban boards, and more.

Reporting features include the ability to create custom dashboards, as well as six built-in report types for team reporting.

ClickUp Standout Features & Integrations

Features include task scheduling/tracking, project management, resource management, budgeting, contact management, data visualizations, employee database, expense tracking, file sharing, third-party plugins, collaboration support, timesheets, roadmapping, chat, customer management, email integration, feedback management, and process reporting.

Integrations include native connections with Slack, G Suite, Dropbox, and many more tools, as well as over 1,000+ integrations through Zapier.

ClickUp's free plan is robust and includes all primary features.

Lucidspark is a virtual whiteboard for real-time collaboration where your team comes together to bring ideas to life.

Why I picked Lucidspark: It lets leverage the power of visual collaborative in the ideation by using sticky notes, shapes and freehand sketches to help remote and hybrid team get their ideas down on an infinite canvas.

Voting sessions, commenting, and in-product chat let you track feedback in real time and move projects forward the execution phase quickly—while creating a living artificact of ideation that your business can use as a blueprint for future projects.

Lucidspark Standout Features & Integrations

Features include breakout boards, an in-app chat, sticky notes, emojis, abuilt-in timer, color-coded cursors, shapes, voting, the ability to bring everyone to a point on the canvas, and an infinite workspace for you and your team to create.

Integrations include apps like Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Loom, Google apps, Notion, Confluence and more, Lucidspark is ideal for all types work—including agile and project planning, customer journey mapping, UX research, strategic analysis, and more.

Lucidspark has a free version available for individual users.

Zoho Projects is the award-winning project management tool from Zoho. Zoho Projects truly stands out is its rich collaboration features sprinkled all across the interface.

Why I picked Zoho Projects: The tool supports all levels of collaboration in various contexts. Be it completely open discussions with the interactive project/portal feed and discussion forums, or closed groups on chat, Zoho Projects covers everything to do with collaboration and more. With the documents feature, users can collaborate and create files, edit them and keep a history of versions as well.

The UI is straightforward with all modules on the left panel. Fields where commenting and annotating are possible are clearly marked with fields and prompts. The interface and modules are highly customizable. All aspects of the UI from theme colors to arrangement and visibility of the various modules can be changed to suit a user's preferences. Zoho projects also offers free onboarding for its customers and a comprehensive online help guide for all users.

Zoho Projects stands out in cases where there are multiple hand-offs involved. With Blueprints, users can create and automate workflows, notifications and escalations. The tool is trusted by over three million users and hundreds of big brands across the globe.

Zoho Projects Standout Features & Integrations

Features include Gantt charts, project discussions, file management with version control, task automation, resource utilization capabilities, and highly customizable dashboards

Integrations. Being part of Zoho's ecosystem allows Projects to connect to several of Zoho's own services, such as Zoho Books, Zoho CRM and Zoho's finance suite. The new Zoho marketplace allows 3rd party integrations as well.

Its freemium version is available for up to 3 users for 2 projects. No credit card information required.

Kintone is a customizable collaboration tool used by teams at Volvo Trucks North America, Japan Airlines, Shiseido, and over 23,000 organizations worldwide.

Why I picked Kintone: Their unique platform allows you to build a wide variety of customizable no-code “apps” either from scratch, using templates or from your existing spreadsheets, for data management, business processes, and workflows. Kintone apps are not only customizable but they allow you to communicate where the data lives so your team is always on the same page.

Kintone Team Space feature lets you start conversations with your team. You can create different spaces for different projects or teams, which keeps your conversations relevant. Pretty much like conversations within tasks, every project data record within Kintone has its comment section where you can mention team members which helps add context to your conversations.

There are so many ways to customize Kintone it can be hard to know where to start. Read the starter blog “What Can You Build with Kintone?” or watch Creating an App from Scratch for a quick look at how the drag-and-drop builder works.

Kintone Standout Features & Integrations

Features include project management, dashboards, resource management, analytics, calendar management, conversion tracking, employee onboarding, forecasting, lead scoring, timesheets, collaboration support, reports, pipeline management, budgeting, and process modeling.

Integrations include tools like Slack, Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, Tableau, Dropbox, Salesforce, HubSpot, Eventbrite, WordPress, QuickBooks, MailChimp, and many more through a paid plan with Zapier or via API integrations.

Kintone offers discounted prices for nonprofits and educators. Its team also offers a free custom app build as part of the free trial process.

Troop Messenger is a team collaboration and instant messaging app that allows people of in-house/remote to have transparent office communication through quite an advanced feature stack.

Why I picked Troop Messenger: Overall this tool does a standout job with its feature offering and hits all of the criteria I look for in a collaboration tool, plus more. The main features include instant messaging, voice-video calling, video conferencing, file sharing, and desktop sharing.

But something I find especially useful in this tool are its more advanced features that really enhance the day-to-day user experience. I like both the 'respond later' option as well as the 'burnout' option which lets you set a message to send at a later time. The self-messaging feature is also unique—a simple but useful feature that lets you send reminders and notes to yourself. The 'forkout' feature lets you send bulk text messages and files to multiple users at once, and when viewing files you see a preview so you don't have to download to see them.

Troop Messenger Standout Features & Integrations

Features include one-on-one messaging, audio messages, broadcast messaging, attachments, group chats, and group calling.

Integrations include many native and third-party integration such as employee monitoring and tracking apps, attendance management systems, Google Drive, Dropbox, and LDAP. It's available across Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, and iOS.

It's worth noting that although it’s a SaaS model, it offers the delivery models of self-hosting, API, and custom application.

Forecast is a project management and collaboration tool that allows users to manage projects, resources, and finances, and includes capabilities for managing entire portfolios and single project milestones or tasks.

Why I picked Forecast: Forecast includes a task list feature that displays priorities for each team member. Users can also create task cards where team members can comment, share files, and register time. Task cards also include accessible information on dependencies and subtasks.

Forecast’s AI capabilities include timesheet suggestions based on historical data, as well automatic estimates for task durations, resource assignments, and more. Workflow automations are also available.

Forecast Standout Features & Integrations

Features include batch permissions & access, budgeting, billing/invoicing, calendar management, contact management, customer management, dashboards, data export, data import, data visualization, expense tracking, external integrations, file transfer, forecasting, Gantt charts, multi-currency, notifications, status notifications, and reports.

Integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, iCloud Calendar, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Outlook, Harvest, Trello, Asana, GitLab, Github, and dozens more using a paid plan through Zapier. Higher-tier subscriptions include native integrations with Timelog, Xero, QuickBooks Online, JIRA, Azure DevOps, Salesforce, Okta, OneLogin, and Azure Active Directory.

MeisterTask is an intuitive online task management tool that uses smart integrations and automation. T

Why I picked MeisterTask: The tool has Kanban-style project boards that you can customize to fit your team's workflow or any agile workflow, including classic project and task management workflows, as well as software sprints.

Other features include Gantt chart style timelines, automation, comments and mentions, statistics and reports, and an agenda feature that lets users create their own personal dashboards to which tasks from any project can be pinned and organized.

MeisterTask Standout Features & Integrations

Features include project management, scheduling, task scheduling/tracking, time management, bug tracking, resource management, collaboration support, workflow management, 2-factor authentication, anti-virus, API, batch permissions & access, calendar management, contact management, contact sharing, CRM integration, customer management, dashboards, data export, data import, data visualization, email integration, external integrations, file sharing, firewall multi-user, notifications, campaign management, and reports. 

Integrations include Google Workspace, Slack, and GitHub — in addition to over two thousand applications via Zapier.

Evernote provides a place to store everything from personal moments to business projects. This notes and tasks app has a dedicated collaboration tool called “Spaces” that acts as a central source of information, a data-sharing hub, and a messaging/communication space.

Why I picked Evernote: The app auto-syncs across all your devices, including desktops, smartphones, and tablets. Your ideas, photos, and clipped pages are always available, regardless of where your team is physically located. Every member of a space has access to everything kept there, so information is accessible for all.

Their virtual bulletin board is another cool feature, allowing users to make announcements across the whole team. You can also create your own custom templates, save emails to Evernote, link Google Drive files, annotate PDFs, and scan and digitize business cards.

Evernote for Mac and Windows supports up to 5 different accounts of any type (at least one must be Premium or Business); Evernote for iOS and Android supports one personal account and one business account.

Evernote Standout Features & Integrations

Features include to-do lists, search on handwritten notes, a web clipper, task management, templates, and a document scanner.

Integrations include Google Drive, Outlook, Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.

Evernote's basic plan is free and allows 60 MB of new uploads/month and syncing across 2 devices.

Blink is a communication tool for the unique needs of deskless workers, who, until now, didn’t have the same quality technology as their colleagues in HQ. Blink requires no technical knowledge to get started or to invite colleagues to the platform.

Why I picked Blink: Blink is built around the concept of workplace messaging as the central functionality, so peer-to-peer direct messaging, group chats, and top-down communications via the company feed all play an important role. Moderators and admins who post in the company feed also have the option of turning on and off push notification for each post depending on importance.

Analytics for admins features prominently through the app: post-by-post analytics, Org-wide, and Team analytics within the Admin Portal, and Hub analytics that measure interactions and adoption within the document storage and reporting section of the app.

Its user-friendly, brandable interface is designed with familiar social media style features (think emojis and like buttons) that encourage engagement from employees—even less tech-savvy ones.

Blink Standout Features & Integrations

Features include workplace messaging, a social media-style company Feed for top-down communications, a directory, cloud storage, workplace analytics, and polls.

Integrations with 3rd party systems include Jira, Trello, ADP, Greenroad, Jira, Office 365, and G-Suite. You can also build new integrations to your existing systems using Blink’s public APIs or simply wait until they update their marketplace as they release new integrations weekly.

Filestage is a review and approval platform used by agencies and in-house creative teams around the world. From sharing files to collecting feedback, it speeds up every step of your creative review process.

Why I picked Filestage: Feedback management is where Filestage really shines. You can invite reviewers to add comments and discuss ideas right alongside your content and create review steps to group feedback from different types of stakeholders, like Creative, Account management, and Client. Add in automated timecodes, version comparisons, annotations, and attachments, and Filestage is a great feedback platform.

Additionally, you can see every review step, file format, version, and reviewer in your project, with status indicators to show who’s approved what in a centralized dashboard. So at any stage in your creative review process, you can see exactly where things are at a glance.

Filestage Standout Features & Integrations

Features include unlimited reviewers, one-click approvals, annotations, project dashboards, file attachments, version comparisons, centralized approvals, threaded comments, mentions, and custom branding.

Integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Asana. Additionally, you can access thousands more apps through their integration partners, like Pabbly.

You can also invite an unlimited number of reviewers and external uploaders to your account for free.