The rise of remote work, collaborative apps and co-working spaces have changed the way we approach managing projects, both internally and externally. In this article, I’ll share with you the best online collaboration tools which will help to put your plan into action in order to achieve your goals.
Modern age and various unprecedented circumstances have pushed a large part of the global workforce to go mobile and/or start working from home. This transition has led to a rise in tools that allow these workers to accomplish their work tasks and remain in constant contact with their management, colleagues, and clients. Among the most popular ones have been online collaboration tools.
Not only have these tools helped facilitate normal communication among employees, but many of them have also provided handy collaboration options to better organize individual and group tasks, distribute them among individuals, keep track of their progress, and streamline the entire work process.
Without further ado, here are the best tools we discovered while scouring the online collaboration market:
1. Microsoft 365
Document collab meets UC integrationRobust and user-friendly apps Bundles for any user Microsoft Teams with UC Somewhat limited collab features
Microsoft’s collection of cloud-based office tools, known as Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office 365), is one of the most popular platforms of its kind, for more reasons than one. All the tools are easy to use, capable, and, most importantly – allow teams to collaborate in real-time on documents, from texts to spreadsheets to presentations, and more.
The appeal of Microsoft 365 is also in its accessibility on all major operating systems, including Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. Some Microsoft 365 packages include Microsoft Teams, facilitating the integration of unified communications with the common office software.
Microsoft 365’s prices depend on whether you’re a personal or business user. The former starts at $6.99/month, while the latter (now called Microsoft 365 Apps for business) is somewhat more expensive – starting at $8.25/month/user if you have a prepaid annual plan (the monthly commitment would cost you $10/month/user).
However, a more economical option is the Microsoft 365 Business Basic (formerly Office 365 Business Essentials) package, that only costs $5/month/user under the annual pricing scheme. This option doesn’t include desktop versions of Office apps, but it does include Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams services.
2. Slack
Handy collaboration tool that won’t eat up your resources Excellent service for free User-friendly and intuitive interface Isn’t heavy on resources Free version retains 10,000 messages
Slack is a popular collaboration tool that can be used on both desktop and mobile devices. Its primary function is exchanging direct messages and files between persons or inside a user group, expanded by the capability to organize chats into channels, say, for a specific project, department, company, topic, etc.
This tool stands out from the crowd thanks to its support for voice and video calling, be it through its desktop or mobile app, allowing for more direct contact when needed. There’s even your space inside the app, where you can draft messages, list your to-dos, or keep links.
This is in no way typical cloud storage but is very useful for sharing files with your colleagues (or keeping them on hand for yourself). While it lacks the cloud storage functionality, Slack can integrate with the likes of Google Drive, Box, Microsoft 365, and Dropbox. The best part? You won’t even notice it’s there if you’re not actively using it, as it doesn’t use up too much of your device’s resources.
You can use this awesome app for free with some limitations, such as the number of stored messages (up to 10,000), storage space, and so on, but no limitations on the length of time used. There are three paid plans – Standard at $6.67/month, Plus at $12.50, and Enterprise Grid with customized pricing for extra-large businesses.
3. Asana
Proven track record in the industryUS$0.99VIEW AT AMAZONUS$19.99View at UdemyUS$34.99View at LinkedIn LearningSee all prices (17 found)Complete project overview Plenty of integrations Advanced features Limited communication options
Asana is a well-known player in the collaboration field that has been offering its services for quite some time to the likes of Intel, Pinterest, TED, and Uber. There is a lot to like about Asana, as it allows companies to create and manage to-do lists for current and future projects, track their employees’ work assignments and progress, create reminders, set clear deadlines, send work requests, assign comments to posts, and more. Asana also has an integration with Microsoft Teams, Jira Server, and Zoom.
All the projects can be planned, visualized, and organized in a list, board, or calendar format, while a search option allows you to swiftly find any past task. You can get your hands on the Basic Asana package for free, with the only limitations on the file (100MB) and team size (15 members).
Paid plans include Premium at $10.99/month/user (annual subscription), Business at $24.99/month/user (billed annually), or a custom-priced Enterprise package. The Premium plan adds a timeline view, advanced search and reporting, forms, rules, milestones, and an admin console. Business introduces portfolios, custom rules builder, approvals, proofing, advanced integrations with Salesforce, Adobe Creative Cloud, Tableau, and Power BI, while the Enterprise pack throws in priority support, custom branding, data export, SAML, and SCIM.
4. Podio
Collaboration goes fully mobileCHECK AMAZONIntegrates with plenty of third-party platforms Capable mobile options Fully customizable Interface is a bit outdated
Podio is a great way to facilitate collaboration and communication among teams, allowing them to organize large projects and assign tasks. Employees can also take advantage of options like viewing ongoing projects’ status, file-sharing, and receiving feedback on current work. The platform can be used on desktop and mobile, and supports integration with services like Zendesk, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Evernote.
You can pick whether you want to be billed monthly or annually, with the latter option entailing some discounts. If you have up to five employees, you qualify for a rather limited yet free service that provides task management, apps, and workspaces.
The Basic plan, at $7.20/month/user throws in user management, as well as unlimited items and external users. At $11.20/month/user, Plus will get you a light user role, automated workflows, and read-only access. Finally, the Premium package provides a full suite of advanced features at $19.20/month/user. In addition to everything from the Plus plan, these include visual reports, contact sync, interactive sales dashboards, and advanced Workflow Orchestration by GlobiFlow. All of the prices mentioned are based on the annual pricing.
5. Ryver
Focuses on communication Beginner-friendly Handy extras Some glitches in the app
Ryver focuses primarily on providing your business with an effective way of communication, accompanied by some surprising bonuses. One of them are filters for who can see your posts in the app and join your teams. You can also save your company’s posts in the Facebook-like newsfeed, for accessing them later.
The platform is available across all major operating systems (including Mac and Linux) and allows you to create countless teams inside those apps, categorize them, and set up chats with individuals or groups.
If you have up to 12 users, Ryver can be yours for just $49/month (Starter), providing you with unlimited chat and file-sharing, task management, as well as video and voice calls. Increasing the number of users (Unlimited) also increases the price to $99/month ($79/month due to a sale at the time of writing), but also adds custom invite links. Paying $199/month ($149/month due to a sale at the time of writing) will get you the Enterprise account with single sign-on (SSO), testing sandbox, advanced team management, and premium support.
If you’re unsure about whether or not Ryver is the right collaboration solution for your team, there’s a 14-day free trial to see for yourself, but only for the Starter and Unlimited packages.
6. Trello
Simplistic collaboration appCHECK AMAZON Free plan 2FA Easy to use Lacks communication features
Trello is another popular collaboration and project management platform that can be installed on both desktop and mobile. Teams and tasks can be organized in the form of boards or lists, and within them, these tasks can be assigned to different people. Employees can also give each other feedback by writing comments to cards. Trello can be integrated with third-party apps including Slack, Google Drive, GitHub, and Evernote.
Its free version features unlimited personal boards, cards, and lists, but limits you to 10MB uploaded file size, 10 team boards, one power-up per board (like calendar, automation, custom fields, etc.), simple automation, 50 command runs per month, and two-factor authentication (2FA).
If you opt for its Business Class package, it will cost you $9.99/month/user (annual subscription) but will increase the maximum file size on 250MB, add advanced checklists, priority support, business-level security setting, unlimited power-ups, card repeater, calendar view, map view, voting, 100+ app integrations, unlimited team boards, board collections and templates, custom backgrounds and stickers, unlimited buttons, rule and scheduled commands, 1,000 command runs per team + 200 per user, email notifications, Google apps sign-on, advanced admin permissions, and more.
The Enterprise package adds unlimited command runs, SSO for all SAML IdPs, power-up administration, organization-wide permissions, attachment restrictions, public board management, and organization-visible boards. You’ll need to contact the sales for exact pricing.
7. Flock
Solid communication-oriented work companionFree plan Excellent communication options Suitable for novices Lacks task management features
Flock reminds of Slack in many ways – it facilitates messaging, audio and video calls, file exchange, the Do Not Disturb feature, essential productivity tools, and more, through free and paid service packages. It can also integrate with third parties like Twitter, Google Drive and Zoom.
The free plan is an excellent way to get smaller teams started, as it provides unlimited individual and group messaging, an archive for up to 10,000 searchable messages, 10 public channels, 5GB of total file storage space per team, single team admin, unlimited polls, reminders, notes, and third-party integrations, as well as individual video calls.
Going for the Pro package at $4.50/month (billed annually) will remove the limitation on archived messages, increase the storage to 10GB per team member, add unlimited private and public channels, multiple team admins, group video calls for up to 20 participants, screen sharing, unlimited ToDos project management, and 24/7 priority support. This package comes with a 30-day free trial.
If you’re interested in the Enterprise plan, you’ll need to contact Flock to get a quote (it can be done via live chat). With the Enterprise plan you can get 20GB per team member, Active Directory Sync with Microsoft Azure, real-time Active Directory Sync with OneLogin, Okta, and Ping, SSO, smart channels, unlimited announcement and auto-join channels, and 24/7 dedicated support.
Online Collaboration Tools
Chat tools
It comes as no surprise that the most popular work messaging tool is Slack, used by 47% of respondents. Fewer people (32%) use Microsoft Teams to chat with teammates, and the third most popular work messaging tools are Skype and WhatsApp (14% each).
1. Slack
Slack is a messaging app for businesses that can be used to send instant messages to people inside and outside of an organization. Dedicated spaces named channels can be created to bring the right people together for conversations and to share files and tools.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $6.67 per user, per month.
2. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is the hub for team collaboration in Microsoft 365 that connects chats, calls, video conferencing, documents, photos, and meeting notes. Instant messaging on Microsoft Teams includes features to communicate one-on-one or with a group, hop on a video call, and share screens.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $5 per user, per month (part of Microsoft 365).
3. Skype
Skype is software that offers one-on-one and group calls, messaging, international calling to mobiles and landlines, instant online meetings, and file sharing. Skype instant messenger can be used to message anyone in the world in real time, and offers real-time translation.
Pricing: free; offers Skype Credit and a subscription to make international calls.
4. WhatsApp
WhatsApp is a messaging and video calling app that is created to help users stay in touch with friends and family. WhatsApp Business is an app built for small business owners that can create a catalog to showcase products and services and connect with customers. It includes tools to automate, sort, and quickly respond to messages.
Pricing: free.
Video conferencing tools
Zoom the most popular video conferencing solution (44%) our respondents use at work, followed by Microsoft Teams (33%) and Google Meet (29%).
5. Zoom
Zoom is a cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and conference room systems. Zoom Meetings can create an auto-generated, searchable transcript from meetings. Users can also use virtual backgrounds and share and play videos with full audio and video without having to upload the content.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $149.90 per license, per year.
6. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams contains functionality for online meeting and conferencing that can be used to go from group chat to video conference on any device. It includes the ability to host online meetings with the option to mute, remove uninvited attendees, and designate presenters and participants.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $5 per user, per month (part of Microsoft 365).
7. Google Meet
Google Meet is a video conferencing solution that works from a browser or mobile app. Guests can be invited to join an online video conference from their computer using any web browser or using the app from mobile devices. AI enhancements keep the sound quality of the calls clear, even when there is background noise.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $6 per user, per month (part of Google Workspace).
Calendar software
The majority (59%) of our respondents use Google Calendar at work, the second most popular calendar software (37%) is Microsoft Outlook, and 13% of respondents said they use Microsoft Exchange.
8. Google Calendar
Google Calendar is an online calendar that helps users quickly schedule meetings and events and get reminders about upcoming activities. Google Calendar is designed for teams, so it’s easy to share schedules with others and create multiple calendars that a team can all use together.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $6 per user, per month (part of Google Workspace).
9. Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is an email and calendar service that helps users to organize their email and focus on the messages that matter most. It includes features to manage and share calendars to schedule meetings with ease, and share files from the cloud so all recipients have the latest version of the file.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $12.50 per user, per month (part of Microsoft 365).
10. Microsoft Exchange
Microsoft Exchange is a business-level email service and calendar that helps teams collaborate on critical documents and provides a focused inbox that prioritizes important messages and adapts to the work style used so more can get done faster.
Pricing: offers a free trial; paid plans start from $5 per user, per month.
Knowledge sharing tools
Confluence is the most popular (34%) knowledge sharing tool according to our survey, followed by Google Docs (23%) and Google Drive (21%).
11. Confluence
Confluence is a collaboration wiki tool used to help teams to collaborate and share knowledge efficiently. With Confluence, it is possible to build a knowledge base for documentation, capture project requirements, assign tasks to specific users, and manage several calendars all at the same time.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $5 per user, per month.
12. Google Docs
Google Docs is an online word processor that lets users create and format documents and work together in the same document with other people. Google Docs brings the documents to life with smart editing and styling tools to help the users easily format text and paragraphs.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $6 per user, per month (part of Google Workspace).
13. Google Drive
Google Drive is a cloud storage service that includes features to store, share, and collaborate on files and folders from any mobile device, tablet, or computer. Google Drive integrates seamlessly with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, enabling a team to collaborate effectively in real time.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $6 per user, per month (part of Google Workspace).
File sharing tools
Google Drive is the most used (42%) file sharing tool, while Microsoft OneDrive takes second place (23%) in our survey. Sharepoint is the third most popular tool (14%) in the list.
14. Google Drive
Google Drive offers Shared Drives where teams can easily store, search, and access their content. Files in a shared drive belong to the team instead of an individual, so the team will always have access to the files they need to get their work done.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $6 per user, per month (part of Google Workspace).
15. Microsoft OneDrive
Microsoft OneDrive is a cloud storage service that lets users save their files and photos to one place and access them from any device, anywhere. Access, edit, and share your files on all your devices, and collaborate in real time with Office apps.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $5 per user, per month.
16. Sharepoint
SharePoint is a cloud-based service that allows users to create sites to share documents and information with colleagues, partners, and customers. Share and manage content, knowledge, and applications to empower teamwork, quickly find information, and seamlessly collaborate across an organization.
Pricing: offers a free trial; paid plans start from $5 per user, per month.
Document collaboration platforms
Among document collaboration platforms, usage is fairly evenly split – Google Docs and Sheets are used by 39% of our respondents, Microsoft 365 by 36%, and Confluence by 26%.
17. Google Docs / Sheets
Google Sheets allows users to create, edit, and collaborate on spreadsheets. The solution features built-in formulas, pivot tables, and conditional formatting options that save time and simplify common spreadsheet tasks. Google Docs is an online word processor that lets users create, format, and collaborate on documents.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $6 per user, per month (part of the Google Workspace).
18. Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 is a cloud service that offers the latest Office apps, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneDrive.
Pricing: offers a free trial; paid plans start from $5 per user, per month.
19. Confluence
Confluence is a collaboration wiki tool that is organized in pages and spaces. Pages are documents where people create, edit, and discuss their work; spaces are areas that contain pages for individuals, teams, and strategic projects.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $5 per user, per month.
Tooling stacks
Many of our respondents (39%) do not use any tooling stacks at work. The most popular tooling stack used is Atlassian (22%), followed by GitHub (21%), and then Google (19%).
20. Atlassian
Atlassian offers software development and collaboration tools such as Jira, Bitbucket, and Trello to improve software development, project management, collaboration, and code quality.
Pricing: tools are sold separately.
21. GitHub
GitHub is a code hosting platform for version control and collaboration. It helps users work together on projects so they can ship better code.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $4 per user, per month.
22. Google
Google Workspace is a suite for people and organizations that combines productivity and collaboration tools, such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, and so on.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $6 per user, per month.
23. Space
According to the Developer Ecosystem Survey, teams tend to use the set of tools provided by one vendor. For example, there is a correlation among the various Atlassian tools – developers tend to use Jira, Bitbucket, and Confluence together.
This tendency is not surprising, as using tools from one vendor is more convenient in terms of managing licenses, support, and integration between tools.
JetBrains decided to go beyond the development of individual tools with powerful integration. We’ve created a single platform, Space, for the entire development pipeline and communication process.
Space is a unified platform that combines all the tools you need for the entire software development pipeline and offers a native integration with our IDEs. You can host Git repositories, review code, automate your CI/CD, store and publish packages, manage issues and documents, and communicate in chats – all in one place and integrated out-of-the-box.
Space removes the silos that are often inherent to organizations, helps individuals and teams be more productive, and makes software development and collaboration more enjoyable.
Space integrates the complete toolchain for the software development pipeline, including:
- Source control hosting (Git)
- Code reviews with merge requests and quality gates
- Automation jobs for building and deploying applications
- Project management tools, checklists for planning, an issue tracker, and visual boards
- Package and container registries for publishing artifacts
To make your collaboration as effective as possible, Space seamlessly combines the above with organizational and communication tools, including:
- A team directory for managing the company’s organizational structure
- Management of vacations, absences, and locations
- Chats, сollaborative documents, and blogs
- Meeting management, personal calendars, and to-do lists for task management
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $8 per user, per month.
Issue trackers
Among the tools people use in organizations for issue tracking, Jira is the most popular software (42%). GitHub Issues is also broadly used to track issues (30%), followed by GitLab Issues (17%).
24. Jira
Jira Software is part of a family of products designed to help teams of all types manage their work. Originally, Jira was designed as a bug and issue tracker. Today, Jira has evolved into a powerful work management tool for all kinds of use cases, from requirements and test case management to agile software development.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $7 per user, per month.
25. GitHub Issues
GitHub Issues is a tracking tool that can be used to track ideas, enhancements, tasks, or bugs for work on GitHub. Users can collect user feedback, report software bugs, and organize tasks that they’d like to accomplish with issues in a repository.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $4 per user, per month.
26. GitLab Issues
GitLab Issues is an issue tracking tool that helps teams to collaborate on ideas, solve problems, and plan work. Share and discuss proposals with the team and with outside collaborators.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $19 per user, per month.
Software Development Collaboration Tools
Code review tools
According to our survey, code reviews are mostly done using GitHub (34%), GitLab (29%), and Bitbucket (21%)
27. GitHub code reviews
On GitHub, code review tools are built into every pull request. Teams can create review processes that improve the quality of their code and fit neatly into their workflow. Request reviews, propose changes, keep track of versions, and protect branches on the path to better code as a team.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $4 per user, per month.
28. GitLab code reviews
GitLab includes features to review code, discuss changes, share knowledge, and identify defects in code among distributed teams via asynchronous review and commenting. GitLab can automate, track, and report code reviews.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $19 per user, per month.
29. Bitbucket code reviews
Bitbucket Code Review is a code-first interface that allows users to review large diffs, find bugs faster, collaborate easily, and merge pull requests.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $3 per user, per month.
Version control services
The vast majority of developers (91%) use GitHub for version control, while 48% use GitLab, and 30% use Bitbucket.
30. GitHub VCS
GitHub is a Git hosting repository that provides developers with tools to ship better code through command line features, issues, pull requests, code review, and the use of a collection of free and for-purchase apps in the GitHub Marketplace.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $4 per user, per month.
31. GitLab VCS
Version control in GitLab helps development teams to collaborate and maximize productivity, sparking faster delivery and increased visibility. With its Git-based repository, GitLab enables clear code reviews, asset version control, feedback loops, and powerful branching patterns to help developers solve problems.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $19 per user, per month.
32. Bitbucket VCS
Bitbucket supports version control solutions for both Git and Mercurial. Bitbucket gives teams one place to plan projects, collaborate on code, test, and deploy.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $3 per user, per month.
CI systems
While Jenkins leads for company usage (51%), GitHub Actions is the most frequent choice for personal use (36%). GitLab CI takes third place (37%) overall.
33. Jenkins
Jenkins is an open-source automation server that provides hundreds of plugins to support building, deploying, and automating any project. As an extensible automation server, Jenkins can be used as a simple CI server or turned into the continuous delivery hub for any project.
Pricing: free.
34. GitHub Actions
GitHub Actions is a platform that makes it easy to automate software workflows with CI/CD. Users can build, test, and deploy code right from GitHub. Code reviews, branch management, and issue triaging can be customized to work in different ways.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $4 per user, per month.
35. GitLab CI
GitLab CI/CD is a tool built into GitLab for software development. Build, test, and deploy on day one with GitLab’s built-in CI/CD and Auto DevOps. From scalable pipelines to integrated security – see it all in one tab.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $19 per user, per month.
Artifact / Repository management tools
GitHub (44%) is the most popular tool used for artifact / repository management, followed by GitLab (33%) and npm (16%), according to our survey data.
36. GitHub
With GitHub Packages, it is possible to safely publish and consume packages within an organization or with the entire world. It has industry and community-standard package managers with native tooling commands and can be used to authenticate and publish directly to GitHub.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $4 per user, per month.
37. GitLab
GitLab enables teams to package their applications and dependencies, manage containers, and build artifacts with ease. Private, secure container and package registries are built-in and preconfigured out of the box to work seamlessly with GitLab source code management and CI/CD pipelines.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $19 per user, per month.
38. npm
npm is the world’s largest software registry. Open source developers from every continent use npm to share and borrow packages, and many organizations use npm to manage private development as well.
Pricing: offers a free plan; paid plans start from $7 per user, per month.
Survey Methodology
More than 47,000 people from 183 countries and regions participated in this survey, 31,743 of which are software developers.
63% of respondents are fully employed by a company. The vast majority are developers (81%) – 41% are senior, 36% are middle, and only 18% are junior specialists. The survey participants mostly develop websites (61%), utilities (39%), databases (29%), and system software (24%).
The country distribution is rather broad – the most respondents come from China (19%), USA (14%), India (9%), and Japan (8%).
Conclusion
Can you imagine your business without collaboration tools? No. And same goes with us here at the Social Chorus Blog. If you are reading this post, I bet it’s not very difficult for you to visualize the full potential of collaboration in business, seeing that these tools are nothing new in the corporate industry today.