You’re likely looking at employee engagement platforms because something isn’t working today. Important updates get missed, feedback doesn’t lead to action, recognition feels inconsistent, or managers don’t have a reliable way to stay connected to their teams.
All of that gets lumped under “engagement,” but it’s not one job. It’s a handful of practical workflows that need to work week after week: getting the right updates to the right audience, giving employees safe ways to share input and see what happens next, and helping managers run steady conversations like check-ins, feedback, and development.
Most platforms are built with a particular focus. Some are designed to do one of these jobs especially well, while others try to support several in the same place. That focus determines what employees will use the platform for and whether it becomes part of their routine or just another login to ignore.
When the fit is right, the platform becomes the first place employees check for answers and updates. When it isn't, teams work around it, falling back to email threads and Slack channels where updates get buried and engagement stays siloed.
This guide walks through what to look for so you can find a platform that actually gets used. We'll cover ten established options, explain how each one is designed to work, and help you figure out which approach fits what you're trying to fix.
Jostle is built for organizations where employees don't know where to look, what matters, or whether they saw everything they needed to see. It creates a single place where official updates, everyday recognition, and shared resources live in a way that's easy to navigate and harder to ignore.
When the benefits team sends an open enrollment reminder via email, half the team misses it. When it goes in Slack, it's gone in 24 hours. Jostle's News feed is where those announcements live and stay visible until they're acknowledged.
Posts in News can be targeted by location, department, or role, so a policy change for the California office doesn't clutter the feed of a remote team in Texas. For updates that require confirmation—like new security protocols or updated parental leave policies—managers can require sign-offs that track who's read it and export that data for compliance audits. Push notifications through Jostle's Notify feature ensure time-sensitive posts don't sit unread, which matters when announcing an office closure or a last-minute all-hands.
Jostle separates official communication from the social layer through Activity, where peer recognition, work anniversaries, and lighter team updates show up. A manager can post a shout-out when someone goes above and beyond on a client project, or the marketing team can share a campaign win—and these moments don't compete with compliance reminders or get buried under announcements that require action.
Most teams have their resources scattered: policies in one place, onboarding docs in another, IT guides buried somewhere else. Jostle's Library consolidates that into one searchable place where employees can find the current version of what they need without asking their manager or digging through files.
Library integrates with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace so teams can keep using the tools they already have while managing permissions through Jostle. When someone changes roles or leaves, access updates automatically. JostleAI's "Ask a Question" feature lets employees search that curated Library and get answers tailored to their role or location, so instead of reading a global policy document and guessing which section applies, they get a direct answer based on where they work or what team they're on.
To help employees stay current, Jostle's Weekly Digest emails a personalized recap that includes relevant News posts, Library updates, Activity highlights, and upcoming events or milestones. Field teams, retail staff, and anyone who isn't sitting at a desk all day can stay current without checking the platform constantly.
Jostle works best when you need high adoption without high maintenance. It's designed for teams that want a hub people actually use day-to-day, not a platform that requires constant administration or training to keep relevant. If your goal is to close communication gaps and reduce the number of places employees need to check, Jostle does that without creating a new workflow problem to manage.
Jostle pricing scales by employee count and plan level. Plans follow an options model: core destinations are included, and higher tiers add more optional capabilities.
Every plan includes guided onboarding, mobile apps, core integrations, SSO/provisioning, APIs and data sync, analytics and governance controls, and AI capabilities.
For 500 users:
G2: (4.5/5) – Based on 217 reviews
Capterra: (4.4/5) – Based on 73 reviews
Microsoft Viva makes sense for organizations already running on Microsoft 365 that want employee communication, learning, and feedback to happen where people already spend their day. Instead of asking employees to log into another platform, Viva puts these experiences directly in Teams.
That approach works when Teams is already a daily habit and when your IT, HR, and communications teams have decided where announcements get published, who owns survey programs, and how discussion spaces get moderated. Without that foundation, Viva can feel like multiple tools competing for attention inside the same interface.
Viva Connections acts as a hub inside Teams that pulls together links, resources, and updates from across the organization. It's built on SharePoint, which means the quality of the experience depends entirely on how well a company's SharePoint environment is organized. If site structure is messy, navigation is inconsistent, or ownership is unclear, employees won't be able to find what they need. When it's done well, Connections becomes a reliable starting point. When it's not, it's just another layer of confusion.
Viva Engage supports discussion and visibility through communities, leadership posts, and organization-wide conversations in a feed-based format. It's useful for building connection across distributed teams or giving leadership a direct channel to employees. Viva Amplify adds structure for planned communication campaigns, giving teams a workspace to draft messages, publish them across Microsoft channels, and track performance in one place.
For listening and development, Viva Insights shows privacy-protected views of work patterns like meeting load and focus time, helping managers spot burnout risk or overload before it becomes a bigger problem. Glint handles structured engagement surveys with benchmarking and action planning built in. Pulse enables faster check-ins when teams need a quick read on sentiment. Viva Learning brings training content into Teams so employees can access courses and complete learning without switching contexts.
The challenge with Viva is coordination. Capabilities are licensed separately, rolled out on different timelines, and often managed by different departments. That means organizations need a clear plan for who has access to what, who owns content in each module, and how the pieces fit together. They also need ongoing attention to SharePoint structure—if that foundation degrades, Connections stops being useful and employees lose trust in the hub.
Viva works when companies have the organizational alignment and technical discipline to keep it running smoothly. Without that, it can add complexity instead of reducing it.
Microsoft Viva is typically licensed as per-user add-ons on top of Microsoft 365, with an annual commitment and paid yearly. Some baseline Viva capabilities are included with eligible Microsoft 365 plans, while expanded capabilities are packaged through add-on bundles or individual app licenses.
Individual app licensing:
G2: Varies based on module – Ranges from 3.6 to 4.5 stars for Engage & Insights
Capterra: (4.2/5) – Based on 11 reviews
Gartner: (4.4/5) – Based on 91 reviews
Culture Amp fits best when employee engagement is managed as an ongoing system that consistently collects and reports feedback for actionable insights. People teams use it to run engagement and pulse surveys on a set rhythm, understand what’s driving results, and push clear focus areas down to leaders and managers. The platform is at its strongest in organizations that want the same approach applied consistently across departments using automations and repeatable workflows.
Most teams start with Engage to launch surveys using built-in templates, then rely on dashboards and comment analysis to turn results into themes leaders can act on. Benchmarks help add context, and retention-focused insights are designed to reveal patterns that might otherwise get missed when teams only look at scores. A big practical benefit is that it reduces the amount of manual work required to interpret qualitative feedback and communicate what’s changing as a result.
Culture Amp goes beyond listening by supporting manager routines and performance cycles. Perform is used for ongoing feedback, goal tracking, structured reviews, and calibration workflows that help teams run performance conversations more consistently. Develop adds competency frameworks and development planning so growth discussions have shared expectations and clearer next steps.
For organizations that want broader workforce visibility, People Analytics focuses on bringing HR data together and making it easier to share trends through dashboards and story-based reporting.
Culture Amp is best suited to organizations that want engagement to connect directly to manager action and development practices, with a clear cadence and repeatable playbook. It’s less suited to teams looking for a daily employee hub for company news, resources, and broad communications, so it’s often paired with a dedicated employee hub when that front door experience is a priority.
Culture Amp pricing is quote-based and typically depends on employee count, modules selected, and service level. Products are billed annually, and organizations can buy modules individually or bundle them.
G2: (4.5/5) – Based on 1,518 reviews
Capterra: (4.6/5) – Based on 151 reviews
Gartner: (4.3/5) – Based on 16 reviews
Simpplr centers the employee experience on a structured intranet, then uses AI to reduce the friction that comes with scale. Search and automation aren’t treated as side features—they’re built into how employees find information and complete routine requests once content and governance are in place.
Organizations use Simpplr to organize company and departmental content with role-based access and clear publishing permissions. Targeted updates and newsletters support communications workflows, with analytics to understand reach and engagement. That structure carries across web and mobile, with email and collaboration tool distribution used to extend reach while keeping content managed in one place.
AI Search is designed to retrieve answers across connected systems while respecting permissions and showing source context. In larger environments where information lives in many places, this can reduce time spent navigating between tools. AI Agents extend this by automating common HR and IT requests through low-code workflows, with reporting to track adoption and effectiveness over time.
Simpplr includes engagement features, but they’re focused on supporting communication and visibility rather than running a full engagement system. Teams can collect feedback, review trends, and make recognition visible inside the hub, while deeper listening programs and manager-led follow-through typically live in more specialized tools. That means Simpplr tends to fit best when engagement is tied to how information flows and how visible culture is day to day.
Because the experience depends heavily on structure, Simpplr’s outcomes are shaped by upfront choices. Information architecture, content ownership, permissions models, and module scope all influence whether the hub stays usable over time. Organizations that invest in governance and maintenance tend to see more consistent results.
Simpplr doesn’t publicly list its pricing or plan details. For more information, request a quote.
G2: (4.6/5) – Based on 357 reviews
Capterra: (4.8/5) – Based on 112 reviews
Gartner: (4.6/5) – Based on 94 reviews
Lattice is a strong fit when an organization wants engagement to connect directly to the systems managers use to run performance and development. It brings engagement surveys together with goals, feedback, and review cycles, so insights don’t sit in a separate HR reporting lane and managers have clearer paths to respond.
Most organizations use Lattice to standardize how managers run team cadence and performance cycles. Weekly updates and check-ins create a consistent place to capture progress and roadblocks, while feedback and praise make recognition and coaching easier to document and revisit. Those signals can then feed into structured reviews, calibrations, and broader talent planning. Goals and OKRs sit alongside this day-to-day activity, which helps teams keep priorities visible and connect progress updates to performance conversations.
On the listening side, Lattice supports pulse surveys, eNPS, and lifecycle surveys like onboarding and exit. Segmentation and reporting help teams see where sentiment differs across groups, and action planning is designed to move follow-up into manager-owned work rather than leaving results stuck at the insights stage.
Lattice AI adds speed and consistency across the same workflows. It can summarize themes in open-text survey responses, highlight likely drivers, support clearer feedback writing with bias checks, and uncover performance context so leaders spend less time assembling inputs.
Overall, Lattice is best suited to organizations that want engagement to be reinforced through talent practices and manager execution. Teams that also need a go-to place for company news, shared resources, and everyday employee navigation often pair it with an employee hub, using Lattice for listening and manager follow-through while the hub handles communication and findability at scale.
Lattice pricing is contract-based and billed annually in USD, with a stated $4,000 minimum annual agreement. It’s structured around a base Talent Management package, with add-ons for engagement, development, and compensation.
G2: (4.7/5) – Based on 4,049 reviews
Capterra: (4.5/5) – Based on 199 reviews
Gartner: (4.4/5) – Based on 58 reviews
Officevibe is built around a simple loop: check how teams are doing, identify themes quickly, and make it easier for managers to respond consistently. It fits best in organizations that want engagement to show up in regular habits, not just in an annual survey cycle. HR typically sets the overall listening approach, while managers use the same tools week to week to keep conversations moving.
Most day-to-day use starts with pulse and custom surveys, plus always-on anonymous feedback. Teams can run lightweight check-ins, collect comments people may not share openly, and track patterns over time using engagement scores and eNPS. Reporting is designed to be usable at the team level, with exports when HR needs to roll results up, spot trends, or document follow-through.
Officevibe puts a lot of emphasis on closing the loop. Managers get help translating results into next steps, and tools like reply assistance are meant to make it easier to respond to anonymous feedback without overthinking the wording. It also supports recurring 1:1 structure through shared agendas and follow-ups, so survey insights can turn into concrete talking points rather than sitting in a dashboard.
Recognition is the other core pillar. “Good Vibes” recognition cards make peer-to-peer appreciation easy to sustain, with options to tie recognition to company values and share it publicly or privately. Over time, reporting helps leaders understand participation and whether recognition is showing up evenly across teams.
Officevibe works best when the engagement goal is consistent listening and action at the manager level, supported by visible recognition. It’s not designed to be a full employee hub for company-wide news, resources, and navigation, and it’s not a full performance management suite on its own. Teams that want deeper review cycles typically pair it with Workleap Performance, while keeping Officevibe as the listening and team-sentiment layer.
Officevibe is priced per user per month and billed annually, with a minimum seat requirement. Workleap also promotes a discounted bundle that combines Officevibe with its performance product, plus a compensation-focused add-on.
G2: (4.3/5) – Based on 1.076 reviews (Workleap)
Capterra: (4.8/5) – Based on 115 reviews (Workleap)
Unily is built for large organizations that need a single employee front door across a complex tech stack. It’s intranet-led, but it’s not just about pages and posts. Teams use it to unify communication, content, community, and access to workplace systems, with strong controls for targeting, governance, and measurement across regions and employee groups.
Day to day, Unily functions as the place employees start when they need something: an important update, a policy, a form, or a link to another tool. Personalization and targeting help keep content relevant at scale, while mobile support makes it easier to reach frontline and distributed employees with time-sensitive communication, including push notifications and experiences designed for lower-connectivity environments.
Publishing tools support structured, multi-channel delivery, including campaign workflows and broadcast email-style distribution that behaves more like internal marketing than one-off announcements. Employee Journeys add automation on top, allowing teams to sequence communication and tasks around moments like onboarding, major change, or policy rollouts, with measurable steps and follow-through across intranet, email, and mobile.
AI shows up in both content production and optimization. Unily includes AI-assisted publishing, translation, summarization, recommendations, and reporting to help teams create, localize, and improve communication without as much manual work. Its agent orchestration direction is aimed at routing employee questions to the right assistant or system with governance, rather than forcing every request through a single chatbot experience.
Unily works best when content ownership, information structure, and usage boundaries are clearly defined. Since it connects many systems and supports advanced targeting and automation, those decisions help keep the experience coherent as it scales.
It’s a better fit for organizations that want an enterprise intranet and employee experience layer than for teams mainly looking for a lightweight listening tool centered on surveys and manager follow-through.
Unily pricing is quote-based and depends on the modules selected, add-ons needed, and the number of licensed users.
G2: (4.5/5) – Based on 32 reviews
Capterra: (4.6/5) – Based on 23 reviews
Gartner: (4.4/5) – Based on 3 reviews
Kudos makes recognition feel visible and repeatable across teams, departments, and the organization as a whole. The platform is purpose-built for appreciation and culture reinforcement, with enough structure to run organized programs and enough simplicity that employees actually participate.
Recognition in Kudos is centered on peer-to-peer moments that can be tied back to company values, making it easier for leaders to reinforce the behaviors they want repeated. Milestones and cards help teams keep celebrations consistent without relying on someone to remember every anniversary or welcome moment. When a more formal approach is needed, nominations and awards add a layer for structured recognition cycles rather than ad-hoc shoutouts.
Rewards are optional, but they’re a common reason teams choose Kudos. Recognition can be paired with points that employees redeem for tangible rewards like digital gift cards, merchandise, experiences, or organization-defined perks. Budgets and points banks are controlled centrally, which keeps programs predictable and avoids turning recognition into a finance-heavy process. Challenges and incentive campaigns build on this by setting short-term participation goals or reinforcing specific behaviors, using rewards as reinforcement rather than the primary motivator.
Measurement is where Kudos adds practical value beyond the feed. Reporting helps HR and leaders see participation patterns, which values are being reinforced, and whether recognition is concentrated in certain teams or spread evenly across the organization. Pulse surveys provide a lightweight way to track sentiment alongside recognition activity, which can be helpful when teams want both cultural signals and quick feedback in one place.
Kudos is not an intranet or employee hub. It doesn’t replace the systems employees use for company news, policies, forms, and navigation, so organizations often treat it as an add-on to their existing platform when they need to encourage engagement.
Kudos offers quote-based pricing. Contact them to receive a quote.
G2: (4.8/5) – Based on 2,504 reviews
Capterra: (4.8/5) – Based on 1,114 reviews
Gartner: (4.6/5) – Based on 131 reviews
15Five is built around a clear idea: HR can’t improve engagement and retention alone, so the platform focuses on giving managers consistent tools and guidance to do the day-to-day work of leading well. It combines engagement listening, performance cycles, and goal tracking, then layers in AI and coaching options meant to reduce admin and make follow-through more repeatable across teams.
Engagement work in 15Five typically starts with Engage. HR teams run engagement surveys, targeted assessments, and lifecycle surveys, then use heat maps, breakdowns, and benchmarking to spot patterns by team, location, or demographics. The platform puts a lot of emphasis on turning results into action, with built-in action planning and AI-driven summaries that help teams move faster from open-text feedback to priorities managers can actually work on.
On the performance side, Perform supports reviews, 360-degree feedback, goals and OKRs, and talent tools like a talent matrix. The emphasis is on running review cycles with less chasing and more consistency, while giving HR a clearer view into cycle progress and outcomes. Career paths and plans also show up here, which helps connect performance conversations to growth rather than treating reviews as a standalone event.
Manager enablement is a differentiator in how 15Five is packaged. Beyond the core manager tools, organizations can add training microlearnings, coaching, and Kona AI. Kona’s meeting assistant and coach are designed to help managers prepare for 1:1s, capture notes and action items, and get nudges or guidance tied to what’s happening in their teams. That makes 15Five a good fit for organizations that want the engagement platform to actively support manager behavior, not just report on it.
15Five is best suited to organizations treating engagement as a manager effectiveness and talent practice, with HR coordinating the system and managers driving the outcomes. It’s not meant to be an employee hub for company news, policies, and navigation, so teams that need a daily communications front door typically pair it with an intranet or employee hub.
15Five is priced per user per month and billed annually. Core packages cover engagement, performance, or both, with add-ons available for manager training, coaching, Kona AI, and compensation workflows.
Add-ons:
G2: (4.6/5) – Based on 1,856 reviews
Capterra: (4.7/5) – Based on 892 reviews
Gartner: (4.3/5) – Based on 24 reviews
Leapsome is a modular people platform that combines reviews, goals, continuous feedback, engagement surveys, learning, and lifecycle workflows. It fits organizations that want engagement to be reinforced through how managers set expectations, give feedback, and support growth, with HR able to run repeatable cycles and see follow-through across teams.
Teams commonly use Leapsome to run structured review cycles with flexible inputs, including peer and project feedback, then apply calibration to keep outcomes consistent. Goals and OKRs sit alongside this work, with progress tracking and reminders that keep priorities current and make it easier to connect day-to-day delivery to performance conversations.
Listening is handled through pulse and lifecycle surveys with anonymity controls, segmentation, and action planning. Results can be shared at the right level, then turned into tracked follow-ups, so engagement work doesn’t stop at reporting. This tends to work well when managers are expected to own improvements within their teams rather than waiting for HR to translate results into action.
Development tools extend the same approach. Competencies and growth frameworks help clarify expectations, while learning paths and assignments make it easier to turn review and feedback outcomes into concrete next steps. Workflow automation supports onboarding, role changes, approvals, and recurring check-ins, which helps teams apply a consistent process across employee moments without building everything manually.
AI is used to reduce drafting and admin time across these workflows. It can summarize survey comments, assist with feedback and review writing, and suggest next steps so managers spend less time staring at blank fields. For organizations with higher governance needs, structured Q&A and whistleblowing capabilities provide additional channels for employee input.
Leapsome works best in organizations where engagement is driven through manager behavior and talent processes rather than broad communication channels. It’s a strong fit when the priority is consistent feedback, development, and follow-through across teams, and less suited when engagement is primarily about publishing updates or centralizing everyday information for employees.
Leapsome offers a 14-day free trial for its plans, but doesn’t list pricing publicly. Quotes are by request only.
G2: (4.8/5) – Based on 2,247 reviews
Capterra: (4.6/5) – Based on 96 reviews
Employee engagement platforms can look similar at a glance, but they’re built around different types of work. Some are strongest as an employee hub for updates and resources. Others focus on listening and follow-through, recognition, or manager routines.
The best platform isn’t the one with the longest feature list. It’s the one that supports the engagement work you can realistically run every week. If your team doesn’t actually use your employee engagement hub, features and functionality don’t matter.
When you compare options, look for product decisions that make adoption easier (for employees) and execution simpler (for the team that owns it).
Most employee engagement platforms focus on one area:
Start by identifying which workflow matters most right now, because “good at everything” often means weak defaults and uneven adoption.
A strong fit reduces adoption friction and makes the platform easier to manage over time, creating value that keeps managers and employees engaged.
Engagement only improves if people actually see and use the platform. The strongest tools make information accessible and ensure it’s relevant.
These mechanics determine whether the platform becomes part of the daily rhythm or fades into the background after launch.
Many organizations are good at collecting feedback and recognition, but then struggle to convert that input into visible improvement. Look for workflows that make follow-through easy and trackable.
When employees can see a clear line from participation to action, trust increases, and response rates tend to hold over time.
Analytics should help teams make better decisions, and governance should prevent the platform from becoming cluttered or inconsistent as it scales.
In practice, the most sustainable engagement platforms are the ones that remain usable in year two because they were designed for steady operation, not constant intervention.
Employee engagement platforms work best when they support a few consistent habits: keeping people informed, making it easy to find answers, creating space for input, and helping managers follow through. The right platform won't manufacture engagement on its own, but it can remove the fragmentation, buried updates, and disconnected tools that make engagement hard to sustain.
Jostle is built for organizations where engagement needs to show up in daily routines, not just in annual surveys or one-off campaigns. It creates a single place where employees stay informed, feel connected, and can participate without friction. When employees know where to go and what to expect, engagement stops feeling like an initiative and starts becoming a habit.
That consistency also makes it easier for teams to see what's working. Activity, interaction, and participation provide ongoing signals about where attention is focused, what's resonating, and when follow-up is needed. Teams don't have to wait for the next survey cycle to understand how employees are responding.
If you're looking for an employee engagement platform that people actually use week after week, try Jostle today.