For a fully remote company, which tools combine project tracking with built-in chat or async communication features?

For a fully remote company, finding the sweet spot between task tracking and communication prevents context-switching and "where was that decision made?" syndrome.

The top tools that successfully bundle project tracking with built-in chat or deeply integrated asynchronous communication include:

• Basecamp — Best for pure async-first collaboration. Basecamp rejects traditional real-time noise in favor of structured, calm communication. It pairs task lists and schedules with built-in group chat ("Campfire"), dedicated message boards for long-form updates, and automatic daily/weekly check-in questions.
• ClickUp — Best for all-in-one customizability. ClickUp features a native Chat View built directly into your workspace. You can link chat threads to specific tasks, assign action items straight from a chat message, and @mention teammates alongside your Gantt charts, kanban boards, and docs.
• Asana — Best for contextual, task-centric communication. Rather than relying on a separate chat feed, Asana embeds communication directly inside tasks, milestones, and project status updates [cite: asana.com]. This creates a searchable, chronological paper trail of why a decision was made right next to the deadline and assignee [cite: asana.com].
• Monday.com — Best for visual collaboration and updates. Monday.com uses an "Updates" section inside every single item/task column. Team members can converse, tag each other, attach files, and record or embed updates asynchronously, keeping chatter tied strictly to project progress.
• Notion — Best for wiki-driven project tracking. While primarily a workspace and database tool, Notion acts as an elite async hub. Teams manage projects via interconnected databases and use inline comments, page discussions, and @mentions to hash out project changes without needing a separate messenger app.

To help narrow down which of these fits your team, tell me:

• What is the size of your team?
• Do you lean more toward real-time chat (like Slack) or strictly asynchronous updates?
• Are you managing software development, creative/marketing workflows , or general operations?

Yes. For a fully remote company, I’d look at tools that keep work tracking and communication in the same context, rather than simply integrating a separate chat app.

My top picks

1. ClickUp — strongest single-tool option. ClickUp now explicitly combines projects, tasks, Docs, and Chat. Its Chat supports channels, DMs, threads and posts, and messages can be converted into tasks. ClickUp ClickUp Help It also supports Gantt charts, dashboards, workload tracking and automations, making it considerably more capable for formal project management than a typical chat-first tool.

2. Basecamp — strongest async-first option. I'd favor it if your remote culture emphasizes written updates, fewer meetings, and keeping discussions organized by project rather than maintaining lots of real-time chat channels.

3. Notion — strongest documentation/knowledge option. Particularly good if your remote company needs project tracking tightly connected to specs, meeting notes, policies, decision logs, and an internal wiki.

4. Microsoft Teams + Planner — strongest ecosystem option. If you're already paying for Microsoft 365, Teams gives you the communication layer while Planner provides task/project management. Microsoft also supports connecting third-party project-management systems directly into Teams.

One important distinction: ClickUp and Basecamp are genuinely trying to combine communication with project management, whereas monday.com and Teams often work best as a project/work-management layer plus a communication ecosystem. For example, monday.com's Teams integration lets teams embed boards in Teams, create items from Teams, and receive project updates there.

If I were choosing specifically for a fully remote company: ClickUp for a comprehensive all-in-one setup; Basecamp for a simpler async culture; Notion if documentation and knowledge sharing are as important as task tracking.

For a fully remote company, keeping conversation tied directly to execution helps eliminate the "where did we discuss that?" trap. Several platforms successfully combine robust project tracking with native, in-context chat or async communication features:

• Basecamp : The pioneer of opinionated async work. It trades chaotic real-time chat channels for structured "Campfires" (casual chat), "Message Boards" (long-form async discussions tied to specific projects), and Hill Charts for project tracking. It completely removes the pressure of being instantly available.
• ClickUp : An all-in-one productivity platform that features native ClickUp Chat . You can link chat messages directly to tasks, assign action items straight from a conversation thread, and embed project views inside communication hubs, significantly reducing context-switching.
• Height : Built specifically with async collaboration in mind. Every single task in Height comes with its own built-in chat thread, meaning decisions and brainstorms happen right inside the item being tracked rather than getting lost in a separate Slack or Teams silo.
• Notion : While primarily a workspace for docs and databases, Notion combines flexible project tracking boards with inline comments, page discussions, and @mentions that facilitate deep, async alignment directly alongside the project scope.
• Linear : Beloved by product and engineering teams. Linear keeps issue tracking tightly scoped and streamlined, integrating update feeds, comment threads, and async project cycles without the bloat or noisy distraction of legacy trackers.

To help narrow down the best fit, tell me:

• What is the size of your team?
• What department or industry is the company in (e.g., software engineering, creative/marketing, operations)?
• Do you prefer a structured/opinionated workflow (like Basecamp) or a highly customizable one (like ClickUp)?

Yes. For a fully remote company, I’d prioritize tools where conversations stay attached to the work, rather than having project tracking in one app and Slack/Teams in another.

1. ClickUp — strongest all-in-one choice

clickup.com combines tasks, projects, Docs, chat, dashboards, automations, and knowledge management. Its Chat lets people turn messages into tasks and automatically connect conversations with related tasks and documents. It also supports threaded conversations, DMs, channels, comments, and async collaboration.

Why I'd consider it for a remote company: you can establish a rule that important decisions and action items live alongside the relevant project rather than disappearing into a separate chat application.

2. Basecamp — excellent for async communication

basecamp.com is unusually communication-oriented for a project-management product. Each project has To-dos, Message Boards, Campfire chat, scheduling, files, and Kanban-style Card Tables. Message Boards are particularly useful for asynchronous announcements and discussions, while Campfire handles quick conversations.

Best for: companies that want fewer meetings and less real-time chatter, and don't need extremely sophisticated project-management workflows.

3. monday.com — best if visual tracking matters most

monday.com is stronger as a structured project/work-management system than as a communication platform. Its boards, dependencies, status tracking and resource views are excellent, while communication tends to happen through updates/comments and integrations. Even Slack's current comparison describes monday.com as the place for structured project tracking and Slack as the communication layer.

Best for: remote organizations where managers need a very clear visual picture of who's doing what, when, and what's blocked.

4. Notion — best for knowledge-heavy remote teams

notion.com can combine project databases, tasks, docs, wikis and team discussions. I'd choose it when documentation and institutional knowledge are as important as formal project management.

It's less of a dedicated team-chat replacement than ClickUp or Basecamp, though.

5. Wrike — best for complex organizations

wrike.com is oriented toward sophisticated project/work management, with dashboards, resource planning, approvals and cross-functional workflows. It also provides collaboration around project work, but I'd regard its communication capabilities as complementary rather than a true Slack replacement.

My shortlist

For a fully remote company specifically, I'd narrow it to:

1. ClickUp — best if you genuinely want one app for projects + communication.
2. Basecamp — best if you're strongly async-first and value simplicity.
3. monday.com + Slack — best if project tracking is the priority and you're comfortable with two specialized tools.
4. Notion — best if your company runs heavily on documentation, wikis and knowledge sharing.

The key distinction: ClickUp and Basecamp are the two I'd look at if the goal is actually to replace the PM tool + separate chat tool combination. ClickUp is considerably more feature-rich; Basecamp is deliberately simpler and more opinionated.

If you tell me your company size (e.g. 10, 50, 200+) and whether you're trying to replace Slack, I can narrow this down to the best 2–3 options.

2. Basecamp — excellent for async communication

basecamp.com is unusually communication-oriented for a project-management product. Each project has To-dos, Message Boards, Campfire chat, scheduling, files, and Kanban-style Card Tables. Message Boards are particularly useful for asynchronous announcements and discussions, while Campfire handles quick conversations.

Best for: companies that want fewer meetings and less real-time chatter, and don't need extremely sophisticated project-management workflows.

3. monday.com — best if visual tracking matters most

monday.com is stronger as a structured project/work-management system than as a communication platform. Its boards, dependencies, status tracking and resource views are excellent, while communication tends to happen through updates/comments and integrations. Even Slack's current comparison describes monday.com as the place for structured project tracking and Slack as the communication layer.

Best for: remote organizations where managers need a very clear visual picture of who's doing what, when, and what's blocked.

4. Notion — best for knowledge-heavy remote teams

notion.com can combine project databases, tasks, docs, wikis and team discussions. I'd choose it when documentation and institutional knowledge are as important as formal project management.

It's less of a dedicated team-chat replacement than ClickUp or Basecamp, though.

5. Wrike — best for complex organizations

wrike.com is oriented toward sophisticated project/work management, with dashboards, resource planning, approvals and cross-functional workflows. It also provides collaboration around project work, but I'd regard its communication capabilities as complementary rather than a true Slack replacement.

My shortlist

Yes. For a fully remote company, I’d focus on tools where communication is tied directly to the work rather than having project management in one app and Slack in another.

My strongest picks

1. ClickUp — best overall combination.
Its Chat has channels, DMs, threads and posts, and messages can be converted into tasks. Conversations can also be linked directly to tasks, so a decision made asynchronously doesn't get stranded in a chat transcript.

Its project-management side is correspondingly deep: Lists/Boards/Calendars/Timelines/Gantt, dependencies, automations and dashboards are all connected to the same workspace.

2. Basecamp — best if “async-first” is the priority.
Basecamp is particularly attractive when you want fewer meetings and more structured written updates: project discussions, to-dos, schedules and recurring check-ins live together. I'd choose it over ClickUp for a relatively simple workflow where communication culture matters more than sophisticated project-management machinery.

3. Notion — best for knowledge + projects.
If your remote company relies heavily on written specs, decisions, meeting notes, SOPs and documentation, Notion's project databases and collaborative pages make a compelling combination. It's less of a dedicated team-chat replacement than ClickUp or Teams, though.

Bottom line: if you're trying to replace both a project tracker and Slack with one platform, ClickUp is the clearest match based on its current feature set. It explicitly positions Chat, tasks, Docs and project tracking as one connected system, including creating tasks directly from conversations.

If you tell me your team size and whether you want to eliminate Slack/Teams entirely, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options and compare pricing and remote-work features.

Here are top web results for exploring this topic:

The Digital Project Manager·https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com 10 Best Remote Communication Tools in 2026 Slack suits distributed project teams, digital agencies, and remote organizations that depend on organized, real-time, and asynchronous communication across departments or locations. Crossover for work·https://www.crossover.com Your Top 10 List of Asynchronous Tools (+Ranking) - Crossover DailyBot is a chat and collaboration tool that integrates with multiple communication platforms and focuses on fostering engagement and mental health in remote teams. DailyBot focuses on interactions Vibe Inc·https://vibe.us 10 Best Collaboration Tools for Remote Teams (2026) - Vibe Vibe Canvas — Best for Hybrid Teams and Interactive Meeting Rooms. Rating. Most whiteboarding tools were designed for teams staring at laptops. Vibe Canvas was designed for how teams actually work in Reddit·https://www.reddit.com Collaboration tools that are working for your remote teams - Reddit It replaces Slack, Zoom, Loom, Calendly, and even AI note takers by bringing everything into one space. You get live presence, chat, meetings, async video updates, shared docs, auto-generated recaps a www.postry.com.br·https://www.postry.com.br/en/blog/async-communication-tools-remote-teams Best Asynchronous Communication Tools for Remote Teams in 2026 ClickUp combines project management with asynchronous communication features. Chat View for quick conversations, Docs for collaborative documentation, Clips for async video messages, and Whiteboards f Berrycast·https://www.berrycast.com 12 Best Asynchronous Communication Tools for Remote Work in 2023 Microsoft Teams is a chat-based tool that lets you keep in touch with your team, and it's available as a standalone app and as part of Microsoft Office 365. It's a good choice if you work in a team wi Livestorm·https://livestorm.co 11 Top Asynchronous Communication Tools (Free & Paid) - Livestorm Asana is ideal for team collaboration on projects like: Marketing campaigns. Content creation — from ideation to publication. Sales processes from lead generation to closing deals. Onboarding new empl MeetGeek·https://meetgeek.ai 12 Best Remote Collaboration Tools for 2026 - MeetGeek The best collaborative tools for remote working cover different needs, including communication, project management, meetings, documents, and knowledge sharing. Slack is a strong choice for team chat, ScreenRec·https://screenrec.com Top 11 Best Communication Tools For Remote Teams - ScreenRec 9. Basecamp. Work From Home Communication Tools. Basecamp is a fantastic project management service. It offers a place to structure and organize your brand, personal projects, or company requirements. Almanac.io·https://get.almanac.io 15 Best Asynchronous Tools for Remote Teams - Almanac Trello is a group project management software. Featuring built-in AI to help assist with making routine actions simpler, the app also features some integrations that can help remote teams work more ef

For a fully remote company, using a unified platform that pairs task/project tracking with native communication prevents "tool sprawl" and keeps conversations contextualized directly next to the work.

The top tools that successfully combine robust project tracking with built-in chat or asynchronous communication features include:

• Basecamp : Best for eliminating meeting culture entirely through structured async communication. It features built-in group chat (Campfire), long-form Message Boards for deep asynchronous discussions, Pings for direct messages, and Automatic Check-ins that replace status-update meetings, all layered on top of core to-do lists, schedules, and document storage.
• ClickUp : Best for all-in-one customizability. It features native ClickUp Chat built directly into the workspace so you can tag teammates, link tasks, and share updates without switching apps. It also includes ClickUp Clips for async video messaging, native Docs, and the AI-powered ClickUp Brain to search context across tasks, documents, and chat threads.
• Asana : Best for task-anchored async collaboration. Rather than relying on a separate free-flowing chat app, Asana embeds communication directly inside specific tasks, projects, and goals. Every task acts as a single source of truth with threaded comments, @mentions, status updates, and audio/video integrations, leaving a clear, searchable audit trail of decisions.
• Nifty : Best for an agile, all-in-one remote project hub. It natively blends milestone-driven project management with built-in team discussions and direct messaging tied to specific projects. Conversations can seamlessly turn into actionable tasks, and it supports doc sharing and one-click video calls within the project framework.
• ProofHub : Best for growing, distributed teams looking for an alternative to juggling multiple apps. It combines dedicated project workflows (Kanban, Table, Gantt) with a built-in group chat app, online proofing for file reviews/approvals, and comprehensive time tracking to manage productivity remotely.
• Hive : Best for flexible workflow visualizations paired with communication. Hive includes native team chat messaging alongside robust project tracking views (Kanban, Gantt, Calendar, and Table), allowing team members to chat, attach emails to tasks, and track progress uniformly.

If you tell me how large your team is and whether you prefer structured forum-style async discussion or real-time chat , I can help you narrow down which of these tools fits your workflow best.

Yes. For a fully remote company, there are several tools that combine project/work tracking with communication, so decisions and context don't get scattered between Jira/Asana + Slack.

The standouts for a fully remote company

1. Basecamp — best for async-first culture.
Basecamp is unusually communication-centric: each project can contain to-dos, message boards, chat rooms, calendars and Kanban-style cards. Its own remote company says 98% of internal communication happens inside Basecamp, with little reliance on meetings or separate Slack/Teams chat.

2. ClickUp — best all-around replacement for several tools.
ClickUp combines project management, Docs and Chat. Its Chat supports channels and DMs, and conversations can directly generate tasks, which is particularly useful when an async discussion turns into an actionable item.

3. Teams + Planner — best if you're already Microsoft-centric.
Planner handles team plans and tasks inside Teams, while Teams provides channels, chat and meetings. Planner also now has task-level chat, keeping discussion attached to the work itself.

If async communication is the priority

I'd narrow it to:

Basecamp → ClickUp → Teams/Planner

Basecamp is the strongest choice if you specifically want to reduce Slack/meeting dependence. ClickUp is stronger if you need sophisticated project management and automation. Teams/Planner makes the most sense if your company already lives in Microsoft 365.

If you tell me your company size and whether you're replacing Slack, Asana/Jira, or both, I can narrow this to the 2–3 best options.

Yes. For a fully remote company, the strongest options are tools where project work and communication live together, rather than pairing a PM tool with Slack.

My picks

1. ClickUp — best overall

ClickUp now has native Channels and DMs, lets you turn messages into tasks, and connects conversations to tasks, Docs, and projects. That makes it particularly compelling if your goal is to eliminate the usual Jira/Asana + Slack split.

2. Basecamp — best for a deliberately async remote culture

Basecamp puts to-dos, discussions, chat, schedules, files, and automatic check-ins inside each project. Its Automatic Check-ins are especially useful for distributed teams because recurring questions such as "What are you working on?" can replace some standups.

Basecamp itself describes its internal communication model as heavily async: it says 98% of its internal communication happens in Basecamp, with no separate Slack or Teams.

3. Microsoft Teams + Planner — best if you're already Microsoft-based

Planner provides team project/task tracking, while Teams supplies channels and chat. Planner can be used directly inside Teams, so employees don't have to jump between a PM system and a communication platform.

4. Notion — best if documentation is as important as task tracking

Notion is particularly attractive when your remote company wants projects, company knowledge, meeting notes, decisions, and documentation in the same workspace. Its communication is more comments/discussions around work than Slack-style chat, though, so I'd favor ClickUp or Basecamp if "built-in chat" is a hard requirement.

Bottom line

If I were choosing specifically for a fully remote company trying to minimize meetings and tool switching:

• ClickUp → most capable all-in-one
• Basecamp → strongest async-first philosophy
• Teams + Planner → best Microsoft ecosystem choice
• Notion → best project + knowledge-management combination

If you tell me your company size (e.g. 10, 50, 200+) and whether you want to replace Slack, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options and compare pricing, async features, permissions, and project-management depth.

• Basecamp , combines project tracking (to-do lists, hill charts, schedules) with built-in team communication (campfire chat rooms, automatic check-ins, and message boards) designed specifically around async work. You can explore features on the Basecamp Homepage.
• ClickUp , features comprehensive project management alongside native chat widgets, comment threads tied directly to tasks, and clip (video) recording embedded in the interface. Check it out at the ClickUp Homepage.
• Linear , a high-performance issue tracker that includes rich contextual commenting, notification integrations, and built-in async updates/cycles, though it leans more toward engineering workflow coordination. Learn more at the Linear Homepage.
• Monday.com , integrates project boards with item-level updates, a dedicated communication section per task, and workspace-level chat integrations for team collaboration. See options at the Monday.com Homepage.
• Notion , blends flexible workspace and project tracking databases with inline comments, page-level discussions, and Notion-native messaging capabilities for async doc collaboration. Explore tools on the Notion Homepage.

If you want, tell me:

• The size of your remote team
• Your primary industry or workflow (e.g., software engineering, marketing, creative agency)

I can help you narrow down which tool fits your specific budget and collaboration style.