7 Best Team Collaboration Tools, Apps and Software

Collaboration apps are absolute saviors if you have a large team to handle.

It organizes all the work, keeps them in synch, and allows all the team members to track down the ongoing activities. Collaboration apps allow you to automate the process of sharing and managing files and documents between various users, systems, and interfaces.

It gives remote users the ability to work simultaneously on a project as and when they log onto the system and gives them all the updates they need about the task.

It improves the productivity of the employees and the business, especially between the people who do not work in the same office. This enhances global productivity for employees operating from around the world.

These apps streamline workflows, manage cloud-based schedules, and give higher flexibility to workers.

There are dozens of team collaboration tools, but we present to you the top 7 collaboration apps that will help in increasing your work efficiency and producing greater results –

1. Flock

Flock makes conversations effortless through its easy in-app communication software. The chat interface is simple, includes emojis and other features that enhance the chat quality. It brings your company together by helping you connect with everyone, everywhere.

It helps you conduct virtually effective meetings and collaborate with remote colleagues and business partners. The video calls and screen sharing features enhance the entire process of meetings and give it a real-time meeting feeling. Flock allows you to connect with more than 20 people in a single meeting room.

Its file storage and finding shared files is super easy through its robust channel mechanism. It gives you access to all your team’s knowledge, discussions, and shared files irrespective of who shares it and when it is shared.

The app allows you to turn all your conversations into actions by creating and assigning tasks with a built-in to-do list that is sharable. It also has an option to conduct rich polls, including images and anonymous voting, to understand what each worker’s thought is on a particular matter.

What makes Flock stand out: 

• Direct chats and quick conversations
• Easy follow-ups
• Private channels for confidential discussions
• Public channels for same interest conversations
• One-on-one group calls
• Major integrations like Trello, GitHub, Twitter, Google Drive, and more
• Quickly shared reminders that never let you miss a deadline
• Unlimited team members
• 5GB file storage and 10,000 message history
• Productivity apps like shared notes, polls, and more

Pricing:

Flock comes with a 30-day free trial. Its paid version for midsize teams and companies costs around $4.50 per user per month. The enterprise pack has a custom quota which can be known by contacting the flock team personally.

2. Slack

Slack is one of the most popular and reliable apps when it comes to team collaboration and communication. It helps you stay organized through public and private channels for conversations, files, tools, people, and more.

Slack enables people and businesses to collaborate with teams at other companies, just like collaborating with your teams, with built-in security features for confidential information. It provides you with a virtual office space with robust communication tools, including group chats that help keep people from different locations in sync.

The slack collaboration app is suitable for both mobile and desktop versions, keeping all the conversations at your fingertips at any place from anywhere. It builds your entire workflow through automatic routines, actions, and communication.

Slack provides enterprise-grade data protection to keep your files and documents secure, meeting your compliance requirements. It helps in ensuring that only the needful people with approved devices get access to the critical information with features like single sign-on, domain claiming, and more.

Slack’s data protection encrypts data to protect your data with tools such as Slack enterprise key management, audit logs, data loss prevention, and more.

What makes Slack stand out:

• Efficient chatbox for pro teamwork
• Important updates reminders at one place
• Important 2,200+ integrations including Google Drive, Salesforce, Zoom, Asana, and more
• Automatically saved and searchable history
• Easy video and voice call for effective work process
• Governance and risk-management capabilities
• Network security and server hardening

Pricing:

The standard discounted price for small and medium-sized businesses is $2.67 per person, per month, billed yearly. The same for the Plus pack is $5, and the enterprise pack has a custom quote to be known by contacting the administrative department.

3. Microsoft Teams

We all know how efficient Microsoft as software is. Microsoft teams help in the meeting, chatting, calling, and collaborating altogether from one place. It lets you instantly go from a group chat to a video call with the ease of a single click and securely connects, accesses, shares, and coauthors files in real-time.

Through Microsoft Teams, employees can share their opinion and have effective communication with GIFs, stickers, and emojis in group and one-to-one chats. It also allows you to share and edit files in real-time with the help of apps such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and more.

Innovative features like inline message translations, screen sharing, meeting recorder, automatic transcripts make the entire collaboration process more straightforward, easier, and more effective. The background blur feature gives you a genuinely professional feeling while conducting an online meeting and putting the entire focus on the object, i.e., you.

The productivity apps features ensure that your team’s productivity is increased with the workflow and automation process, simplifying collaboration and communication. On the other hand, the project management apps provide easy navigation through complex processes through automation and other relevant tools.

What makes Microsoft Teams stand out:

• Organizes notes, documents, and your calendar together
• Meet over 10,000 people at one place
• Advanced features like group calling, cloud voicemail, call transfers, and more
• Deep integrations with OneDrive, Office 365, and more
• Unlimited messages, channels, and search
• 10GB team file storage
• Custom backgrounds
• Over 700 popular apps available
• Industry-specific apps

Pricing: The Basic Business plan costs around $2 per user per month, billed annually.

The Microsoft 365 Business Standard costs around $10 per user per month, and the Office 365 E3 per user per month costs around $20 per user per month, billed annually. All the plans offer a free 1-month introductory trial.

4. Twist

Twist is a clear, distraction-free, and organized team collaboration app that ensures focused balance in work with collaborative conversations amongst employees.

Every information on Twist is organized to its utmost level and is transparent, eliminating your team’s time, effort, and energy spent on discussions across mails and chat apps. The team discussions are structured with critically topic-specific channels and can either be used privately or publicly.

It is the best alternative for forward-thinking teams since it offers more structured communication with threads that encourage focused discussions on specific topics, unlike other disoriented chat apps. The information is secured and stays structured in all forms.

It also gives people uninterrupted space to focus on core business without any distractions, and conversations are all crystallized with intact discussions.

The structured communication threads with effective tools for better communication helps in thinking critically about a particular conversation and respond more thoughtfully to it, increasing better feedback, better decision, and better results and teamwork. It enables you to replace all of your internal emails and group chats with inbuilt threads that never get lost.

What makes Twist stand out:

• Threads designed for long-form discussions
• Searchable chats
• Company-wide transparency
• Trusted by 23,000+ people and reputed names like Starbucks, GameStop, and more
• Efficiently collaborate, remote teams and workers
• Multiple channels for communicating with team members
• No offline/online indicators with a pressure to stay connected all-day
• Full control over notifications
• Guest collaborations
• Link tools that you already use like GitHub, Todolist, and more

Pricing:

They have a free plan. The basic plan costs $5v per user per month, billed annually.

5. Discord

Discord is an invite-only collaboration tool with servers that are organized based on topics with multiple channels letting you collaborate, share and talk about your day or the workload privately.

It gives you a feeling of an in-person meeting by enabling you to wave hello over video calls and gives low-latency video and voice call feels. You can even have drawing sessions with screen sharing in your time off to communicate and chat with your colleagues in the free time.

Discord is one of the unique apps in the market which i=does not only exist to make your work process more straightforward but also promotes informal communication with friends in several ways. It allows you to spend some time with your colleagues turned friends by making it easy to talk and hang out virtually.

Their motive itself is to create belonging in your life. Its strong technical support lead and customer services ensure that any problem you face as a Discord user is catered to and resolved in minimum time.

What makes Discord stand out: 

• Custom member access
• Go-Live and screen sharing
• Spellchecks
• Custom status
• Reduced motion setting
• Invite-only tool
• Organized conversation

Pricing:

The Discord pricing is not revealed to the public. It is only available when you download it after receiving an invite and communicate directly with the administrative department about it.

6. Zoho CliQ

The team communication software Zoho CliQ simplifies your team collaboration and organizes your communication. It does so by managing information related to every field and connects the tools you love for easier working.

It is trusted by reputed brands, including CRCC Asia, Zomaron, Purolite, and more. Zoho Cliq believes in bringing people, actions, and everything else together in one place for more efficient and effective functioning.

With segmented channels, Zoho enables transforming ideas into reality with your team making conversations truly visible, transparent, and efficient. It lets you jump onto a voice or a video call with just one tap, no matter from where at what time you are working. CliQ also automates all your day-to-day activities, taking the burden away from you related to segmented workload.

Their top-notch security system with enriched data encryption and secret chat ensures that your organization’s data is in safe hands and is absolutely secure. Their screens haring features allow team mobility and work productivity when only a call or a text is not enough. By explaining points through whiteboards on the screen, you ensure that every team member critically understands what is going on.

Its business communication software is a proactive software that helps you [plan, create and collaborate I channels with automated bot alerts and continuous build updates. It also allows you to drop files and images directly from your cloud storage and replace time-consuming meetings with real-time conversations and automatic reporting.

What makes Zoho CliQ stand out:

• Searchable conversations
• Calendar scheduling
• Centralized workflows
• Custom build bits
• Command shortcuts
• Instant virtual meetings
• Sharable whiteboard functioning
• Robust integrations with Dropbox, Trello, Mailchimp, and more
• One of the cheapest tools available in the market

Pricing:

Their basic plan is free. However, their unlimited plan with 500+ users costs less than a dollar per user per month when billed annually.

7. Rocket.Chat

The communication platform that keeps the workflow going by centralizing all the tools, data, and touchpoints in one platform, Rocket.Chat is made for team collaboration and customer engagement.

It helps in streamlining your entire communication channel and reduces costs and increases team productivity and performance. Rocket.Chat connects your whole team with customers, suppliers, and partners, centralizes the communication related to your projects, and avoids missing any relevant information.

Since it is an omnichannel platform, it connects all your social media channels like Facebook, Whatsapp, Telegram, and more, websites, CRM, and support tickets onto one platform. It also enables you to communicate with stakeholders from one place and finds all the data you need with automated processes, sped-up services, and improved customer experience.

Rocket.Chat makes your conversations effective and efficient through collaborative features like screen sharing. File sharing, emoji reactions, read receipts, live chats, guest users, audio and video calls, and more.

The user interface of Rocket.Chat is designed with the aim of providing their agents all the necessary features for a productive customer service solution and an outstanding user experience. Having an own marketplace, the platform helps you find apps that help improve operations like CRM, Integrations, and more.

What makes Rocket.chat stand out:

• Seamless adaptability
• Omnichannel platform
• Secure communication
• Unlimited integrations and API
• Open-source with an active community, infinite innovation potential, and no gate features
• Robust flexibility
• Ultra-fast solution creation
• High software compatibility
• Agile customer service

Pricing:

The Community package is free, allowing 1,000 users. The Pro package costs $4 per user per month, billed annually.

If you wish to get the quote for the enterprise package, talk to their sales department directly since the price online is undisclosed.

Every company is unique with unique requirements. This is why it becomes imperative for the company and its employees to choose the right collaboration tool, which suits its working requirements and the company culture.

When selecting the right collaboration tool, one must consider the features each device offers, the ease of use of these tools, and the privacy options enabled. If you are a company with highly confidential data, only use tools that come with a verified data encryption policy.

The number of integrations also becomes important when choosing the right collaboration tools. You must consider the tool’s compatibility with the types of files your team is most friendly with.