What "real" RTL support means
When an Arabic speaker opens an English-built app and switches to Arabic, the bare minimum should be:
- The entire layout flips: navigation moves from left to right
- Icons and arrows reverse direction (chevrons, send arrows, undo/redo)
- Text aligns right by default
- Numbers display correctly (the spec is more subtle than it sounds — Arabic-Indic vs. Western digits)
- Dates flow right-to-left in date pickers
- Animations move in the natural reading direction
- Tooltips and dropdowns open in the right place
- Forms validate against the right field on the right side
- Even the loading spinner rotates the correct direction (yes, really)
"Arabic landing page only" doesn't count. A translated marketing site with an English-only product underneath is worse than English-only, because it raises false expectations.
How we tested
We took a 4-person Arabic-speaking team and ran daily work for one week on each platform: Remotly, Gather, Kumospace, Teamflow, and Microsoft Teams. We tracked:
- How many UI elements remained in English after switching language
- How many layout bugs we hit (text overflow, misaligned buttons, broken modals)
- How natural the experience felt to a native Arabic reader
- Whether dates, numbers, and currency formatted correctly
The results
Remotly: Full RTL (10/10)
- Every screen flips properly
- All icons and chevrons reverse
- Date pickers, tooltips, dropdowns, modals — all correct
- Numbers can switch between Arabic-Indic and Western per user preference
- Workweek configurable to Friday-Saturday
- Loading spinners and progress bars rotate naturally
This is the only platform we tested where an Arabic reader can use the entire product without ever seeing English.
Try Remotly in ArabicMicrosoft Teams: Strong RTL (8/10)
- Main UI flips properly
- Some admin and settings screens still feel English-first
- Chat input handles mixed-direction text well
- Calendar dates flow correctly
Solid for most use cases. Some edge cases (third-party apps within Teams, certain admin flows) break direction.
Gather: No Arabic (2/10)
- Marketing site has zero Arabic
- Product UI is English-only
- You can type Arabic into chat but the surrounding UI never flips
Not a real option for Arabic-first teams.
Kumospace: No Arabic (2/10)
- Same as Gather — English-only product
- Arabic typing works inside chat fields, layout never flips
Teamflow: No Arabic (2/10)
- English-only product
- Arabic text input works, layout does not flip
Common RTL failures we saw
Even when a product claims Arabic support, watch for these gotchas:
Mixed-direction sentences break
Type "Run /standup at 9am" in Arabic chat. Half the platforms render that as garbled because they can't handle a Latin command inside an Arabic sentence. The fix is to use Unicode bidirectional algorithm correctly — Remotly and Teams do, others don't.
Phone number formatting
Arabic-Indic numerals (٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩) versus Western (0123456789) versus Eastern Arabic-Indic (۰۱۲۳۴۵۶۷۸۹) — pick the right one and let users override. Most international tools default to Western and never give you the option to switch.
Hijri vs. Gregorian
Saudi government workflows often want Hijri dates. Most products only offer Gregorian. Remotly and a few specialized GCC tools support both.
Currency placement
SAR 500 vs. 500 ر.س — placement and symbol differ. Tools that hardcode "$50.00" everywhere break for Arabic invoicing.
Why this matters more than people realize
In Arabic, reading direction shapes how you process information. When the layout flips wrong, you scan the page in the wrong order. You miss buttons. You read the wrong column of a table first. Over a long workday, the cognitive load compounds.
For a 10-person Arabic team using a half-broken RTL tool, we estimate roughly 30-45 minutes per person per week is lost to navigation confusion and re-reading. That's 5-7 hours of team time, every week, gone.
For a team where most of the value comes from collaboration speed, that's enough to justify switching tools.
Recommendations by team type
Pure Arabic team: Remotly. The only platform with no English friction. Bilingual team (Arabic + English): Remotly or Microsoft Teams. Both let users pick their own language. English-primary team that occasionally hosts Arabic guests: Any tool works; you don't need full RTL. Enterprise on Microsoft 365 with mixed languages: Teams is good enough and avoids procurement of a new tool.Further reading
- Best virtual office software for GCC companies
- Virtual office software for Saudi Arabia
- UAE remote-work visa & virtual office guide
Want to feel what proper RTL feels like? Open Remotly in Arabic — free forever, full Arabic, no credit card.