Best free project collaboration tool for engineering teams

Move projects forward, faster

Do your projects drag on forever? Improve project collaboration by working in a shared workspace that lets you visually organize all your people, files, and apps in one place.

Banish information silos and duplicated work

Projects lack context and fall apart when information is spread all over the place. Switchboard eliminates silos by uniting everyone and everything you need for your project in dedicated rooms. Communicate in context, make progress, and stay on track with streamlined workflows.  

  • A huge canvas to visually organize apps, documents, and files at a glance
  • Persistent project rooms that save your work
  • Interactive, multiplayer browsers that support all your browser-based apps
  • AI to help with meeting summaries and updates  
  • Optional live video for interactive work sessions and meetings 
  • Room recording and video notes for async catch-ups
  • Whiteboards, team chat, polls, surveys, and sticky notes for in-room communication

Focus on tasks, not multitasking

Manage project collaboration all in one place and spend less time hunting for information and more on focus work.

"Spend a few minutes with Switchboard, and it becomes clear that it is a complete step change beyond any mainstream project collaboration tool out there."

— Jon Kallus,

Founder, Fate v Future

Engineering teams use Switchboard to solve project management challenges

Engineering teams will know how tricky it can be to:
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    Collaborate on complex engineering projects async
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    Manage technical documentation and knowledge sharing
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    Ensure software quality and testing for different clients

Switchboard fixes all this by bringing all stakeholders, information, and tools together in one place, so you can get more done, together or async.  

Organize work by project

Digging around in different tools, tabs, and Slack threads to find what you need is a huge time suck. Luckily, there’s a fix for that.

Bring everything you need for a project—people, apps, files—together in dedicated, persistent project rooms. You’ll reduce context switching, get aligned, and cancel more status meetings. The result? More time for focus work.

Get up to speed in always open, persistent rooms

Persistent, host-free rooms save your work, so you can pick up where you left off next time. Just set team member permissions so they can hop in anytime and work together in real time or async. No more lengthy meeting prep, no more sharing materials after the session.

Make meetings count

Sometimes, you just need to to talk things out. But while traditional video conferencing tools are great for talking about projects, they’re not so great for managing them.

Switchboard lets you work side by side, in real time or async, on browser-based apps, documents, and files.. Having everything in the same place makes it easy to see who’s working on what, so you never lose track of project progress again.

Colleagues working together in a 1 on 1 room in Switchboard with browsers showing metrics, the current product sprint and a ticket tracker
Three people working on a project proposal in Switchboard with sticky notes for memos, action items, and scheduling

Think and work faster with AI

Keeping cross-functional teams on the same page over long-running projects involves a lot of updates. Switchboard saves time with AI-generated summaries of sticky notes, so you can catch everyone up on decisions, milestones, and project progress without the busywork. Just leave your notes in the project room for team members to get updates on their own schedule.

switchboard

Communicate in context and get more done.

Bring all your teams, apps, and files together in dedicated rooms—and can get to the finish line faster.

Is Switchboard really free?

You get full access to all Switchboard Pro features for 30 days when you sign up for free. After that, you can downgrade your workspace to a free plan with limited features or subscribe to the Pro or Enterprise option.

Frequently asked questions about free project collaboration tools

What is a project collaboration tool?

A project collaboration tool keeps project teams aligned over long-running or complex cross-functional projects. Streamlined workflows, file sharing, and task management functionality allow in-person, hybrid, or remote teams to collaborate from anywhere. 

For example, Asana is a project management tool that uses Kanban boards for agile project management. This tool gives team members visibility on task ownership, status, and dependencies. Project collaboration tools also offer collaboration features like real-time messaging, as well as automation to reduce repetitive or manual tasks.

Digital workspaces like Switchboard facilitate project management by uniting everything and everyone you need for a project in persistent, dedicated rooms. This means you can communicate and work together in real time or async without switching between multiple tools and tabs.

Which free tool can be used for project collaboration?

You can use the free version of Switchboard for project collaboration. Its intuitive, cloud-based workspaces enable effective teamwork across different time zones and locations by organizing everything in persistent project rooms. 

Traditional video conferencing tools like Microsoft Teams or Zoom rely on one-sided screen sharing but Switchboard goes beyond this to offer a multiplayer experience. Just open up any browser-based app–from mind maps to Gantt charts–and work on them side by side during video calls with team members or stakeholders. You can also use all popular collaboration platforms and project management software in Switchboard with no need for app integrations. For example, Monday.com, Asana, Trello, Jira, Google Drive, Google Docs, Dropbox, and more.

What can I use Switchboard for?

You can use Switchboard to streamline project management and collaboration in real time or async. Just open up any browser-based team collaboration tool, from Google Drive to spreadsheets to digital whiteboards, in your persistent project room and start working side by side. Since all your work is saved, you can also work async on your own schedule and get updates from communication tools like sticky notes and room recordings. This means you can cancel more meetings and use the time for deep work instead. 

Switchboard also enables more efficient project planning and communication by letting you open to-do lists and roadmaps directly in your project room so you can track progress. Features like time tracking, instant messaging via group chat, polls, and voting also make for more engaging and productive meetings.