As a remote team, we at Outsite have tried a lot of tech tools. As part of 500 Startups, we heard horror stories from our batchmates – so know what to avoid, and also discovered some amazing (and some relatively unknown) tools.

Below are 8 tools in 4 categories that we have tried. The good, the bad, and which ones prevailed in the end.

1) Chat - HipChat vs Slack

HipChat

The good: Well, it works. I’ve heard some people find the user interface very simple, although I don’t. HipChat’s paid packages are also slightly cheaper (unless you can get by with Slack’s free plan of course). The bad: A somewhat “old school” user interface is the big letdown. I also found the notifications for live chats odd. It didn’t help that we experienced downtimes twice in the brief testing period.

Slack

The good: The user interface is impossible not to love. Ideal for remote teams because of the flexible setup of direct messaging, channels and group chats, as well as simple search for files and messages. Lastly, Slack boasts a fairly addicting handling of notifications across devices. As a bonus, it is pretty straightforward to integrate other services into your team. Apps and integrations are very well supported, and these days you can get a lot of great products on the Slack platform. The bad: Limited threading of conversation is a double-edged sword. The choice: After briefly trying out HipChat, we switched to Slack and never looked back.

2) Video Conferencing - Zoom.us vs Appear.in

Zoom.us

The good: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. And in the world of video-conferencing that throne is currently kept by Zoom.us. The bad: It is somewhat tedious to set up an account and start each individual conference.

Appear.in

The good: The most easy to use video conferencing I’ve ever tried. You simply create a room by linking to it (appear.in/yourname) – you can also add an access password. Amazing. The bad: Appear.in seems to be peer-to-peer. That means the experience is only as good as your weakest link. And for a lot of our conversations, there’s always one teammate with a bad connection. The choice: To be honest, video conferencing anywhere is still pretty bad. However, among those we have tried, Zoom.us is our pick based on one metric: it works.

3) Task management - Trello vs Asana

Trello

The good: Trello is a simple and easy-to-use task management system that works on a small scale. The bad: You don’t have much control over workflows and attachments.

Asana

The good: Easy-to-use and fully featured, Asana is quite flexible in how you can organize the workflow. The software has a good balance between simplicity and flexibility, and is usable for both for tech and non-tech teams. The bad: Reportedly takes a little while to learn for novice users. The choice: Trello has gotten a lot better since we first discovered it, and has grown into being our favorite task management tool by far. As an aside, there are some big innovations that are yet to be made in the world of task management.

4) Filesharing - Dropbox vs Box

Dropbox

The good: Dropbox is file syncing that just works for personal and business use. For small teams that use Dropbox internally, it’s almost a no-brainer. The bad: While Dropbox is amazing for individuals and small teams, they still have work to do when it comes to addressing the needs of enterprise-level clients.

Box

The good: The big win for Box is in security and confidentiality. For some companies, the stand out features will be require granular access control, tracking and reporting on the user-level, limit linked devices and desktop sync, watermarking files and a great API to update these security-measures in real-time. The bad: Box is slightly more expensive and has a less familiar UI for team members. The choice: Dropbox is a great product for smaller teams, while Box is better for enterprise. Since we mostly use this tool internally, Dropbox fits our needs.

So, there you have it, the full Outsite Productivity Hackerstack: Slack, Zoom.us, Dropbox and Trello. Have we missed something? Would love to hear if you have productivity tools we should look into. Outsite is a 100% remote team that believes everyone should have the freedom to work from beautiful and inspiring places. Click here to learn more about our story.

Words: Annie Brown // Productivity Hacker

Photographs: Outsite