Google Docs is a great document creation tool that lets you work alongside your team members in real-time. Teams can use it to document notes, ideas, and processes to keep everyone on the same page…literally. As per a survey released in 2019, about 29% of people who use Google Docs in the US, use the software on a daily basis!
However, it lacks advanced collaboration options and offers limited offline access and permissions.
Instead of forcing you to compromise, we’re here to help you find the best Google Docs alternative from this expansive list to choose from.
In this article, we’ll go over why you need an alternative to Google Docs and highlight the ten best tools you can use today.
This Article Contains:Let’s document some alternatives. 📝
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Summarize this article for me pleaseSince Google Docs isn’t really the best document collaboration tool, here are ten excellent alternatives:
ClickUp is the world’s highest-rated project management software and document collaboration software used by several teams in small and large companies. From helping you get ahead with unique project templates to tracking the time spent on tasks, unlike Google Docs, ClickUp is the ultimate project management tool and the one of the best Google Docs alternatives to choose from. But wait… how will a free project management software help you manage documents? The answer lies in Docs.
ClickUp Docs let you create awesome documents for anything you can imagine! 🤩 Powerful knowledge bases, user guides, meeting minutes, SOPs…. when it comes to Docs, the world is your oyster. Just write out to your heart’s content using its unlimited number of pages. And for easy file management, use ClickUp Docs’ Relationships feature to link related tasks and pages, so you don’t have to look through multiple wiki pages to find them. Or you can tag Docs for easy reference and searchability.
You can also enhance security measures by protecting your Docs from unwanted edits. Simply turn on the Protect this page option and add context for your audience.
ClickUp AI in Docs is a collaborative writing tool that incorporates artificial intelligence capabilities. It enables users to draft, edit documents, and revise content directly within their workspace, providing real-time suggestions to optimize their text. The tool offers inline comments and real-time collaboration among team members, making it ideal for team projects.
Collaborative editing lets everyone in your Workspace comment, edit, and work on the Doc simultaneously, without any overlap. You’ll also know who is working on what with real-time Collaboration Detection in ClickUp.
You can also customize your Docs for your needs with a wide variety of features like:
But that’s not all.
And explore all the exciting features that this free alternative to Google Docs has in store for you!
ClickUp offers three paid pricing plans:
When it comes to other Google Docs alternatives, you can also look at Microsoft Office Online is a great online collaborative writing tool. This office software gives you free access to Microsoft Word, Calendar, Forms, and more.
However, you can’t access password-protected documents or run macros inside a document when using MS Word online.
Microsoft Office Online is a free document editing solution.
Zoho Docs is an online document editing tool with some basic project management features like reminders, user reports, and an in-app chat.
However, essential document management features like password-protected files and file sharing with non-users come with a price tag.
Zoho Docs has three pricing plans:
Dropbox Paper is a document editing tool with a cool personal assistant feature. It lets you know when you have a looming deadline or when someone shares a doc with you.
However, if you want to use the app for personal use, you may wanna look elsewhere.
You don’t get file locking on the personal pricing plans.
Dropbox Paper is a free tool.
Apache OpenOffice is an open-source collaboration tool that lets you create documents, 3D illustrations, mathematical equations, and more.
The office app has a cool editing feature that auto-corrects, auto-completes, and spell checks to catch mistakes on the fly.
However, its UI is quite outdated compared to other document editing tools.
This document editing tool is free to download.
Obsidian is a powerfulnote-taking and knowledge management app best known for note linking and customization capabilities, making it a strong contender for the top Google Docs alternative.
Unlike other note-taking apps, Obsidian acts like your “second brain”—giving your brain a break from constantly working on remembering the content of your notes, where they’re stored, and which notes are related. Obsidian can help you easily make connections between notes via backlinks, organize them according to patterns, topics, relevancy to one another, or any other way you prefer for better information organization.
Without a doubt, this granularity and internal contextual linking will level up your note-taking skills and drastically change how you manage your documents forever.
Obsidian offers three plans:
Evernote is one of the most recognizable note-taking and task management apps today for its note organization and accessibility. It’s designed to improve your note-taking, project planning, and team collaboration by allowing you to capture, organize, and access your digital notes easily across all your devices and even access them offline on mobile.
Use its Home feature to view your most important notes all in one dashboard, organize your notes using notebooks, notebook stacks, titles, and tags, and create to-do lists with your notes to turn your ideas into actionable items. Given that Google Docs doesn’t have this functionality makes it a great note-taking app alternative.
To get more out of this app and for a more seamless workflow, integrate Evernote to your most used and favorite work tools such as Google Calendar, Slack, (and ClickUp). 😉
Coda is an all-in-one document management solution that brings all your words, data, and teamwork into one powerful doc.
Teams can combine building blocks to create a doc, create, edit, and view documents and spreadsheets simultaneously, create surveys and polls, set up custom workflows, automate notifications, and so much more.
Another incredible app that can be used as a Google Doc alternative is Quip— a document management and team collaboration software created by Salesforce to help you centralize and organize your team’s work and communicate within the same app.
With this tool, users can create and share documents, spreadsheets, presentation slides, and task lists and use the built-in chat feature to keep your team’s discussions organized in one place. The unique combination of communication and writing features enables your team to work more collaboratively and efficiently without emails—they can directly brainstorm ideas and discuss work directly within the app and around the document.
One of the best Google Docs alternatives and most widely-used word processors out there is Microsoft Word. Its user-friendly and advanced features allow users to create, save, and export professional-quality documents.
It comes with powerful document processing capabilities such as robust text and image formatting tools to enable you to edit your documents to suit your preference or project needs. Individuals and teams can also access a variety of ready-to-use templates to use to keep the processes consistent, speed up the documenting process, or simply as a formatting guide.
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This way, you won’t have to collaborate by sending documents via email to one another. After all, long email threads only mean lost documents and stressful experiences with your team. 😫
Google Docs also lets you add images to your Google document using the built-in Google search engine and even use other Google apps like Google Slides alongside your work.
And while all that sounds cool, the Google Docs app does have a few glaring limitations:
Google Docs has a few basic content collaboration features like real-time editing, document sharing, and cloud storage. You can sort of make timelines, Gantt charts, flowcharts or calendars in Google Docs.
However, if you want to document a large project, this Google app won’t cut it. 💇
It lacks advanced collaboration features like progress tracking, time tracking, custom task statuses, and more. These are essential if you want to monitor project performance and give life to that space vision.
Here are three reasons why Google Docs isn’t the most comprehensive knowledge base solution:
“Ugh, where is that document I opened a second ago?”
“I remember a teammate shared that doc with me, but I can’t find it anywhere!”
Creating a decent filing system in Google Docs might feel like you’re on a trek.
The journey is long, and the roads are rough.
You’ll even have to use Google Drive to manually create folders and organize your documents based on their projects.
Instead, with an alternative to Google Docs, you can spend that time being productive!
Sharing and permissions can be a total drag in Google Docs.
Sometimes you forget to give a teammate access, and other times you hit the “anyone with link” option.
Scenario one will result in wasted time and confusion, and scenario two, well… let’s just say you’ve kinda freely given your documents to the internet.
Google Docs doesn’t let you nest pages (create subpages).
Why are nested pages important for knowledge management?
Being able to nest pages means that you can create a well-structured document where certain pages are set up as subpages of other primary pages.
Without them, your complex documents will be difficult to organize.
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