Blog How to choose the best intranet software for your company Last updated: December 10, 2025 Calculating… Looking how to choose the best intranet software for you and your workforce? You’re in the right place. Your company intranet is the most trusted source of information for your employees and with internal communications being at the centre of digital transformations, companies are adopting more and more tools to communicate and engage with their employees. If your goal is to improve employee engagement, collaboration and communication, you need to carefully choose the right features and structure of your company’s intranet. Recommended reading: What is An Intranet? The Ultimate Company Intranet Guide The global investment in digital workplace tools is massive, with spending expected to reach $160 billion by 2030. But with 57% of employees seeing no purpose in their company intranet, a common challenge still persists…the underperforming intranet. Many organisations choose a platform based on a long feature list only to watch it become a digital ghost town that’s clunky, unloved, and unused. When choosing an intranet platform in 2026 the goal is to implement a thriving employee experience platform (EXP) that connects your workforce, streamlines communications, and drives measurable productivity. You need to carefully evaluate which features are right for your employees, and your business. Fear not, as we go through this blog we’ll provide you a list of features employees love, along with a 10-step, strategy-first framework designed to help you choose an intranet platform that your employees will actually use, delivering a clear return on investment (ROI). Intranet features that employees love Direct messaging to connect with any colleague A strong internal communication system will greatly improve one of the most important elements in a successful team: collaboration. Directly messaging is simply the most efficient way for employees to discuss projects, workload, ideas or any information they need to get directly. A chat feature in your company intranet will save time waiting for emails and provide a central space for users to reach anyone they may want to talk to in the company. Search functionality to find anything instantly Your company intranet will eventually start to grow in size and will become more difficult to find and navigate, given the large amounts of content. Employees will need to discover information in their company intranet, which means your organisation will be wasting time if your intranet doesn’t have a powerful search system. Information discovery should be made as simple as possible. Otherwise, frustration will start to occur within the company, affecting employee productivity. Mobile apps to get updates from your pocket Most people check their phones 58 times a day. Thirty of those times are during work hours. Therefore, the ability to access the company’s intranet from a mobile device is one of the most loved and essential intranet features. Building a mobile app for your intranet that offers the same experience for desktop and mobile users is not something every software company is willing to do, which is why it’s important to know your company needs before choosing your solution. Short-form video to get updates quickly (and be entertained) More people now are consuming short form video content than ever before and TikTok style video content appeals to a wide range of people: younger colleagues, visual learners, people who don’t have time to read emails. But the best thing about short form video (or what we like to call moments) is that there’s no limits on who can create content. If you have a global business, colleagues in stores across Europe can share what they’re up to with stores across the UK, and everyone can learn from eachother. Employee directories to find the information you need from anyone It’s important for your company intranet to make it quick and easy for employees to learn as much about their colleagues as possible. This feature will help onboarding new employees and support them in getting to know the company better by accessing everyone from different departments in an efficient manner. Employee profiles also help your people get to know each other on a more personal level and makes it easier for management to get answers to questions they may have about an employee’s activities in the virtual workspace. Onboarding flows to get settled in from day one Having a dedicated space for onboarding makes life so much easier when bringing in new staff, and getting them acquainted with their team members, the wider organisation, and their job duties. We offer dedicated onboarding homepages, personalised to each individual employee to help them get settled in and thriving. Targeted and personalised internal comms to reach every employee If you’re talking to everyone, you’re talking to no one, and in a world where everything is hyper-personalised and we don’t want to be burdened with information overload, the ability to personalise content to specific teams, departments, locations with smart feed is a god send. Everyone receives only the information they want and need. Your 10 step strategy for choosing the right intranet Your 10 step strategy for choosing the right intranet Step 1: Define clear business goals and measurable KPIs Before you look at a single piece of software or start to consider intranet vendors, you must define your intranet’s primary purpose. Have a think…what is the single biggest communication or business problem you need to solve? Knowledge discovery: Do employees struggle to find the latest policy, form, or document? If so, prioritise robust search and content management. Community & culture: Are employees disconnected, especially across different locations and sites? If so, prioritise social features, recognition tools, and two-way communication. Tip: Tie your problems to outcomes. Examples include: Reduced help desk tickets (knowledge discovery), increased employee engagement survey scores (community), and reduced time spent searching for information (productivity). Step 2: Involve all stakeholders (IT, HR, and the frontline) One of the key ways to guarantee intranet adoption is to involve users in the selection process early. Your intranet should cater for everyone, but their needs can be vastly different: IT: IT’s primary focus is on security, infrastructure, and technical integrations. They are your gatekeepers for compliance and enterprise architecture. HR & internal communications: HR and comms are the primary content owners, focused on content governance, easy publishing, and communication reach. The frontline challenge: Your employees, which unfortunately can sometimes be the crucial but often overlooked segment. If a large part of your workforce is retail, logistics, or operations, you must ask: Do they have corporate email addresses? If the answer is no, a system tied exclusively to a Microsoft or Google account will fail. Your requirement must be mobile-first access with flexible single sign-on (SSO) options. Step 3: Conduct a digital workplace audit and define your key integrations Analyse your existing digital landscape. An intranet should be the digital home for everything employee focused, not just another disconnected system. Tip: Look for fragmentation and information siloes. If employees use Slack for comms, SharePoint for documents, and a separate HR system for forms, your intranet must successfully integrate and simplify access to all your key processes. Define your must-have integrations (e.g., Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, ServiceNow, Workday). The seamless exchange of data and single-click access to tools will dramatically increase daily usage. Step 4: Prioritise user experience (UX) and mobile access Another big factor of high intranet adoption is ease of use. If it’s clunky, people will stop using it. Mobile-first design: For maximum reach and continuity of experience, the platform must feel native and fast on any smartphone. This is non-negotiable for modern organisations. Intuitive navigation: Can an employee find your payslip portal or a company announcement in two clicks or less? The design must be clean, modern, and easily personalised based on an employee’s role, location, or department. Search functionality: An intranet’s search function is its backbone. It must be smart, federated (searching across integrated systems), and deliver relevant results instantly. Step 5: Secure critical technical requirements and content ownership The platform must support your organisation’s size and structure. Scalability: Can the intranet easily handle 100 users or 100,000 users without degrading performance? Cloud vs. on-premise: Modern platforms are almost always cloud-based (SaaS), offering better agility, lower maintenance, and automatic updates. Accessibility: Ensure compliance with accessibility standards (WCAG) to serve all employees equally. Step 6: Determine core content and collaboration features While features are secondary to strategy, certain ones are essential for a modern, dynamic platform: Content/Feature Type Description Content management system (CMS) Easy publishing tools for non-technical users (HR/Comms). Customisable approval workflows are essential for governance. Personalisation Delivering relevant news, links, and content blocks based on the user’s role, location, or team. Social features Peer-to-peer recognition, commenting, liking, and quick polls/surveys to create two-way conversation, not just a static top-down bulletin board. Team spaces Dedicated areas where teams can collaborate on documents (leveraging M365/Google Drive), manage projects, and share informal updates. Step 7: Decide: Build, buy, or extend? (TCO and risk assessment) The first choice in vendor evaluation is determining which path you want to go down: Approach Ideal For Pros Cons Buy (SaaS Platform) Most companies focused on UX and speed. Fast deployment, predictable per-user costs, low IT burden, continuous innovation. Vendor dependency, potential limitations on deep customisation. Build (Custom) Companies with highly unique needs (e.g., defense, specific industrial processes). Complete control over every feature and integration. Very high initial/maintenance costs, long deployment time, high IT dependence. Extend (Hybrid) Organisations heavily invested in Microsoft SharePoint. Uses existing licences, maintains document storage fidelity. Requires specialised third-party software (e.g., Workvivo, Unily) to fix poor SharePoint UX. The modern consensus: For speed, innovation, and manageable TCO, buying a scalable SaaS platform or extending a core system is the recommended strategy. Step 8: Evaluate vendors against key use cases and product roadmaps Seeing all the features that vendors have on offer can become exciting when thinking of all the potential communications possibilities. But it’s important to not get carried away with lists of features, and to focus on your key problems you’re trying to solve. Ask vendors to prove they can solve your specific problems. Use cases: Provide the vendor with your top 3 most common employee tasks (e.g., “A new employee needs to complete onboarding forms,” “A remote worker needs to find a contact in the Paris office”). Have them demo the solution to those exact tasks. Product roadmap: Ask for their innovation plan or key milestones on their roadmap. Are they looking ahead? A good vendor should be investing in the future of work (e.g., AI search optimisation, personalised mobile workflows). If a vendor is stuck on legacy features, it’s a sign they might quickly fall behind the needs of your business and your people. Step 9: Align the solution with budget and TCO It’s important to always look beyond the initial pricing plan costs and consider any extra costs that might impact budget. Implementation costs: Include data migration, configuration, and training. Support model: What level of dedicated support (implementation and ongoing) is included? Choose a vendor with a reputation for strong support, especially during the crucial launch phase. Licensing: Understand if the cost structure is based on active users or total employees, which is critical for organisations with many frontline staff. Step 10: Plan for governance, adoption, and measurement It’s important to think beyond contract signing and consider the long term success of your intranet. The pilot phase: Before full launch, run a pilot with a diverse group of stakeholders and a small sample of end-users. Gather honest feedback on friction points, fix them, and turn your testers into launch champions. Governance model: Establish clear ownership for every type of content (HR owns policy, Marketing owns brand guidelines, Comms owns news). This prevents the “content rot” that kills long-term value. Continuous engagement: Adoption requires a dedicated strategy. Use the platform’s analytics to track top searches, popular content, and adoption rates. Adjust your content and communication strategy based on real-world usage data. Conclusion: Your modern intranet journey starts here By prioritising a clear strategy, a mobile-first user experience, and a laser focus on your unique frontline and corporate needs, you will choose an intranet that becomes a vibrant, essential part of your digital employee experience.
Looking how to choose the best intranet software for you and your workforce? You’re in the right place. Your company intranet is the most trusted source of information for your employees and with internal communications being at the centre of digital transformations, companies are adopting more and more tools to communicate and engage with their employees. If your goal is to improve employee engagement, collaboration and communication, you need to carefully choose the right features and structure of your company’s intranet. Recommended reading: What is An Intranet? The Ultimate Company Intranet Guide The global investment in digital workplace tools is massive, with spending expected to reach $160 billion by 2030. But with 57% of employees seeing no purpose in their company intranet, a common challenge still persists…the underperforming intranet. Many organisations choose a platform based on a long feature list only to watch it become a digital ghost town that’s clunky, unloved, and unused. When choosing an intranet platform in 2026 the goal is to implement a thriving employee experience platform (EXP) that connects your workforce, streamlines communications, and drives measurable productivity. You need to carefully evaluate which features are right for your employees, and your business. Fear not, as we go through this blog we’ll provide you a list of features employees love, along with a 10-step, strategy-first framework designed to help you choose an intranet platform that your employees will actually use, delivering a clear return on investment (ROI).
Intranet features that employees love Direct messaging to connect with any colleague A strong internal communication system will greatly improve one of the most important elements in a successful team: collaboration. Directly messaging is simply the most efficient way for employees to discuss projects, workload, ideas or any information they need to get directly. A chat feature in your company intranet will save time waiting for emails and provide a central space for users to reach anyone they may want to talk to in the company. Search functionality to find anything instantly Your company intranet will eventually start to grow in size and will become more difficult to find and navigate, given the large amounts of content. Employees will need to discover information in their company intranet, which means your organisation will be wasting time if your intranet doesn’t have a powerful search system. Information discovery should be made as simple as possible. Otherwise, frustration will start to occur within the company, affecting employee productivity. Mobile apps to get updates from your pocket Most people check their phones 58 times a day. Thirty of those times are during work hours. Therefore, the ability to access the company’s intranet from a mobile device is one of the most loved and essential intranet features. Building a mobile app for your intranet that offers the same experience for desktop and mobile users is not something every software company is willing to do, which is why it’s important to know your company needs before choosing your solution. Short-form video to get updates quickly (and be entertained) More people now are consuming short form video content than ever before and TikTok style video content appeals to a wide range of people: younger colleagues, visual learners, people who don’t have time to read emails. But the best thing about short form video (or what we like to call moments) is that there’s no limits on who can create content. If you have a global business, colleagues in stores across Europe can share what they’re up to with stores across the UK, and everyone can learn from eachother. Employee directories to find the information you need from anyone It’s important for your company intranet to make it quick and easy for employees to learn as much about their colleagues as possible. This feature will help onboarding new employees and support them in getting to know the company better by accessing everyone from different departments in an efficient manner. Employee profiles also help your people get to know each other on a more personal level and makes it easier for management to get answers to questions they may have about an employee’s activities in the virtual workspace. Onboarding flows to get settled in from day one Having a dedicated space for onboarding makes life so much easier when bringing in new staff, and getting them acquainted with their team members, the wider organisation, and their job duties. We offer dedicated onboarding homepages, personalised to each individual employee to help them get settled in and thriving. Targeted and personalised internal comms to reach every employee If you’re talking to everyone, you’re talking to no one, and in a world where everything is hyper-personalised and we don’t want to be burdened with information overload, the ability to personalise content to specific teams, departments, locations with smart feed is a god send. Everyone receives only the information they want and need.
Direct messaging to connect with any colleague A strong internal communication system will greatly improve one of the most important elements in a successful team: collaboration. Directly messaging is simply the most efficient way for employees to discuss projects, workload, ideas or any information they need to get directly. A chat feature in your company intranet will save time waiting for emails and provide a central space for users to reach anyone they may want to talk to in the company. Search functionality to find anything instantly Your company intranet will eventually start to grow in size and will become more difficult to find and navigate, given the large amounts of content. Employees will need to discover information in their company intranet, which means your organisation will be wasting time if your intranet doesn’t have a powerful search system. Information discovery should be made as simple as possible. Otherwise, frustration will start to occur within the company, affecting employee productivity. Mobile apps to get updates from your pocket Most people check their phones 58 times a day. Thirty of those times are during work hours. Therefore, the ability to access the company’s intranet from a mobile device is one of the most loved and essential intranet features. Building a mobile app for your intranet that offers the same experience for desktop and mobile users is not something every software company is willing to do, which is why it’s important to know your company needs before choosing your solution. Short-form video to get updates quickly (and be entertained) More people now are consuming short form video content than ever before and TikTok style video content appeals to a wide range of people: younger colleagues, visual learners, people who don’t have time to read emails. But the best thing about short form video (or what we like to call moments) is that there’s no limits on who can create content. If you have a global business, colleagues in stores across Europe can share what they’re up to with stores across the UK, and everyone can learn from eachother. Employee directories to find the information you need from anyone It’s important for your company intranet to make it quick and easy for employees to learn as much about their colleagues as possible. This feature will help onboarding new employees and support them in getting to know the company better by accessing everyone from different departments in an efficient manner. Employee profiles also help your people get to know each other on a more personal level and makes it easier for management to get answers to questions they may have about an employee’s activities in the virtual workspace. Onboarding flows to get settled in from day one Having a dedicated space for onboarding makes life so much easier when bringing in new staff, and getting them acquainted with their team members, the wider organisation, and their job duties. We offer dedicated onboarding homepages, personalised to each individual employee to help them get settled in and thriving. Targeted and personalised internal comms to reach every employee If you’re talking to everyone, you’re talking to no one, and in a world where everything is hyper-personalised and we don’t want to be burdened with information overload, the ability to personalise content to specific teams, departments, locations with smart feed is a god send. Everyone receives only the information they want and need.
Your 10 step strategy for choosing the right intranet Your 10 step strategy for choosing the right intranet Step 1: Define clear business goals and measurable KPIs Before you look at a single piece of software or start to consider intranet vendors, you must define your intranet’s primary purpose. Have a think…what is the single biggest communication or business problem you need to solve? Knowledge discovery: Do employees struggle to find the latest policy, form, or document? If so, prioritise robust search and content management. Community & culture: Are employees disconnected, especially across different locations and sites? If so, prioritise social features, recognition tools, and two-way communication. Tip: Tie your problems to outcomes. Examples include: Reduced help desk tickets (knowledge discovery), increased employee engagement survey scores (community), and reduced time spent searching for information (productivity). Step 2: Involve all stakeholders (IT, HR, and the frontline) One of the key ways to guarantee intranet adoption is to involve users in the selection process early. Your intranet should cater for everyone, but their needs can be vastly different: IT: IT’s primary focus is on security, infrastructure, and technical integrations. They are your gatekeepers for compliance and enterprise architecture. HR & internal communications: HR and comms are the primary content owners, focused on content governance, easy publishing, and communication reach. The frontline challenge: Your employees, which unfortunately can sometimes be the crucial but often overlooked segment. If a large part of your workforce is retail, logistics, or operations, you must ask: Do they have corporate email addresses? If the answer is no, a system tied exclusively to a Microsoft or Google account will fail. Your requirement must be mobile-first access with flexible single sign-on (SSO) options. Step 3: Conduct a digital workplace audit and define your key integrations Analyse your existing digital landscape. An intranet should be the digital home for everything employee focused, not just another disconnected system. Tip: Look for fragmentation and information siloes. If employees use Slack for comms, SharePoint for documents, and a separate HR system for forms, your intranet must successfully integrate and simplify access to all your key processes. Define your must-have integrations (e.g., Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, ServiceNow, Workday). The seamless exchange of data and single-click access to tools will dramatically increase daily usage. Step 4: Prioritise user experience (UX) and mobile access Another big factor of high intranet adoption is ease of use. If it’s clunky, people will stop using it. Mobile-first design: For maximum reach and continuity of experience, the platform must feel native and fast on any smartphone. This is non-negotiable for modern organisations. Intuitive navigation: Can an employee find your payslip portal or a company announcement in two clicks or less? The design must be clean, modern, and easily personalised based on an employee’s role, location, or department. Search functionality: An intranet’s search function is its backbone. It must be smart, federated (searching across integrated systems), and deliver relevant results instantly. Step 5: Secure critical technical requirements and content ownership The platform must support your organisation’s size and structure. Scalability: Can the intranet easily handle 100 users or 100,000 users without degrading performance? Cloud vs. on-premise: Modern platforms are almost always cloud-based (SaaS), offering better agility, lower maintenance, and automatic updates. Accessibility: Ensure compliance with accessibility standards (WCAG) to serve all employees equally. Step 6: Determine core content and collaboration features While features are secondary to strategy, certain ones are essential for a modern, dynamic platform: Content/Feature Type Description Content management system (CMS) Easy publishing tools for non-technical users (HR/Comms). Customisable approval workflows are essential for governance. Personalisation Delivering relevant news, links, and content blocks based on the user’s role, location, or team. Social features Peer-to-peer recognition, commenting, liking, and quick polls/surveys to create two-way conversation, not just a static top-down bulletin board. Team spaces Dedicated areas where teams can collaborate on documents (leveraging M365/Google Drive), manage projects, and share informal updates. Step 7: Decide: Build, buy, or extend? (TCO and risk assessment) The first choice in vendor evaluation is determining which path you want to go down: Approach Ideal For Pros Cons Buy (SaaS Platform) Most companies focused on UX and speed. Fast deployment, predictable per-user costs, low IT burden, continuous innovation. Vendor dependency, potential limitations on deep customisation. Build (Custom) Companies with highly unique needs (e.g., defense, specific industrial processes). Complete control over every feature and integration. Very high initial/maintenance costs, long deployment time, high IT dependence. Extend (Hybrid) Organisations heavily invested in Microsoft SharePoint. Uses existing licences, maintains document storage fidelity. Requires specialised third-party software (e.g., Workvivo, Unily) to fix poor SharePoint UX. The modern consensus: For speed, innovation, and manageable TCO, buying a scalable SaaS platform or extending a core system is the recommended strategy. Step 8: Evaluate vendors against key use cases and product roadmaps Seeing all the features that vendors have on offer can become exciting when thinking of all the potential communications possibilities. But it’s important to not get carried away with lists of features, and to focus on your key problems you’re trying to solve. Ask vendors to prove they can solve your specific problems. Use cases: Provide the vendor with your top 3 most common employee tasks (e.g., “A new employee needs to complete onboarding forms,” “A remote worker needs to find a contact in the Paris office”). Have them demo the solution to those exact tasks. Product roadmap: Ask for their innovation plan or key milestones on their roadmap. Are they looking ahead? A good vendor should be investing in the future of work (e.g., AI search optimisation, personalised mobile workflows). If a vendor is stuck on legacy features, it’s a sign they might quickly fall behind the needs of your business and your people. Step 9: Align the solution with budget and TCO It’s important to always look beyond the initial pricing plan costs and consider any extra costs that might impact budget. Implementation costs: Include data migration, configuration, and training. Support model: What level of dedicated support (implementation and ongoing) is included? Choose a vendor with a reputation for strong support, especially during the crucial launch phase. Licensing: Understand if the cost structure is based on active users or total employees, which is critical for organisations with many frontline staff. Step 10: Plan for governance, adoption, and measurement It’s important to think beyond contract signing and consider the long term success of your intranet. The pilot phase: Before full launch, run a pilot with a diverse group of stakeholders and a small sample of end-users. Gather honest feedback on friction points, fix them, and turn your testers into launch champions. Governance model: Establish clear ownership for every type of content (HR owns policy, Marketing owns brand guidelines, Comms owns news). This prevents the “content rot” that kills long-term value. Continuous engagement: Adoption requires a dedicated strategy. Use the platform’s analytics to track top searches, popular content, and adoption rates. Adjust your content and communication strategy based on real-world usage data.
Conclusion: Your modern intranet journey starts here By prioritising a clear strategy, a mobile-first user experience, and a laser focus on your unique frontline and corporate needs, you will choose an intranet that becomes a vibrant, essential part of your digital employee experience.
