The 16 best work collaboration tools for every team

Collaboration tools (or collaboration software) are online platforms created to simplify projects, boost communication, and improve teamwork. These tools help teams better organise documents, share knowledge more effectively, and keep in the loop on project updates, regardless of your physical location.

Confluence offers an easy-to-use way to manage projects in the form of a customisable workspace. You can build, organise, and create everything related to a project in one handy place and work on collaborative documents with your team. You can even integrate tools like Trello or install apps, such as Community Forums for Confluence, to promote company-wide discussions and share news and updates in one place.

Google's product suite has a stellar lineup, allowing users to make collaborative edits on the same document simultaneously. While Google Meet is the obvious collaboration tool, Google Docs and Google Sheets shouldn't be overlooked. Changes made by one user are instantly visible to others, promoting real-time collaboration on documents, presentations, and spreadsheets.

Notion is an all-in-one workspace application offering various features to enhance productivity and organisation. With customisable templates and real-time collaboration across multiple devices, it's a great tool to boost productivity, whether you're remote, hybrid, or in the office.

Trello uses Kanban boards and Gantt charts to help organise projects and manage team workflows. You can add members to boards, set deadlines, and track progress in a calendar or board view. Customise with add-ons, such as Daily Updates, which brings a daily stand-up to Trello, or for large projects, try Due Next for Trello and see realistic project predictions.

Asana is a project management and collaboration tool that helps with planning and communication. From one platform, work tasks and projects can be assigned and tracked or linked across multiple teams, and with custom fields, automation, rules, and forms, you can quickly get a handle on manual project admin tasks.

Monday.com helps manage projects with smart automation and categorisation of project stats. See the status of tasks, set deadlines and milestones for team members, and view them by priority level. Add-ons like Priority Pro let you make a priority matrix that helps visualise tasks ranked by their importance to you. Explore Priority Pro here.

Jira can help plan, track, and manage tasks and issues throughout the development lifecycle. While you'd typically use Jira in tech teams for bug tracking, issue tracking, and project management, its team communication and project visibility capabilities make it great for tracking expenses, warehousing, and more. Add-ons like ScriptRunner for Jira allow you to use scripted JQL functions to automate using escalation services and workflow functions or customise how you create and update issues.

Zapier helps to automate business tasks. As well as visualising the work you have, plug-ins with tools such as Google Workspace functions and a GPT plug-in mean you can create logical workflows for your business. Create ‘Zaps’ that perform different actions based on if/then logic and run when conditions are met, such as when a new customer starts onboarding.

Slack helps enhance team communications. Create a channel, use individual ‘direct messages’ and share documents. You can set alerts on and off as needed, customise the app's look, and even use it on the go.

Microsoft Teams boasts a chat function and video calling but also lets you share files. You can even integrate Microsoft Teams with monday.com, letting you message project members straight from your Team's account.

Zoom is a popular video calling tool that lets teams connect virtually across the globe. You can share files using the in-call chat function, enable closed captions to provide a more accessible experience, and even live collaborate in the app with whiteboards.

Yammer takes the idea of team communications and turns it into more of a social networking platform. While the focus is on ideas and collaboration rather than project-specific engagement, threads and group chats can be used for this purpose.