Collaboration software can be used in any environment where people need to work together on a project and communicate with each other. It can be used by a small team of friends working on a hobby project or it can be used by an entire company of employees. In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the 9 best team collaboration software, along with my top 3 choices, so that you can pick the best one.
The 9 best team collaboration software are Zoho Projects, Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Evernote Business, ProofHub, Trello, Jira, and Asana.
Team collaboration software is a type of software that helps teams to communicate and collaborate. This is a very important part of the project management process. It can help teams to work together more efficiently and effectively.
There are many different types of collaboration software for teams on the market today, but some are better than others. The best team collaboration software will have the following features:
- Easily share files, documents, and other media.
- Integrated chat
- Easy to use interface
- Accessible from anywhere
- Follow the latest collaboration trends
- Implement the best practices for effective collaboration
The cost of team collaboration software often dependent on the size and number of users, as well as the features offered. Some companies may offer free trials to get a feel for how the software works before purchasing it.
Let’s get started reviewing the best team collaboration software available.
Comparison of Best Team Collaboration Software
| Team Collaboration Software | Free Trial | Price | Deployment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho Projects | Yes | FREE | Cloud |
| Slack | Yes | $6.67 | Cloud |
| Google Workspace | Yes | $6 | Cloud |
| Microsoft 365 | Yes | $6 | Cloud |
| Evernote Business | Yes | $7.99 | Cloud |
| ProofHub | Yes | $45 unlimited users | Cloud |
| Trello | Yes | $5 | Cloud |
| Jira | Yes | $7.50 | Cloud, On premise |
| Asana | Yes | $10.99 | Cloud |
What is the best team collaboration tool?
There are many options to choose from when it comes to business collaboration tools. It is important to find the right system that covers all the components of collaboration and suits your needs and the needs of your team.
Here are my picks for the best team collaboration tools that will make it easier for people to work together from a distance.
1- Zoho Projects
Zoho Projects is an online project management software that helps teams plan their work efficiently, track tasks, and execute projects on time. Packed with an intuitive UI, the software is a team-favorite across teams worldwide. Whether your projects require a formal process with steps and efficient resource planning, or you simply need a location to keep track of ideas and share them with others, Zoho Projects is designed to evolve according to the degree of complexity of each project.
Zoho simplifies project management by helping you break down projects into milestones and tasks. Task automation features of the tool take care of your routine repetitive processes while you focus on what’s important. Project data is visualized in multiple charts for teams to easily track accountability, work hours, and work distribution.
Bringing a range of in-house and third-party integrations under one roof, Zoho Projects also lets you streamline your work across functions.
Key Features
- Interactive collaboration features such as Feed, Chat, and Forums
- Gantt charts with instinctive visuals and distinct markings
- Blueprint to automate task updates, email alerts, and seek approvals
- Timesheet for easy billing
- Intelligible resource utilization chart for work distribution
- Comprehensive portfolio dashboard with high-level project data you need to be at your best.
Why I Picked Zoho Projects: This collaboration software has made it easy for our team to have a high-level overview of the current project status with capabilities such as task updates, email notficiation, approvals, and so on.
Price
- Free plan
- Premium plan – $5/user/month
- Enterprise plan -$10/user/month
2 – Slack
Slack is a popular collaboration software for teams in companies of all sizes. Users can share information and files with other members of the team and create private channels to collaborate on projects. Slack is available on any device and includes features such as message history, search, notifications, file uploads, and more.
It is one of the most popular online communication tools for small and large companies. A messaging app for teams and organizations, it’s used for everything from managing projects to sharing files. With Slack, you can create a shared space where teams can come together to get work done.
Slack offers over 2200+ integrations and the ability to automate simple workflows that will increase your team productivity.
Key Features
- Communication channel
- Project management
- Team management via slack channels
- Easy file sharing and group discussions
- Calls
Pros
- Slack calls, messages, and channels.
- Flexible customization
- Huge built-in integration modules
- Notifications
- Present screen
Cons
- User interface is generic
Price
- Free
- Pro: $6.67 USD/month/user
- Business+: $12.50 USD/month/user
- Enterprise Grid: not disclosed
3 – Google Workspace
Google Workspace is one of the best team collaboration tools that provides a new way for people to work together. It’s a workspace that’s built for teams and designed for the way people work now.
It’s not just about creating a new space; it’s about creating a new kind of team. Today, teams come in all shapes and sizes, from global enterprises to small startups, but they all have one thing in common: They need more than just an email account and some shared files to get their work done. They need a place where they can collaborate with their team members and access their documents and applications—all while keeping them secure.
You can use google workspaces to collaborate on business documents, presentations, spreadsheets and more. You can share your screen with the other person to show what you’re working on or just talk over the phone. You can also chat with others through video conferencing and text chats.
They offer a 14-day trial, monthly charge after that.
Key Features
- Realtime document collaboration tools
- Easy to share files
- Best cloud storage capabilities
- Calendar management
- Tasks/reminders
- Team/cross team collaboration app
PROS
- Easy to use
- Wide range of integrations
- Fast and reliable
- Collaborative spreadsheets
CONS
- Chat integrations should be improved
Price
- Business Starter: $6/user/month
- Business Standard: $12/user/month
- Business Plus: $18/user/month
4- Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 was built with the idea that people should not be limited to just one device or platform. This bundle of products is designed to work together seamlessly across all devices and platforms.
It is a suite of online collaboration tools for teams and applications that are designed to streamline workflows, increase productivity, and allow people to work together more effectively.
The Microsoft 365 includes:
- Microsoft Office 365
- Enterprise-grade email with unlimited storage for up to 5 users
- SharePoint Online
- OneDrive for Business
- Skype for Business
- Yammer
As Microsoft mention, Students and educators at eligible institutions can sign up for Office 365 Education for free, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and now Microsoft Teams, plus additional classroom tools.
Key Features
- Real-Time collaboration app
- Team chat availability
- Microsoft planner with workflows.
- Built-In security
PROS
- Powerful Microsoft productivity tools including word, excel, teams, outlook, onedrive.
- Built in integrations
- Powerful security
- Highly scalable
PRICE
- Microsoft 365 Family: USD$79.99/year. Perfect for up to 6 people.
- Microsoft 365 Personal: USD$59.99/year. 1 person
- Office Home & Student 2021: USD$119.99
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic: USD$6.00 user/month
- Microsoft 365 Apps for business: USD$8.25 user/month
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard: USD$12.50 user/month
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium: USD$22.00 user/month
5- Evernote Business – Collaboration software
Evernote Business is a premium service that offers many features to help teams of all sizes share and manage ideas, projects, and tasks. It includes an inbox for team members to send messages to each other. It also includes a shared workspace where the team can store documents and collaborate on them together. The shared workspace also allows for the creation of task lists so that everyone on the team knows what needs to be done next.
Evernote Business has been designed for teams of all sizes who need a way to collaborate with their colleagues in order to get work done more efficiently.
Key Features
- Sync and organize
- Tasks management
- Calendar management
- Document scanner
- Powerful search
- Notes templates
Pros
- Ease of data entry
- Data can be stored, easily accessed and edited.
- Syncing information is seamless
- The search of all notes, even scanned documents, is extremely fast and accurate.
- Group work and collaboration
PRICE
- Free:
- Personal: $7.99 / MONTH
- Professional: $9.99 / MONTH
6- ProofHub
ProofHub is an all-in-one project management and team collaboration software that helps teams work efficiently and manage deadlines with ease. The user-friendly interface enables teams to collaborate effortlessly on the centralized platform suitable for brainstorming sessions, discussions, comments, and sharing notes and files. Further, the built-in chats eliminate the need for using multiple apps, saving the time spent switching between different applications and multiple downloads.
Managing projects become simple with ProofHub. You can break down projects into tasks, tasks into subtasks, and even smaller chunks as per your requirements. This helps in effectively managing deadlines and completing projects on time.
Key Features
- Delegate, monitor, and manage tasks effectively using the powerful task management dashboard.
- Organize, share, and manage files on the centralized platform eliminating the need for multiple apps.
- Built-in time tracking for capturing time logs and analyzing the performance of team members with respect to time.
- Multiple task list views – table view, board view, Gantt charts and calendar view to get a wide visualization of the tasks.
- Online proofing with version control for efficient reviewing and approval procedures, eliminating confusion and the need for multiple downloads.
Why I picked ProofHub: This all-in-one collaboration tool proves to be a game changer for my team. It ensures real-time communication and collaborations ensuring minimum delays and early identification of bottlenecks.
Pricing
Essential Plan – $45 per month (billed annually) for unlimited users
Ultimate Control Plan – $89 per month (billed annually) for unlimited users
7- Trello
Trello is a free web-based project management application. It is a Kanban style tool, which means it’s based on the idea of managing tasks and projects in columns.
The Trello team collaboration app has many features that are useful for teams of any size. It can be used to organize work, create to-do lists, assign tasks, set deadlines and more. The best part is that it’s available anytime, anywhere and on any device, you have access to the internet with!
Trello is one of the best software for team collaboration. It helps teams to organize their work and manage tasks in an efficient way. Teams can collaborate on projects with other members, share ideas, assign tasks, and discuss progress. You can also integrate it with other tools such as Slack or Google Drive.
Key Features
- Team boards
- Tasks management
- Workflow automation
- Powerful project management tool capabilities
PROS
- Integration with well know tools available in the market specially with Atlassian.
- User friendly
- Ease of collaboration
CONS
- The free version lacks advanced features
PRICE
- Free
- Standard: $5/user/month
- Premium: $10/user/month
- Enterprise: $17.50/user/month
8- Jira
Jira is a online collaboration tool that helps teams work together on software development projects. It provides team collaboration tools, project management tools, issue tracking, and agile planning.
It is an open-source project management and issue tracking software developed by Atlassian. It was first released in 2002, but it has been continuously updated since then. Jira can be used as an application or as a service. It has many features including:
- Issue Tracking: It allows you to track issues and bugs in your product from start to finish with the help of its robust issue tracker.
- Agile Planning: It provides tools for agile planning which include sprints, backlogs, estimates, and more for managing your product development cycle.
- Project Management: You can use it to manage your projects and your portfolio. Jira has a plugin-based architecture that allows it to be customized as needed, and thus provides businesses with a great deal of flexibility when using their service.
Key Features
- Scrum boards
- Roadmaps
- Reports and insights
- Customizable workflows
- 3000+ apps integrations available
Price
- Free
- Standard: $7.50/user/month
- Premium: $14.50/user/month
- Enterprise: Price not disclosed
9- Asana
Asana is a project management and team collaboration tool that helps teams to work together. It offers a central place where team members can organize, discuss and assign tasks.
The main goal of the app is to make teams more productive by providing them with collaboration tools that are designed for teamwork. It helps teams to stay organized and complete their tasks on time. It also saves them from the hassle of emailing and texting back and forth when they need to collaborate on a project.
Key Features
- Workflow builder
- Timelines
- Goals
- App integrations
- Calendar management
- Forms management
- Email Management
Price
- Free:
- Premium: US$10.99/user/month
- Business: US$24.99/user/month
FAQ
What is a team collaboration software?
Team collaboration software is a type of software that helps teams collaborate and work together on projects. It can be used for a wide variety of purposes, such as managing projects, tracking tasks, and providing an overview of the team’s progress.
What are the 4 types of collaboration tools?
Collaboration tools are used to communicate and share information in a group. The 4 types of collaboration tools are:
- Chat
- Voice call
- Video call
