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Maryna Medushevska
July 13, 2022

Top-10 web applications for business

The best business apps help you solve your day-to-day tasks, whether business or personal. They are easy to access from any device, fast, and constantly upgraded. We got used to them so much that going without a software tool seems inefficient. 

Indeed, there is a web app for everything. Do you need to keep track of your marketing efforts? Take Google Analytics or Hotjar. Do your employees spend too much time working on a task? Jira or Basecamp will keep all the tasks in one place and simplify performance monitoring. 

Unsurprisingly, Google has a billion results for the request “business web apps”. The topic is popular and will be for as long as people want to do things faster with fewer mistakes.

This post will present you with the list of the top 10 web apps used by our clients running businesses in different niches. You’ll see that these solutions are powerful though not perfect. If you find that your business needs have outgrown the capabilities of your tool, web app development services will come in handy.

Benefits of custom app development

The business web apps you can find online are intended for general use. That means they provide a specific set of features you can choose from to solve your tasks, and this set is the same regardless of your industry, market, or company size.

Some off-the-shelf business apps allow customization by adding integrations, adjusting the app’s appearance, or choosing what information it should collect from a standard list of options. However, if you need your app to treat your customers uniquely, it’s only possible with a custom solution.

Unlike pre-made apps, custom software is:

Goal-specific

Custom business apps are built with your requirements in mind. They are tailored for your working style, have a familiar look, and don’t take much time to master. Moreover, they perform the functions you need them to and thus can negate the need of having multiple general-purpose apps.

Better-scaling

If you plan to expand your business, you can communicate it to developers so they will build features accordingly. Thus, you will invest in an application once, and it will serve you for years even if your business scope gets wider.

More secure

You can choose to store data on-premises or use the cloud. You can also define various authentication levels to control employees’ accessibility and configure those settings as you need. This is only possible with a custom on-demand application.

1. Google Analytics

This is one of the most popular web analytics services offered by Google. This business web app tracks and reports website traffic and can identify poorly performing pages. Using it, you can see where your website visitors come from, what devices they use, identify behavior patterns, and more.

The tool also has advanced features like custom visitor segmentation and funnel visualization, allowing you to analyze your website’s user journey visually. Google Analytics’ approach is to show high-level, dashboard-type data for the casual user and more in-depth data into the report set.

Key features:

  • Reporting and visualization
  • Funnel analysis
  • Smart goals
  • Tag manager
  • Data activation
  • Integrations with other Google products

Pricing: Freemium with a paid version for more data volume capacity and custom metrics. You can talk to sales to find out about the pricing plan for your business.

AdvantagesDisadvantages
Universal
All website info in one place
Free learning resources
Free of charge
Not entirely independent (it’s Google reporting about Google)
Complex
Incorrect reporting sometimes

2. HubSpot

HubSpot is an inbound marketing and sales platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close sales. It provides tools for social media marketing, content management, web analytics, and search engine optimization. HubSpot can also be integrated with other business web apps to enhance its functionality.

Key features:

  • Automated CRM database
  • List segmentation
  • Automated workflows
  • Email analytics
  • Paid ad tracking
  • Content A/B testing

Pricing: Freemium with paid plans for more tools starting at $45/month.

AdvantagesDisadvantages
All-in-one platform for sales, marketing, and customer support
Can be used as a CMS
Free tools
Steep prices
Inflexible contracts
Limited reporting

3. Voluum

Voluum is an affiliate marketing software tool to manage all your campaigns from a single place. You can track, optimize, and automate your advertising regardless of whether it’s native, display, pop, email, search, push, paid, or organic.

Moreover, this business app uses a traffic distribution AI that finds the most profitable combinations of ads and landing pages for your offers and audiences. In addition, Voluum detects bot traffic with its anti-fraud kit to protect your advertising investment.

Key features:

  • Direct Pixel tracking
  • Impression tracking
  • Custom conversion tracking
  • Real-time reporting
  • A/B testing
  • Auto-optimization feature
  • Traffic distribution AI
  • Automation tool
  • Integrations 

Pricing: business plans start at $499/month.

AdvantagesDisadvantages
High data security due to several data centers
All marketing resources in one place
Very fast
Scalable
Steep price
Limited data retention
No customer support for lower-tier plans

4. Slack

Slack combined the best technical tools and consumer chat apps’ features into an effective business app for project management. It allows you to discuss important issues within your team and with external parties and set private discussions. There are also options for channels, quick calls, and custom Slack bots to pull in data from your apps automatically. All these features are available in the desktop, web, and mobile business applications.

Key features:

  • Limited-access channels
  • Reminders
  • Configurable notifications
  • Voice and video calls
  • Integrations

Pricing: Freemium with paid plans for more collaboration features starting at $6.67/month.

AdvantagesDisadvantages
Instant communication
Searchable history
Public and private channels
Shared files
Messages get disorganized and chaotic
Limited functions for the mobile version
Addictive nature

5. Basecamp

Basecamp is a well-known business app for project management with a streamlined and intuitive interface. It’s easy to invite collaborators, chat within projects, attach files, create checklists, and track your progress with this tool. You can also create helpful workflow calendars to keep everyone on track.

Key features:

  • To-do lists
  • Real-time communication
  • Team productivity reporting
  • Project progress tracking

Pricing: Freemium with paid plans for collaboration tools and integrations starting at $99/month.

AdvantagesDisadvantages
Universal search
Auto back-up
Separate inbox for notifications
No way to prioritize tasks
No time tracking tool
Limited functionality on mobile

6. Trello

Trello is another famous web-based project management application for business. The main strength of this small business app is that it’s highly visual: on any given board, you can create several lists and move cards between them as the status of certain projects changes. You can attach files, create checklists, and assign members to each card, so they’re updated on the task status change. Team members can also chat on each card directly.

Key features:

  • Preset templates
  • Automation feature
  • Cards and boards
  • Integrations

Pricing: Freemium with paid options for more boards and collaboration tools starting at $5/monthly per user.

AdvantagesDisadvantages
Well-suited for Agile workflows
Universal
Helps keep conversations relevant
No time tracking tool
No Linux app
Comments can take a long time to get a reply

7. Asana

This application was designed to help teams track their work. It’s more text-heavy than Trello, and this app is for you if you love checklists.

You can easily prioritize tasks and monitor progress with visual dashboard charts. You can chat with team members, assign due dates, attach documents or other files, and configure notifications.

The business web app integrates with many other services, including Evernote, Google Drive, Box, Slack, MailChimp, WordPress, ZenDesk, and more.

Key features:

  • Workflow builder
  • Automated reports
  • Customizable dashboards
  • Custom calendar
  • Group discussions
  • Automation tools

Pricing: Freemium with paid plans for bigger teams and more customization starting at $10.99/month.

AdvantagesDisadvantages
Enhanced collaboration
Tons of integrations
Better work organization
No time tracking tool
Can’t assign multiple people to a task
Limited exporting and importing functionality

8. Microsoft Office 365

The well-known Microsoft continues its evolution to web applications. This is the online version of Microsoft Office with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook, Exchange, OneDrive, and SharePoint. With this online business app, you don’t need to install the software package on your device. Just register and use.

Key features:

  • Accessible from all devices
  • Real-time co-authoring
  • Team chat
  • External user access
  • Workflow management with Microsoft Planner

Pricing: Starts at $6/month per user.

AdvantagesDisadvantages
Team collaboration
Automatic updates
Data loss prevention
Enhanced data security with mobile device management
Compatibility issues
Difficult to use on mobile
Most features are never used

9. Excel

From its original release on the Macintosh in 1985 to its brand new business web app edition, Excel continues to be one of the most popular spreadsheet tools. You can now crunch and chart numbers collaboratively with your team, pull in data from your apps, and use new add-ons to bring in the features you need. It even includes a survey and form tool for a quick way to gather data directly into a spreadsheet.

Key features:

  • Paste special
  • Absolute references
  • Extend formula
  • Flash fill
  • Filters
  • PivotTables
  • Print optimization

Pricing: $159.99 for a one-time purchase or $6.00/month per user as a part of the Microsoft 365 package.

AdvantagesDisadvantages
Organization of large amounts of data
Simple computations due to formulas
Many other apps support data import from Excel
High cost
Limited system compatibility
Long learning curve

10. ​​LinkedIn

Yes, you read it right. Linkedin is an employment-oriented social networking service and a business app that can help you find an employee or set up a new business contact. LinkedIn allows members (workers and employers) to “connect” with each other in an online social network resembling real-world professional relationships.

Key features:

  • Skill management
  • Business showcase pages
  • Anonymous profile browsing
  • Connections export
  • Advanced search
  • Save search option

Pricing: Freemium with paid options for advanced lead and company search starting at $79.99/month per user.

AdvantagesDisadvantages
Helps build visibility
Helps stay up-to-date with industry trends
Free information about audience/competitors
Spam
Limited interactions
Skill endorsements can be fake

There you have it—the top 10 web applications used worldwide. Some do a spectacular job of constantly polishing out their UI/UX and adding new features to meet their customers’ needs. And some have been used more out of habit than the lack of a better alternative.

Conclusion

But there is one thing to remember about all these business apps: they are meant to be universal and serve businesses of various types in various industries. Hence, there will always be a compromise between what you want your app to do and a reasonable investment.

However, you can avoid compromising with business web application development. Experienced and creative engineers at Syndicode will help you implement your web application ideas and ensure the solution aligns perfectly with your business goals and strategy. Check out our case studies to see what we can do!