7 Best Google Docs Alternatives for Content Teams to Improve Collaboration

In the Microsoft Word era, Google Docs was a revolutionary content collaboration tool that rocked the content world. But content teams are now looking for Google Docs alternatives that further boost content workflow and improve their processes. After all, there’s a lot more to content marketing than creating and maintaining documents.

In this article, I’ve gathered 7 of the best Google Docs alternatives that help create and manage content more easily, faster, and better. Created with marketing teams in mind!

Why should you consider a Google Docs alternative?

Google Docs is a widely used cloud-based document editor known for its simplicity and collaboration features.

However, marketing teams in particular often seek alternatives to Google Docs, aiming for advanced functionality, more industry-specific capabilities, and better integration with other tools.

When evaluating any content management tool, I consider three core things: collaboration, approvals, and planning capabilities. Let’s see where Google Docs stands in these categories.

Collaboration

With features like chat, comment, and real-time editing, Google Docs allows multiple users to create and edit documents simultaneously. You can see what everyone else is typing, making it great for brainstorming or collective editing.

However, it lacks the advanced collaboration tools needed for larger teams or more complex projects, like internal notes. Not everything we discuss is meant for the client’s eyes, right?

Approvals

Google Docs supports basic workflow features like commenting for approvals but lacks automated, multi-level approval processes.

Such automation plays a huge role in marketing teams, especially in agencies, speeding up the approval and ensuring nothing goes live without a green light.

Calendar

Google Docs integrates with Google Calendar, allowing for basic planning and deadline tracking. However, it lacks direct embedding, content distribution capabilities, or more sophisticated project management features.

Pricing: Google Docs is free with a Google account, making it a great alternative to MS Word. Additional business features are available through Google Workspace subscriptions, starting at $6/month per user.

Here’s why your content team should consider a Google Docs alternative in 2024

• Enhanced functionality

Alternatives offer better customization, advanced editing tools, and superior document management capabilities.

• Comprehensive integration

Seamlessly integrate with social media platforms, CRM systems, project management tools, and other enterprise software.

• Scalability

Alternatives can offer better solutions for growing teams that need to manage larger datasets or more complex document structures.

• More industry-specific features

While Google Docs is a sturdy solution for text assets, some alternatives offer a more in-depth understanding of marketing processes, which is ideal if you want to enhance them.

1. Planable – best for content teams looking to improve collaboration and approvals

If you’re after collaboration capabilities beyond those in Google Docs, Planable is your ultimate social media collab tool. Out of all alternatives to Google Docs, Planable is the most collaboration-oriented, created specifically with marketing and content teams in mind.

Collaboration features like in-context feedback and custom approval workflows help marketing teams keep their processes smooth, ensuring the content moves down the pipeline as fast as possible. Bottlenecks? Haven’t heard that name in years.

Planable’s Universal Content feature allows you to create any text assets, from social media posts and blog articles to briefs, video scripts, and emails.

Collaboration

Real-time collaboration and feedback exchange are at the core of Planable.

The platform is designed to streamline creative collaboration within the team and ease communication with external stakeholders or clients, making it a perfect Google Docs alternative for both internal marketing teams and agencies.

For example, you can leave internal feedback notes within your team as you work to perfect your next piece of content.

• In-context collaboration

Use real-time comments, suggestions, and annotations to pinpoint the pieces that need more work.

• Roles and permissions

Differentiate creators from approvers. Planable allows you to set up different roles to draw a line between your team members, external collaborators, and clients.

• Internal notes

Keep your comments, notes, and even whole posts hidden from your clients’ eyes. Some things are only meant for teammates.

• Notifications

Never miss a single beat with email and in-app notifications on mobile to jump into the discussion ASAP.

Approvals

Planable takes collaboration up a notch with customizable approval workflows. Unlike the more generic Google Docs, Planable was created by marketers and for marketers.

The built-in content approval workflows allow you to get a green light in a few clicks rather than exchanging endless emails.

Set up specific permissions and roles and choose from four types of approval for each workspace you own: none, optional, mandatory, or multi–level.

You can also set content to be locked on approval and for social media content to be posted automatically once approved, further cutting down the manual work.

Calendar

Planable is also a content planning tool. In addition to document creation and collaboration, you can leverage Planable’s content calendar to plan and schedule your content.

I love how you can apply custom color-coded labels to differentiate between types of content or campaigns, then filter by those labels so you only see what’s relevant. You can use this calendar to map out entire content marketing strategies.

• Multiple content views

Depending on your preferences and the platforms you’re working with, you can view your planned content as a calendar, list, feed, or grid.

• Social media scheduling

Create, preview, and schedule your social media posts in Planable’s content calendar. The posts will go live automatically at the specified time.

• Organize your content

Get a cohesive view of all your content efforts with custom colorful tags and filters to quickly find what you’re looking for and keep your content calendar neat.

Pricing: Planable offers 50 free posts with unlimited time to use them. After that, you can upgrade for $33/month and tailor the pricing according to the number of workspaces.

Drawbacks: Planable doesn’t directly integrate with CMS platforms for website publishing. However, you can collaborate on your blog publication or email and plan it in the content calendar.

Planable vs. Google Docs

• Planable seamlessly combines content creation and content management features. You can collaborate on content and schedule social media posts to go live across all your social media platforms.
• Unlike Google Docs, Planable offers built-in approval workflows, making streamlining your content processes within one platform easier.
• Planable provides a more tailored approach to organizing content, with tags, filters, and a built-in media library, making it easier to navigate your database.

Takeaway: Google Docs is a more generic solution, while Planable is more marketing and content-oriented.

Planable is more tailored to the specific needs of marketing teams, making it a Google Docs alternative that eases the writing process and comes with a handful of cool and industry-specific features.

2. ClickUp – best Google Docs alternative for teams looking to manage large projects

ClickUp is an extensive project management tool suitable for large marketing agencies or cross-functional teams. It allows users to create and assign tasks to manage any type of work.

You can also brainstorm ideas through whiteboards, create documents, and share them with multiple users to work on simultaneously.

A healthy combination of task tracking and document management makes ClickUp a good alternative to Google Docs if you’re looking for a single solution to manage big projects or tackle multiple clients.

Key features

• Task management features. Create, assign, and track tasks, report the timesheets, and set up automation to speed up your processes — long story short, leverage the project management side of ClickUp.
• Collaborative document editor. ClickUp Docs eases team collaboration by offering real-time editing, version history, and comment threading.
• Link documents to tasks. Create documents in ClickUp and connect them to specific tasks to keep track of all your assets. This is very useful if you need to find copy from several months ago, and all you remember is the campaign it was written for.

Pricing: ClickUp has a free plan and four paid options starting at $10/month.

Drawbacks: ClickUp is one of the better Google Doc alternatives for big projects that involve many teams. For small teams, it can be a bit of overkill. Users also mention that it’s kind of slow.

3. Zoho Writer – best lookalike Google Doc alternative

Zoho Writer is part of Zoho Workspace — like Google Workspace, but besides sheets, slides, and docs, it also integrates with Zoho’s CRM and other marketing solutions.

This tool feels like a simplified version of Google Docs. It’s a comfortable alternative to Google Docs for those who don’t actually want to switch but would like to get a couple of advanced features for content management.

For instance, Zoho Writer allows you to pause the document collaboration for a particular file, keeping it private until you’re ready to share it with your teammates. No Anonymous Tyrannosaurus peeking at your uncooked text.

Key features

• Review and approval tools. Leave comments and suggestions in the text. You can choose your own color to mark your changes and lock the document as final to prevent collaborators from changing it further.
• Third-party service integrations. Send your document directly to a signing tool like DocuSign or push it to WordPress. This is especially useful for teams working closely with blogs.
• Microsoft Word compatibility. If you have an MS Word document, you can easily upload it to Zoho’s word processor and seamlessly edit it there.

Pricing: You can use Zoho’s word processor for free. If you want to upgrade to Zoho’s Workspace, choose from three paid plans starting from €3/month/user.

Drawbacks: The spell checker and grammar suggestions from AI writing assistant Zia are somewhat mid.

4. Dropbox Paper – best alternative to Google Docs and Google Drive simultaneously

Dropbox Paper is an add-on to Dropbox’s file management system. You can create and manage documents with Paper without leaving the Dropbox interface. This enables team members to share documents and collaborate in real time on the same document.

All that unites in a neat storage ecosystem similar to Google Drive.

Paper’s integration with other Dropbox services and other third-party apps makes it a dynamic and versatile tool for marketing teams.

Key features

• Real-time collaboration. Work on the same document simultaneously with live content updates and comment streams to quickly exchange feedback and brainstorm ideas.
• Task management. You can assign tasks within documents, set due dates, and mention assignees without leaving the Paper environment.
• Third-party app integrations. You can integrate Dropbox Paper with other tools, like Canva or Slack. This is very useful if you want to take meeting notes and ensure everyone in the group chat gets them afterward.

Pricing: Dropbox Paper is available for all Dropbox accounts. Dropbox offers a free plan with up to 2GB of storage and four paid plans starting at $11.99/month.

Drawbacks: Dropbox Paper doesn’t offer desktop offline editing — you can only access the offline document editor through the mobile app, and the changes won’t sync across your devices.

5. Quip – best Google Docs alternative for sales teams

Quip is a team collaboration software tailored specifically for sales teams within the Salesforce ecosystem. Much like Google Docs and Google Workspace, Quip unites documents, spreadsheets, and chats into one bundle integrated with the core platform.

Its advanced features include integration with Salesforce CRM to streamline your sales processes with real-time data.

Quip is more specific than other Google Docs alternatives on this list due to its tight connection to Salesforce. However, if you heavily rely on Salesforce for CRM and sales management, Quit is your choice for document creation and collaboration.

Key features

• Version history. You can track all the changes within a document and return to previous versions if needed.
• Salesforce integration. Directly embed live data from Salesforce records into Quip documents, ensuring that the sales team always has the most current data at their fingertips.
• In-document chats. Discuss your data in context. Every document is equipped with a chat to enforce real-time collaboration between the team and individual team members.

Pricing: Quip has three paid plans starting at $10/month per user.

Drawbacks: Quip is one of the best Google Docs alternatives for Salesforce users. If you’re not an active Salesforce user, there are other alternatives to Google Docs you might find more useful.

6. Nuclino – best minimalistic Google Docs alternative

Nuclino is another real-time collaboration software for document creation, knowledge sharing, and simple project management.

In terms of the interface and general navigation, it’s a very lightweight Google Docs alternative. The interface is relatively clean and straightforward, with enough customization available.

I would say Nuclino is closer to Notion than Google Docs. It has many templates ready for use, from planning sprints and tasks to laying out buying personas, setting blog guidelines, and creating a company wiki.

Key features

• Real-time collaboration. Edit documents simultaneously with team members, seeing changes as they happen without any lag. Everyone can see your docs in the common workspace, making document sharing practically default.
• Wiki-style organization. Organizing documents in a visual graph helps you see connections between notes and swiftly navigate through large amounts of information.
• Lightweight interface. Nuclino’s clutter-free interface focuses purely on content, with no unnecessary features slowing you down.

Pricing: Nuclino has a free plan with up to 2 GB of space. You can upgrade for $6/month per user.

Drawbacks: Collaboration is limited to in-doc comments and mentions only, with no approval workflows, which can be big for creative teams.

7. Microsoft Office Online – best Google Docs alternative for Miscosoft adepts

Microsoft Office Online offers a cloud-based alternative to Google Docs that integrates seamlessly with the traditional Microsoft Office suite.

If your team is accustomed to Microsoft Word but wants to take the absolute same things online, this can be a solid option.

There’s not much to say about Microsoft Office Online — it’s the same old MS Word document functionality taken to cloud service.

Key features

• Familiar interface. For many big corporations, shifting to a new interface is challenging. Microsoft Word Online has the same interface we remember from high school, and it’s not bad.
• Collaboration. Work on your documents together with your colleagues through comments, annotations, and suggestions.

Pricing: Microsoft Word Online is available for free and as a part of the Microsoft 365 package, starting at $6/month per user.

Drawbacks: Microsoft Office Online and MS Word, though familiar, are quite clumsy, and nothing can change my mind.

Choose a Google Docs alternative that suits your process

Google Docs is a solid solution for written content. However, some alternatives can help you enhance your process rather than just get it done.

Planable has helped thousands of marketing teams create content faster and smoother. Try Planable with 50 free posts and see for yourself! There’s no pressure since those 50 posts are not time-limited — explore at your pace.