The Best Collaboration Software in 2022

Task management has never been easier—but nTask is way more than just a to-do list app!

What Is nTask?

nTask is a cloud-based team collaboration tool that helps you:

• Plan projects and break down the steps
• Organize tasks with simple to-do lists or Kanban boards
• Track progress with interactive Gantt Charts
• Keep an eye on the budget and time spent with easy-to-use tools
• Collaborate in dedicated workspaces with team chat and task commenting

That’s not even all.

nTask features additional functions like meeting planning, issue tracking with linking to projects and tasks, risk management through a risk matrix and mitigation plans, and more.

Pricing

nTask’s pricing is set in four tiers, including a free plan. The premium plans all come with a 14-day free trial that doesn’t require a credit card to sign up.

Basic 

It doesn’t cost anything to use nTask’s basic collaborative tools. The Basic plan includes: 

• Five team members
• 100MB storage
• Unlimited workspaces and tasks
• Meeting management
• Time tracking
• Issues tracking

This is great for freelancers, solo entrepreneurs, and micro-businesses, but it still lacks project planning features.

If you need more space and functionality, consider upgrading:

Premium

The Premium plan costs only $1/user/month for the first three users and $3/user/month for the rest.

With this package, you get team collaboration features like:

• 5GB storage space
• Project planning and management tools
• Kanban for task organization
• Gantt diagrams for progress tracking
• Bulk actions and custom filters to optimize your work

Business

To expand nTask’s functionality even more, consider the Business plan for $8/user/month. 

You get everything in Premium, plus extra perks for collaborating online like:

• 10GB of storage space
• Custom roles, permissions, and status to facilitate team management
• Kanban board templates to optimize your planning
• Risk management tools
• Reporting feature
• Additional advanced integrations

Enterprise

This quote-based pricing tier tailors nTask’s online collaboration features to your individual needs. You’ll get a dedicated cloud for your files, your personal success manager, and custom onboarding to make the transition as smooth as possible.

nTask Best Features

• Project planning and breakdown
• Comprehensive task management
• Risk mitigation and issue tracking
• Meeting planning
• 1,000+ integrations
• Easy group collaboration and communication
• Affordable pricing
• Forever free plan available
• 14-day free trial (no credit card required)

What We Disliked

Though nTask has most essential collaboration features, it lacks version control, so you'll have to be extra careful with that.

The storage space is also fairly limited, even with a premium subscription. You won't find many analytics tools either.

nTask User Reviews

nTask is a fairly popular online collaboration software used by small-scale operations and large organizations alike.

Common points of praise include the cost-effective pricing and functional free plan, as well as the general ease-of-use and high functionality that nTask offers. The risk management tool is another crowd-pleaser, with plenty of reviewers citing it as a key perk.

But nTask’s collaboration system is not without its faults.

Some users report poor customer support, while others mention the customization options aren’t enough. Other minor complaints include the calendar starting on Monday and the lack of photo previews when you upload a document into the project.

We Recommend nTask For...

nTask is the best team collaboration app for budget-conscious managers. It’s full-featured, user-friendly, and could be completely free. What else could you ask for?

Comprehensive project management for all sorts of organizations. Is Wrike really all that? 

What Is Wrike? 

Wrike is a collaborative platform to power your Agile planning and project management.

Its key features include:

• Robust collaboration tools with instant task, file, and report sharing
• Workflow optimization through visual proofing and automated approval
• Productivity-minded templates like Kanbans, Gantt charts, and pre-built workflows
• Improved visibility with easy time tracking, portfolio management, and advanced analytics

Wrike’s collaboration solutions can be tailored and scaled to your needs.

For instance, enterprise clients will enjoy advanced security features like role-based access and encryption key ownership.

On the other hand, small organizations will love the forever-free simple task sharing plan or the affordable but full-featured lower-tier packages.

Pricing

Wrike’s collaborative tools come in four all-purpose plans.

There are additional solutions specifically built for marketers and service delivery teams. To learn more about them, contact sales and you’ll receive a personalized quote.

Free

The forever-free plan provides essential task sharing and collaboration tools for up to five users. You get 2GB of storage space, along with board and spreadsheet views for task management and basic integrations with third-party apps.

Professional

The Professional plan is available for five, 10, or 15 users and costs $9.80/user/month.

It features additional remote collaboration tools like task and subtask management, Gantt charts for tracking progress, and advanced integrations.

You can involve contractors and freelancers at no extra cost and create custom dashboards to keep everything organized. This plan also upgrades you to 5GB storage space.

Business

The Business plan will set you back $24.80/user/month, but it offers a cornucopia of Agile management solutions for up to 200 users in each team.

Key perks include collaboration tools like:

• Custom fields and workflows
• Advanced user management
• Shared calendars
• Optimized request forms
• Time tracking

You also get the Salesforce integration, as well as advanced analytics and easy reporting.

Enterprise

Finally, the quote-only Enterprise collaboration suite can include anything you need—comprehensive security measures (even military-grade encryption), user analytics and insights, compliance tools, 100+ GB storage, etc.

Wrike Best Features

• Agile collaboration planning
• Robust and scalable tools
• Improved visibility
• Marketing and service-provider-specific tools
• Easy setup

What We Disliked

Wrike is a fantastic cloud collaboration platform, but it’s not the cheapest option. Sure, you get a lot of features, but the sheer amount of things you can do with the software can be overwhelming. Do take into account the steep learning curve for this one.

Wrike User Reviews

Many users deem Write the best team collaboration app. Well-liked and respected, it helps companies tackle day-to-day work without losing sight of the bigger picture.

For such a robust tool, Wrike is also surprisingly simple to set up, though users admit there is a learning curve. The wealth of features is a blessing and curse, some clients comment, as it’s easy to get lost in all the options.

Once they get used to it, though, most reviewers agree that Wrike is the best team collaboration software they could’ve picked.

We Recommend Wrike For...

Wrike is an excellent Agile planning and management tool with tons of handy features and scalable options.

That said, to make the most of it, you’ll probably want to get the $24.80/month plan—and that’s not small-business-friendly at all.

Thus, Wrike is better for larger companies that don’t mind the heftier price tag, as long as it guarantees top quality.

ProProfs is a team communication tool on steroids. Here’s why we love it so much:

What Is ProProfs?

ProProfs is a training tool.

Surprised?

Don’t be.

While ProProfs’ first niche was providing training to employees no matter where they are, the app has since branched out into other related fields.

So, why is it a group collaboration software?

Because it helps teams organize their knowledge exchange much more efficiently and create calm, learning-focused environments.

ProProfs provides a separate Q&A and chat function.

This way, your employees can ask a question in the Q&A section and the answer will be recorded and visible to the entire team. The responses are also searchable, creating an internal knowledge base of sorts. You’ll never lose useful information—even years down the line!

As a team communication software, ProProfs allows private messages and groups.

You can also use it to plan and track your projects with its simple project management software. To find more advanced features of this sort, check out our list of the best project management tools.

Pricing

ProProfs offers hand tools for all business-related needs. They come with different pricing plans.

ProProfs Project

The project management tools are available in one of two packages:

• Essentials for $2/user/month billed annually or $3/user/month billed monthly
• Premium for $4/user/month billed annually or $6/user/month billed monthly

Both plans include the basics—tasks and subtasks, shared calendars, different views, Kanban, assigning tasks, collaborative work, etc.

On top of that, the Premium package features advanced employee management functions like roles and permissions, as well as time tracking. You can use financial tools too—invoicing, expenses, billing, etc.

You can try either plan with the 15-day free trial.

ProProfs Collaborate

This solution includes all the team tools for building a Q&A space. Pricing starts at $0/month. That’s right—you can get this entirely for free!

ProProfs Best Features

• Q&A separate from chat
• Searchable internal answers section
• Project planning and management functions
• Time tracking, financials, workflow optimization
• Affordable pricing
• Additional upskilling through training tools, quizzes, etc.

What We Disliked

While ProProfs is among the best collaborative communication tools, it’s mostly known as a quiz creator. There are still some design and user-friendliness details to be smoothed out—but we’re sure the team is working on it as they keep expanding the functionality.

ProProfs User Reviews

ProProfs is best known as an employee training tool. Fair enough, their features in this niche are great—but where are all the collaboration software reviews? They exist; they’re just not a lot.

Users are very happy with ProProfs’ online collaboration platform. The unique approach to knowledge exchange and communication is definitely a selling point and so is the wide range of solutions that ProProfs offers.

The negative reviews are few and far between, with the chief complaints being about technical glitches and about the length of the trial period.

We Recommend ProProfs For...

ProProfs is the best team collaboration software for improving employees’ access to information, ensuring they can exchange knowledge easier, and keeping great answers even years after submission.

We highly recommend it for any company that wants to create an internal knowledge base—and benefit from the additional services ProProfs offers.

Chanty is like a cleaner, more productivity-focused Slack.

Here’s what it has to offer:

What Is Chanty?

Chanty is a team communication software with built-in task creation and management features. And, yes, it looks a whole lot like Slack.

The platform’s main selling point is simplicity and efficiency.

Chanty’s motto is “Get more things done, together.”  And it lives up to it. As far as collaboration applications go, Chanty doesn’t overcomplicate things:

You have all of your conversations—public and private (invite-only)—on the right.

Open them up, talk via text, voice, or video calls, and create tasks within the discussion. Then you can add other relevant people to the task and talk about it in another task-related space.

You can also view tasks in Kanban mode or expand the functionality with multiple third-party integrations.

Pricing

Chanty’s pricing is also refreshingly simple.

You have a free plan with up to 10 people. If your team is larger, you have to go premium. 

The Business plan will set you back $3/user/month billed annually or $4/user/month billed monthly.

Both team collaboration solutions come with unlimited calls, conversations, and searchable history. The Business plan also lets you set user roles and permissions, add more guest users, and use an unlimited number of integrations.

Chanty Best Features

• Sleek, easy-to-navigate layout
• Chat, voice, and video calls
• Create tasks within conversations
• Task-specific spaces
• Kanban view
• Simple and affordable pricing

What We Disliked

Chanty’s main downside is it’s not a comprehensive team software. You can’t work together in real-time, you can’t plan projects or track progress. Chanty is focused on the everyday mechanics of work, not on the big-picture planning.

Chanty User Reviews

Chanty users aren’t expecting a document collaboration software or a robust project planning solution—so they’re not complaining about the lack of these features.

Ultimately, Chanty is a Slack alternative.

Fans of Chanty like the simple, productivity-minded design and the easy task creation. Chanty is also very affordable—even if you pick the premium version.

We Recommend Chanty For...

We highly recommend Chanty for day-to-day workplace collaboration. It’s clean, user-friendly, and it has some super handy features—plus, the pricing is great.

Hubstaff makes time tracking a breeze.

Here’s everything it can do for your business:

What Is Hubstaff?

Hubstaff is a productivity monitoring app.

You have a remote team and you want to make sure they stay on-task? Just ask them to turn on Hubstaff—the program will keep track of their activity and take occasional screenshots to make sure they’re working.

But how is this a business collaboration software?

It is if you combine it with Hubstaff Tasks.

Like all good Agile collaboration tools, Hubstaff Tasks helps you break down projects into tasks, assign people to them, and organize your work into Sprints to boost productivity.

Hubstaff Tasks automatically syncs to Hubstaff, but you can also use it as its own project management software.

To get started:

• Create your Organization page
• Invite your team—if you use Hubstaff, you can import them directly
• Set up projects using the ready-made templates (or choose a custom design instead)
• Begin creating lists, workflows, and tasks

Hubstaff Tasks also lets you create an “Epic view” where you can see all disparate tasks in the same place. It’s one of the handiest collaborative work management tools as it gives you a bird’s eye view of the project even if your tasks are spread around departments and teams.

Pricing

Hubstaff Tasks’ free plan allows up to five users with 100MB storage for each. You’re limited to 10 projects on the platform.

The Premium plan will set you back $5/user/month (or $4.17/user/month billed annually) and includes:

• Unlimited users, projects, and Epics
• 5GB storage per user
• Advanced progress tracking—timelines, roadmap, teams, etc.

Hubstaff Best Features

• Affordable collaborative system
• Agile principles
• Intuitive and easy-to-use
• Independent use from the time tracker available
• Seamless integrations (with Hubstaff and more)

What We Disliked

While Hubstaff Tasks checks (almost) all the boxes, there are way more comprehensive collaboration platforms. If you want to use time tracking, you still need the regular Hubstaff. Many collaboration sites will offer that in the same neat package.

Hubstaff User Reviews

Most team collaboration software reviews praise Hubstaff Tasks for its simplicity and quick workflows. Managers happily report that getting started with it was easy and so was training employees to use it.

Most of the downsides that reviewers quote are minor—e.g., small technical glitches or the fact that you can’t clone projects for quicker setup.

We Recommend Hubstaff For...

Hubstaff Tasks is a great team collaboration software if you’re already using Hubstaff. It’s also a budget-friendly option for smaller organizations that still need a functional Kanban app.

Top-rated project management tool Teamwork keeps your team organized and productive without breaking the bank.

What Is Teamwork?

Teamwork is a project management and collaboration software.

Setting it up and getting started is surprisingly simple with this one. It’s easy to navigate Teamwork to create projects, invite colleagues, and add milestones and tasks.

You can also pick how your project looks visually. What do you see when you first log in? A dashboard-style overview of everything involved or a list of milestones and tasks? You get to pick.

To keep track of progress, Teamwork has interactive Gantt charts, as well as Kanban views of your workflow.

Still, Teamwork is primarily a project management tool. But the company has several collaboration tools for business and they all integrate to create a productivity-first environment.

To use Teamwork as a  project collaboration app, consider getting:

• Teamwork Chat, a quick messaging add-on
• Teamwork Spaces, its file collaboration software
• Teamwork CRM that helps you pipeline leads and opportunities
• Teamwork Desk, a helpdesk software solution

If you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket, you can pick another helpdesk software or customer experience management solution and combine them with Teamwork.

To use Teamwork for both planning and working on your projects, we recommend getting Teamwork plus Teamwork Spaces. This combo helps you align project planning with execution through a shared online workspace, plus cloud collaborations.

Pricing

Teamwork offers a 30-day free trial for all of their plans, plus a forever free solution. Here are the packages for the “regular” Teamwork—and we cover the Teamwork Spaces pricing next.

Free

Teamwork’s free online collaboration tools include standard project management functionality for up to two projects and five users. You get 100MB storage and you can integrate with third-party apps through Zapier.

Deliver

The Pro plan will set you back: 

• $10/user/month billed annually
• $12.5/user/month billed monthly

You can create up to 300 projects and invite unlimited client users to watch your progress. The Pro also includes time tracking, invoicing, and setting project owners.

Grow

Teamwork’s next tier of project management software costs:

• $18/user/month billed annually
• $22.5/user/month billed monthly

It gives you a whopping 250GB storage, lets you plan up to 600 different projects and use all integrations, including advanced ones like HubSpot and Microsoft Project.

Enterprise

The Enterprise plan is quote-only because it’s supposed to fit your business like a glove. There are no limits to the number of projects or users and you can get over 500GB storage. Contact the sales team to talk about what your business needs.

Teamwork Spaces

Teamwork’s cloud collaboration tools help you work on documents together—creating, editing, and sharing content in the same hub.

The Starter plan costs $8/user/month with annual billing. If you pay monthly, it’s $10/user/month.

This plan only allows up to five users and has a 30-page limit.

If your team is bigger, the Pro plan is cheaper—it’s $4/user/month with a yearly commitment or $5 if you pay monthly.

There is a six-user minimum but no upper limit to the number of users. You also get unlimited pages and spaces, as well as advanced editor features.

For even larger companies, contact sales to talk about the enterprise collaboration tools and get a custom offer. You can also ask about Teamwork One, which includes all Teamwork apps for project management and collaboration.

Teamwork Best Features

• Project planning and execution functionality
• Five-tool collaboration suite
• Gantt charts and Kanban view
• Free plan available for project planning
• Real-time collaborative online workspace
• Wealth of integrations

What We Disliked

While Teamwork could easily be the best team collaboration app with its solid integrations, you need Teamwork Spaces for true group collaboration tools.

And, unlike Teamwork, Teamwork Spaces doesn’t have a free plan. If free collaboration software is what you’re after, look elsewhere.

Teamwork User Reviews

Most users know Teamwork as a project management app—we know, we’re a broken record on this one.

Those who use Teamwork Spaces found it through Teamwork, not the other way round. The seamless integration between the two is what draws people in—though the sleek, easy-to-use project collaboration tools are also a common point of praise.

Any complaints? A couple of them.

Some aspects of the software are clunkier than others—e.g., inserting pictures into documents or using tables. Another common complaint is the lack of sophisticated reporting.

We Recommend Teamwork For...

First things first:

We recommend Teamwork in combination with Teamwork Spaces for comprehensive project planning and business collaboration tools. It’s a great solution if you want a one-stop destination for managing and executing projects.

Design tool meets collaboration website—and it makes creating beautiful live documents easier than ever.

What Is Xtensio?

Xtensio is a business design collaboration app.

Step one—it helps you build beautiful documents. You can drag and drop, resize, change the background and color, use interactive modules, etc.

Step two—it’s a team collaboration platform where you share a workspace with your colleagues. Your creations automatically save and sync in real-time. Plus, you can use version control to keep track of the changes.

What kind of things can you do with Xtensio? Virtually anything:

• Marketing visuals like landing pages, virtual brochures, and user persona profiles

• Operations essentials like invoices, employee handbooks, and meeting agendas

• Business development documents like proposals and sales sheets

• Reports of all sorts—monthly, quarterly, marketing reports, case studies, etc.

Although you can build landing pages with landing page builders and generate business development documents with business plan software, with Xtensio you have all of this and more in one place.

Pricing

Xtensio lets you try out the editor for free, but it doesn’t offer free collaboration tools or a trial.

You can pick one of four paid plans:

Lite

This plan is suitable for one user and it costs $8/month billed annually or $10/month billed monthly.

It has all the essentials, too. You can create unlimited documents, download them in multiple different formats, use all Xtensio templates without the watermark, upload unlimited images up to 2MB each, and so on.

Standard

This online project collaboration plan will cost you $12/month paid yearly or $15/month billed monthly. It is suitable for individual use only and very similar to the previous package, with a few additions.

You can send password-protected links, retain data history for up to three months instead of just one, analyze stats and customize links, and get priority support.

Expert

This team plan is suitable for one creator and three guests. It will set you back $30/month billed yearly or $40/month paid monthly.

It lets you invite unlimited guests, create a team branding guide, collaborate in real-time with users, receive weekly workplace insights, and more.

Company

This team plan is suitable for 10 creators and unlimited guests. It will set you back $30/month billed yearly or $40/month paid monthly.

It lets you upload images of up to 4GB, retain data for one year, and more.

Enterprise

If your team has many creators, you can get a customized package with full access to all of Xtensio’s tools for collaboration.

With this package, you can work on unlimited projects, invite unlimited guests, get all customization and analytics functions, and more.

To purchase this full-featured enterprise collaboration platform package, contact sales to discuss your needs and get a quote.

Xtensio Best Features

• Easy-to-use design tool
• Beautiful templates
• Versatile document types
• Easy, real-time collaboration
• Versioning and user controls
• Analytics and insights (only with the Full Access plan)

What We Disliked

Though Xtensio is one of the best collaboration apps for designing pretty documents, it’s not a sophisticated image editor by any means. If you have a graphic design team already, they might not be on board. If you want to create beautiful images without a graphic designer, though, Xtensio is the app for you.

Xtensio User Reviews

Honestly, more people should learn about Xtensio. It’s one of the coolest group collaboration apps we’ve reviewed. But is it the best collaboration software, according to Reddit? We can’t tell you; there are only a handful of posts about it.

The Xtensio reviews that do exist, however, are overwhelmingly positive. Users praise the unique design and collaboration concept, as well as the easy-to-use interface of the software.

The one complaint that does repeat, though, is about customer support. Apparently, some people felt misled into buying the pricier plan, while others had issues downgrading.

We Recommend Xtensio For...

Xtensio has the best collaboration tools for designing business documents and marketing visuals as a team. If you need project-sharing software for design, Xtensio is definitely for you.