Team Collaboration Software for Free: Who’s Giving It Away?

Free team collaboration apps for business

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Published: July 12, 2019

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

The global market for enterprise collaboration is set to reach a value of $53.83 billion by 2023, according to the latest reports. It’s easy to see why the growth of this space is so significant. After all, today’s workplaces are growing increasingly dispersed, separated by things like remote working, globalization, and mobile employees. Collaboration tools like “Teams” apps are a way to bring all of your staff members together in the same productive environment.

Through the cloud and immersive collaborative tools, employees can continue to work together in seamless digital environments, regardless of wherever they are. Access to project management, file sharing, and conferencing tools have made work something we do, rather than a place we go to.

However, with so many team collaboration tools available on the market today, it can be challenging to determine which option is right for you. The easiest way to start making this choice could be to begin with a vendor that lets you try before you buy. Here are some of the companies providing their Teams apps for free.

Microsoft Teams

New Microsoft Teams LogoMicrosoft Teams isn’t just one of the most impressive enterprise apps for collaboration in the modern marketplace; it’s also a leading solution for smaller companies too. Recently, Microsoft introduced the free version of its Teams offering, to compete with the likes of Slack. The free version of Microsoft Teams comes with all the benefits of the premium option, including access to the full Office 365 portfolio. What’s more, Microsoft has also been incredibly generous with its free feature set.

Unlimited messages and search are available for no cost, along with guest access, a maximum of 300 users, and of course, the option to integrate more than 140 apps into your collaboration experience. Microsoft offers one of the most robust free Teams apps around. For those wondering whether they should take their Microsoft ecosystem to the next level, the free version of Microsoft Teams is a fantastic way to discover what’s possible with a leading Teams tool.

Cisco Webex Teams

Cisco Webex TeamsCisco is one of the main enterprise collaboration apps competing with Microsoft Teams today. It provides high-level communication and collaboration functionality, supported by a company with a significant heritage in the UC space. The Cisco Webex Teams application comes with state-of-the-art video and audio web conferencing software, as well as the option to integrate with leading Cisco and third-party hardware.

Cisco’s free offering is only available for a trial run of 30 days, but this should be more than enough time for today’s business leaders to get an insight into whether this tool could be the perfect addition to their collaborative experience. Over 30 days, you can discover how comfortable your team truly feels using a Cisco solution to enhance their day-to-day interactions, then upgrade with ease if you decide to go premium.

Slack

slack logoSlack is probably the best-known solution for free collaboration apps on the market today. Perhaps the go-to offering for smaller businesses and freelancers, Slack has always offered an immersive free experience for those who want to discover the benefits of cloud-based collaboration. This fantastic tool provides a range of integrations with leading services from across the business environment, including Dropbox and Google Drive. Slack is one of the simplest solutions for today’s teams to adopt, with an easy-to-use and intuitive interface that seems to appeal to companies of any background or size.

Slack’s free offering provides everything you would expect from the typical Slack experience, including direct messaging, threaded content, and voice and video calling if you feel like taking your conversations with colleagues to the next level. With the Slack free plan, you’ll be limited to searching through 10,000 of your team’s recent messages. Additionally, you can only use up to 10 custom or third-party integrations with your app.

Samepage

samepage_iconSamepage might not have quite as much heritage as Slack, Cisco, or Microsoft Teams when it comes to Unified Communications, but it has a lot to offer for businesses in search of free collaboration support. The Samepage software helps today’s organisations to improve their workflow through team chat, task management, file sharing, real-time collaboration, and video conferencing. It’s an excellent alternative to project management tools that don’t typically come with collaborative features.

The Samepage free version allows organisation members to share any kind of information they need with ease, without having to jump from one app to another. It’s great for business leaders that want to add more task and project management features to their options for day-to-day connectivity. The free version comes with unlimited access for guests and members, unlimited pages, unlimited chat and search history, and up to 2GB of storage.

Wrike

Wrike LogoSpeaking of solutions for better project management, Wrike is a Teams tool specifically designed for agile companies that want to make the most of their collaboration strategy. With Wrike, you can bring your employees together in a digital environment that’s intended to break-down the silos in communication with live editing features, proof functionality, task management, and even Kanban boards.

Wrike provides better insights into workflow and upcoming deadlines for team members, reducing the risk that projects will be overlooked. Additionally, it ensures that employers have the tools they need to track the kind of productivity that their team members demonstrate each day. Currently, the free version of Wrike only supports 5 users at a time. However, this could be an excellent solution or smaller teams that need better knowledge sharing and task management functionality.

RingCentral Glip

Glip LogoToday, RingCentral is one of the leading providers of communication and collaboration tools in locations around the world. It’s no surprise that this popular vendor would want to explore the benefits of hosting their own collaborative tool. The RingCentral Glip platform was designed from the ground up to improve the interactions between team members in any environment through an immersive communications channel. Glip is a functional, intuitive, and easy-to-use chat and task management application.

Unlike many modern collaboration tool offerings, Glip combines both project and task management with video and audio conferencing, instant chat, file sharing, and more, to give teams everything they need in the same space. Because the whole experience is supported by a leader in the communication industry, you can also rest assured that you’ll be getting excellent reliability and quality in every conversation. The free version of RingCentral Glip comes with access to unlimited chat, storage, guest users, and integrations. You can also access unlimited tams and up to 500 total minutes of shared video.

Workplace by Facebook

Workplace by Facebook logoWorkplace by Facebook is one of the more recent additions to the collaboration environment for today’s enterprise and business users. Designed to provide people with a similar experience to the one that they get with their favourite social media tool, Workplace by Facebook gives you a unique social experience of collaboration, unlike anything else out there today. Rather than creating a department or team specific tool, Facebook created Workplace to try and bring everyone in your organisation together in the same unified space.

Just like with the consumer version of Facebook, Workplace allows users to chat in real-time, stream live videos, schedule events, create groups, and more. There’s everything that today’s organisations need included in the same environment, with an intuitive interface that’s sure to make adoption easier. With the free version of Workplace by Facebook, users can access live video streaming, voice and video calls, workplace and work chat apps and more without paying a penny.

 

 

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