Remote teams are turning to asynchronous standup tools to replace or supplement daily standup meetings. These tools allow them to share updates on their own schedule instead of coordinating a specific meeting time, offering significant benefits for distributed teams across different time zones.
The advantages of async standups are numerous. It accommodates different time zones, reduces meeting fatigue, and keeps a written or video record of updates for better transparency. However, choosing the right tool depends on your team's communication style, size, and specific needs. In this article, we share the top async standup tools that many teams around the world rely on to align and deliver their work.
Why Async Standups Work for Remote Teams
The typical daily standups is challenging for remote teams. Different time zones mean someone is always joining at an inconvenient hour, and the constant context switching from deep work to meetings impacts productivity. Async standups solve these problems while maintaining team alignment and accountability.
The format can be text-based (chat bots) or video-based (recorded clips), and many integrate seamlessly with existing team chat platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams. While text standups are easy to scan but can feel impersonal, video standups add personality but require more effort from participants. Here are some of the tools you can use to conduct daily standups asynchronously.
Related Reading: Replace Your Status Meetings with These Async Tools
Top Async Standup Tools for 2025
1. Geekbot
Best for: Teams already using Slack or Microsoft Teams who want a simple, plug-and-play solution
Geekbot is a widely-used standup bot that facilitates asynchronous check-ins, daily standups, polls, and retrospectives within Slack or Microsoft Teams. Used by over 200,000 users at companies like GitLab, Netflix, and Shopify, it's proven its worth among remote teams.
Type: Text-based chat bot for Slack/MS Teams
Pricing: Free for up to 10 users with full feature access. Paid plans start at ~$3 per user/month with annual discounts.
Why teams love it:
- Extremely easy setup with little to no learning curve
- Time-zone aware scheduling (each team member gets prompted at their local convenient time)
- Excellent Slack/MS Teams integration that feels natural
- Useful analytics dashboard showing participation rates and blockers
- Highly rated at 4.9★ on Capterra with ~150 reviews
Potential drawbacks:
- Pricing can add up for larger teams
- Being text-only, it lacks visual or face-to-face elements
- Success depends on team discipline in writing meaningful updates
2. Standuply
Best for: Teams wanting flexibility with text, audio, or video responses plus additional Agile ceremonies
Standuply markets itself as the "#1 Standup Bot" and digital Scrum Master. Beyond daily standups, it can run retrospectives, polls, and internal Q&A systems, making it a comprehensive Agile tool.
Type: Primarily text-based Slack/Teams bot with optional video/audio responses
Pricing: Free for up to 3 users. Paid plans start at ~$2 per user/month for small teams, scaling with team size.
Why teams love it:
- Supports text, audio, and video responses for flexibility
- Rich template library for standups, retrospectives, and surveys
- Time-zone intelligent scheduling
- Integrations with Jira, Trello, and HubSpot
- Rated 4.7★ on G2
Potential drawbacks:
- Free tier limited to just 3 users
- Text-only usage can feel monotonous without variety
- Some team members may miss live standup spontaneity
3. DailyBot
Best for: Teams using platforms beyond Slack (Teams, Discord, Google Chat) who want team-building features
DailyBot is a modern async standup tool that works across multiple chat platforms. It positions itself as more than just a standup bot, offering mood tracking, kudos between team members, and AI-powered insights on team well-being.
Type: Text-based chat bot supporting Slack, Teams, Discord, Google Chat, and more
Pricing: Free forever for up to 10 users. Paid plans start around $2-3 per user/month for larger teams.
Why teams love it:
- Multi-platform support (not limited to Slack)
- User-friendly interface with minimal learning curve
- Fun extras like mood tracking and virtual high-fives
- Excellent ratings at 4.8★ on Capterra with 100+ reviews
- Strong transparency and accountability features
Potential drawbacks:
- Occasional minor bugs reported (bot unresponsive on some days)
- Editing submitted responses can be confusing
- No built-in video capability
4. Range - The Culture Builder
Best for: Teams wanting structured check-ins that build both accountability and team culture
Range is a comprehensive check-in and team collaboration platform purpose-built for distributed teams. It combines daily updates with team-building elements like mood sharing and icebreaker questions, while integrating with tools like Jira, GitHub, and Trello.
Type: Text-based check-ins via web app with Slack/MS Teams integration
Pricing: Free for up to 12 users (2 teams). Standard plan around $8 per user/month for larger teams.
Why teams love it:
- Structured format encourages thorough, consistent updates
- Team-building questions alongside work updates
- Strong integrations automatically pull in work activity
- Insightful analytics for managers (participation, sentiment, blockers)
- Users report dramatic improvements in team engagement
Potential drawbacks:
- Requires using an external app (though Slack integration helps)
- Some UI elements can be hard to find initially
- Primarily text-based with no native video support
5. Steady
Best for: Engineering teams wanting data-driven standups with comprehensive project visibility
Steady is a lightweight check-in tool that integrates heavily with development and project management tools. It aggregates team member updates with activity from GitHub, Jira, and CI pipelines to produce comprehensive daily reports for stakeholders.
Type: Text-based check-ins with heavy project tool integration
Pricing: No free tier beyond 14-day trial. Pricing starts around $9 per user depending on plan and team size.
Why teams love it:
- Aggregates updates and project data into single daily report
- Strong Slack/MS Teams integration
- Highly configurable questions and scheduling
- Provides comprehensive project context through tool integrations
- Great for proactive management and early issue detection
Potential drawbacks:
- No forever-free option (must pay after trial)
- Value depends heavily on consistent team usage
- Daily reports can be lengthy for large teams
- More utilitarian (lacks fun team-building features)
6. Rally
Best for: Teams already using Jira who want standup discussions directly tied to work items
Rally is a Jira plugin that creates a collaborative space around Jira work items, solving the problem of work conversations getting buried in chat and email threads. What makes Rally unique is that it doesn't just facilitate standups—it contextualizes them within actual work items.
Type: Jira plugin with integrated chat, estimation, and capacity planning
Pricing: Contact for pricing (Jira plugin model)
Why teams love it:
- Native Jira integration - Discussions happen directly on work items
- AI-powered estimation with detailed task breakdowns and experience-level considerations
- Contextual chat with upvoting, resolving, and marking discussions as complete
- AI-generated questions that uncover task blindspots
- Capacity planning with availability tracking and workload analytics
- Automatic agenda creation from Jira work items for both async and real-time meetings
- Smart components including lightweight documentation, diagrams, and AI-powered highlights
- Task discovery - AI surfaces new tasks based on conversations and adds them to Jira with one click
Potential drawbacks:
- Requires Jira (not suitable for teams using other project management tools)
- May have learning curve for teams not familiar with Jira plugins
- Pricing structure not publicly available
Choosing the Right Tool for Your Team
The best async standup tool depends on several factors:
For small teams just starting out: Geekbot or DailyBot offer generous free tiers with easy adoption.
For Agile-focused teams: Standuply provides the most comprehensive ceremony support.
For culture-building: Range and DailyBot excel at team engagement beyond just status updates.
For engineering managers: Status Hero and Rally provide the richest project context and analytics.
For Jira-heavy teams: Rally offers unmatched integration by making standups contextual to actual work items.
Making Async Standups Successful
Regardless of which tool you choose, success with async standups requires:
- Team buy-in - Everyone needs to understand the value and commit to consistent participation
- Clear expectations - Define what constitutes a good update vs. minimal effort
- Regular review - Periodically assess if the format is working and adjust as needed
- Hybrid approach - Consider combining async updates with occasional live discussions for complex topics
Getting Started
Most teams benefit from trying 2-3 tools with their generous free tiers or trials. The common theme from user feedback across all these tools is that asynchronous standups can significantly reduce meeting load and keep teams aligned as long as the tool fits your team's culture and everyone commits to using it consistently.
With the right async standup tool, you can transform daily updates from a scheduling nightmare into a productive, even enjoyable experience that keeps your remote team connected and aligned.
Ready to try async standups? Try Rally for free and see how it transforms your daily rhythm.