By Jostle
18 min read
Staffbase has earned its place in large organizations because it makes enterprise communication operational. Comms teams can create an update once, push it across channels like the employee app, intranet, and email, target the right audiences, and measure what’s actually being read.
That model is powerful when the goal is reach and consistency, especially once your workforce grows to 1,000+ employees who all have their own communication preferences. But many teams eventually run into a different problem: employees
An update can be delivered successfully and still fall short later when someone needs to find the right policy, confirm what applies to them, or understand what to do next. Information exists, but it lives primarily as something that was sent rather than something employees reliably return to. Over time, that gap shows up as repeated questions, managers becoming the default path to answers, and communication that starts to feel reactive instead of supportive of everyday work.
That’s when teams start reconsidering whether their platform should function mainly as a distribution engine, or as a more complete employee hub where communication, resources, and connection work together over time,not just at the moment something is published.
In this guide, we’ll review some of the most popular Staffbase alternatives, highlight what each one does best, and help you decide which fits your company’s size and needs best.
Jostle helps organizations create a hub employees actually return to, not just receive updates from. The difference matters when the real challenge is making sure employees can find and use information weeks later when they actually need it.
That starts with giving employees a reason to come back regularly. News handles official communication with targeting by team, location, or department, while Activity keeps everyday moments—quick updates, recognition through Shout-Outs, and celebrations—visible. Because these sit in separate destinations, important announcements don't compete with social connection, and employees check in for multiple reasons beyond just leadership updates. Weekly Digests reinforce this by pulling together what's relevant in a personalized email—News, Activity highlights, new Library items, upcoming Events—all based on each employee's role and location.
When someone needs to find a policy three months after it was announced, or understand which process applies to their specific situation, Jostle makes it easier to find their own answers rather than asking a manager. The Library acts as the maintained home for essential resources, with content living in Google Drive or OneDrive, while access permissions are managed through Jostle. As people change roles or locations, these permissions update automatically, which prevents lost access and frequent governance that slows work down.
JostleAI extends this by answering questions using only the Library content each employee can actually see, factoring in context like their department or site. This eliminates searching across systems, or asking managers for clarification on which version applies.
The same principle applies to finding people and understanding structure. When someone needs to know who handles vendor approvals, who leads the Denver office, or which team owns a specific initiative, the People directory and Teams org charts provide clear answers. Instead of asking around or guessing at reporting lines, employees can see who’s in charge of a project and figure out how to reach the right person directly.
Rather than layering Jostle on top of email, chat, and other channels, organizations use it to consolidate everyday tools in one place. Links and Custom Views can embed external dashboards and tools directly in the platform, so employees can access what they need from one place. The structure itself is designed to resist sprawl—a limited set of purpose-built destinations instead of endless page trees—which keeps the experience usable as content grows.
Jostle works best when you want one hub that genuinely supports daily work, where employees know where to look for updates, answers, and connection to the organization as a whole. Staffbase is better suited for large organizations (1,000+ employees) running coordinated multichannel distribution programs, where reach across channels matters more than creating a single destination employees consistently use.
Jostle pricing scales based on the number of employees and the plan tier selected, with optional capabilities added on top of the core platform. All plans share the same foundation, allowing teams to choose how much structure and functionality they need as their organization evolves.
Every plan also includes onboarding support, mobile applications, integrations with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, SSO and user provisioning, APIs and data sync, analytics and governance controls, and built-in AI functionality.
G2: (4.5/5) – Based on 217 reviews
Capterra: (4.4/5) – Based on 73 reviews
Workvivo is a mobile-first employee experience platform built around a social feed, combining internal communications, recognition, and lightweight intranet-style resources in one place. It's typically used by mid-market and enterprise organizations (250+ employees), especially those with frontline teams who aren't spending their day in email.
Communications teams reach employees through day-to-day updates and longer articles, with read-and-acknowledge tracking available for urgent updates like safety notices, policy changes, or required compliance checks. When timing is urgent, push notifications help the message reach employees quickly rather than waiting for them to find it.
Depending on the goal of the update, teams can also post other forms of media in the main feed: live streams to town halls, newsletters that keep teams informed outside of their department, and podcasts or voice memos that provide a faster and more personal way for leaders to share thoughts or messages. And with built-in translation, messages can be delivered across global teams without creating and maintaining separate versions.
Engagement happens in the same feed as official communication, which means employees react to posts, comment on updates, and share recognition while staying current on what's happening. This keeps culture active between major announcements without requiring separate tools or programs. But a single-feed strategy also means it’s easy for employees to miss essential updates that compete with community engagement. That means teams have to spend extra time segmenting content into communities and groups—like employees working in sales or with a certain client—to make sure each employee only sees what's relevant for them.
Beyond communication and engagement, Workvivo can support basic information needs through pages, pinned content, and a knowledge base, but many teams use it as a front door that links out to other systems. It's not meant to replace a deeply structured intranet, so organizations that rely heavily on formal knowledge management typically use Workvivo to reference and point to source-of-truth content rather than store everything directly in the platform.
When choosing between both platforms, Workvivo fits best when adoption depends on a social, mobile-first experience that keeps employees engaged and connected day to day, whereas Staffbase excels at keeping larger workforces informed and connected across non-centralized channels.
Workvivo uses quote-based pricing tied to employee count and plan tier, with two main packages and several optional modules teams can add based on scope.
Includes everything in the Business plan, plus:
G2: (4.8/5) – Based on 2,573 reviews
Capterra: (4.7/5) – Based on 134 reviews
Gartner: (4.7/5) – Based on 127 reviews
Simpplr is an intranet-centered employee experience platform built for organizations that need structured knowledge management with strong governance controls. It's typically chosen by mid-market and enterprise teams managing large amounts of content across many systems, where employees need reliable ways to find the right policy, process, or answer when they need it.
Teams use Simpplr as a digital work hub where employees catch up on targeted updates, navigate to essential systems, and search for information they need to do their job. Communications teams run newsletters and campaigns across web, mobile, and email, then use engagement signals to understand what's landing and what's getting missed. Listening tools fit into the same platform, so pulse surveys and sentiment tracking don't require a separate system.
As part of that intranet focus, Simpplr uses AI to make discovery and support quicker. Search respects permissions and links back to the original source, so employees can trust where answers are coming from. The AI assistant can also guide common HR and IT needs—like checking PTO balances or starting an IT ticket—so employees get a clear next step without hopping between systems. This works best when the underlying content is kept current, since the AI depends on those source materials, so it takes more deliberate library ownership.
Simpplr includes engagement features like recognition, rewards, and surveys, but the operating model leans more toward structure than social interaction. It works best when employees come to the intranet because they need something specific, not because they're checking a feed for updates or participating in an ongoing conversation.
When employees need to pull information from managed internal resources quickly and with confidence, Simpplr is the stronger fit, while Staffbase prioritizes delivering essential updates across channels with a secondary intranet experience that fills in the gaps between official messages.
Simpplr doesn’t publicly list its pricing. You must request a quote from them directly.
G2: (4.6/5) – Based on 357 reviews
Capterra: (4.8/5) – Based on 112 reviews
Gartner: (4.6/5) – Based on 94 reviews
Unily is built for organizations that want their intranet to function as the starting point for work. It’s most common in large enterprises (often 1,000+ employees) where content, tools, and ownership are spread across regions and business units, and the experience needs strong governance to stay usable. That level of control supports consistency and scale, but it also requires added ongoing effort to maintain.
Day to day, employees use Unily as a personalized intranet homepage that’s organized around who they are and how they work. When they sign in, they see a role- and location-aware landing page with key updates, links to the tools they use most, and navigation into relevant sites and resources. A regional employee might see local announcements and HR policies first, while a manager lands on team resources, approvals, and systems they access regularly.
In Microsoft 365 environments, Unily often sits on top of SharePoint, bringing documents, pages, and tools into a curated dashboard so employees don’t have to remember where something lives or jump between systems to get started.
Teams also rely on Unily to run structured internal programs. Campaigns and Employee Journeys are commonly used for onboarding new hires, rolling out policy changes, or guiding employees through change initiatives, with steps delivered through intranet content, email, and mobile notifications. Analytics then shows where engagement drops or which audiences are missing information, so teams can adjust the experience instead of starting over.
As an enterprise tool, Unily’s main tradeoff is configuration and maintenance costs. To work well at this scale, Unily needs dedicated intranet ownership. Teams spend time defining information architecture, managing site models, coordinating integrations, and setting rules for distributed authors. That work continues as the organization changes, which can increase ongoing cost and effort compared to lighter platforms.
While Staffbase focuses on pushing updates to employees wherever they are, Unily assumes employees start their day in a structured intranet. One prioritizes delivery across channels; the other prioritizes orientation through a personalized home base.
Unily is sold through a quote-based model that’s structured around modular packages. Organizations assemble the platform based on how broadly they plan to deploy it and how much configuration and automation they need to support their intranet strategy.
Additional add-ons can be layered in as needed, including branded mobile apps, embedded chat experiences, higher-touch support tiers, expanded identity and tenant connectors, and advanced security or compliance controls.
G2: (4.5/5) – Based on 32 reviews
Capterra: (4.6/5) – Based on 23 reviews
Gartner: (4.4/5) – Based on 3 reviews
Microsoft Viva is a suite of employee experience apps designed to live inside Microsoft 365, especially Teams. It’s a good fit when the priority is meeting employees where they already work, using the same identity, security, and admin model IT is already managing, rather than rolling out a separate employee hub.
With Viva Connections, employees land on a curated home experience that points them to company news, key resources, and the places they’re expected to go for work. The content they see can be tailored by role or location, so a frontline employee might land on shift resources and local updates, while a manager sees links to reports, approvals, and team guidance. For many organizations, Connections replaces a traditional intranet homepage by bringing that entry point directly into Teams.
When communications teams need more structured delivery, Amplify supports campaign-style publishing across Teams and Outlook, allowing announcements like benefits changes or policy updates to be planned, distributed, and measured within the same Microsoft environment. Engagement then layers in through Engage, where communities, leadership posts, and Q&A live outside of email threads.
Learning and development often comes in through Viva Learning, which pulls training into Teams so employees can discover and complete learning without switching tools. On the listening side, Pulse supports quick check-ins, and Glint supports deeper surveys, while Insights adds analytics that help leaders and managers understand patterns at scale.
The tradeoff is that Viva isn’t a single, unified interface—it’s a collection of experiences that depend heavily on how well the underlying Microsoft foundations are set up. Connections is only as effective as the SharePoint structure behind it, which means teams need to actively manage site architecture, permissions, navigation, and content ownership to keep information accurate and easy to find. Engage also works best with active moderation and clear guidelines around what belongs in each community, so conversation stays useful rather than noisy.
The choice between Microsoft Viva and Staffbase often depends on where you expect employees to engage—Viva centers communication and engagement inside Teams and Microsoft 365, while Staffbase focuses on coordinating and measuring updates across channels so messages reach employees regardless of where they start their day.
Viva is sold as per-user licenses (annual commitment, paid yearly) on top of Microsoft 365, with bundles that package related apps.
Individual app licensing is also available for select modules (such as Viva Learning, Insights, or Glint) when needed. Pricing varies.
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
Blink is a mobile-first employee app built for distributed workforces where adoption hinges on speed and convenience. Teams usually choose it when they need a mobile place where employees can access updates, basic resources, and coworker messaging, even if many employees don’t have a corporate email.
Communication in Blink is designed around clear priorities. Routine updates live in the feed, but when a message requires attention or confirmation—such as a safety instruction, operational change, or required policy read—teams can flag it for acknowledgement so employees can’t simply scroll past it. That gives managers confidence that critical information was seen, without relying on follow-up emails or supervisors relaying messages secondhand.
Blink stands out with how much it leans into access, not just communication. Instead of asking frontline employees to remember five logins, Blink is often rolled out as the place they tap first to get into the systems they already need—scheduling, HR, payslips, training, and internal tools—using its SSO and app access layer. For many orgs, that’s what drives adoption: Blink doesn’t replace the stack so much as make the stack usable in a shift-based environment.
Engagement supports that habit rather than competing with it. Secure chat and calling help teams coordinate quickly without falling back to consumer messaging apps. Meanwhile, recognition, communities, surveys, forms, and Journeys give managers practical ways to onboard new hires, collect inputs like incident reports, or run simple check-ins without chasing paper forms or email threads.
Where Blink may fall short is when teams expect intranet depth. Blink’s Hub and pages work well for straightforward policies and guides, but organizations that need a highly structured CMS, complex permissions, or long-term knowledge governance may find the model limiting and should expect more work to keep content organized as it grows.
Blink is strongest as a single mobile destination that improves frontline adoption by combining updates, messaging, and one-tap access to everyday tools. Staffbase is better suited for organizations that need to plan, coordinate, and measure communication across multiple channels, rather than supporting everyday work inside the app itself.
Blink has a published Business tier priced per user, plus a Custom tier sold via quote for larger or more complex rollouts. Most core employee-app functionality is included in both tiers, with the Custom tier adding deeper admin/integration options.
G2: (4.7/5) – Based on 257 reviews
Capterra: (4.7/5) – Based on 127 reviews
Gartner: (4.8/5) – Based on 48 reviews
Staffbase is a common choice when the primary goal is large-scale employee communications. It’s built for teams that need to plan, distribute, and measure messages across channels with consistency and control.
Teams start exploring alternatives when communication needs to do more than reach people. They want a place employees return to for answers, alignment, and connection—without running a complex intranet or social platform.
That’s where the alternatives differ. Workvivo emphasizes social, mobile-first engagement. Simpplr and Unily focus on intranet-led experiences with varying levels of governance and complexity. Microsoft Viva works best for organizations committed to Microsoft 365 and Teams. Blink is designed for frontline teams that need a simple mobile app and fast access to tools.
Jostle takes a more balanced approach. It gives you a clear home for official updates, everyday recognition, and essential resources, without blurring what’s required and what’s social. Important messages stay visible and trackable, resources stay current, and employees know where to look when they need something.
If you’re considering Staffbase but want a hub employees will actually use day to day, Jostle is the top alternative.
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