Online collaboration apps help teams work together better, regardless of whether members are remote or all in one physical location. Typically, the best collaboration software keeps you in the loop about relevant team activity and helps you communicate your progress to others. Through these apps, you can access the information and assets you need to pick up your part of the work at the right time without someone else telling you to do so. Collaboration software is a subcategory of productivity software, which we have been covering for more than a decade. Here, we collect the top team collaboration tools based on our analysis and testing. The lines between collaboration software and project management, task management, and whiteboard apps (among others) aren’t always clear, so our picks span several categories.
Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
Best for Workflow Management
Asana
- Flexible, fast, and modern design
- Capable free version
- Lots of features
- Timeline view makes it easier to manage dependencies
- Not ideal for graphics-intensive work
- Prices slightly higher than competitors
Asana is among the most capable and customizable work management tools we’ve tested. You can use it to make and track lists, manage workflows and ideas, and much more. You can even configure it as a full-fledged project management app, even if that’s not necessarily how you can get the most out of it.
Asana is for teams that need to manage work (including project-related work) and workflows. Because of its flexibility, you need to commit some time to figuring out how to set up your instance and what tasks you want to track.
Price Per Month
$15 per person
Best for Beginners to Project Management
GanttPro
- Competitively priced
- Well designed and easy to learn to use
- Includes custom fields for tasks, board view, critical path feature
- Saves history for undo
- No customizable reporting tools or customizable dashboards
- No billing or invoicing
- Light on integrations
With a good balance of features, an interface that anyone can learn to use, and reasonable pricing, GanttPro is one of the best project management apps for beginners. We appreciate that it includes a critical path feature, custom task fields, a kanban board view, and a Save History feature that allows for multiple undos, too.
GanttPro’s intuitive design makes it ideal for teams new to project management. However, advanced users might want to look elsewhere.
Price Per Month
$9.99 per Person
Learn More
GanttPro Review
- Powerful and feature-rich
- Smooth collaboration features
- Distraction-free view in Word
- Convenient Copilot features in Excel
- Regular updates with new features
- Desktop, mobile, and web versions of apps
- Outlook loses some capabilities
- Copilot features in Word are intrusive
- Some formatting options in Word could be easier to access
Microsoft’s productivity apps are the best at what they do, bar none. You might find Google Workspace more familiar when it comes to collaboration, but Microsoft 365 is just as capable for real-time coauthoring. Microsoft’s suite is not merely worth the money; it’s an amazing bargain considering all you get (including 1TB of OneDrive storage).
Microsoft 365 Personal is an excellent deal for home users and very small businesses, while Microsoft 365 Business makes a lot of sense for corporations. Either account type gets you class-leading office software and a robust platform for collaborative document creation.
Price Per Month
$6.99
Learn More
Microsoft 365 Review
Best for Whiteboard Collaboration
Miro
- Excellent collaboration and presentation tools
- Lots of features
- Strong support for integration with other apps and services
- Easy to use
- Little offline functionality
Miro has the best range of features of any whiteboard app, including tools for collaborating asynchronously and in real time. We especially appreciate Miro’s ease of use and wonderful templates that help you see all the ways you might incorporate it into your work. Subscriptions are also fairly affordable.
Miro is for teams who want the best online whiteboard app or who are looking for new ways to brainstorm and share ideas. This app can do wonders for remote groups who want to improve team cohesion and work together more effectively.
Price Per Month
$10 per person
Best Team Messaging App
Slack
- Simple and intuitive interface
- Advanced messaging capabilities
- Many powerful integrations
- Helpful AI features
- Easy admin management
- Extensive integration support
- Somewhat expensive
- Some video chat shortcomings
Slack is easily the most beloved team messaging app available, despite costing more than others. People love its layout and the fact that they can deeply personalize their settings and focus the experience.
Slack is for teams of any size that want the best tool for enabling people to talk in a shared space. If your organization does not yet have a team messaging app and is still using email for the bulk of digital communication, we highly encourage you to give Slack a try.
Price Per Month
$7.25 per user, billed annually
Best Project Management App for Client Work
Teamwork
- Simple and intuitive design
- Great customization options
- Billing and invoicing included
- Free account available
- No PDF or image markup tools
Among project management apps, Teamwork is one of the easiest to use. It also includes all the necessary features for client work, such as billing and invoicing tools.
Teamwork is the best app we tested for teams that primarily complete client projects, though it handles in-house projects just fine, too.
Price Per Month
$12.50 per person
Learn More
Teamwork Review
- Excellent value
- Easy to set up and navigate
- Supports multiple communication methods
- Deep configuration options
- Capable time-tracking tools
- Slightly unusual resource management view
- AI features won’t be relevant to everyone
Zoho Projects is easy to use, offers tiers of service that fit practically any organization’s needs, and starts at a low cost. We also like its strong customizability and time-tracking tools.
Zoho Projects is for any small or growing team in need of a reliable project management app that can scale with future growth.
Price Per Month
From $3 per person
Learn More
Zoho Projects Review
Best for Database-Driven Collaboration
Airtable
- Light and user-friendly interface
- Highly versatile
- Excellent collaboration tools
- Works with a long list of third-party services
- Useful AI features
- Pricey
- Some formatting limitations
Airtable is a work management tool that uses relational databases to help you and your team collaborate and manage information about anything at all, from collections to editorial calendars to inventories. It can also be a collaborative work management and workflow tool. We like its flexibility and highly intuitive user experience.
You don’t have to know anything about relational databases to use Airtable. It’s suitable for any team that needs a fully customizable tool to manage work or ideas among several contributors.
Price Per Month
$20 per person
Learn More
Airtable Review
- Elegant office tools
- Works the same on any browser
- Fine-tuned collaboration and revision-tracking features
- Corporate-friendly user management
- Less powerful than comparable desktop apps
- Offline editing requires advance planning
Google Workspace has an elegant variety of office apps that set the bar for online collaboration in terms of coauthoring files. They aren’t as powerful or flexible as those in the Microsoft 365 suite, though their browser-based approach means they work the same on every platform. Subscriptions include generous allocations of Google Drive storage, too.
Google Workspace is great for businesses, educational institutions, and other organizations because people are familiar with its apps and like using them. It also competes well with Microsoft 365 Business on price.
Price Per Month
$6 per person
Learn More
Google Workspace Review
Best for Structured Collaboration
Basecamp
- Easy to set up and use
- Flat monthly price for unlimited users
- Supports integration with a wide variety of apps and services
- Communications can feel siloed
- Limited reports
- No free account
Basecamp is simple to grasp and delivers a lot of structure. Instead of leaving you to figure out your workflows or how you might collaborate with your team, Basecamp gives you modules that guide you toward different types of collaboration efforts. For example, there are tools for tracking announcements, deadlines, discussions, files, and tasks that happen around work.
Basecamp is for teams that want to customize their online collaboration space without feeling like they’re building it from scratch.
Price Per Month
$15 per person
Learn More
Basecamp Review
- Extensive features
- Straightforward interface
- Powerful AI summaries of conversations
- Excellent support
- Overwhelming admin tools
- Expensive add-ons
Microsoft Teams is an internal messaging app with many features, including tight connectivity with other Microsoft apps. With Copilot, team members can review a discussion’s action items, decisions, and main points without having to scroll through long threads.
Teams is a good messaging and video calling app. It might not have the acclaim of Slack, but it makes a lot of sense to use if your organization relies heavily on Microsoft for other software.
Price Per Month
$6 per person
Learn More
Microsoft Teams Review
Best for Managing Project Work With Automations
Smartsheet
- Endlessly customizable and quite powerful
- Supports automations, input from web forms, proofing and approvals
- Robust resource management options for Business plan users
- Lacks real-time time tracking and invoicing tools
- Pages don’t update in real time or autosave as frequently as we’d like
Automations can save teams tremendous time and effort, and Smartsheet supports them in spades. Automations are simply “if this, then that” commands. Here’s an example: When new information comes in through a client intake form, alert the team manager.
Smartsheet is for organizations that need a project management app that goes all in on automations. It’s not the simplest collaboration app to learn to use, but it’s worth the effort if your team manages a lot of rote work.
Price Per Month
$32 per person
Learn More
Smartsheet Review
Best Kanban-Style Collaboration Tool
Trello
- Flexible kanban approach
- Highly intuitive
- Suitable for teams of all sizes
- Easy-to-use automations
- Useful AI integrations
- Not suitable for managing traditional projects
Trello’s biggest selling point is its simplicity. You can make it more complex by using more features, but anyone can figure out its core kanban board functionality.
Trello is for teams (including large and distributed ones) that need to manage, organize, and track simple work and tasks. Its ease of use makes it suitable for groups that work with a lot of external contractors, freelancers, and other workers.
Price Per Month
$5 per person per month (billed annually)
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The Best Online Collaboration Software for 2025
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Buying Guide: The Best Online Collaboration Software for 2025
What Are the Best Project Management Apps for Collaboration?
Project management software is one of the most competitive categories. PCMag has three Editors’ Choice winners for project management, all of which we also include on this list:
What Is the Best Visual Collaboration App?
Visual collaboration apps are growing in popularity, and our two favorites are Editors’ Choice winner Miro and close runner-up Mural.
Both take the form of a digital whiteboard or canvas that multiple people can join simultaneously. They have tools for drawing, embedding videos, posting sticky notes with text, uploading files and images, and adding other kinds of content. Miro offers video calling, so you can chat with colleagues while simultaneously brainstorming and working on visual projects. Mural purposely offers only audio calls, keeping visual focus on the board.
Miro is a collaborative whiteboard with video calling features (Credit: Miro/PCMag)
Miro and Mural both include a healthy stock of templates. Mural’s library includes many for breaking the ice in a group and team building. They work almost like tabletop games. Miro offers more in the way of library objects and templates for making charts, diagrams, and other visual aids you can reuse in other business materials, such as presentations. If neither of those apps fits your needs, consider Conceptboard or Lucidspark.
What Is the Best Multipurpose Collaboration App?
A few of the entries on this list don’t fit neatly into any one category. In a way, that’s what makes them special. They’re customizable, multipurpose tools.
Asana, for instance, started as a task management tool but now has tools for managing ideas, projects, workflows, and more. If you want to use it as a full-fledged project management app, you can, but Asana’s real strength is its flexibility.
Asana is among the best multipurpose collaboration tools because it’s highly customizable and flexible (Credit: Asana/PCMag)
Basecamp is among the best multipurpose collaboration apps, since it expertly balances communication and management. With it, you can manage both project and non-project work. It’s a great place to have asynchronous discussions with in-house colleagues or partners on the outside, such as contractors and clients. It all depends on what you need the tool to do.
What Is the Best Collaborative To-Do List App?
Todoist is our Editors’ Choice winner for to-do list apps, but it’s also a highly valuable collaboration tool. If your team needs an inexpensive app that helps a group of people manage, prioritize, and write down everything they need to get done, it’s unbeatable.
What makes Todoist better than other collaborative to-do list apps? For starters, it has apps for every major platform that all work reliably and sync effortlessly. It also gives you a ton of tools for organizing tasks, such as priority ratings and labels, without creating a cluttered interface. That keeps the app easy to use and highly accessible to newcomers.
What Are the Best Collaborative Database Apps?
Two apps on this list specialize in changing the way you manage and interact with relational databases: Airtable and Smartsheet.
Before the word database might make you run away, know that Airtable is an 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. You can use it to track and monitor work as it goes through a workflow, moving from one person to another for edits or approvals. It’s easy to use, highly customizable, and versatile.
Airtable takes a database-style approach to organizing collaborative work (Credit: Airtable/PCMag)
Smartsheet is another app that lets you work with relational databases, though it’s a bit beefier than Airtable. At PCMag, we cross-list Smartsheet under project management software because it can do that, too. What makes Smartsheet powerful is its support for automations. Here’s an example: When new information comes in through a client intake form, it can alert the team manager and automatically assign one of the junior team members a task to follow up with the new client within three days. When you automate rote tasks, it saves the entire team time that they can spend on more important work.
What Is the Best Collaboration App for Kanban?
Kanban is a management system that’s applicable in a variety of fields, though it’s especially popular among software developers and other kinds of technical workers. Simply put, kanban uses cards on a 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 put all the tasks that you need to do into the To Do column and in-progress tasks into the Doing column. When you finish, the cards go into the Done column.
Recommended by Our Editors
Trello is one of the friendliest kanban tools on the market. Anyone can sign up for an account and start using it quickly. Even free users can use an unlimited number of Power-Ups (that is, add-on features) per board that expand its functionality.
Trello is one of the easiest collaboration tools to use, making it a great choice for many teams (Credit: Trello/PCMag)
Many collaboration apps, including Asana, Teamwork, Todoist, and Zoho Projects, now offer a kanban view, often called a board view, so you always have the option to work in this style.
What Else Qualifies as a Collaboration App?
Among the other products we include here are collaborative office suites, such as the venerable Microsoft 365 and fully online Google Workspace.
Team messaging apps such as Microsoft Teams and Slack also make the cut. They support one-to-one and group text communications, along with some video meeting functionality.
Culture Is Key to Collaboration
One important point about all tools for team collaboration and communication is that they must have a company culture behind them. Throwing a new tool at a bunch of people and telling them to use it instead of email doesn’t work. To start using a collaboration tool successfully, all the key players on the team need to buy into it. It has to become part of the culture.
When you’re up and running with a collaboration app that fits your needs, and everything starts clicking, you might be amazed at how much more productive and organized your team becomes.
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