Software For Working From Home: 24 Apps Your Team Must Try

Let’s make something clear: working from home is anything but easy. Especially in a team.

If you’re feeling like your people could be doing a better job, you’re not the only one. Co-workers who only communicate online face entirely new challenges that stationary teams never worry about. Luckily, technology is there to help you. And that technology is our today’s topic.

Recent remote work statistics conducted by BlueFace suggest that more people will be working from home than from traditional office locations. In fact, experts predict that by 2025, remote work will compete fiercely with office locations. This study was published before Twitter announced that it was incentivizing its employees to work remotely for as long as they desired. As if that’s not enough, more and more companies go remote permanently.

Clearly, this means that businesses have to learn how to manage work from home employees and the right tools required to boost the productivity of distributed teams.

Let’s dive in and have a look at 24 apps and platforms that will make life easier for you and your team.

Collaboration Tools

Let’s start with collaboration tools as the first type of software for working from home. These are all the apps you’ll be working with to get your tasks done.

Some of the tools mentioned below are all-in-one workspaces and others serve specific purposes and tasks.

Taskeo

Taskeo is an integrated cloud-based management platform for your business. Successfully replacing several stand-alone apps, it helps you do more with fewer tools. Taskeo comes with a number of features for comprehensive project management, customer relationship management, time tracking and billing and appointment scheduling.

Feature Highlight

• Contact & Company Database
• Flexible pipelines
• Built-in appointment scheduling
• Time tracking & billing
• Recurring tasks
• Tasks reminder
• Task and project templates
• Personal Dashboard
• User activity feed

Pricing

Taskeo is free to try it out & no credit card is required. PRO plans start at $5/month/user.

Nifty

Nifty is a remote collaboration hub designed to help teams manage projects, goals, files and teams, all in one place. Nifty lets you view all your work in one simple, interactive dashboard, from project files to deadlines, keeping you and your team on the same page.

Feature Highlight

• Integration with other software such as Zoom 
• Automated project status reporting
• Project milestones 
• A built-in time tracker
• Kanban Board and Task List views 
• Team chat within the tool 
• Project discussions within tasks 
• Project templates

Pricing

Nifty has four flat-rate pricing plans: Starter plan, which is free for teams up to 10 people and Pro, Business and Enterprise plans, that start from $79/per month.

Miro

“Empower cross-functional discovery and brainstorming through an infinite canvas, robust set of widgets, prebuilt templates, and powerful platform capabilities. Miro presents an entire toolkit for user story or customer journey maps, wireframing, roadmap or sprint planning, retros, and more.” 

Feature Highlight

• Discussion Boards
• Templates and workflows
• Content & Document management
• Mindmaps, flowcharts, customer journey maps
• Zoom integration

Pricing

Miro has a limited free plan and premium plans starting at $8/user/month.

Whimsical

“Thousands of high-performing teams rely on whimsical to work together, faster.”

Feature Highlight

• Flowcharts
• Wireframes
• Mindmaps

Pricing

Whimsical has a limited free plan. Premium plans start at $10/month/user.

Droplr

“Capture screenshots and screen recordings instantly: it’s saved to the cloud with a link you can share with anyone, anywhere.”

Feature Highlight

• Available for Mac, Windows, Chrome Extension, Chromebook
• Capture screenshots
• Screen recording
• Share captures with a shortener link
• Save your captures in the cloud
• Multiple integrations

Pricing

Droplr offers a free trial so you can test the product. Premium plans start at $4/month.

Story Chief

“Use StoryChief as a layer on top of your channels and collaborate on blogs and social posts in an easy-to-use, centralized environment instead of giving access to your backends.”

Feature Highlight

• Content Collaboration
• Content Calendar
• Social Media Management
• SEO Content Management
• Content Version History
• User roles
• Multiple Integrations

Pricing

Story Chief has a limited free plan. Premium plans start at $12/user/month.

Communication Tools

When working remotely, nothing gets done without proper communication. The second category of software for working from home that we’re going to tackle are communication tools.

This kind of apps makes it easier to collaborate when you’re only connecting online. From project management to video conferencing, there’s a tool for every communication struggle you could experience.

Ringover

“Ringover is a click-to-play business phone system on mobile and web apps that makes it possible for distributed teams to stay connected to their customers, colleagues and partners.”

Feature Highlight

• Automatic call distribution
• Audio & video conferencing
• Business hours
• CRM & Helpdesk integrations
• Live call feed
• Call supervision & monitoring
• SMS and internal chat
• Supervisor dashboard

Pricing

Ringover offers a free version during 7 days with standard plans starting at €17/user/month.

Slack

“Slack is the collaboration hub that brings the right people, information, and tools together to get work done. From Fortune 100 companies to corner markets, millions of people around the world use Slack to connect their teams, unify their systems, and drive their business forward.”

Feature Highlight

• Real-time chat
• Audio & video calls
• Channel for every conversation
• Vast library of integrations
• Available API
• Alerts  & notifications
• Safe file sharing
• Searchable history

Pricing

Slack offers a free version with standard plans starting at less than $7/user/month

Zoom

“Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, collaboration, chat, and webinars across mobile devices, desktops, telephones, and room systems.”

Feature Highlight

• HD video and audio calling
• Recording and transcripts
• Built-in collaboration tools
• Team chat

Pricing

Zoom has a free basic plan & premium plans starting at $15 USD/month/host.

Jitsi Meet

“Go ahead, video chat with the whole team. In fact, invite everyone you know. Jitsi Meet is a fully encrypted, 100% open source video conferencing solution that you can use all day, every day, for free — with no account needed.”

Feature Highlight

• No account needed
• HD audio
• Desktop sharing
• Advanced security settings
• Custom meeting URLs

Pricing

Jitsi Meet is fully open source and free to use.

StoryXpress

“StoryXpress Recorder is a  powerful screen and webcam recorder to Record, Edit, and Share unlimited videos with clients and customers.”

Feature Highlight

• In-built video tools to draw, write and engage viewers
• Heatmap Powered Video Analytics
• Video Annotations like CTA, Banner, and Forms to capture leads
• Integrate with top tools like Gmail, zapier, intercom, etc
• CNAME enabled sharable video landing pages

Pricing

StoryXpress Recorder has a free plan to Record & Send unlimited videos. Premium plans start at $10/user/month.

Loom

“With Loom, you can capture your screen, voice, and face and instantly share your video in less time than it would take to type an email.”

Feature Highlight

• Screen and camera recorder
• Fast sharing with a link
• Easy editing
• Rich reactions
• Video comments
• Controlled viewing

Pricing

Loom has a free limited plan. Premium plans start at $4 USD/month

Rocket.chat

“Communicate and collaborate using team chat and switch to video or audio calls with screen sharing for more efficient teamwork. Improve productivity by discussing and sharing ideas, projects and files with real-time or asynchronous team chat.”

Feature Highlight

• Custom domain
• Public and private channels
• Conferencing server
• Multi-language interface
• White Label

Pricing

Rocket.chat has a free version and premium plans starting at less than $3 USD/month/user

File sharing

To share files you’re working on, you can use one of the general project management apps we mentioned above, or do so with a specific tool designed for file transfer.

The apps in this section were created to help you move the files safely (even when they’re too large to be transferred by email) and easily exchange feedback.

Dropbox

“Dropbox Business is more than just secure file storage—it’s a smart workspace where teams, tools, and content come together.”

Feature Highlight

• File storing
• File editing
• Desktop access & app
• Content collaboration & productivity tools

Pricing

Dropbox offers a free plan and premium plans starting at $10/month.

MyAirBridge

“With MyAirBridge.com, you can quickly, reliably, and securely send or share your data around the world. The service is free for individual transfers up to 20 GB in size.”

Feature Highlight

• File storage
• File sharing
• Download folders
• Preview images
• Drag & Drop interface
• Contact management

Pricing

MyAirBridge has a free plan and premium plans starting at less than $3/month.

Filestage

“Filestage is an asset review and proofing platform used by companies and agencies worldwide to organize and manage their content review process. Founded in 2015, Filestage operates worldwide in distributed teams and includes employees from more than 10 different countries.”

Feature Highlight

• Document, video and audio review
• Project folders
• Unlimited reviewers
• One-click approvals
• File annotations
• Versioning
• Private comments
• Track delayed files

Pricing

Filestage offers a free trial that lets you test their tool. Their premium plans start at €89.

QuickReviewer

“QuickReviewer is a cloud based collaborative review tool for designs and creatives. Our customers in a wide range of industries use QuickReviewer to streamline their review and approval process. Please read our privacy policy and license agreement before purchasing subscription.”

Feature Highlight

• Drag & Drop file upload
• Controlled access to files
• Split-screen version comparison
• Multiple revisions
• White label
• Customized email notifications

Pricing

QuickReviewer has a free plan for you to test. Their premium plans start at 1gb storage for $59/year.

Nextcloud

“Thanks to Nextcloud Files, your employees have easy access to their files, photos and documents to work and can share and collaborate with team members, customers and partners. And IT knows nobody besides those they shared with has access to those files.“

Feature Highlight

• Rich workspaces
• File locking & access restriction
• Workflow management
• Advanced security features & GDPR compliance
• Part of Nextcloud collaboration suite

Pricing

Nextcloud plans start at 50 users for 1900€/year.

WeTransfer

“WeTransfer was founded in 2009 as the simplest way to send big files around the world. Today we’re a set of beautifully obvious tools to keep your ideas moving.”

Feature Highlight

• Download tracking
• Manage transfers after sending
• Control access
• Custom domains

Pricing

WeTransfer offers a free plan and a premium plan for $12/month

OwnCloud

“ownCloud is an open-source file sync, share and content collaboration solution, with which teams can access data easily from anywhere and from any device.”

Feature Highlight

• Custom groups
• Activity stream
• Expiration dates
• Private links
• Dropbox and GoogleDrive integrations

Pricing

ownCloud is an open source platform available for free.

Commodity Tools

Software for working from home isn’t just about sharing files, video calls or task assigning. 

Below you’ll find examples of platforms that will simplify your work with a bunch of features you and your distributed co-workers will love.

LastPass

“Just remember your master password and LastPass remembers the rest. See for yourself how easy password management can be.”

Feature Highlight

• High-security password vault
• Password generator
• Password sharing
• Multifactor authentication

Pricing

LastPass has a free plan as well as premium plans for individuals and companies. These plans start at $3/user/month.

HelloSign

“The Most Simple and Secure Way to Get Documents Signed”

Feature Highlight

• Easy e-signing for documents
• Document templates
• Document audit trail
• Team management
• Personalized signature requests

Pricing

HelloSign premium plans start at $13/month. You can try the tool for free before signing up for any of the plans.

Zapier

“We believe automation should be easy, because everyone deserves to work smarter—not harder.”

Feature Highlight

• Easy integration for a vast number of apps and tools
• No code requirements
• Select triggers and actions from the list

Pricing

Zapier has a limited free plan and a number of premium plans starting at $20/month.

IFTTT

“IFTTT is the free way to get all your apps and devices talking to each other. Not everything on the internet plays nice, so we’re on a mission to build a more connected world.”

Feature Highlight

• Extensive directory of apps and tools to connect
• API performance & health dashboard
• Analytics & behaviour

Pricing

IFTTT has a free limited plan for individuals and premium business plans starting at $199.

Integromat

“Integromat will automate processes that you currently handle manually. It is not only capable of connecting apps but can also transfer and transform data. It works 24 hours a day, seven days a week and does not require your intervention. Simply set Integromat to do what you want and let it work for you. Save your time!”

Feature Highlight

• Vast variety of apps and tools to integrate
• Developer platform for connecting your own app
• Built-in routers
• Execution history
• Templates
• Automatic error handling
• Transactions

Pick your favourites

Now that you’ve got to the bottom of this list, there’s only one thing left: build your own, customized toolkit of your work-from-home software. With the open source, freemium and premium options available, there’s something for everybody. 

Happy remote working!