Collaboration is no longer an optional need; it has become a key element of today’s businesses. Especially when you look at the increasingly social aspect of business (think about places like Facebook, Twitter, and much more), collaboration is becoming even more important for businesses.
The trend towards faster decision-making by many companies has ensured that this will continue to be important in the future as well. So, here are the best c;oud collaboration tools out there.
Dropbox Business
Dropbox, launched in 2008, is one of the leading cloud services today, with 500 million users. However, Dropbox and its users fell victim to a big data theft in 2012. The service learned its lesson, though, and upgraded its security. Dropbox also invented and perfected block-level sync, and its speed is one of the best.
When you start using Dropbox Business, you’ll get a central team folder and all your employees have access to it. You can create subfolders and give access to individuals or groups. Users can also share by generating links. You can protect links with passwords, set expiry dates or restrict them only to team members.
There’s just one native productivity application, Dropbox Paper, but Dropbox Business is a partner with Microsoft Office, therefore Office Online integrates by default. With it you can view office files, however, if you want to edit, you will need a Microsoft Office 365 subscription. Besides that, there are third-party integrations for communication, workflow management, and others.
There are two plans for small businesses, Best Cloud Storage for Collaboration in 2021. Both charge per user and require a minimum of three users. You can pay monthly — $15 and $25, respectively — or per year, in which case you get a discount. Standard offers 2TB of shared space, while Advanced offers unlimited storage. There’s also a free trial which allows you to try the service for 30 days before paying.
Pros:
- Fast block-level sync
- Good file-sharing features
- User-friendly experience
Cons:
- Limited reporting features
- No 24/7 live support
Best for Working With Databases
Airtables amd Smartsheet
Two apps on this list specialize in changing the way you manage and interact with relational databases. They are Airtable and Smartsheet.
Before the word “database” turns you away, just know that Airtable is an entirely approachable collaboration tool with a variety of uses. You can set it up to manage information, such as an editorial calendar, or any kind of collection, such as inventory or a personal vinyl record collection. You can use it to track and monitor work as it goes through a process or workflow, where a piece of work moves from one person to another for edits or approvals and so forth. It’s surprisingly easy to use, highly customizable, and downright versatile.
Smartsheet is another app that lets you work with relational databases, though it’s a bit beefier than Airtable. At PCMag, we actually cross-list Smartsheet under project management software because it can do that, too. What makes Smartsheet powerful, however, is its support for automations, something like “when X occurs, do Y.” For example, “when new information comes in through a client intake form, alert the team manager and automatically assign the junior team member a task to follow up with the new client within three days.” Using this example, you can set up a rule in Smartsheet so that as soon as a client intake form arrives, the rest happens automatically. When you automate rote tasks, it saves the entire team time that they can spend on more important work.
Trello is one of the easiest collaboration tools to use, making it a great choice for many teams.
Best for Kanban
Trello, Asana, Zoho Projects, Teamwork, and even Todoist
Kanban is a system for working used in a variety of fields, though it’s especially popular among software developers and other kinds of technical workers. Without explaining kanban too deeply, it uses a board and cards on that board to represent tasks or ideas. The board contains columns, and each column is (usually) a stage or step in the work process. So you might have a board with the columns To Do, Doing, Done. You write down all the tasks that need to be done and put them into the To Do column. When you start a task (symbolized by a card that contains the task name and other details about it), you move its card to the Doing column. When you finish, you put the card in the Done column.
Trello is one of the friendliest kanban tools on the market. Anyone can sign up for an account and start using it quickly. It isn’t especially feature-rich out of the box, but with a paid account you can choose Powerups, or add-on features, to make it more powerful.
Many collaboration apps have started adding kanban views so that you always have the option to work in kanban if you want. Asana, Zoho Projects, Teamwork, and even Todoist all have some kind of board feature now.
Google Drive
Pros:
- Google Docs integration
- Huge third-party app library
- Price plan flexibility
Cons:
- Weak content control
- No block-level sync
Simple, easy to use and aimed at home users, Google Drive boasts 800 million users, in no small part thanks to the integration with Google’s productivity suite, Google Docs.
Docs suite includes apps for word processing, spreadsheet and presentation. With those, it’s easy to collaborate in real-time with others. You can suggest edits, make comments, rollback to previous versions of the document and see what changes others made. Google has a vast community of developers and so its third-party library has a lot of applications, as well.
It’s easy to share with Google Drive, but there’s room for improvement as it doesn’t offer content control features like expiry dates or links. You can send your link by email or set up an access link. Google Drive is fast enough to allow for good collaboration. It could improve with the addition of block-level sync, however.
Google’s privacy has been somewhat in question because it was linked to the PRISM project. Still, Google denies giving access to the NSA. It also scans your personal files to give you personalized ads, custom search, etc. We recommend you use Boxcryptor if that is a concern (read our Boxcryptor review for more on this handy program).
Other Reasons Why We Like Google Drive
Privacy aside, Google Drive encrypts your files by AES-128 encryption while they are stored server side. It also protects you against stolen passwords using two-factor authentication.
Google is great when it comes to collaboration but it could improve its security, sync capabilities and sharing. If you want to know more, read our Google Drive review.
Box
Pros:
- Office Online & Google Docs
- Unlimited storage plan
Cons:
- No block-level sync
- No annual discount
Box lets you share links with other licensed users without restriction, but if you have proper permissions you can share outside your organization. You can send an invite by email, or generate a link and then send it. With Box, there’s good content control, because you can set expiry dates and password protect links.
There’s one native application called Box Notes, and it’s among the best note-taking apps. Since there are no other native apps, Box compensates with a sizeable library of third-party solutions. It integrates well with both Google Docs and Office 365.
Box has the same sync-folder model pioneered by Dropbox, and it’s initial upload speeds are pretty good. It doesn’t have block-level sync so it’s subsequent uploads are slower compared to solutions that do offer it.
Box’s Best Cloud Storage for Collaboration in 2021 are fair. With a price of $5 per month (they all charge per month), the Starter plan is the cheapest one. It offers only 100GB, which is not much for most businesses. The most popular plan, Business, gives you unlimited storage for $15. Business plus costs $25, and it gives more features in addition to all those in the Business plan.
Other Reasons Why We Like Box
Box doesn’t save on the security measures, it protects against man-in-the-middle attacks and your data is protected by AES-256 encryption while stored. Box even wraps your key with that same level of AES, which is a nice addition to its security arsenal.
There are lots of features that we like, but sync could be faster and pricing plans could offer more value. Read our Box review if you want to know more.
Egnyte Connect
Pros:
- Good integrations
- Fast block-level sync
- Affordable pricing
Cons:
- No Linux support
- Minimum of five users
Egnyte does well when it comes to sharing, as befitting our top pick among the best EFSS providers and earning a spot on our best cloud storage for teams list, too.
You can give four types of access when sharing a folder — owner, full, editor and viewer — to both groups and individuals. You can generate a link to share over social media or send by email. Control over generated links is great since you can use password protection, expiry dates, get a notification when a file is accessed and even restrict downloads.
It’s interesting to note that it offers native productivity options, unlike many of the other services we mention here. You can set tasks on files and then audit them in the “my tasks” tab. Like Box, it also integrates with both Google Docs and Microsoft Office (see our Egnyte vs Box comparison). Microsoft options include the free Office Online app and Office 365 for desktop.
Egnyte performs a little slower than expected during initial uploads. When uploading existing files — pretty important when collaborating — it’s pretty fast, though. That’s thanks to its block-level sync algorithm.
There are no individual plans in Egnyte’s arsenal. Office is the least expensive plan, for $40 per month you can have a minimum of five users. Since it offers 5TB of storage space, this plan is very good in terms of overall value.
With the Business plan, you get 10TB of space, advanced role customization and hybrid cloud storage, if you need to store some data in the cloud and some on a local server. The Business plan will cost you $15 per user, with a minimum of 25 users.
Other Reasons Why We Like Egnyte Connect
To protect you against cybercrime, Egnyte uses AES 256-bit encryption before uploading your files. It’s not zero-knowledge though, because it decrypts your files in order to read metadata before re-encrypting.
You can set minimum password strength and 2FA. If you want to learn more about Best Cloud Storage for Collaboration in 2021, go ahead and read our detailed Egnyte review.
OneDrive for Business
Pros:
- Office Online
- Affordable
- Fast sync for Microsoft Office Docs
Cons:
- No third-party app integrations
- Limited support
OneDrive for Business is Microsoft’s answer to business demands in cloud storage. Microsoft also offers a regular, stripped down version for consumers, which you can read about in our OneDrive review.
You can share content by email or generate a link that points to the folder or file. Users can restrict access to specific individuals and can set expiry dates, as well. There’s no way to create link passwords, though. You can see what content you’ve shared in the “sharing” column, but it’s not very convenient if there are lots of entries.
Since this is a Microsoft service, it’s integrated with Office Online. If you go for one of the Office 365 plans, you’ll get the desktop versions of the Office apps. You can use the library to integrate with paid and free non-Microsoft productivity tools. Still, you can’t search through the library like with some other services, and that makes finding the right tool difficult.
Initial file uploads and downloads are practically the same as with other services. The service sometimes lags when uploading changes made to files, because, you guessed it, there’s no block-level sync. Well, there is block-level sync for Office files, but only those. An interesting feature is the ability to block sync a certain type of file.
OneDrive for Business has a good variety of plans. Finding the right one may prove difficult since there are separate pricing plans for OneDrive for Business and Office 365. You can buy separate Office 365 and Business plans for a lower price than the more expensive Business plans that include Office 365, though you will not get all the productivity apps.
OneDrive for Best Cloud Storage for Collaboration in 2021 offers 1TB per user for $5. With OneDrive for Business Plan 2 you get unlimited storage and data-loss protection for $10 per user per month. Office 365 Business Premium gives you access to Office 365 as well as 24/7 phone and web support, and a host of other services. It costs $15 per month per user.
Conclusion
When it comes to cloud collaboration, each of us has a different idea of the best tools that we’d like to use. One person may prefer a particular editor or a drawing tool, while another will want a database along with a drawing tool. Obviously, you can divide up your needs from collaboration software by groups. Free-form text editor, database software and diagramming/drawing/flowcharting application are the three main categories.