7 Min. Read

3 Best Online Collaboration Tools Free for Teams

March 13, 2024

You can find a litany of online collaboration tools free for teams these days. But like everything else, some are better than others. In fact, only a handful serve their purpose well. Team collaboration is essential for the success of many businesses.

So it’s important that you invest your time and energy into the best software. That’s exactly what we’re going to assist you with today. We have scoured the internet to bring you the highest performing online collaboration tools free for teams.

Here’s What We’ll Cover:

Our Top Picks

Key Takeaways

Our Top Picks

As you will see, some of these project management software have more features than others. And you may find that the ones that offer more versatility suit you better. But you can trust that our top picks provide optimum collaboration at their core.

FreshBooks

FreshBooks centres on enhancing productivity among your entire team. And when it comes right down to it, better productivity often leads to increased revenue.

FreshBooks is a strong team collaboration tool, as it lets you work with other team members, contractors, and business partners. The end result is a streamlined user experience that’s worth boasting about. Moreover, FreshBooks makes project management more capable than ever.

You can choose who has access to your project files via team permissions. And accessing your various files is easy thanks to centralised file sharing. This intuitive interface is web-based and allows your team members to quickly and easily find your project files. So there’s no burning valuable time trying to get your remote team on the same page.

What’s more, you can assign your project members with a task list to complete daily tasks. Project management software is the most efficient it’s ever been thanks to FreshBooks. And all throughout the duration of your projects, team members can leave feedback.

It’s a breeze to communicate and collaborate amongst one another. And since FreshBooks is cloud-based, everything updates in real-time for all members to see.

Another key feature that team managers are sure to love is the ability to track profitability. In fact, there’s a whole suite of profitability tools, including:

Project Profitability Details
Profitability Summary
Profitability Widget

Project Profitability Details lets you view a detailed report of every project’s profitability. And you see this data in both service and expense categories. You can determine how and where your projects are making your business money. Use this information in other projects to maximise your remote team.

Profitability Summary provides you with an overview of your projects’ overall profitability. You can view this data across both projects and clients. In doing so, you can compare how projects stack up against one another. With this information, you can then tailor projects to ensure the best outcome.

Profitability Widget gives you a quick breakdown of your projects, with key figures like:

Profitability of projects
Unbilled hours
Incomes
Costs

This data gives project managers an at-a-glance view of project status. With so many tools at your service, FreshBooks is the ultimate all-in-one online platform collaboration tool. And best of all, it’s free to try out!

Microsoft Teams

If you prefer customisation and integration with other Microsoft offerings, Teams will serve you well. But if your business doesn’t use Microsoft products, you might want to look elsewhere.

When using this team collaboration software within a Microsoft space, Teams excels. There’s a lot of app integrations available to the user that allows for a streamlined experience. Everything is presented in a professional manner, which is both good and bad in this case.

It’s good because Teams looks like the pro collaboration app that it is. It’s bad because Teams can be awfully rigid at times. This may prove to be a problem for users who appreciate more freedom. At times, it can feel like you’re following strict rules, which can be a turn-off.

Microsoft Teams works well in connecting you with colleagues for various projects. Just be cautious of how many projects you have going at one time. Too many will lead to you having to sift through multiple prompts to get to where you want to go.

It’s nothing that breaks the app, but it’s still a curious addition that often leads to tedium. Aside from these minor gripes, Microsoft Teams impresses with how well it respects the collaborative side of projects. For example, you can share your mouse and keyboard with other users.

If you’ve ever tried to blindly walk someone through specific steps, you know how aggravating that can be. Now, they can hand the reins over to you and watch you in real-time. You can also share desktops, there’s cloud storage and a virtual whiteboard, and calls are high-quality.

Both audio and video calls are clear and crisp, and there’s even voicemail transcription for those who hate listening to messages. Navigation feels good overall. But remember, you should try to keep your windows as minimal as possible.

There is a slight learning curve, especially if you don’t use Microsoft products. But if you stick with it, you’ll find that it doesn’t take long to get the hang of things. And once you do, Teams work well. The screen-sharing features are particularly nice.

If you’re comfortable with Microsoft products — and especially if you use them in your workplace — Teams is for you. But if you use any other piece of software on your desktop devices, you will likely switch to another project management app.

Slack

Compared to FreshBooks, Slack is pretty limited. Still, there’s enough here to warrant its entry among our top picks. Slack is a team collaboration app and communication tool. As such, it meets the requirements for online collaboration tools free for teams.

You can host team chat channels for your team members to join, and navigation is OK. There are some issues with video conferencing and audio calls. But there’s nothing that will keep you from collaborating. Thankfully, the free version of Slack gives you unlimited users and messages.

If you’ve had experience with the countless instant-messaging apps that have been developed over the years, you’ll feel right at home with Slack. The storage for file sharing is pretty nice, with 5GB to accommodate your collaborative efforts.

Aside from the calling drawbacks, it’s worth noting that Slack doesn’t provide the most professional presentation. At least, not in its default setting. It looks rather cartoonish and childish, especially when Slack’s emojis are in full force. Fortunately, you can adjust Slack’s settings to present less “stimulating” visuals.

Another gripe is the way Slack displays team member comments. Everything is thrown at you all at once, making it a chore to find a specific post. You can go through additional steps to circumvent this issue, but that only detracts from the user-friendliness.

These might sound like major issues — and to some users, they might be. But for free communication among professionals, Slack serves its purpose reasonably well.

Key Takeaways

These online collaboration tools free for teams will aid you in streamlining your projects. But as you surely determined, some offer more than others. If you want an all-in-one collaboration solution, FreshBooks is your best bet.

Its collection of tools allows team members to perform a wide range of handy functions. And its user-friendly interface is leaps and bounds better than the competition. Try it for free before you buy to see what all the hype is about.

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