The use of collaboration tools has seen a dramatic rise among organisations amid the pandemic. These tools provide easy maintenance, simple deployment, real-time communications and much more. There are various popular collaboration tools available for the professional developers, which can be used depending on the needs as well as objectives of an organisation.

In this article, we list down the top 8 collaboration tools that professional developers must know. 

(The list is in alphabetical order).

1| Confluence

According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020, Confluence is the sixth most preferred collaboration tool. Using Confluence, one can create, collaborate and organise work. Organisations such as Docker, NASA, LinkedIn, among others, have been using this tool.  

Features of Confluence are:

• In this tool, information flows freely between everyone at the organisation
• You can transform impermanent conversations and notifications into institutional knowledge
• The tool works across all devices, and a developer can gain efficiency with a-synchronistic communication and collaboration
• It has a collaborative workspace to share and receive instant feedback

Know more here.

2| GitHub

This popular open-source tool needs no introduction. It is one of the most popular collaboration tools among developers. 

Some of the features of GitHub are:

• It allows you to cycle your production code faster and simplify your workflow with GitHub Packages and built-in CI/CD using GitHub Actions
• Automatically update vulnerabilities
• You can quickly add co-authors
• You can see all open pull requests for your repositories and check them out as if they were a local branch
• The new GitHub Desktop supports syntax highlighting when viewing diffs for a variety of different languages
• Expanded image diff support 
• Extensive editor & shell integrations

Know more here.

3| Google Suite  

Google Suite or G Suite is a popular collaboration tool by the tech giant Google, which comprises Gmail, Docs, calendar, Meet and more. According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020, this tool achieved the fourth position as the most preferred collaborative tools for developers. 

Some of the features are:

• It offers several useful applications for business professionals
• It provides security and management, such as enterprise-grade access control with security key enforcement, Advanced Protection Program and other such features

Know more here.

4| GitLab

GitLab is a web-based DevOps lifecycle tool that provides a Git-repository manager providing wiki, issue-tracking and continuous integration/continuous deployment pipeline features, using an open-source license. It is a complete DevOps platform that is written in Ruby and Go languages. It ranks as the fifth most preferred collaborative tools for developers according to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020. 

Some of the features are:

• The tool can be used for source code management (SCM), auto DevOps and security (DevSecOps)
• It can also be used for value stream management and others

Know more here.

5| Jira

JIRA is one of the popular software testing tools that is used for issue and bug tracking. It is a work management tool for all kinds of use cases, from requirements and test case management to agile software development. According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020, this tool achieved the third position as the most preferred collaborative tools for professional developers. 

Some of the features are:

• The tool can be used for requirements such as coding, collaboration, and release stages
• It can be used for test case management
• Jira integrates with a variety of add-ons, so the QA’s testing slides seamlessly into the software development cycle 
• Also, for teams who practice agile methodologies, Jira Software provides scrum and kanban boards

Know more here.

6| Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Team secured the eight position in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020. This platform is a chat-based workspace in Office 365. It is built on Microsoft 365 groups, Microsoft Graph along with the enterprise-level security, compliance and manageability. Microsoft Teams leverages identities stored in the Azure Active Directory (Azure AD).

Some of the features are:

• You can invite everyone you work with to chat and get on a call 
• Microsoft Teams delivers on four core promises to create a digital workspace for high performing teams

Know more here.

7| Slack

Searchable Log of All Communication and Knowledge or Slack is one of the popular collaboration tools among developers and ranks second in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020. The platform is designed to support the way people naturally work together, making collaborating with people online easy and efficient.

Know more here.

8| Trello

Trello is one of the popular collaboration tools among developers that organises projects into boards, and ranks seventh in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020, as the most preferred collaboration tools.

A Trello board has four key components:

• Boards- It represents a project that helps in keeping track of any information
• Lists- Lists can be used to create a workflow to organise cards
• Cards- This is the fundamental unit of the board
• Menu- Menu can be said as the mission control centre for the board

Know more here.