The year 2020, also known as, the year of the pandemic, brought many changes with it. The most impactful change was on the way humans work, and as a result, a large number of businesses went remote and on the mercy of effective collaboration tools for remote teams.

These collaboration tools quite the saviors when it comes to businesses retaining their profits and getting proper value out of their employees. It would benefit you more if you are using one of the suggested tools on this list because they have been known to garner productivity to great lengths.

There is no straight answer when it comes to purchasing any tool for any work related to the organizational paradigm because there are dozens and dozens of applications and their alternatives available. But we can try to find the perfect match for us.

In this article, we will tell you about the best collaboration tools for remote teams available in the market right now. You could use these tools to streamline your workflow if your company recently transitioned to work from home mode due to COVID-19 issues.

10 Brilliant Collaboration Tools for Remote Teams to Use In 2021

Let us take a detailed look at all of them.

1. nTask

nTask is one of the best project management software if you need a proper tool that is structured to take care of your remote teams collaboration. The application is entirely only. This helps project and task managers to get rid of measly desktop client installation processes. It is also all the more reason to use the program from any remote location because the project data is stored in the cloud.

With its amazing functionality regarding remote working and project management, this application is perfect for freelancers, remote agencies, and small teams that rely on project management software for their businesses to function.

All in all, nTask can become the software your team needs to become more productive and value-producing, in no time at all. Let’s take a look at the key features that this amazing application has to offer.

Key Features

• Multiple in build collaboration features for teams
• Project management modules for seamless milestone achievement
• Timesheets, time monitoring, and approval process control at both manager and worker level
• Task comments
• Multiple board views
• Data export
• Project time tracking
• Prioritizing
• Risk analytics and management
• Risk matrix & pie charts
• Task assignment

Pricing

• A Free Trial is available
• Paid Subscriptions start at $2.99/ user/ month

2. Monday.com

The second one on the list of amazing project management and collaborative software is the application called: Monday.com. Despite being one of the most recent software applications in the market right now, on this list, Monday.com has quickly become of the most talked-about software of this genre.

One important feature that this application provides is that you can easily set all of your tasks and processes related to your projects, using templates already available in the application. This lets you save time and work on those activities rather than wasting your valuable time setting up.

Monday.com can be easily integrated with the following business-related application, such as:

• Google Drive
• Slack
• Gmail
• Jira
• Trello
• Dropbox
• GitHub

Key Features

• Activity Logging
• Due date tracking
• Execution board
• PipeDrive integration
• Tags & Keywords
• User access controls
• Survey
• Customizable Fields

Pricing

• A free trial is available
• If you want the subscription for this software then that starts from $39/month

3. ProofHub

Next on the list is the amazing software ProofHub, which was specifically built with large teams in mind that are not looking to spend a couple of hundred bucks every month on fully-featured project management and collaborative tool.

One amazing thing about this software is that it will not cost you for every user that joins a team and use the software. Instead, the software will charge you a flat price, after which you can add an unlimited number of users to the software without being charged a single penny.

Let’s take a look at some of the features that this application has to offer.

Key Features 

• Collaboration
• Gantt charts
• Product Road-mapping
• Chat
• Calendar management
• Project templates
• Project notes
• API
• Automatic notifications
• Dynamic workflow

Pricing

• A Free Trial is available
• Paid Subscriptions start at $45/ month

4. Filestage

Filestage is an all-in-one online proofing solution that helps teams to get their work reviewed and approved faster. The platform enables colleagues and clients to comment and annotate files in real-time to collect and discuss feedback.

Furthermore, Filestage streamlines collaborative work with task automation, customizable workflows, and in-built versioning of files. The tool offers your colleagues and clients a simple and stress-free way to give feedback on text, image, video, and audio files. With Filestage you can easily manage all your reviews in one place, speed up the approval process, and complete projects faster by eliminating back-and-forth email chains. 

Key Features:

• Comment and annotate files,
• Share files,
• Download files,
• One-click approvals,
• Customizable projects,
• Task and workflow automation,
• In-built versioning of files,
• Unlimited reviewers, @mentions,
• Private comments,
• Real-time collaboration,
• Threaded comments,
• Due dates,
• Email notifications

Pricing:

• A free trial is for all plans available

• The pricing starts at $89 per month 

5. Chanty

Whenever we talk about collaboration in the organizational paradigm or any other working environment, communication is an essential part of that dialogue. And when you want the best software for your remote teams that will help them with their communication needs, no-one can match the value that Chanty provides.

One of the most incredible features of this application is its intuitiveness and the fact that it’s so easy to use that you don’t even have to read a guide for this. You just get it and start using it. That’s it.

You might think that when the software is this easy to use and widely accepted by users all over the world, it would cost a lot. But it’s quite the opposite. Chanty, for all intents and purposes, has a Free version that has nearly all of the premium features unlocked for everyone.

And if you still think that some features are missing, you can purchase the premium subscription for $1,50/ month/ user right now.

Key Features

• Alerts/Notifications
• File Sharing
• Search
• Activity/News Feed
• Discussion Threads
• Real-time Chat

Pricing

• A Free version of the application is available for everyone that wishes to use it
• If you want a premium subscription of the software, the prices start at $1.50/ month/ user

6. Zoom

If you haven’t been living in a hole for the last 6 months, then you probably would’ve heard the name of the application Zoom. This application has become a sensation in recent months when the whole world had to stay at home and talk to their loved ones or professional colleagues. It is one of the most useful collaboration tools for remote teams.

The application is an excellent collaborative tool for all of the remote teams out there, which has over 300k reviews on the App store and 90k on Google Play. It is very much the most trending app in the whole world right now with over 13mn active users on a monthly basis.

So, it’s only obvious that this application can take care of the communication needs of your remote teams, even if there are 1,000 team members on a call.

Let’s take a look at some of the features that the application has to offer.

Key Features

• Active speaker view
• Attendee management
• Board meetings
• Chat / messaging
• Collaboration tools
• Company branding
• Content management
• Email invitations
• Instant messaging

Pricing

• A Free Trial is available
• Paid Subscriptions start at $14.99/ month/ host

7. HelpCrunch

A couple of applications mentioned above are the champions when it comes to internal communication among you and the team members, but what is the story when it comes to having communications with the customers?

After all, if you’re in the sales business, you’d know what it means for customer retention when there is effective and timely customer support at their disposal.

It is a lightning-fast application that takes care of all of your communication needs, whether they are emails, live chats between you and the customers, or creating a knowledge-based platform or setting-up online classes.

Let’s take a look at some of the features that the application has to offer.

Key Features

• Activity monitoring
• Automatic device recognition
• Behavior tracking
• Campaign management
• Chat history
• Chat tags
• Chat transfers
• Client database
• Client website integration
• Collaboration tools
• Contact database
• Customizable fields
• Drip email marketing
• Email marketing

Pricing

• A free trial of this application is available
• Paid Subscriptions start from $15.00/ month

8. Dropbox

Founded over a decade ago, Dropbox is a household name when it comes to storing information on the cloud. Now with over half a billion users across the globe, Dropbox is still one of the most affordable online storage software on the market.

So, it’s pretty clear that when the software is so efficient in transferring and storing information on the cloud, it can be an amazing collaborative software for you and your remote team. Let’s take a look at all of the features that this application has to offer.

Key Features

• Automatic organization & back-up
• File storage
• Online back-up & file recovery
• Activity audit
• Team folder manager
• Audit sharing activity
• 256-bit AES encryption security
• External sharing
• Enterprise mobility management
• Plus button

Pricing

• A Free version of the application is available
• Paid Subscriptions start at $11.35/ month

9. Blink

Blink is a unified collaborative platform that allows file sharing, editing, accessing, and real-time teamwork. It helps align people, processes, and their interactions, bringing remote and on-site employees onto a single communications platform.

Consider it as a virtual office that you can use on the go. The mobile app brings the workplace into your pocket, giving you access to company-wide chats, access protected data, employee directory, workforce analytics, and more.

This app also lets you carry out surveys and make micro-apps with added functionality that’s perfect for your business.

Furthermore, it provides valuable insights that measure interactions and adoption among the workforce. Blink also allows integration with third-party apps such as Jira, Trello, Office 365, etc.

It protects your important data and has a user-friendly, brand-able interface that’s identical to social media sites, making it easy to use.

Key Features

• Company feed for top-down communications
• Employee directory that lets you find and chat with anybody in the organization
• Digital forms for surveys and reporting
• Powerful third-party integrations
• Critical insights

Pricing 

• Paid subscription starts at $3.40 user/month
• A free 14-day trial

10. Troop Messenger

If you are looking for a team collaboration tool that would bring your team members to a shared workspace where they can chat and talk work? Then Troop Messenger is the right fit for your product and project managers to monitor and manage task updates through messaging, calling, and screen share.

One has to communicate with others for businesses to run! Therefore, this amazing work collaboration tool lays a perfect bridge of communication between its internal teams and the customers with its guest user feature called, the Orange Member.

Troop Messenger has brilliant search filters in every nook and corner of the UI. Whether they are users, groups, images, text files, or more, it helps you retrieve everything with a single user action, thereby giving more productive work time to the teams.

Key Features

• Wide variety of messaging abilities like one-to-one, group, self, audio, and more.
• Modern group calling facility with the joint code editor
• The code snippet helps developers send the perfect code in the selected programming language.
• A confidential burnout chat window comes with a timer.
• Fork-out that sends a message to mixed audiences in one go.
• Global, text, and chat area filters
• Seamless and powerful admin dashboard
• Google Drive and Dropbox integrations
• In-app help and support.

Pricing

• A free one-month enterprise trial is available.
• Paid plans: Premium starts at $2.5/per user/per month and Enterprise at $5/per user/per month.

Collaboration Tools Examples

Many people have asked so what are collaboration tools and provide collaboration tools examples.

Collaboration tools facilitate employees to work together on different tasks and projects in a streamlined manner from anywhere in the world.

Even at nTask we strongly believe in harnessing the power of collaboration tools and therefore the company’s founders looked at different collaboration tools examples in 2015.

Simply put – They weren’t satisfied with the lot available bar a couple of apps.

Therefore, they decided to build nTask: The best collaboration tool for remote teams and a great example of collaboration apps.

Types of Collaboration Tools

In the last two years, there have a plethora of app releases: Different types of collaboration tools for both desktops, iPhone, and Android plus not to forget tablets as well.

There are a number of common collaboration tools that blue-chip conglomerates, nonprofits, and government agencies acquire to maintain their performance.

Examples of Different Types of Collaboration Tools are:

• File Sharing tools
• Document synchronization tools
• Calendar Sharing Tools
• Cloud Storage
• Instant Messaging
• Whiteboards
• Video Conferencing tools

Bonus Short Review: Collaboration Tools for Business in 2021

Finding the best collaboration tools for business involves a lot of research, trial usage, and a final decision on which cloud computing solution to opt for.

So…

We wanted to help you out in your research process so that you can narrow down the right collaboration tools for your business.

Here is a quick wrap up of the best collaboration tools for businesses in 2020:

1. File Editing Platforms

• Dropbox Paper
• G-Suite
• Evernote

2. Messaging Applications for Businesses

• Zoom
• Slack

3. Project Management Software Solutions

• nTask
• Trello
• Wrike

4. Calendar Software Solutions for Businesses

• Google Calendar
• Calendly

Looking for More Options? We’ve got you covered with Free Collaboration Tools

Under the current COVID-19 circumstances and the second wave, a number of firms and nonprofits are looking for free collaboration tools.

And that’s understandable…

Based on the assumption that a list of free collaboration tools would be beneficial for many organizations, we have compiled a list of such apps.

11 FREE COLLABORATION TOOLS

• Cloud App: Screen Recording App for Mac & PC
• Flock: Team Messenger and Online Collaboration Software
• Appear in: Video Meetings, Video Conferencing, and Screen Recording
• Duolingo: The world’s best way to learn a language
• Hangouts: Google chat tools
• Zapier: Easiest way to automate your work
• Awwapp: Online whiteboard for real-time visual collaboration
• Spacetime: Quickly see the timezones of each team member
• Airtable: Create apps that perfectly fit your team’s needs
• Every Time Zone: Tool for managing time zone differences
• Fluvid: Online screen capture and video recording software

Wait… I’m a student and I need online collaboration tools for education

In most discussions I’ve come across, people are more interested in understanding how technology can be leveraged for the best use of teachers in schools and universities alike.

But wait a minute…

You’re a student at hi-school or university and you also have the requirement for utilizing technology to maximize your educational experience.

We’ve reviewed three of the best online collaboration tools for education to make your classrooms more fun and interactive.

3 of the best online collaboration tools for education

• ClassCraft: Utilizing the ever-expanding popularity of video games, the designers of ClassCraft have created an app to increase student participation in K12 schooling systems. Using this app, you as a student can throughout everyday class activities earn character upgrades through academic achievements, being punctual in attendance, and more.
• PenPal Schools: The Penpal Schools community with over 15,000 educators spread across 50 countries is ideal for project-based learning in a variety of subjects. The creators of the app have focused on creating a secure environment in which students and teachers can exchange messages while at the same time teachers can access the entire messaging ecosystem.
• CueThink: “Make Math Special” is the tagline for this app and why not… Students use Cuethink to select strategies and display their work. This collaboration app even allows students to cross critique each other’s work while creates a healthy feedback loop. Students don’t early learn problem-solving skills but also develop the capacity to communicate on those finer lines which help them manage better relationships with individuals as they grow up.

Conclusion

Well, there you have it. These were the top collaborative applications that can help you and remote teams win the fight against all the obstacles related to communication, that remote working can throw at you.

These apps are more or less our top picks. If you think that these applications can not fulfill the quota you set for you and your teams, then you should browse the market and find the exact application that can fulfill that quota before you spend a single dime on purchasing an application.

Good luck!