9 of the Best Tools for Managing Remote Teams

Running a remote team takes more than a video call app and a shared drive. The real challenges are more scattered. Hiring across borders, keeping people connected when they’ve never met in person, protecting company systems when everyone’s on a different network, and making sure nobody’s calendar looks like a disaster. Each of those problems needs its own solution.

The 10 tools below cover global hiring, workforce visibility, project management, team culture, async communication, network security, calendar optimization, and recruiting. They don’t always show up in the typical roundup, but they solve real problems for distributed teams.

Deel

Global hiring, payroll, and compliance in one platform

Deel lets companies hire employees and contractors in over 150 countries without setting up local legal entities. It handles onboarding, payroll, tax compliance, benefits, and contract generation from a single platform. For most markets, Deel uses its own entities rather than third-party partners, which gives it tighter control over compliance and the employee experience.

The platform also includes a free global HRIS (when used alongside other Deel services) with workflow automation and people analytics. Companies like Nike, Subway, and Klarna use Deel.

Key features:

• Hire and onboard employees in 150+ countries through Deel’s owned entities, with locally compliant contracts generated automatically
• Global payroll from a single dashboard with multi-currency support, automated tax filings, and localized payslips
• Built-in HRIS with workflow automation, people analytics, and app provisioning
• Anytime Pay lets EOR employees access a portion of their earned salary on demand, with no fees

Twist

Async-first team messaging organized by threads instead of real-time chat

Effective communication is a major challenge for distributed teams. Twist is a team communication app built by Doist (the company behind Todoist) that takes a different approach from Slack. Instead of a constant stream of real-time messages, Twist organizes every conversation into threads with a clear topic. This makes it easier to follow discussions and find past decisions without scrolling through walls of chat.

Channels are organized by topic, project, or client. The inbox view collects everything that needs your attention, and you can mark threads as done to keep things clean. Doist built Twist for its own fully remote team after dropping Slack in 2017. It was named a World Changing Idea by Fast Company.

Key features:

• Threads-first communication, where every conversation starts with a clear topic, keeping discussions searchable long-term
• Inbox view that gathers everything requiring your attention, with the ability to mark threads as done
• Team Check-In automation for recurring async standups with customizable prompts
• Integrations with Google Drive, Asana, Calendly, Zoom, and other async-friendly tools

Rippling EOR

Employer of Record with unified HR, IT, and payroll for global teams

Rippling’s Employer of Record service lets companies hire full-time employees in other countries without setting up legal entities. What makes it different from standalone EOR providers is how deeply it connects to Rippling’s broader platform. HR, IT, and finance all run off the same system.

When a new international hire is onboarded, their payroll, device management, app access, and benefits all get set up from one place. Rippling claims the fastest payroll lead times in the industry, with five days to payday in major markets compared to three or more weeks with some competitors. It currently supports hiring in 80+ countries.

Key features:

• EOR fully integrated with Rippling’s HR, IT, and finance modules, so onboarding triggers payroll setup, device ordering, and app provisioning automatically
• Fastest payroll lead times in popular markets (five days to payday), with auto-calculated inputs from hours worked, expenses, and time off
• Compliance 360 system that monitors employment law changes and flags issues with recommended actions
• Full cost visibility with breakdowns of salary, taxes, social contributions, and benefits for every employee

Linear

Fast, keyboard-driven project management for product and engineering teams

Linear is a project management and issue-tracking tool built for software teams, though product, design, and ops teams are adopting it too. The platform is known for being extremely fast. Interactions are designed to complete within 50 milliseconds, and the entire interface is built around keyboard shortcuts.

Work is organized into Issues (tasks), Projects (related work), and Cycles (time-boxed sprints). Linear integrates with GitHub, GitLab, Slack, and Figma. When a pull request is merged in GitHub, Linear can automatically update the corresponding issue. Companies like Vercel, Ramp, and Mercury use it as a faster, simpler alternative to Jira.

Key features:

• Keyboard-first interface with a global command menu (Cmd+K) for creating, assigning, and moving issues without a mouse
• GitHub and GitLab integration that auto-updates issue status when pull requests are opened, merged, or closed
• Cycles and roadmaps are built in as first-class features with progress tracking and milestone coordination

Donut

Automated team introductions and culture-building inside Slack and Microsoft Teams

Donut is a lightweight app that runs inside Slack or Microsoft Teams and helps people across a company actually get to know each other. Its most popular feature randomly pairs team members for virtual coffee chats. But the platform has grown to include AI-powered onboarding workflows, peer recognition with points and badges, watercooler conversation prompts, and milestone celebrations.

It’s used by over 20,000 teams, including IBM, Buffer, Okta, and Automattic. The platform has made over 10 million introductions since 2016. For distributed companies where people across departments rarely interact, Donut adds a layer of connection that wouldn’t happen on its own.

Key features:

• AI-powered introductions that pair team members across departments and locations with customizable matching criteria
• Onboarding workflows with automated task sequences, polls, and HRIS/ATS sync to enroll new hires
• Peer recognition program with points, badges, and real rewards tied to company values

Gather

Virtual office where remote teams work side by side in a shared space

Gather gives remote teams a persistent virtual office where everyone can see who’s around and start conversations without scheduling a meeting. Instead of typing “Hey, are you free?” in Slack and waiting for a reply, you can look at the virtual space, see who’s at their desk, and walk over.

The platform recently launched Gather 2.0, a full rebuild with a simpler interface, AI meeting notes, async chat, and integrations with GitHub and Spotify. Teams can customize their office layouts with whiteboards, board games, and branded spaces. Lenny Rachitsky named it one of the most interesting up-and-coming work communication tools in 2025 based on his survey of 6,500 tech professionals.

Key features:

• Spatial virtual office where team members see who’s available and start conversations in seconds
• AI meeting notes, async chat, screen sharing, and recording built into the platform
• Customizable office layouts with interactive objects like whiteboards and board games
• Audio controls that let users adjust conversation distance and mute ambient noise to protect focus time

Twingate

Zero trust network access that replaces traditional VPNs

Twingate creates direct, encrypted tunnels between each user and only the specific resources they need, instead of routing all traffic through a single gateway. Split tunneling is on by default, so only protected traffic goes through secure tunnels while everything else flows directly over the internet.

The platform deploys in minutes without requiring changes to existing network infrastructure or firewall rules. It integrates with major identity providers, device management tools, and SIEMs. It’s a practical option for teams that have outgrown their VPN or handle sensitive data that requires granular, identity-based access controls.

Key features:

• Deploys in minutes as a software overlay with no changes to existing infrastructure or firewall rules
• Least-privilege access is enforced at the resource level, so users only reach the specific apps or databases they need
• Identity-indexed activity logs with forensic detail for auditing who accessed what and when

Clockwise

AI-powered calendar optimization that protects focus time across teams

Clockwise is an AI calendar assistant that optimizes schedules by rearranging flexible meetings, creating blocks of uninterrupted focus time, and resolving conflicts. It analyzes up to one million calendar permutations daily per team to find the best arrangement based on individual preferences, time zones, and team-wide needs.

As more people on a team adopt it, the optimization compounds. Atlassian reports that Clockwise created over 150,000 hours of deep work time across its global workforce. Instacart and Intercom also use it. In September 2025, Clockwise launched the first Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for time management, allowing AI agents to access its scheduling intelligence.

Key features:

• AI scheduling engine that shifts flexible meetings to create focus blocks, adjusting in real-time as calendars change
• Cross-team optimization that factors in preferences, working hours, and time zones when finding meeting times
• Conflict resolution that rearranges events to prevent overlaps without manual intervention

Ashby

All-in-one recruiting platform with built-in ATS, CRM, scheduling, and analytics

Ashby combines applicant tracking, sourcing and CRM, interview scheduling, and recruiting analytics into one product. It’s built for companies that want data-driven hiring without cobbling together four or five separate tools.

The platform includes visual pipeline builders, automated email sequences, AI-powered candidate search, and reporting that doesn’t need a data team to operate. Ashby recently added an AI Notetaker that records, transcribes, and summarizes interviews directly inside the platform. It’s used by companies like OpenAI, Shopify, Notion, and Duolingo, and raised a $50 million Series D in July 2025. Their data shows sourcing sequences using AI personalization get a 48% higher positive response rate.

Key features:

• Unified ATS, CRM, sourcing, and analytics in one platform, eliminating tool-switching
• AI-powered sourcing with email lookup, multi-touch sequences, and personalization tokens shown to lift response rates by 48%
• Interview scheduling automation with self-scheduling links, multi-timezone coordination, and calendar sync
• Built-in AI Notetaker that records, transcribes, and summarizes interviews with timestamps