It is no secret that communication is one of the most important aspects of any organization. A lack of communication can lead to a lack of productivity, low morale, and even loss of customers.
Companies today are quickly discovering the benefits of using team collaboration apps to keep everyone on the same page and communicate more efficiently.
We have reviewed the top 10 best apps for team communication and picked out the 5 best ones for you to consider using in your business.
Best Apps For Team Communication
Team chat apps aren’t just tools—they’re the modern office. That’s obviously true for remote teams, but the appeal goes well beyond that. Companies that have a shared physical workspace increasingly depend on workplace chat to get things done.
How automation can support brainstorming, delegation, and communication
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Part of this is about efficiency. But business chat apps also mean that everyone can decide to participate in, or at least see, relevant conversations, while crucially also allowing people to ignore messages that aren’t relevant to them. Slack is an excellent go-to choice, but there are plenty of Slack alternatives to choose from.
We reviewed and tested dozens of team communication apps, and here we’ll present our picks for the best team chat apps currently on the market.
The 5 best team chat apps
Slack for a chat-powered workplace
Microsoft Teams for large organizations broken down into teams
Google Chat for Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) users
Discord for always-on voice chat
Mattermost for self-hosted team chat
What makes a great team chat app?
How we evaluate and test apps
All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who’ve spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We’re never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.
I’ve been reviewing and writing about software since 2009, working remotely the entire time, so I’m extremely familiar with the ins and outs of team communication software.
Communication is tied to culture, and every company is different—this is why there are so many work chat apps on the market. I think a few features are universally necessary, however, and kept them in mind while I was reviewing apps. The best team chat apps:
Organize conversations. Some messages need to be seen by your entire company, others need to happen at the team level, and not every team conversation needs to involve your entire team. The best work chat app organizes conversations in a way that enables this, allowing users to decide what they do and don’t see. This means channels that team members can join, or not join, depending on what’s relevant to them. Ideally conversations can be broken down even further than that, using threads or similar features to keep people from talking over each other. The ability to tag people and to pull them into conversations they otherwise might miss is also a must.
Offer universal search with filtering features. There is nothing more frustrating than having the same conversation multiple times, which is why search is essential. When it comes to work chat, your team should be able to quickly find past conversations for relevant information. Filtering features make this a lot easier.
Offer video and audio chat. Some conversations are smoother out loud. The best team chat apps offer voice and video communication, and also offer some way for users to share their screen for collaboration.
Are easy to navigate and control. Members need to be able to navigate the various conversations quickly. User interfaces need to be clear, without unnecessary clutter. There should be keyboard shortcuts on the desktop, gestures on mobile, and other ways to quickly move from channel to channel within the team messaging app.
Enable collaboration. You’re here to work, and the ideal team communication app should make this easy with collaboration-specific features. Sharing a file should be as easy as clicking-and-dragging. Links should have embedded previews. And there should be integrations with other apps, to make getting work done easier.
I reviewed and tested 35 communication apps before selecting the ones on this list. I ruled out any that didn’t meet the above criteria, then set up test accounts for the services that did. I invited friends and colleagues to join me for a conversation, testing how easy it was to add team members and learning from them what features they did and didn’t find intuitive.
Then I shared a few files, tested the call quality, and explored any other features that weren’t immediately obvious. After all of that, I concluded that the chat platforms below are the ones that offer the best balance of these five criteria. (Note that I focused exclusively on apps built for real-time communication and de-emphasized tools that focus mostly on project management.)
Best team chat app for a chat-powered workplace
Slack (Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, Web)
Slack, our pick for the best team chat app for a chat-powered workplace
Slack launched in 2013 and quickly came to define the office chat space, in no small part because people loved using it. It’s not hard to understand why—this is an application designed with the user in mind.
Every Slack team has a General channel intended for the entire company, but the bulk of day-to-day chatter happens in channels related to a specific team or project. Users decide which of these channels they want to be in, which means they can avoid being flooded by messages about projects unrelated to them. This sorting goes further: conversations in these channels can be broken down into threads, and users will only be notified of conversations in threads if they participate in the conversation or actively decide to subscribe to them. Team members can tag other users to pull them into channels or threads, which helps balance the need to reduce noise with the need to ensure important conversations are being seen.
Slack also makes it easy for users to find answers using search. You can easily filter by channel, user, date, and more. Collaboration is another key emphasis. Quickly share files by clicking-and-dragging them onto the app, or by linking to them. Most links will unfurl, meaning things like images and videos can be reviewed without leaving the app. Small features, like emoji reactions, make it easy to meaningfully respond to messages in just a couple clicks. Video and audio calls can be started with a single click, and there are even audio “huddles” people can drop in and out of for audio co-working. Slack also offers thousands of integrations with other apps. All of these small touches might sound overwhelming, but a clever design (alongside friendly text in every corner of the app) means that Slack rarely feels confusing or overwhelming.
Slack’s biggest downside might be its price—particularly given that it doesn’t come as part of a broader software bundle. For teams that are serious about workplace chat, however, Slack offers more than enough value to be worthwhile.
You can do more with Slack when you connect it to your favorite apps through Zapier. You can create automated workflows that let you know when a calendar event is about to start, add saved Slack messages to your to-do list automatically, and more.
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Slack pricing: Free for unlimited users, 1-on-1 calls within your team, and 10k message history; paid plans from $8/user/month (when paid monthly) for unlimited history, screen sharing, huddles, and team video calls.
Best team chat app for large organizations broken down into teams
Microsoft Teams (Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Web)
Microsoft Teams, our pick for the best team chat app for large organizations broken down into teams
Microsoft Teams is what happens when an org chart becomes a team chat app. How much you’ll like it is directly related to how appealing the previous sentence was to you.
Every Microsoft Teams account is tied to a single organization, sometimes called an org, which represents your entire company. Users are invited into one or more teams inside a company, and every team is broken down into channels. Conversations in these channels are forced into threads, breaking office instant messaging down yet another level. It’s the most layers of organization in any team chat app we tested, and while it might sound a little confusing, the result is ultimately tidy.
Video and audio calls are a big emphasis. Users can schedule meetings, complete with an agenda, or hop onto spontaneous calls. There are also extensive collaboration features, including tight integration with the Microsoft Office suite for collaborating on documents, calendar appointments, and notes.
The main downside to Teams is how much work it is to roll out. If you don’t have a dedicated IT staff, it’s going to be tricky to set up, particularly if you’re attempting to set up the free version. Considering the size of organizations Teams seems to be built for, however, that’s probably not much of a barrier—especially if your team is already using the Microsoft suite of apps.
When you connect Teams to your other apps using Zapier, you can track invoices in Teams as they’re paid, get instant visibility into new leads by posting them to a channel automatically as they come in, and more.
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Microsoft Teams pricing: Included with Microsoft 365 Business Basic and higher from $6/user/month (when paid annually) for Sharepoint, OneDrive, cloud versions of all Office apps, and Microsoft Teams chat.
Best team chat app for Google Workspace users
Google Chat (Web, iOS, Android)
Google Chat, our pick for the best team chat app for Google Workspace users
You’re forgiven if you didn’t know Google offered a team chat app—it’s not exactly common knowledge. Even so, Google Chat is worth looking into, especially if your organization already uses Google Workspace.
Google Chat, formerly known as Google Hangouts Chat, breaks conversations down into rooms, similar to channels in Slack. Conversations are forced into threads, which helps keep things organized. Your company can add as many rooms as they want, and users can easily join and leave rooms.
Where Chat really shines, however, is with integrations with Google’s ecosystem of apps. Pasting a Google Doc link automatically changes permissions, so everyone in the room can open it. You can quickly organize a meeting with any coworker by tagging Google Meet, your coworker, and saying when the meeting should happen—this creates a calendar appointment complete with a Google Meet link for video conferencing. Every room has a task list, which connects to Google Tasks. Search is also a strong point, which, considering this is a Google product, probably shouldn’t be a surprise. Results show up in real-time as you type, and there’s a wide range of filtering options.
Google Chat’s weakness is probably polish. Some seemingly simple things, like browsing a list of public rooms to join, are buried behind multiple clicks for reasons that are unclear to me. Using Chat will take some getting used to. But it’s a solid choice, and if your company is already paying for Google Workspace, it’s essentially free.
By using Zapier to connect Google Chat with the other apps you use most, you can turn your chat app into a work hub. Get notifications in the right channel before important events, for new form responses, or when new tickets come in from your ticketing app.
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Google Chat pricing: Included with Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) Basic and higher plans from $6/user/month for Gmail on your custom domain, Google Workspace apps, and Google Chat.
Best team chat app for always-on voice chat
Discord (Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Web)
Discord, our pick for the best team chat app for always-on voice chat
Discord is a real outlier. It was originally built with gamers in mind, and these days is marketed more broadly to online communities—not companies. There aren’t a lot of business-specific features, and integrations are largely bots built by third parties. But Discord can work for business chat for one key reason: excellent always-on audio.
Discord offers text channels, similar to those seen in other team chat apps. You can add as many as you want, and you can break down conversations further using threads. The highlight here, though, is the voice channels, which are always-on phone calls where you can talk to anyone on your team. You can keep your mic off, then push a key to start talking whenever you want to jump in. It was originally designed for gaming—the idea is to turn on a channel, leave Discord running in the background, then play cooperative games. But it’s just as handy to talk to colleagues while working remotely in a shared Google Doc, or you could share your screen in any application and collaborate that way. There’s also the option of video chats, if you want to see your teammates face-to-face, but we think the audio chats are the real highlight here.
Another key point: Discord is almost entirely free. Sure, there are features behind a paywall, but they are basically irrelevant to a business use case. Discord also offers the best audio quality on the market, and this feature alone makes it worth a look if you’re looking for a Slack alternative and talking out loud is how you get work done.
Discord becomes even more suited for business when you connect it to your favorite apps through Zapier. Pull Twitter activity into a Discord channel, automatically share new content from your knowledge base app with a channel, and more.
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Discord pricing: Free for basic features; $9.99/month Nitro plan for more custom emoji, larger file uploads, and GIF avatars.
work team communication apps
The SMS text messaging is now passe`, especially with the advent of the modern-age chat applications. There are work chat apps or business apps for the workplace and personal messaging apps for personal matters.
Each one of us is aware of the importance of effective communication and collaboration at work. Using the right team chat software can not just streamline your communication process but also save a lot of time.
Table of Contents [show]
Team chat app
Team chat apps are definitely not the ‘latest thing’ in the market but these are making way for seamless communication and innovative approaches for sure. Team chat applications are no longer limited to organizing team conversations and searching topics but have become a way of life too.
Let’s talk about the benefits of team communication tool in detail:
Benefits of team chat app
Benefits of team chat app
As per a survey conducted by Statista, 53 percent of businesses worldwide had adopted collaboration tools by 2016, and the number is consistently increasing ever since. As businesses are looking for digital solutions, the use of work chat apps and collaboration tools is on the rise to improve collaboration.
Below down are the significant benefits of using a team chat app for your business:
Improved communication
No points for guessing, team chat software is designed to enable seamless communication between team members. It’s not always possible to be physically around all the time. Such tools let you have a conversation and share ideas messages, documents, videos even from remote places.
Streamlined workflow
A team communication tool help remote team members to work efficiently. It’s an effective way to streamline the workflow of an organization. With these tools, team members can have virtual daily meetings where they can share current tasks, plan sprints, and even ask for instant feedback.
Better employee engagement
Although the main task of an office chat software is to bring people together and facilitate an organization’s workflow, it also increases employee engagement at the same time. When employees are engaged, overall employee productivity also improves.
Increased accountability
The purpose of internal communication is also to make people accountable for their tasks and job responsibilities. As team members have to update managers about the progress, thus quite effectively, they develop a sense of responsibility towards their work and share updates with office chat tools.
Enhanced project management
Effective project management is only possible with effective coordination. When you communicate effectively, the chances of confusion and mistakes also lessen. It is one of the most optimum ways to make sure if things are on track or not. Thus, team chat software does make way for seamless project management.
Stay organized
It’s common to lose track of what has been done, what’s happening, and what needs to be done when things are already in motion. Team collaboration apps are helpful in maintaining order and managing stages that help you stay organized.
Saves time
Work and deadlines both go hand-in-hand. It’s essential to take care of time while collaborating with others. A quintessential team chat app is one that cuts down the time you’d have to spend by actually getting up and going to a person to ask something. The coordinated work saves not just time but also resources and efforts. The more time you save, the lesser would be unwanted expenses.
Strengthen team relationships
When people work together on different tasks and projects, they tend to develop a healthy working relationship among other team members. Talking to fellow team members on chat or in person enables you to foster a healthy work environment which leads to innovation and development.
7 Major benefits of having a team chat software
What is the best app for team communication?
- ProofHub
ProofHub – Team Chat app
ProofHub is a team communication software that brings all your project communications together at one place. It is the perfect place for every conversation and brings sanity in the way your teams communicate within an office or with clients.
Highlights:
One-on-one chat to bring clarity in office conversations
Group chat to work together, collaborate, and get things done
Create discussions to brainstorm, discuss topics with remote members
@mention team members to loop in whenever, wherever you want
How much?
Standard ($90/month billed annually) Premium ($135/month billed annually)
Projects
Storage
Tasks
Boards
Gantt
Workflows
Time Tracking
Reports
Project templates
Discussions
Calendar
Forms
Email-in
Stickies
Notes
Announcements
Files & Documents
Proofing & file approval
File versioning
Private Items
Chat
Multilingual
Integrations
Custom Fields
Custom Roles
Manage Trash
Priority support
White Labelling
IP Restrictions
Detailed Activity Logs
Project Manager
API Access
All standard features
White labelling
IP Restrictions
Detailed Activity Logs
Project Manager
API Access
To know more, please visit our pricing page here.
Supported platforms:
iOS, Android, Windows, and web
Summary: ProofHub is an all-in-one team collaboration software with powerful features that eliminates the need to invest in too many tools for your business.
“Want to bring all your office communications under one roof? ProofHub’s office chat software is just the solution you are looking for.”
- Chanty
Chanty-team-chat-team-collaboration
Chanty is an easy-to-use team chat app that lets your team communicate and collaborate more quickly and efficiently. Chanty brings all aspects of communication together: chat, audio and video calls and screen sharing. Besides communication, you can also do some light project management and turn messages into tasks. There are useful integrations with Google Drive, Trello, Dropbox and Github, among others. Our favorite is the Teambook – where you can see all of your messages, contacts and tasks in one place.
Highlights:
– you can communicate through chat, audio and video
– you can use threaded messaging
– Teambook to access all of your content in one place
– Unlimited message history in the free plan
– Easy to use search option
How much?
Free plan and paid plan ($3 per user per month)
How much?
FREE BUSINESS
Free plan is for teams with up to 10 members. Business plan, starts at $3 per user, per month and delivers additional features and unlimited members.
Supported platforms:
iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Web
Summary: Chanty is a simple team chat tool to boost communication and productivity in teams of all business segments.
- Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Bring teams together with Troop Messenger! Collaborate and talk work on a single interface, and reach hierarchies of all levels with one-on-one conversations, voice-video calls, screen sharing, audio messaging, forkout, group conversations, etc. File sharing, a preview of files, filtering content, making favorites, are few among the beautifully designed features for leveraging great user experience. Share ideas, work, and projects to streamline your teams towards a promising collaboration with Troop Messenger.
Highlights:
Team members can suggest users to admin.
Read missed conversations with unread message filter.
Send a text message or attachment to multiple users/multiple groups with Forkout
Custom administrative controls
Thoughtfully crafted admin dashboard
Vendor collaboration feature, the Orange Member.
Self-hosting and API delivery options.
How much?
Free plan Premium ($1/per user/per month) Enterprise ($3/per user/ per month)
One-One Messaging, File sharing, Group Chats – limitation (5) & more Live Tracking, Audio Messaging, video calling, Analytics & more Screen Sharing, burn out, data record, dedicated account manager
Supported platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Web, Android, and iOS.
Summary: Relying on different tools for office work leads to confusion! Instead, trust Troop Messenger for productive work outcomes. It is a hub of powerful team collaboration features that supports real-time work conversations.
- Connecteam
Connectteam as team chat app
Connecteam is an all-in-one employee management solution with effective communication tools for both businesses and teams. In a single app, you have access to group or private chat, employee directory, immediate updates, social posts and so much more.
Highlights:
Chat – Easily create a chat per location, project, department or even start a private dialogue by browsing work contacts.
Updates – Send an immediate update on anything you’d like to all relevant employees and automatically track who viewed your update, with or without social tools such as comments and likes. From announcements, weekly goals, a quick message or celebrating a birthday, updates make employee engagement fun and easy.
Employee directory
Surveys to gain feedback on a regular basis
HR suggestion box
Analytics and activity
How much? Pricing starts at just $29/month for up to 200 users or you can trial Connecteam with its free plan.
Basic $29/month Advanced($59/month) Expert ($119/month)
Up to 200 users
Up to 200 users + All basic features Plus + other features Up to 200 users + All advanced features Plus + other features
Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Web
Summary: Connecteam helps you streamline communication, limit unnecessary phone calls, and improve employee productivity
- Brosix
Brosix as team chat app
Brosix is an instant messaging platform that provides you with a fully administrable private team network. Brosix comes with a range of collaboration features beyond basic IM, allowing your team to send/receive files, hold audio and video calls, communicate in chat rooms and collaborate with screen sharing. Brosix uses P2P encryption on all communication channels, creating a secure communication environment.
Highlights:
Administrative control over user accounts
P2P encryption on all communication channels
Screen sharing, remote desktop and unlimited size file transfer
How much?
Startup (free) Business ($4 per user per month when billed annually) Premium
($6 per user per month when billed annually)
Private team network for up to 3 users, chat history, features control Unlimited users, audio and video calls, full range of collaboration features, admin control, technical support Unlimited users, full range of communication and collaboration features, full admin control, multiple administrators, technical support
Supported platforms:
Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Web Client
Summary: Brosix is a great team communication solution for those looking to streamline and protect communication within an organization.
- Spike
Spike
Spike takes your email inbox and turns it into a powerful productivity tool. It works with your existing email, so you don’t need to transition your work or team to another chat or project management platform. Spike unifies productivity tools, such as tasks, to-do lists, collaborative notes, calendar, video meetings and voice calls, email/chat, groups, and more into a single app that is available on all devices. This eliminates the need to switch between apps.
Other features include:
Streamlined Chat (no headers or signatures)
Voice Messages for Asynchronous Communication
Video Meetings that work with anyone
Scheduled Send
Set reminders
Lets you collaborate with people not using the platform
Cross-platform for Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android and the web
- Rocket.Chat
Rocket.Chat
Rocket.Chat is an open source team communication tool released in 2015. It lets you communicate and collaborate with your team, share files, chat in real-time or even switch to audio/video conferencing. It also allows you to customize and add new functionalities to the tool as per your needs and requirements.
Highlights:
Discuss and share ideas, projects, and files with real-time or asynchronous team chat
Include relevant participants with the @username mention to notify immediately
Automatic real-time message translation feature
User-name restriction and admin transparency
How much?
Freemium Pro ($3/user/monthly) Enterprise
(price available on request)
1k users, unlimited message history, shared conferencing server Unlimited users, broadcast channel, a dedicated conferencing server, real-time syncing Unlimited users, audio to text conversion, unlimited integrations, message auditing panel, access to product team
Supported platforms:
iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux
Summary: Rocket.Chat is the best open-source communication tool in the market. So, just open up the conversation and remove the need for CC/BCC by using its channels and private groups.
- Hangouts Chat
Hangouts chat
Hangouts is a communication platform developed by Google which is helping many users to initiate and engage in various communication channels without any effort. Whether one-on-one implementation or in group wise, Hangouts is one of the most preferred tools out there in the world.
Highlights:
HD group conferencing and voice calls
Screen sharing options
Supports multiple computing devices
Custom administrative control options
How much?
Basic ($5 per user per month) Business ($10 per user per month) Enterprise ($25 per user per month)
Professional office suite with 30 GB storage space Enhanced suite with unlimited storage and archiving Premium office suite with advanced capabilities
Supported platforms:
iOS, Android, macOS, and web
Summary: Hangouts is the perfect cost-effective collaboration platform for entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking for a team communication tool via text, audio, and videos.
- Slack
Slack – team collaboration
Slack is one of the first few team chat applications that comes to mind when we hear about team collaboration. Many teams throughout the world have been using it to improve team communication and efficiency. It covers your instant messaging (IM) basics and also supports file-sharing, automatic syncing across different devices.
Highlights:
Share channels with people you regularly work with
Drag-and-drop PDFs, images, videos and other files directly into Slack
The Slack App Directory has over 1,500 apps you can integrate into Slack
How much?
Freemium Standard ($6.67 per user per month) Plus (12.5 per user per month)
10K of your team’s most recent messages, 5 GB storage space per team, 10 third-party apps or integrations and 1-to-1 calls only. Unlimited messages, unlimited app integrations, interactive screen sharing up to 15 participants 20 GB per team member plus SAML-based single sign-in, real-time active directory syncing,
Supported platforms:
iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, and web
Summary: Slack is a collaboration hub for work, no matter what you do. Conversations are searchable by anyone. Slack works with many tools and services you already use every day.
If conversations doesn’t seem to be in perfect order with Slack, you can pick any Slack alternatives.
- Facebook Workplace
Workplace -facebook
Image credit: Facebook
Workplace combines next-gen technology and versatile features to bring an evolution in the world of communications for businesses of all sizes and nature. Employees can use the platform to connect with each other through instant messaging and those who work in common departments can make groups to carry out meaningful conversations.
Highlights:
Better conversations and knowledge sharing
Effective employee engagement and cultural change
Administrative controls
APIs for custom integration and bots
How much?
Standard (free) Premium ($3 per user per month)
Live video streaming, unlimited file, photo, and video storage, secure collaboration Voice and video calls, integration with file storage providers, desktop notifier for Windows, APIs for integrations and bots, integrations with G Suite, Okta, Windows Azure AD and more.
Supported platforms:
Android, web, iOS
Summary: As a team chat software, Facebook Workplace promotes openness, feedback to engage employees and drive cultural change.
Conclusion
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