45 Remote Work Tools To Easily Work From Home or Anywhere

As you move your tech stack to the cloud, we’ve rounded up the best tools to make remote work possible. Advances in cloud phone systems make remote collaboration possible regardless of where employees are located.

You just need the right tools and technology to enable remote teams to collaborate and be productive.

Even as some businesses return to the office, remote or hybrid arrangements are here to stay.

With distributed teams continuing to increase, using remote work software for efficiency and better communication becomes a no-brainer.

In this article, we dive into the best remote work tools. We’ll discuss software and apps covering project management, video conferencing, VPNs, cloud storage, and more. Read on.

Why You Need Remote Work Tools

Working at home sounds easy and convenient, but it has its challenges.

Yes, you can control your workflow, set your schedule, or work in any room. But remote working isn’t all about flexibility and freedom — it is also about discipline, focus, and productivity.

Remote workers are tempted by many distractions, from video games and Netflix to junk food and pets.

Internet connectivity might be less than ideal compared to the one at the office while keeping in touch with your team members might not be as easy as being near them in person.

Thankfully, many technologies make telecommuting a reality for those away from the office.

Given the growing popularity of remote work, these tools are evolving rapidly to improve virtual communication, team collaboration, and individual productivity.

Some tools even strengthen security, while others enable virtual teams to manage projects better.

Depending on your business or team structure, here are our top picks for tools to supercharge your work-from-home performance.

45 Top Remote Work Tools To Try

We scoured the web for the best tools and technologies to empower your team to work anywhere. We’ve organized the list into four categories, so you browse them quickly.

📞 Communication Tools

Effective business communication tools are essential for efficient collaboration.

With features like video conferencing, instant messaging, and screen sharing, these modern communication platforms break down barriers and connect distributed team members. Let’s look at the top tools in this category.

🖥 Video conferencing software

1. Nextiva

Nextiva is one of the top remote work tools that enables you to collaborate through HD video and crystal-clear audio. Packed into an intuitive interface with screen sharing, team meetings, call recording, and secure infrastructure, Nextiva simplifies remote work.

You can host virtual meetings, webinars, and events with an intuitive conferencing tool. Seamless integration across devices and operating systems provides the connectivity you need to communicate ideas clearly and work together efficiently from anywhere.

2. Skype

Skype lets you use instant messaging, voice calls, and video calls on virtually any device. While Skype also offers a commercial product offering paid bundles for enterprises, it’s intended for personal use. It’s a good backup video app to have on standby.

3. Zoom

Among the more popular platforms for corporate online meetings and video conferencing, Zoom was one of the fastest-growing apps of the pandemic, with meeting participants increasing by 2900%. Used exclusively for video meetings, Zoom is also a popular tool for creating and delivering webinars.

4. Google Meet

Google Meet is an excellent video conferencing platform. Features such as instant video meetings, screen sharing, real-time collaboration, and team chat keep the conversation going before and after meetings.

5. Cisco Webex

Cisco Webex’s business-ready capabilities including customizable layouts, advanced meeting controls, enterprise-grade security, and integrations with workflow tools are ideal for everything from daily standups to high-stakes meetings.

Remote team members can join securely from any device, share content and annotations in real-time, send chat messages and feedback during meetings, and use powerful video layouts to mimic in-person interactions.

Related: Cisco Webex Contact Center Pricing: Is It Worth It?

📩 Messaging platforms

6. Slack

Originally built as an instant messaging platform, Slack evolved into a powerful collaboration tool favored by professionals, startups, and enterprises. Slack’s main draw is arguably its integrability with a host of third-party apps and services.

7. Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams integrates messaging, video conferencing, file collaboration, and task management into one remote work tool. Its simple, chat-based workspace allows distributed teams to communicate in real time, host online meetings, share files, assign tasks, and more.

8. Discord

Known primarily as a platform for gaming communities, Discord has emerged as a leading remote work tool. It offers seamless messaging capabilities, great audio quality, and organizational features.

Teams can create private, invite-only servers to communicate, coordinate and collaborate. With topic-based channels, direct messaging, drag-and-drop file sharing, and integrated voice chat, Discord enables productive real-time messaging capabilities.

☎️ Call centers

9. Nextiva

Nextiva is known for its cutting-edge contact center software supporting remote work. With an intuitive cloud-based interface, call monitoring and management tools, and omnichannel routing features, Nextiva works really well for remote customer service teams.

Agents can handle calls, chats, emails, and SMS messages from anywhere while supervisors transparently view all interactions.

Powerful call flows, IVR menus, advanced reporting, and automation drive efficiency and streamline the customer experience.

Nextiva continually refines its call center platform with next-gen AI and analytics. Uniting complex contact center operations into one easy-to-use platform helps you scale efforts and strengthen customer relationships.

10. CloudTalk

CloudTalk is tailored for location-agnostic small customer service teams. Its easy-to-use cloud platform centralizes telephony capabilities like intelligent call routing, skills-based assignments, and customizable interactive voice menus and can be managed easily across desktop and mobile devices.

11. Aircall

Aircall is a cloud call center solution for digitally driven support teams. Its intuitive interface across devices, customizable IVR, omnichannel queues, and shared inboxes let you route calls efficiently.

Support agents get access to time-saving features like caller information, real-time monitoring, templated responses, and activity reporting.

While Aircall may lack more complex functionality larger enterprises require, its focus on simplicity, mobility, and seamless integration with popular business apps make it a top remote work tool for small businesses.

✉️ Email management

12. Boomerang

Boomerang is a one-click calendar scheduling and email management platform for Outlook and Gmail that adds a layer of automation to email.

It lets users control when they send and receive messages, follow up on unanswered emails by getting notifications for read messages, and flag threads that need a response.

With intuitive calendar integrations, templates, and analytical insights, Boomerang keeps remote staff organized, drives customer engagement, and streamlines workflows.

13. Newton Mail

Newton Mail is a great workflow optimization tool. It packs a punch with features like send-later scheduling, read receipts, and follow-up reminders empowering teams to control communication cadences and attend to important conversations.

Newton Mail’s team-focused tools such as shared labels, group messaging, and internal notes aid transparency and alignment when coordinating projects.

🤝 Collaboration Tools

Tools that enable easy file sharing, task delegation, project management, and work tracking make teamwork possible and give structure and visibility to your remote workforce. Here are our top picks.

📋 Project management platforms

14. Asana

This project management tool helps remote teams organize, track, and manage tasks. 

Asana’s to-do listing feature makes it easier to set goals and break down projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. Meanwhile, its task assignment capabilities ensure that the right person gets things done at the right time.

15. Trello

Trello visualizes a project to make planning and completing its sub-tasks easier.

Projects are presented on a simple Kanban board to show which tasks need to be done at the moment. Trello has an integrated calendar and team chat features. It has mobile apps for Android and iOS.

16. Monday.com

Another great project management software, Monday.com lets users configure customizable project boards with templates for any workflow and Gantt chart diagrams, and integrate other collaborative tools on top.

Automatic status updates, timeline views, and notifications help distribute tasks across remote members while maintaining transparency on progress.

17. ProofHub

ProofHub offers a central place for teams to manage their tasks, share, review, and proof files, collaborate in real-time, track project progress, and communicate, so they don’t have to juggle between apps.

18. Jira

Jira is more geared toward technical teams and specifically tailored for distributed agile workflows. Its flexible boards, custom fields, automated workflows, and reporting tools allow teams to track progress and share real-time updates across locations.

With configurable access controls, search functionality, and integration support, remote staff stays aligned whether working on a shared service ticket or large-scale product release.

📂 Cloud storage and file sharing

19. Google Drive

Google Drive is an essential content collaboration and storage platform. Its secure cloud storage and automated syncing capabilities allow remote staff to access the latest files and versions from any device.

Paired with integrated G Suite tools for editing docs, spreadsheets, and presentations, Google Drive helps centralize essential content so you have transparency across rapidly changing workflows.

20. Dropbox

Dropbox started out as a simple file-hosting service. Over the years, it has become a popular cloud-based solution for backing up files. Use Dropbox to keep your documents stored on different devices always up-to-date.

21. OneDrive

Integrated directly into Microsoft 365, OneDrive facilitates seamless content collaboration. Its secure cloud storage lets you sync files across devices and access the latest versions wherever they work.

Robust sharing and permissions settings also enable remote team members to collaborate on documents — from Office files to internal wikis — in one unified platform.

Document collaboration

22. Google Docs

Google Docs powers efficient content creation with its minimalist editor to format documents and share them live with collaborators for real-time co-authoring.

Built to handle any file type from basic memos to large reports, Google Docs also enables commenting, version histories, and workflow automation through integrations.

23. Microsoft Office 365

As a leader of the office productivity place, Office 365 represents the latest iteration of Microsoft’s venerable productivity suite.

Like its rival product from Google, this suite is packed with powerful tools for communication, document creation, and team collaboration. Among the tools included in the suite are Outlook, Teams, Yammer, SharePoint, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

24. Coda

Coda combines the power of a word processor, spreadsheet, database, and app builder into a unified workspace perfect for consolidating team knowledge. Its flexible document framework lets you easily build wikis, status trackers, handbooks, planners, and more while connecting all the apps and data you use.

Document-level permissions, notification triggers, and version histories also empower transparency and alignment even with teams rarely together.

🔖 Whiteboard and mind mapping

25. Miro

Miro’s customizable canvas helps you map ideas. Its online whiteboard functionality facilitates real-time brainstorming, journey mapping, design sprints, and visual collaboration that keeps teams in flow.

Rich multimedia integrations, meeting capabilities, and community templates also allow teams to incorporate visual assets from anywhere and hit the ground running.

26. Lucidchart

Getting your team on the same page can be as easy as visualizing your processes. Clarity emerges when your team sees what you mean, and action becomes imminent. LucidChart is a web-based visual communication solution for enhanced collaboration across your remote team.

📈 Productivity Tools

Individual productivity fuels team execution, especially with remote staff juggling more tasks independently. Let’s look at some productivity tools that help managers assign work, employees manage schedules, track progress, and optimize workflows.

⏳ Time management software

27. Toggl 

Toggl offers powerful yet simple time tracking ideal for improving productivity and billing transparency. Its user-friendly interface makes it easy for remote employees to toggle timers for specific projects and tasks across devices while offline access ensures uninterrupted tracking.

28. Harvest 

With intuitive time tracking, invoicing, and reporting, Harvest delivers an integrated suite of productivity tools for remote work.

Employees can easily toggle timers on specific tasks and projects while working across devices and generate consolidated timesheets from any location.

Managers similarly gain transparency from summaries, schedules, and utilization reports that prevent duplication and identify bottlenecks.

💡Focus and timeboxing apps

29. Freedom 

Freedom facilitates focused, distraction-free workflows through simple yet powerful website and app blocking.

Users can blacklist distracting sites and apps, set recurring schedules to restrict access, or enable session lockdowns for short bursts of deep work.

30. Forest 

Forest has a refreshing approach to time management. It gamifies focus for productive yet balanced remote work, letting users grow a virtual tree by staying off distracting apps.

Integrations with other tools allow tracking focus time specifically on projects while offering visibility into progress on personal goals.

📝 Note-taking apps

31. Evernote

Everyone needs to take notes, especially remote employees performing a task or finishing a project.

Evernote is everyone’s go-to app for capturing ideas, taking screenshots, making checklists, saving webpages, and tracking tasks. The company offers a free version as well as extensions for Chrome and other browsers.

32. OneNote

OneNote unifies research, meeting notes, and critical information in one organized workspace accessible across all devices. Its flexible formatting options allow teams to embed multimedia, structure pages, and sections however they want, and integrate content seamlessly from other Microsoft apps.

Advanced search, version history, automation triggers, and enterprise-level security settings also enable transparency and oversight for managers.

33. Notion 

If using too many tools upsets you, tame the chaos with Notion, the all-in-one workspace. Great for both teams and individuals, Notion lets you take notes, run a knowledge base, and track projects. This tool is a lightweight solution that can take the place of conventional CRMs.

📃 To-do list apps

34. Todoist 

For anyone fixated on productivity, this app makes it easy to plan schedules and prioritize important tasks. With a wide range of features and capabilities, Todoist organizes nearly anything you can think of. This handy tool offers benefits to both individuals and teams.

35. TickTick

TickTick’s intuitive to-do list manager and task organizer works well for goal-oriented remote teams. Robust features like recurring due dates, task dependencies, reminders, notes, and commenting empower users to add context around responsibilities.

Consolidated calendar views of upcoming due dates and duties alongside productivity analytics also offer visibility to employees and managers alike.

36. Things 

With its clean interface, flexible tagging, and intuitive task management, Things serves as an invaluable activity organizer that improves focus. Users can quickly capture tasks, break down larger goals into actionable next steps, schedule deadlines, and set recurring reminders.

🔐 Security & Privacy Tools

Solutions that safeguard data, communications, and access points assure remote teams when working across distributed environments. Here are the top digital security and privacy tools to give you peace of mind.

🔓 Password managers

37. LastPass

You can protect your passwords and strengthen security without making things too complicated. LastPass simplifies your digital lifestyle — from storing sensitive records to online shopping. Use LastPass to generate strong passwords and to remember all of them across every device.

38. Dashlane

Dashlane offers a password manager and a secure digital wallet. Its user-friendly interface lets you generate, organize, and autofill strong, unique passwords across all browsers and devices while facilitating the safe sharing of credentials with team members when necessary.

39. 1Password 

Almost everyone has multiple passwords for multiple apps, network logins, and financial transactions. Managing security credentials is essential to maintaining business continuity and 1Password lets you do just that by helping you consolidate all your passwords in one place.

🌎 Virtual private networks (VPNs)

40. NordVPN

NordVPN offers essential secure access and total internet privacy for transient remote teams operating on public networks. It encrypts connections on shared WiFi and lets employees access restricted internal sites (with permission) while traveling abroad.

41. ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN safeguards remote work with data encryption accessible across unlimited devices. By routing connections through a global network of anonymous servers, remote staff can hide IP addresses and bypass geographical restrictions to access company tools from anywhere securely.

42. CyberGhost 

CyberGhost VPN enables secure internet access. Remote employees can encrypt connections, hide IP addresses, and bypass location-based restrictions. Intuitive custom clients for all major platforms optimize the user experience while flexible pricing scales to accommodate usage needs.

👁‍🗨 Identity and access management (IAM) systems

43. Okta

Okta’s cloud-based single sign-on and multi-factor authentication capabilities centralize access controls and consolidate permissions across apps.

Okta lets IT teams grant secure, role-based access while still maintaining end-user efficiency. Automated onboarding/offboarding alongside granular policy enforcement empowers administrators to govern remote access at scale.

44. Azure AD

Azure Active Directory enables frictionless identity and access orchestration across the Microsoft cloud ecosystem, ideal for remote teams relying on tools like Office 365 and Windows.

Its single sign-on access portal lets users securely use any SaaS app while robust access controls give administrators granular remote policy management.

45. Ping Identity 

Ping Identity helps IT leaders streamline secure access for remote workforces and external partners through its flexible, cloud-based identity and access management platform.

Its standalone secure single sign-on portal lets users safely use any application within the integrated identity network. Robust access controls enable context-based permissions so administrators can govern resources at scale.

Related: 30 Tips for Managing Remote Teams in 2025

How to choose the best remote working tool

Here are some key tips to help you choose a remote working tool that matches your needs.

• Evaluate communication needs: Assess needs for messaging, video/voice conferencing, and email tools based on team size, interactions, and security policies. Simplicity and compatibility matter.
• Identify main collaboration workflows: What projects do your teams work on together? How is content created and shared? Focus tools around enhancing those cross-functional processes.
• Consider individual productivity needs: What tasks does your team handle independently? How public/private should task management be? Pick intuitive tools that solve your major pain points. 
• Determine security priorities: Regulate access, protect company assets, and enable privacy based on data sensitivity. Limit third-party exposure, and enforce 2FA as appropriate.
• Check integration compatibility: How well does the tool sync across necessary platforms like mobile, popular software, and enterprise infrastructure? Minimize toggling between apps.
• Involve remote workers: Have current team members democratize choices through trials and feedback before full rollout rather than mandate purely top-down. 

Evaluating tools against remote work realities, company guidelines, and team member needs ensures maximum adoption and employee engagement.

Related: Remote Collaboration: A Blueprint for Effective Communication

Nextiva — Your Best-Practice Remote Tool

With so many remote work tools available, how do you make the right choice? To minimize decision fatigue and avoid juggling between apps, Nextiva should be your top choice.

Why?

Nextiva’s productivity software consolidates the communication and collaboration capabilities modern teams rely on into one unified platform.

This all-in-one approach eliminates the need for dozens of disjointed apps like Zoom, Slack, and Asana by providing integrated video chat, messaging, shared calendars, contact center features, project management, social media conversations, and more. 

With Nextiva, you merge siloed tools into one scalable solution fitting small businesses to large enterprises alike. Less toggling between apps means more time to focus on customers and growth.

Related: Best Collaboration Tools for Improving Team Communication