It’s no secret that employee engagement has been dipping over the last few years. In fact, according to Gallup, 17% of the workforce is comprised of actively disengaged employees. It’s no surprise, then, that HR leaders are seeking to keep their teams engaged and productive.

Out of this situation, a new wave of tools has emerged to help companies solve these issues in new ways. Intranet software is one such tool. Well, ‘modern intranet software’ to be more specific. After all, intranets have been around for a while. But the market is now awash with fresh and innovative intranet solutions, many of which are leveraging the latest in AI technology.

In this guide, we’ll explore the best intranet software solutions on the market today, outline must-have features, and share guidance on how to choose your team’s ideal company intranet. Let’s dive in!

What Is an intranet software platform?

An intranet software platform is an internal network that allows employees to communicate, collaborate, and access information within an organization. With companies becoming more technology-driven and workforces more distributed, having a robust intranet platform is crucial for many businesses in 2025.

An employee intranet can enhance communication by giving organizations a centralized place for employees across locations and departments to access company news, policy documents, organizational charts, and more. Rather than relying on long email chains or network drives some teams have access to, a well-managed intranet platform ensures every employee is on the same page.

Do people still use intranets? (Spoiler: Yes, and they’re better than ever)

Yes! People still use intranets, and they’re using them in smarter, more integrated ways than ever before. The old clunky portals that sat untouched for years? Those are out. Today’s intranets are sleek, AI-powered, and deeply embedded in the tools your teams already rely on.

The shift to hybrid work and the explosion of SaaS tools have made intranets more important, not less. Employees need a single, trustworthy place to find information, ask questions, and stay informed. That’s exactly what the modern intranet delivers.

Choosing the right intranet application for your team

The right intranet application can completely change how your team communicates and collaborates. But with so many options on the market, it’s important to understand what these tools are—and what they’re not.

What is an intranet application?

An intranet application is a software tool designed to support internal communication, collaboration, and knowledge sharing within an organization. Think of it as a digital workspace where employees can access documents, find company updates, search for experts, and connect with teammates.

Some intranet applications focus heavily on content management or document sharing, while others lean into social features or integrations with external tools. The best intranet apps combine these capabilities, helping you create a centralized, streamlined experience for your workforce.

What are the most important features of intranet software?

The most important features to look for when evaluating intranet software are custom homepages and announcements, document storage and sharing, a corporate directory, knowledge management, access controls, app integrations, and analytics. Learn more about these key features below:

Homepage and announcements

A customizable homepage is essential. This acts as a central landing page for employees to get organization-wide news and access key resources. The ability to send announcements is also crucial as it allows leadership teams to push time-sensitive messages to all employees.

Document storage and sharing

A central repository for storing, organizing and sharing documents of all types is one of the main reasons companies invest in an intranet. However, with the volume of collaboration tools now starting to overwhelm workers, many companies now seek a knowledge repository that’s accessible in employees’ workflows–removing the need to open a new tab or log into a different portal.

Corporate directory

An up-to-date organizational chart with contact information, departments, locations and reporting structure is hugely valuable. It can help with internal communication, make it easy to identify experts, and improve cross-team collaboration. Leading intranet platforms integrate with HR systems so information is kept up to date, all the time.

Knowledge management

Knowledge bases, wikis and online training modules allow companies to capture institutional knowledge that might otherwise be lost. This is great for onboarding, ensuring consistency and reducing basic questions to IT and HR.

Access controls

Managing access and editing abilities is important for security and organizing information in an intranet. For example, HR documentation should only be visible to certain staff and sensitive information should only be available to team members who need to access it.

App integrations

With employees today using more and more tools daily, it’s critical that an intranet has a wide range of integrations. The ability to embed everyday business applications like Office 365, G Suite, Salesforce, Dropbox and project management tools goes a long way to creating seamless workflows.

Analytics

An intranet is only as valuable as its adoption rate. Analytics provide insight into actual intranet usage patterns compared to assumed needs. This allows platforms to be fine-tuned over time, ensuring continued use across the organization.

Top 17 intranet software platforms

1. Guru
Guru offers the features of a modern employee intranet, along with enterprise AI search and wiki capabilities—all in one platform. With Guru, companies can customize their intranet homepage to give every employee a familiar experience, highlight important updates, and seamlessly track engagement on company- or team-wide announcements. Employees can also instantly access and capture information from Slack, Teams, and any web-based app in their tech stack.

Thanks to Guru’s robust suite of integrations, teams can integrate their org chart and employee profiles with HRIS syncs and supercharge processes by connecting their most popular tools with Guru via Workato and Zapier.

2. Workvivo
Workvivo is an employee experience platform designed to improve company culture by unifying communication, engagement, and analytics features into a single app. Designed to build connections between distributed teams, Workvivo empowers employees to have a voice while providing oversight to senior leaders.

Key value propositions include less distraction and greater engagement through a familiar social interface, fast adoption and integration with existing tools, and content analytics to understand audience behavior.

3. Simpplr
Simpplr is an AI-powered employee experience platform used by companies to boost engagement and productivity. The software provides personalized experiences designed to inspire teams whether they have an in-office, hybrid, or fully remote workforce.

Core capabilities include no-code integrations, smart search, and prescriptive analytics, all of which are designed to help companies improve employee engagement across their entire organization.

4. Jive
Jive provides an interactive intranet platform that connects employees to the information and people they need to excel at their jobs. Jive is intranet collaboration software, integrating fragmented systems into one common environment accessible via desktop and mobile.

Capabilities like sentiment analytics, urgent notifications, and adaptive intelligence aim to proactively connect employees to vital resources—all with a view to helping companies harness their collective knowledge to gain a competitive edge.

5. Happeo
Happeo is a next-generation intranet software platform that helps teams manage knowledge sharing and internal communication in a unified workspace. It offers page builders with templates and integrations with popular tools like Gmail, Google Drive, and more to help companies keep employees informed, aligned, and productive.

Key features include native mobile apps for on-the-go connectivity, social networking capabilities to facilitate free flow of information across the organization, and smart search to surface relevant content from internal and external sources.

6. Confluence
Atlassian’s Confluence is a popular tool for creating and organizing company knowledge. While often categorized as a team workspace or wiki, many companies use Confluence as their intranet due to its collaborative features and integrations with tools like Jira, Trello, and Slack.

It excels in technical environments and is a solid choice for documentation-heavy teams who prioritize knowledge sharing over internal comms.

7. LumApps
LumApps is an employee experience platform that aims to boost workforce engagement, collaboration, and productivity. Its web and mobile apps are built to help organizations provide a personalized, media-rich experience to every employee, including frontline and remote workers, tailored to their role, location, language, and device.

LumApps seeks to improve collaboration by empowering employees to easily share knowledge via rich community spaces, videos, and more. It also guides workers through key moments like onboarding with integrated journeys.

8. Blink
Blink is an employee engagement software solution designed specifically for frontline workers. Its mobile-first platform offers features like chat messaging with searchable history, document sharing, customizable activity feeds, and team calendars.

Blink integrates with apps like Office 365 to offer a unified search and task management experience. With robust security features like AES-256 encryption and multi-factor authentication, Blink keeps data safe while facilitating communication and collaboration.

9. Igloo
Igloo offers a digital workplace platform that seeks to enhance communication, collaboration, and culture of distributed workforces. Its cloud-based solution serves as a digital hub that aims to boost employee productivity regardless of location—whether in corporate offices, remote sites, using mobile devices, or working from home.

The platform integrates with popular tools to create a centralized destination for all employees, all with a view to creating more engaged teams.

10. Microsoft Viva Engage
Microsoft Viva brings together communications, knowledge, learning, resources, and insights into an integrated employee experience platform. Embedded within Microsoft Teams, Viva aims to break down silos and help employees connect, find information, develop skills, and measure engagement.

Key capabilities include Viva Connections for company news and resources, Viva Learning for training content, Viva Topics for access to organizational knowledge, and Viva Insights to provide analytics on collaboration patterns and work trends.

11. SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint is a well-established intranet and collaboration tool used by organizations around the world. It offers powerful document management, customizable team sites, and native integration with Microsoft 365, making it a go-to choice for organizations already embedded in the Microsoft ecosystem.

SharePoint is particularly strong when it comes to managing structured content and workflows at scale, but may require IT support to customize and maintain.

12. Unily
Unily is an employee experience platform focused on delivering personalized, engaging intranet experiences across global organizations. With a sleek interface and features like targeted communications, multilingual content delivery, and drag-and-drop page building, Unily helps teams connect and align across regions and departments.

It also includes robust analytics and integrates with Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, and more.

13. Staffbase
Staffbase is an intranet platform purpose-built for internal communications, especially for companies with large numbers of non-desk or frontline workers. It includes features like personalized news feeds, mobile-first access, surveys, and messaging.

One of its standout strengths is branded employee apps that extend communication reach even in distributed environments.

14. Interact
Interact is a flexible intranet solution designed to help organizations streamline communication and build a culture of transparency and collaboration. With its intelligent search, personalized content targeting, and out-of-the-box integrations, Interact makes it easier for employees to access relevant information fast.

It’s often praised for ease of use, especially for content creators and admins managing the intranet day-to-day.

15. Haystack
Haystack is a modern, lightweight intranet platform designed to unify communication, documentation, and team resources into a clean, customizable hub. Known for its intuitive UX and fast deployment, Haystack helps companies share updates, create org charts, and centralize access to tools—all with minimal administrative overhead.

It’s especially popular with growing companies looking for a scalable alternative to legacy intranet solutions.

16. Axero
Axero is an all-in-one intranet and digital workplace platform that brings communication, collaboration, and knowledge management into one place. Teams use Axero to create structured content, manage documents, and engage employees through social-style features like likes, comments, and activity streams.

Its modular design allows businesses to scale capabilities as their needs evolve.

17. ThoughtFarmer
ThoughtFarmer positions itself as a people-first intranet, focusing on ease of use and employee engagement. It blends traditional intranet features—like news publishing, directories, and document sharing—with modern design and social collaboration tools.

Organizations also appreciate its hybrid deployment model (cloud or on-premise) and strong support for multilingual content.

How to select the best company intranet software 

Selecting the right intranet platform for your organization's needs requires careful evaluation across a number of factors. Follow these best practices when going through the intranet solution selection process:

Identify must-have features

Start by gathering input from stakeholders across departments to develop a comprehensive list of must-have intranet features. Prioritize capabilities like document storage and search, corporate directory, news and announcements, access controls, and analytics. Consider integrations with your existing software and desire for a customizable homepage catered to different employee groups.

Evaluate total cost of ownership

विक्रय के लाइसेंस की कीमतों का विचार न करें Calculate the total cost of ownership including implementation services, change management training, platform upgrades, customizations, and ongoing support. A lower-cost platform could require more IT resources for configuration and increase operational costs over time.

Define success metrics

Align on what success looks like for the intranet early in the buying journey. Identify key adoption, engagement, and performance metrics aligned to specific business goals like improving company communications, increasing productivity, or reducing operational costs. This serves as the baseline for measuring ROI.

How social intranet software builds stronger teams

As organizations grow more distributed, social intranet software plays a critical role in helping people feel connected. These tools combine traditional intranet functionality with interactive, social features—think news feeds, comments, likes, and user-generated content.

What is social intranet software?

Social intranet software refers to intranet platforms that emphasize two-way communication and engagement. Rather than acting solely as a place to post HR documents or policy updates, these platforms empower employees to share knowledge, celebrate wins, ask questions, and collaborate in real time. The result? A more transparent, inclusive, and informed workplace.

Finding the best enterprise intranet platform for your organization

Enterprise intranet platforms help businesses by enabling collaboration at scale, aligning teams across time zones, and surfacing the knowledge that keeps business moving. The right platform can unify disparate systems and ensure employees are always in the loop.

What is the most popular intranet platform?

Some of the most widely used enterprise intranet platforms include Microsoft SharePoint, Workvivo, and increasingly, AI-enabled platforms like Guru. These platforms are popular because they integrate with existing systems, are highly customizable, and offer enterprise-grade security.

That said, popularity doesn’t always mean the best fit. Companies should focus on choosing platforms that align with their workflows and scale with their growth.

What is the intranet enterprise portal?

An intranet enterprise portal is a centralized digital environment that gives employees access to a wide range of tools, content, and services—all behind a secure firewall. It acts as a launchpad for everything from HR documents to IT requests to knowledge bases, allowing organizations to deliver a consistent employee experience.

Enterprise portals often include personalized dashboards, single sign-on access to other apps, and deep integrations with tools like Salesforce, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365. The goal? Make it as easy as possible for employees to do their jobs.

Wrapping up: Your employee intranet software can (and should) work harder for you

Choosing the right intranet software isn’t just about checking boxes on a feature list—it’s about giving your team a better way to connect, collaborate, and stay aligned every single day. And now that you’ve seen what’s possible, you’re in a much stronger position to find a solution that fits the way your organization works.

Whether you’re looking to boost employee engagement, surface buried knowledge, or finally bring all your tools together in one place, the right intranet can be a game-changer.

Want to see what that looks like in action? Watch our demo to explore how Guru combines AI-powered search, a modern intranet, and a verified company wiki—all in one powerful platform.