Use These Bitrix24 Alternatives for Your Company: Teamwork and Wrike

Once upon a time, team collaboration happened over emails only. Cut to the present time; social collaboration is the new way to engage employees.

Recently, I finished reading Social Collaboration for Dummies by David F. Carr. This book talks about the social collaboration principles and technologies that companies apply to enhance the team's productivity. However big or small the company is, a social collaborative tool is being used by all.

It is while reading this book that it dawned upon me how the social networking principles are slowly blending into our work front.

Social collaboration immediately calls for a modern UI, where you can share, like, comment, attach documents and do so much more together. Yes, 'working together' is what a collaboration tool helps in.

One such tool is Bitrix24. Launched in 2012, this team management tool offers a practical approach to manage company. Starting with options to like, comment, have group discussions to making an announcement, tagging colleagues, creating reports, managing time - Bitrix24 does it all. Bitrix24 is an open-source tool. You can have fully customised self-hosted editions.

It is a great tool, to be honest, but there are some restrictions too. When I tried Wrike and Teamwork while I was using Bitrix24, here is what happened-

Wrike's customised reports and workload management did fascinate me, but I fell in love with Teamwork.

There are so many ways to organise a team and Teamwork goes on to prove that.

Before I draw a comparison between the two alternatives of Bitrix 24- Wrike and Teamwork, I will walk you through the features of Bitrix24 first.

Bitrix24: Features Overview

As I mentioned, Bitrix24 is a team management tool that spreads out into document management, time tracking, likes, comments, video chats and more.

The website is neat and intuitive, to begin with. You can categorise the features under sub-headings of Social Network, Tasks and Projects, Chat and Video, Documents, Drive, Calendars, Mail, CRM, Telephony, HR, Mobile, and Additional tools (which is tagged as 'More' on the website).

Phew! That's a long list. Let's take a look what each of these categories has got to offer.

Social Network

Like I said, Bitrix24 kind of works on the principle of social networks.

Social networks provide ease in communication. So does Bitrix24.

This tool is all about communication seamlessly. You can

• Manage Tasks
• Share documents
• Track time
• Standard workflows for leave requests, business trips, expenses, purchases, and other general requests (included in
• Standard and Professional plans)
• Email collaboration from the dashboard itself
• Integration with Facebook, Twitter and G+

Be aware of what others are doing in the team, participate in discussions, and chose what updates you want to see on your Activity Stream. You can like contents to show your acknowledgement to your coworkers.
The best part is, you can motivate or appreciate your colleague using a Badge ('awards') that shows up on the activity stream and profile of your coworker.

If you thought you could create posts or announce your updates only on social networks, well Bitrix24 has it covered for you. Never miss an announcement that shows up on the top right corner of the main page. You can make announcements too.

Bitrix24 does remind me of social networking platforms! The photo gallery on Bitrix24 is integrated with the Activity Stream. You can see the thumbnails appear automatically and can be liked, viewed or commented on.

Tasks and Projects

Bitrix24 has its core in helping teams to collaborate. To manage tasks and projects, here's what you get-

• Gantt Chart to view tasks and sub-tasks. You can modify your task after it has been added. Get to know who is doing what and by when.
• All Bitrix 24 plans offer Task dependencies. You can establish logical relationships between tasks and milestones. Along with that, custom task fields are available on premise Bitrix24 editions.
• Workload management helps in identifying who is getting overworked and how the load can be shifted.
• Task counters to take note of tasks that require immediate attention.
• Add checklists to your tasks and track the progress real-time.
• Automate regular chores using task templates. You can check business process designer for automated task creations triggered by specific events.
• Create groups that work like mini-intranet. Store files and data that are relevant to this group. Plan, discuss and get work done quickly.
• Pre-set task report template to evaluate team's efficiency and progress level. These can be exported as Excel files.
• Report builder to collect data and evaluate effectiveness within the team.
• Work groups can be shared with external partners like clients, freelancers, etc.
• Create tasks by forwarding emails or email the tasks that are created on Bitrix24- it works both ways.

Chat and Video

Real-time communication got better, and how!

Documents

Team collaboration is incomplete if you cannot upload and save your files. And Bitrix24 provides great options to manage all your documents-

Three types of Drives: My Drive, which is personal; Group drives for group sharing; and Company drive which is accessible by all.

• Direct collaboration of documents via activity streams.
• Thanks to the changelog, when you upload a new version of a file, the previous one remains unaffected and available.
• Document lock to ensure duplicate versions are not created.
• Integration with Google Docs, Office 365 and MS Office makes creating and editing an awesome experience.
• You can use locally installed software to make edits. Like, Pages on Mac or Adobe Photoshop.
• Integration with Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and more.
• Create document workflows.

Drive

I will say this is a continuation of the 'Documents' section.

• File syncing.
• Hosted on a secure cloud or your server.
• 100% safe. SSL encrypted data transfer.
• Cloud-PC integration.
• Reliable statistics.
• 5GB online storage for free.

Calendars

Mail

You can choose your own domain, @bitrix24.com domain or email services like Gmail, AOL, Outlook, Yahoo!, or iCloud.

CRM

Personally, I think Bitrix24's CRM is not that great as compared to other available popular tools. However, it is efficient, to say the least.

• Manage interactions via reports, importing/ exporting contacts, analysis, etc.
• Create sales funnels.
• Create personalised invoices inside the CRM.
• Free web form builder,
• Open channels connect CRM with popular networks like Facebook, VK. Telegram, Skype, etc.
• Mobile CRM.
• Email marketing (free).
• Client calls directly from the CRM.
• Assign access to team members according to their engagement requirements.
• Process leads and deals.
• Integrations: MailChimp, Xero, Gmail, Data2CRM, Web forms for any site, Helpdesk, more.
• Website integration.

Telephony

You can directly call from the Bitrix24 dashboard.

HR

Bitrix24 customises all these features and offers free human resource management system (HRMS) for your company. You can know in details here.

Other Tools

Bitrix24 provides 35 more tools that include:

• Ticketing and helpdesk
• Knowledge management
• Workflow automation
• Records management; etc.

Know full details here.

Bitrix24: Enterprise Ready

Birtrix 24 on premise is perfect for organisations having employees between 50 to 50,000. It comes with a module that can be easily scaled up. It is designed for enterprises. Security is of high concern. Bitrix24 on-premise consists of two-factor authorization methods.

Along with that, it also gives the benefit of having a self-hosted private cloud. You can have video conferencing, document managements, CRM, HRIS, and so much more in this. Add to this, customised integrations that are crucial for your business.

To know more about Bitrix24 on-premise read here.

Bitrix24 Integrations

Like features, the integration is also categorised according to mobile and desktop apps, marketplace and for developers. Get the full list here. Integrations include:

Bitrix24 Alternatives

I have already mentioned about the two alternatives I will talk about in this article: Wrike and Teamwork. However, few other great alternatives that you can check are: Jira, Freedcamp and Glip.

First Bitrix24 Alternative- Wrike

Wrike is a great task management tool, although not a hyped one. The budget calculation feature and time tracking option is what I like best in this tool.

If you read about customer votes, Wrike surpasses Bitrix24. Starting off with comparisons, I think it is viable I start with the pricing model.

Why exactly am I talking about the price first? Because let's be honest. We marketers skim through the features quickly because we are too impatient to see if it will fit our budget or not. Once we are okay with the price, we come back to see the features in details. That's how human brains work!

So, Wrike has a freemium model with annual subscriptions. The pricing starts at $10/month while for Bitrix24 it is $99/month. Bitrix24 also has a freemium model and provides monthly subscriptions.

Wrike offers a free trial before you move to a paid package. Bitrix24, on the other hand, has a FREE plan for up to 12 users. You can add 12 more employees at $25.

Let's dig a little further now, and take a look at Wrike's features in details:

Wrike: Features Highlight

Wrike has a lot of tutorials for you to get started with it. There are series of documents on all the functionalities, like creating a task, adding a schedule or editing the tasks. It is a collaboration tool at its best. Team management is the core of Wrike, so I will begin with this.

Team Management

Wrike offers a folder hierarchy to manage all your projects. You can add, edit and schedule tasks. Along with this, you can assign colours to mention or highlight the status of progress for a specific task. Thanks to integration with various email service providers, Wrike lets you turn an email to a task in a snap.

Real-time editing

A live editing functionality lets everyone in the team collaborate simultaneously. This results in a faster pace and also accuracy in work.

Interactive and Real-time Reporting

Wrike recently upgraded the reporting feature with a new functionality of Wrike Reports Snapshots. You can now take snapshots for all your reports. However, this is available for Enterprise plan only.

Customised Workflows

This is the most interesting feature of Wrike. Since every team cannot have a similar workflow structure, Wrike ensures you have custom workflows. From approval to tracking to getting the deal closed- Your entire workflow is structured as per your needs.

Workload Management and Burndown Chart

Another interesting feature. You will immediately know if any of your team members is under work pressure, or completely free. Workload management feature in Wrike lets you view the tasks assigned to each and access whether a team member has too many deadlines to meet. What you can do here, you can reassign the works to those who are relatively less clamped up. Hence, no one will slog and you get the work done faster.

Analytics

You can have detailed insights of the project status and individual workloads. Wrike offers three types of charts: Performance Chart, Gantt Chart and Baseline Chart.

Wrike for Enterprise

Wrike is a great tool for an enterprise. Here's what you can get:

You can read how Wrike has helped enterprises like Marketing agencies and Project Managers in my previous blog: Wrike vs Asana - Which is Most Suitable for Your Team? One such agency is a video production agency ONLYCH1LD. ONLYCH1LD has been a Wrike user for a long time and has benefited a lot from the Enterprise features of Wrike.

During the trial period, Wrike allows up to five users and unlimited collaboration. It provides features like:

• Task management and discussions
• File sharing
• Real-time activity streams
• Spreadsheet view
• iOS/Android app
• Advanced email integration
• Basic app integrations

The professional plan begins at $10/user/month when billed annually for 5, 10 or 15 users. You get

• 5 GB free storage
• Unlimited hierarchy folders
• Gantt Chart; which means a dynamic timeline
• Subtasks, and advanced mass actions
• Ten shareable dashboards and customised widgets
• Workload view
• Time tracking
• Interactive reports
• Advanced filters

Wrike also offers an enterprise pricing package. The price depends on your requirements. You will need to ask for a quote. Usually, the average price starts at $35/user/month. You get premium support, add thousands of users, storage starting from 100 GB, custom calendars, and extended security controls, to mention few. The best part is you get 20 shareable dashboards, custom workflows and critical path, single sign-on, and Salesforce.

The Bitrix24 paid plans are pretty straightforward and short. There are two varieties: Standard and Professional.
Standard comes at $99/month for unlimited employees and external users. The online storage is up to 100 GB. Professional plan is of $199/month where the online storage is free as well.

Difference in Features: Wrike vs. Bitrix24

I thin Wrike and Bitrix24 are almost similar, although I will say Wrike is much more polished. The user experience on Wrike is way much simple than Bitrix24. The onboarding in Bitrix24 is little dodgy while on Wrike its smooth.

The major point of concern for me is integration.

Bitrix24 is an open source platform and recommends in using third party apps that they are partnered with.
On the whole, Wrike beats Bitrix24 here. Some integrations that are not available on Bitrix24 -

Second Bitrix24 Alternative- Teamwork

We know how and what Bitrix24 does, we have also seen how Wrike is better than Bitrix24. Now, let's consider the second Bitrix24 alternative: Teamwork.

Teamwork has an excellent website. The UI is properly balanced and devoid of any exaggerations. It is true; you will fall in love with this tool!

To be precise, Teamwork's features are broadly categorised as Teamwork Projects, Teamwork Desktop and Teamwork Chats.

One simple reason why I love this tool is their Roadmap and latest updates section. Before starting using this tool for collaboration in your company/project, you will already feel as if the tool is collaborating with you. Like you are its colleague and get to see all that has been assigned, done and checked off! This is unique. For each category, Teamwork has a task list that it checks off once completed. It looks like this:

Teamwork Project

To get things done in a jiffy within your team, Teamwork Projects is perfect. It is neither too basic nor very complicated. Rather, it is properly organised. Here's what you can do:

The statistics, continuously changing real-time, clubbed with testimonials make a convincing approach.

Teamwork Desk

Teamwork Desk is the customer support section. And trust me, it is nothing less than wow!

Here's a quick overview of what you can expect:

Teamwork chat

Teamwork Chat is in beta version at this moment. Chatting is a popular medium of communication these days. A tool that provides this feature is sure to get brownie points.

Here's how Teamwork chat can take your team collaboration to the next level.

• Instantly connect with team members.
• Access from anywhere (Windows, Mac, dedicated iOS and Android apps. Linux app is expected soon).
• Direct integration with Teamwork Projects to get things rolling quickly.
• @ mentioning feature.
• Attach files
• Free Forever!

Having said this, let's get back to where we started. Looking at the features of Teamwork, I am sure you will agree this tool is way better than Bitrix24 as well as Wrike.

Bitrix24 doesn't have these advanced features. The integrations are less. You cannot chat, forget unified inboxes, advanced ticketing and seamless customer support functionalities. Oh, and also the updates and roadmap section. It steals the limelight.

Time to take a look at the pricing structure of Teamwork.

Teamwork pricing plan starts at $12/month. You can signup for a 30-day free trial. There are seven different pricing plans, including the free trial plan:

1. 30-day free trial 2. Personal: $12/month 3. Startup: $24/month 4. Small office: $49/month 5. Office: $99/month 6. Professional: $149/month 7. Business: $249/month

Unique features of Teamwork: Bitrix24 vs. Teamwork

• Track burn rate
• Forecast budgets
• SMS notifications
• Risk/benefit analysis

Another unique feature is the Referral Program. Get paid for referring Teamwork to your friends, colleagues or place their banner with an embedded link on your web page. To know more about how to get cash rolling in, check here.

Thus, we finally arrive at the end of our discussion. Least to say, out of the two alternatives, Teamwork takes the cup. If you have used any other tool that is better than those mentioned here, let me know in the comments section.

Till then, happy collaborating!