Free intranet chat program

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 team chat apps organize 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. 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.

Enable collaboration. You're here to work, and the ideal team chat apps 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.

The apps below are, in our opinion, the ones that offer the best balance of these five things. Note that we focused exclusively on apps built for real-time communication, and de-emphasized tools that focus mostly on project management. Slack launched in and quickly came to define the team 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 thousands of integrations with other applications. All of these small touches might sound overwhelming, but a clever design alongside friendly UX copy 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. 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 conversations 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 Office suite of apps. Vendors Reviewed. Our criteria: How we chose the best vendors We take our research seriously and want to make sure we are presenting our readers with the very best solutions in a given software category.

Here's how we select vendors to be in our buyer guides: Product: We want to have a deep understanding of a vendor's product before recommending it.

User feedback: We do our best to understand what users say when they experience this product. User input allows us to accomplish a more thorough due diligence of products, put new vendors on our radar, and generally make sure we are presenting the right products to our readers. Financial metrics: We are very much finance nerds and so use a product's retention rates, growth, profitability, and scale to understand whether or not it is truly best in class.

Best for a use case: Sometimes the best solution is the cheapest, the best tool for international companies, or the best for startups. We try to include a diversity of solutions so that our readers can find the tool that is best for what they need. In this guide you'll find. What is Intranet Software? Potential issues with free intranet software The purpose of having an intranet How does intranet pricing work?

Key features of the modern intranet How to manage a free intranet implementation FAQs about free intranets Last advice on picking a free Intranet Our list of the best vendors Key benefits and use cases Pitfalls to be aware of Pricing guidelines Key features to know about Questions to ask on demos Implementation information FAQs Final advice.

Featured in. Visit Website. Talkspirit Review While the free version of Talkspirit does come with its limitations see the Pricing section of this review , it is still surprising for such a well-designed and easy-to-use product to be free. However, it does have the following limitations: Videoconference for up to 4 participants day history for chats and posts Max.

Worth Checking Out: Talkspirit is offered in eight languages, and each member could choose to have their platform in their language of choice without impacting the others. Why we love it : Free for 25 users, Zoho Connect brings the ease of use and visual cleanliness that characterizes Zoho products to a robust team collaboration software.

Zoho Stats. Zoho Pricing The free version of Zoho Connect gets you 25 users, 3 groups, 3 private applications, 3 dashboards, 3 handbooks, 10 integrations, as well as channels, events, and forums. Best For All sorts of organizations that want a well-known social intranet that can grow with them and adapt to their needs as they go. Worth Checking Out:. Bitrix Review Bitrix24 is ready to support business needs from all fronts. Best For Bitrix24 is a great bet for small to medium-sized organizations looking for a quick and scalable solution that gives them many features and use cases in one hub.

Worth Checking Out: While the Bitrix24 free plan stays that way forever, you can try the premium features for days any time you want.

Samepage Review Even in the free version, the Samepage platform is meant to be much more than an intranet. Samepage Stats Over , users supported in more than countries. Best For Samepage works great for organizations that want to be able to work and handle various sorts of tasks within their intranet and prefer the autonomy of setting up most things themselves.

Whaller Review Whaller works through spheres, discussion spaces that can be completely separate from one another. Whaller Customers. Whaller Pricing The standard version of Whaller is free for up to users and lets you create 5 spheres.

Worth Checking Out: For educational institutions, Whaller is offered at a discounted rate. Why we love it : In their free plan, Jostle provides the basic features of a simple yet powerful intranet for teams with less than 15 users.

Jostle Review The thought process behind Jostle is that you probably want to focus on creating a space where your company culture can thrive, without having to spend too much time on it. Looking for HR Tech Advice? Join our community. Increased productivity: What happens if all communication and collaboration channels are consolidated into a single platform? Your people will spend less time looking for key pieces of info or switching around between tools. For example, a study by Axero found that businesses who were able to move a good part of their daily communications from email to an intranet lowered the average weekly email count per employee by messages.

To get an idea of the ROI this might imply, simply think of what losing a staff member and replacing them could cost. Make sure the provider you pick has detailed information on how they keep your data secure.

They should also have features like SSO, multi-factor authentication, and permission management. Click Here.

For that reason, most intranets that are keeping up with the times will have the following features: Social : The concept of an intranet dates back to before the advent of social media giants like Twitter and Facebook. Nowadays, however, product designers know that one of the best ways to get people to use an intranet is if they are similar to the social media platform they already use daily. If their product is also available through a decent app, people will stay connected even on the go.

A modern intranet should have robust reporting and analytics. What is an intranet? Which features should a free intranet have? How much does it cost to build an intranet? How do I create my own intranet for free? No items found. Last advice on picking a free Intranet. Zoho :. Enhance Your Productivity! Being an efficient WinPopup and 'net send' command alternative, our full-featured instant messaging application offers you a much richer IM experience than existing messaging services designed for internal networks.

LanToucher's user-friendly interface and original features make this local network messenger the tool of choice for both home and enterprise instant messaging. This easy-to-use LAN messaging program with simple, intuitive user interface and a minimum of settings to adjust is an easy text communication solution for your office LAN and a perfect chat program for your private home network or intranet.

Designed for chatting over small home LANs, LanToucher Network Chat uses the peer-to-peer networking model, so you do not need to set up a dedicated server or change your internal network settings. LanToucher Network Chat software supports the system tray taskbar notification area and sound notification on new instantaneous messages.

And it is absolutely FREE! Growing in popularity over the last few years, instant messaging IM is rapidly becoming a core component of the electronic communications infrastructure. IM is intended primarily to enhance traditional forms of communications, such as E-mail, phone and FAX by adding valuable technology-specific features like immediacy, presence capability, and enhanced privacy and security.

Immediate delivery of information is essential in today's competitive business environment. That's why businesses in many industries are discovering the benefits of using instant messaging software in performing everyday tasks.