Best 10 Tools for Mind-Maps and Remote Team Collaboration

When doing a project with a team, brainstorming is an important session. This allows you to gather fresh and new ideas from different or diverse people. Meanwhile, technology changed the way we do brainstorming and work collaboratively. There are a lot of visual tools like mind map that combines the benefits of collaboration and ideation features for remote teams to work cohesively. Through these tools, you’ll be able to share, collect, and uncover many ideas. Now let’s explore the 8 best mind maps and collaboration tools you can use immediately.

Essential Programs For Working Collaboratively with Remote Teams

• GitMind
• Whimsical
• Coggle
• MindMeister
• StormBoard
• Ayoa
• Scapple
• Miro
• Microsoft Visio
• SmartDraw

GitMind (https://gitmind.com/)

Pricing: Free

This is a multifunctional mind mapping online tool that supports team collaboration. Equally important, an excellent feature to assign tasks is also infused so you can easily organize your team’s priorities. Moreover, this site offers free mind mapping, flowcharts for your work productivity. This way you can easily organize your thoughts and come up with great ideas as you brainstorm with your team. On top of all this, the program is for free and you don’t need to download any software. It works on almost all platforms and browsers.

• Completely web-based program
• Allows two or more collaboration
• Limited features on mobile version

Whimsical (https://whimsical.com/)

Pricing: $10 Monthly

Create unlimited boards for $10 per month. This online tool is your all-in-one mind organizer and online notes. Work with high performance and faster with the use of the free flowcharts, wireframes and mind mapping . Wireframes are ideal for editing content for marketing purposes, the tool has flexible and frames that are ready to be used. It is something that you have to look forward to. Pro or not, you will be able to produce better results and never go hunting again.

• Best for creating workflows or site architectures
• Simple and easy-to-use interface
• Limited color selection for objects

Coggle (https://coggle.it/)

Pricing: $5 monthly

Get for $5 for personal or professional use. Add control access for $8.
Everything is free plus having unlimited private diagrams, use over 1600 beautiful icons, arrange and control business arrangement, export to PDF files, and a lot more if you use Coggle. Creating a flowchart using this tool is very amusing. For you can use thousands of icons to make your charts look very impressive and informative.

• Works on any browser
• Real-time collaboration
• 3 private diagrams only for free users

MindMeister (https://www.mindmeister.com/)

Pricing: $4.19 monthly

Turn your ideas into reality for $2.49 per month (personal use) and upgrade to Pro for only $4.19 per month if you want to collaborate with your team. This has a similar concept among the tools on the list. It is a mind mapping tool and a collaboration tool that you can use to gather your team for a meeting. It probably has the most free templates for mind mapping.

• Robust template library
• Great customization features
• Secure back-up is only available for a business account

StormBoard(https://www.stormboard.com/)

Pricing: $5 monthly

Stormboard is another great collaborative tool that offers the ability to create mind maps and work with teams in real-time. It is loaded with collaboration features like a voting system that enables team members to analyze and choose the best from all the shared ideas. Thus, decision-making is a way easier. The app comes with free and paid versions. With the free tier, you get unlimited mindmaps and 5 users per storm. If you choose to upgrade to a startup account you will need to purchase it for $5, business costs $10 and you can request a price when signing up for an enterprise account.

• Invite people to your Storm
• Comment, vote, and assign sticky notes
• Technical for new users

Ayoa (https://www.ayoa.com/)

Pricing: $10 monthly

Ayoa allows you to visually manage your team and mind map ideas more efficiently. In addition to creating mind maps, it can instantly turn branches into tasks, create task boards and send instant messages to individuals or groups concurrently. It is also loaded with useful features like visual indicators(arrows, urgency flags, status) to keep track of important tasks. Meanwhile, the tool offers a free account that is limited to 5 task boards and mind maps. Signing up for an advanced account with unlimited boards and maps will cost you $10 per account every month and for bigger teams of any size you can contact Ayoa for the price.

• Send a direct message and even to a group
• Features indicators useful for tracking tasks
• Dependencies function does not adjust automatically

Scapple (https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview)

Pricing: $18 one-time payment

Next on the list is Scapple. This app is designed to connect ideas from different perspectives and come up with a coherent solution. What sets this apart from the other apps is it’s a freeform text editor that allows users to add notes anywhere on the page. You are not forced to think of ideas related to the central topic. That means you can come up with your rough ideas and connect them later with the related ideas. Moreover, the tool can expand to fit as many notes you can create. If you are interested in this collaborative tool, you can purchase the full version of Scapple for $18 for standard use while the education license costs $14.

• Add notes anywhere and as many as you wish
• Stylish customization for notes
• Free users can enjoy it for 30 days only

Miro (https://miro.com/)

Pricing: $10 monthly

Collaborating on a real-time digital whiteboard is a great advantage when working with your remote team and Miro is developed for this kind of need. You can use this tool for ideation, story maps, research, and other more collaborative activities making it a go-to solution for a team. The sticky notes also provide convenience when leaving important information, tasks, and comments. Moreover, it’s a cross-platform software that allows you to run the app on the web, computer, and mobile device. Also, a big plus to this tool is its large viewing area that allows you to have an overview of a big web mind map. Teams may avail of its full version for $10 while businesses with a size of 20+ members get all its team features and more for $16. Otherwise, you may settle for its free version with only 3 editable boards for occasional use.

• Real-time collaboration on the digital whiteboard
• Available on web, mobile, and computer devices
• Confusing interface for first time users

Microsoft Visio (https://www.microsoft.com/en/microsoft-365/visio/flowchart-software)

Pricing: $5 monthly

If you are looking for another collaborative tool for mind mapping and professional visuals, you should consider using Microsoft Visio. It offers an extensive library of dedicated shapes to meet different needs. You can use it to illustrate complex visuals like geographical maps and engineering frameworks. Similarly, you can choose from the templates to edit. It has templates for timelines, flowcharts, floorplans, diagrams and so much more. On top of that, if you have already been working on the Microsoft ecosystem, this tool should be easy for you to navigate.

• Supports templates for a variety of diagrams and mind maps
• Has the ability to pull data from Office 365
• Preloaded shapes and icons are limited compared to similar programs

SmartDraw (https://www.smartdraw.com/)

Pricing: $9.95 monthly

A helpful tool to improve works in diverse fields including, IT, design, engineering, and many more. It also offers integration with famous productivity programs such as Jira, Confluence, Dropbox, and the like. Compared to similar tools, its interface is more intuitive and offers videos or tutorials that will make more familiar with the tool’s features and functions. Whether online or offline, creating mind maps, diagrams, or design framework without any problem at all.

• Can be used whether you are offline or online
• Offers templates of various fields
• Creating frameworks like floorplans demands training to master

Final Thoughts

All these tools are guaranteed to help improve the efficiency and productivity of teams and groups. Choosing the best app will also depend on your specific needs. You can try each one to see which one really fits your workflow. If there’s an app or two that you want me to include in this review, share your thoughts and insights down in the comments!