Want to know the secret to growing successful remote content teams? Good document collaboration tools.

Choosing the right one makes it easy to create and work on projects with others in real time. It will also help with document organization, providing a repository to create an accessible central knowledge base.

Let's explore the best document collaboration tools, dive into their pros and cons, and highlight the features you should look for.

The importance of virtual document collaboration (post-pandemic)

Remote work saw a boom during the pandemic when many professionals transitioned to working from home. But, despite offices reopening, remote work isn’t going anywhere. In fact, 85% of those who worked remotely say they want hybrid work moving forward.

Another survey of 9,000 workers reached the same conclusion. In a post-pandemic setting, 83% agreed the hybrid work model would be optimal.

The takeaway? Virtual collaboration is here to stay. However, the right tools make all the difference between how successful your hybrid (or fully remote) work endeavor is.

Besides facilitating real-time teamwork, document collaboration tools improve team productivity by:

• Serving as dedicated virtual workspaces to coordinate all content production efforts
• Providing a central repository for accessing all ready-to-use, referenceable content
• Giving overviews of the pipeline, who’s working on what, and project progress

Features that enhance virtual content collaboration

What should you look for as you select a collaboration platform for your team? A tool that goes beyond just online document creation, editing, and comments. A tool with the following collaboration features:

• Ease of use so adopting the tool is a breeze
• Activity log to see what’s happening on a given project at a given time
• Pipeline overview for a complete picture of which projects are in the works
• Multiple integrations to automate processes and reduce manual work from your plate
• Central repository to find any necessary content from a single, up-to-date content library
• Autosave, which allows you to focus on content production while the tool handles all the nitty-gritty details
• Customizable templates to ensure consistency across your content production efforts
• Notifications for alerting teammates when their attention is required so nothing falls through the cracks
• Commenting and user tagging to coordinate writing content, editing, sharing insights, and so on

GatherContent has all of the above and more, serving as a central hub for content governance.

Our recommended document collaboration tool: GatherContent

GatherContent is an intuitive collaboration software that doubles as a product management tool thanks to its wide functionality.

To start, you can create and manage projects and documents within the platform.

Jump-start project management quickly with content templates (such as templates for blog posts, social media content, case studies, and more).

Essentially, these templates help maintain consistency in content and messaging. But they can assist with more. For example, when using these templates, you can easily onboard new hires, contributors, and freelancers.

Use the embed feature to include in-line instructions and checklists, such as notes on the style guide. This reduces the need for heavy edits while making it easy for content creators to do their job.

With your project-based templates ready, easily assign tasks to different team members by tagging them.

This sends assignees email notifications to alert them of the assignment. Assignees can also see their tasks on their dashboards.

You can easily add comments and tag users within each document.

Furthermore, you can change the document’s due date and status based on your content workflow. For instance, your workflow might include steps such as "draft," "in review," "final edits," and "ready to publish."

Changing the status gives you a bird’s-eye view of each project’s status in the workflow as well as a complete overview.

‍By adding due dates, assignees can stick with the production schedule. You can see an overview of the pipeline in calendar format, too.

In the Overview tab in your dashboard, you will also see an activity log of what’s happening.

On top of all this, GatherContent offers multiple integrations. For example, the WordPress integration lets you upload publish-ready content without losing its formatting. Similarly, the Grammarly integration helps check spelling and grammar.

In short, GatherContent offers all the must-have virtual document collaboration features. It’s more a project management software (like Trello or Asana) combined with a document collaboration tool that helps with:

• Creating, editing, and readying documents for publication
• Organizing documents in a central library
• Giving a full overview of what’s in the pipeline like a project manager

💰 Pricing: Starts at a flat rate of $99 per month.

7 alternative document collaboration tools

What other platforms offer real-time document collaboration? Here are some of the best.

1. Google Docs

Google Docs is another easy-to-use document collaboration software. It comes with templates and blank documents to help you get started.

Easily collaborate on document editing with Gdocs using tags and comments (comment history available in a tab in each document). Work on each document in any of the three modes: Editing, Suggesting, and Viewing.

Alter these permissions for team members as needed. For example, give only viewing access to one and editing access to another. All this is possible with shareable links that Google Docs creates when you share documents and folders.

Pros:

• Extensions so that you can use your favorite tools like Clearscope within documents
• Has one of the best mobile editing experiences of all the tools on our list and is available on both Android and iOS
• The larger Google Workspace ecosystem allows you to collaborate on spreadsheets, presentations, and more

Cons:

• Sometimes loads documents slowly when they're long, have many suggestions, or when you have many browser tabs open
• The Suggestion feature can be overwhelming and make sifting through recommended edits from team members difficult
• You may run into formatting issues for complex documents

Best for: Google Docs is a straightforward, reliable tool for teams of all sizes.

💰 Pricing: Starts at $6 per user per month.

2. Microsoft 365

Previously known as Microsoft Office 365, this collaboration tool helps you create and edit multiple file types (documents, presentations, and spreadsheets) using OneDrive and SharePoint.

Like in Google Docs, file creators can decide on the editing permissions to give collaborators. To share files, either enter a collaborator's email address in the Share file box or get a link and share it via Slack or any messaging platform you use.

Similarly, you can share folders—not just documents—with Microsoft 365. Within documents, co-authors can collaborate by making real-time edits, leaving comments, and tagging users.

Pros:

• Collaborators can communicate via chat and video conferencing for seamless content brainstorming, planning, and feedback sharing
• File creators can track document changes or get a summary of all changes made
• Easy to get all collaborators on board with using Microsoft 365 since it already has such a high market share globally

Cons:

• The online versions of Microsoft 365's products don't have all the features that the desktop apps do, which can be frustrating
• Several users have mentioned that they'd like more integrations
• Could be more intuitive and, therefore, may slow down your content workflows slightly if you're not used to it

See Also: Check out an easy 7-step process for creating an efficient content workflow.

Best for: Microsoft 365 is a good option for teams that need a full suite of office productivity tools but not many integrations.

💰 Pricing: Basic plan starts at $6 per user per month.

3. Notion

With tens of millions of users, Notion is one of the more popular document collaboration tools. Many of them use it to work with team members and stakeholders on everything from blog posts and wikis to meeting notes and brand guides.

What features make that easy to do?

• The ability to assign document owners so that everyone knows who the main point of contact is if they want to discuss a document
• Comments for gathering feedback from collaborators
• A library of templates and the ability to create custom templates that everyone can access to maintain consistency across document types

Pros:

• Manage content tasks via the Kanban view in addition to collaborating on documents
• Clean, modern, minimalist look to keep all the focus on the content of your documents
• Great for organizing documents in a way that they can be accessed easily later and linked with other relevant docs

Cons:

• More than a dozen features for text, which can be overwhelming for some users
• Doesn’t offer as many integrations as other tools
• Some features such as user permissioning, SAML single-sign-on, and unlimited version history are only available on the Enterprise plan

Best for: Notion works well for teams that need a lot of flexibility and/or who need to centralize and create relationships between many.

💰 Pricing: The Team plan is $10 per user per month, and there's also an Enterprise plan with custom pricing.

4. Dropbox Paper

Dropbox Paper is another user-friendly document collaboration app that several people can use to edit simultaneously. It comes with mobile apps for both iOS and Android, making it easy to work on the go.

Use Paper to create and share documents and folders via shareable links. The good news is that each document created with Dropbox Paper has various formatting options, from inserting videos to adding code.

All changes made to a document are auto-saved. Plus, it has several document templates for brainstorming, meeting notes, project plans, task management, and more.

Pros:

• Has task management features for assigning to-dos, adding due dates, mentioning people within docs, etc.
• Allows image annotations and attribution of document edits, which are helpful during the feedback and review stages
• Connects to your calendar, making it easy to create meeting agendas and take notes

Cons:

• Some users have had file corruption issues and difficulty reopening files after transferring them
• It can be tough to find the doc you're looking for sometimes (e.g. it might show in Dropbox but not in Paper)
• Dropbox Paper isn't available as a standalone tool; it's tied to the Dropbox product

Best for: Dropbox Paper is a good tool if you're a Dropbox user and just need basic functionality.

💰 Pricing: The free version is, well, free—offering basic features. The Business Standard team package starts at $18 per user per month.

5. Zoho WorkDrive

Next on our list of online collaboration tools is Zoho WorkDrive. It helps you collaborate on documents in real-time—the same as the other apps.

On top of that, you can organize files into folders and sub-folders, locating them using the file name, type, location, or keyword. You can also change file and folder access settings from the following roles: viewer, editor, organizer, and admin.

Moreover, you can check documents for readability and grammatical errors with Zia, the platform's virtual writing assistant. Plus, Zoho WorkDrive's "Focus Mode" allows for line editing by highlighting one line of text at a time.

Pros:

• More affordable than most comparable tools (even with its three-person minimum requirement for all plans)
• Easy to use with little to no learning curve
• Meets compliance standards for various industries, so you don't have to worry about data security

Cons:

• Noticeably slower than alternative collaboration tools
• Navigating and finding documents quickly in WorkDrive can be challenging
• The customer support team could be more responsive and helpful

Best for: Zoho WorkDrive is best for those who already use or plan on switching to other Zoho tools.

💰 Pricing: Starts at $3 per user per month (three users minimum).

6. Box

Another popular tool for organizing and collaborating on content is Box. It's used by the likes of AstraZeneca, Olympus, and even Intuit.

With more than 1,500 integrations, it works seamlessly with pretty much any business app your content team uses. But it can stand on its own as well. It offers Box Drive for file storage (with enterprise-grade security) and Box Notes for making and viewing annotations and edits in real time.

Pros:

• Ease of use and no learning curve
• Great if you're looking for speed and efficiency
• Offers higher storage limits than some other tools

Cons:

• A handful of users have reported minor, occasional glitches with syncing and uploading files
• Can't search within text like you can within an alternative tool like Google Drive
• Many users view Box as a decent but replaceable tool with no clear emphasis from the company on why it's THE tool to use

Best for: If running into storage limits is a top concern for you, Box can be a good solution. Especially if you're in marketing, HR, operations, sales, recruiting, or product.

💰 Pricing: Starts at $10 per user per month (three users minimum) for the Business Starter plan.

7. Bit.ai

Last but not least, there's Bit.ai, the new kid on the block compared to the other tools on our list. But, although it's not as well-known, this tool is a powerful one. In fact, it claims to be "the world's most powerful workplace and document collaboration platform."

It features real-time co-editing and commenting with real-time notifications and adjustable sharing permissions. Not to mention a minimalistic smart editor where you can add visual web links, videos, embeds, rich media, attachments, and more to your documents.

Pros:

• Interactive elements give context to collaborators (e.g. videos) or gather feedback from them (e.g. surveys)
• Unlimited version history and digital content storage on all paid plans
• Scalable for use by individuals such as freelancers collaborating with clients, small teams, and entire organizations  

Cons:

• Bit.ai is aesthetically not as attractive as other tools
• Some users have mentioned that it takes more steps to complete tasks than it would in another tool like Google Docs
• Pricing starts on the higher end of the tools here

Best for: If you're looking for a scalable solution and like the idea of live interactive docs, Bit.ai may be a good option for you.

💰 Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $12 per member per month.

And that's a wrap.

Would you like to see how GatherContent can make collaboration easier within your company or organization? Try it free for 14 days on your next project!