The Best Online Collaboration Tool? | Miro
Tags: miro, collaboration, showdev, productivity
Published: 2021-02-09 00:45:30

This is Miro, a tool so flexible that allows you to manage your projects, create planning boards, diagrams, and mindmaps, run meetings and presentations, all in the same place.

![Miro Overview](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/thxeiuiq7jw6keiay6s9.png)

Not only it works great and integrates with many other services, but it is also __free__ and allows __unlimited users__ to collaborate on the same boards.

Let's take a look at it! 

### Intro

Today I will walk you through a tool called __Miro__. Anyway, before we start, I want to say that ___Miro is not sponsoring___ this article. It is just a tool that I use, like, and __find very useful__, so I thought I should share it with you.

### Video

As usual, if you are a __visual learner__, or simply prefer to watch and listen instead of reading, here you have __the video with the whole explanation and demo__, which to be fair is much ___more complete___ than this post.

{% youtube awkE68y9DQk %}

([Link to the video: https://youtu.be/awkE68y9DQk](https://youtu.be/awkE68y9DQk))

If you rather prefer reading, well... let's just continue :)

### What is Miro?

So, what exactly is Miro?

Miro is an __Online Collaborative Whiteboard Platform__. As whiteboard, it is so flexible that you can do basically anything and everything you want and need with it.

You can create __presentations__ and __mindmaps__ for ideation and brainstorming, you can use it for __design and research__, manage your team with __agile workflows__, create __charts__ and __GANTTs__ for your planning and strategy sessions and even for __mapping and diagramming__. You name it.

And of course, you have __sticky notes__ :)

I've seen people planning weddings with it, and then use the same tool to __pitch their idea__ for a new product to a board of investors.

And since it is a collaborative platform, you can share it with your colleagues, friends, or contractors to __work together on a project__, design, and what not. __Simultaneously__!

For me, I use it for many of the examples I mentioned. I do mindmaps, I use the __kanban__ and agile boards to manage tasks, and I share it with my peers and friends to be able to collaborate on projects.

And the best part, as I've mentioned in the intro, is that __Miro is free, with unlimited collaborators__! To be fair they also have some paid plan, but the features you get with the free tier are mind-blowing. 

> If you want to try Miro yourself for __free, forever__, you can [use this link to sign up: https://miro.grsm.io/CoderDave](https://miro.grsm.io/CoderDave) 

### Miro in Action

Alright, enough talking, let see the tool in action. Of course it is basically impossible to just describe all the things this tool does, so here you have the video.

{% youtube awkE68y9DQk %}

[Use this link to jump directly to the part of the video with the demo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awkE68y9DQk&t=134s))

### Free vs Paid versions

As we have seen, __the free version is really complete__ and most of the time is just what I need. There are however few features that the paid version has, and I find very useful.

One of this is the __integration with Azure DevOps__. 

Using the Azure Cards app, you can __import Work Items from Azure Boards__ into Miro and create your own visualizations for them on te canvas, together with any other element you want. 

Another thing I find very useful, and which unfortunately is not available in the free version, is the __private board sharing__. In the free plan, all the boards you create are visible to all the members in the team. Starting with the Teams plan, instead, you can manage board access rights so you can share them only with specific team members, and decide if they have complete or read-only access.

There are many other features available only on the paid plans, like SAML SSO, Polls, Video chat, Emails support, etc...

But as I said before in my opinion what you get on the free plan is a lot already and is sufficient for most of the use cases. I encourage you to try it out yourself for free, you can [use this link to sign up: https://miro.grsm.io/CoderDave](https://miro.grsm.io/CoderDave) 

### Miro Apps are awesome!

Alright, lastly, let me talk about Miro's apps. All we have seen so far was on the web based experience. But they have some __amazing apps__ as well.

![Apps](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/vsayntanbhwwbsjl0t2f.png)

They have __desktop apps__ for PC and Mac, and __mobile apps__ for iOS and Android phone and tablets.

I mean, they even have an app for the __Surface Hub__! I'd love to see it in action!

![Surface Hub](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/t5nxrapixblkp8va4iwp.png)

### Conclusions

Alright, that's it for today. I'd encourage you to try out Miro and see if it can be useful to you, [use this link to sign up: https://miro.grsm.io/CoderDave](https://miro.grsm.io/CoderDave) It is __free to use, and it will be free forever__, so give it a try.

Let me know in the comment section below what you think about Miro, I've been using it a lot lately and the more I use it the more I like it!