Best Gather Alternative in 2026: Why Teams Are Switching to Remotly

Why People Love Gather

Let's give credit where it's due. Gather built something genuinely innovative — a 2D pixel-art virtual world where remote teams work together as avatars. You walk around a customizable office, bump into colleagues, and strike up spontaneous conversations just by moving your avatar nearby.

The charm is real. Gather's retro aesthetic feels fun and approachable. Customizing your office with plants, desks, whiteboards, and game rooms gives teams a sense of ownership over their virtual space. The spatial audio — where sound fades in and out based on avatar proximity — creates natural conversation dynamics that feel closer to a real office than any traditional video call.

For many teams, Gather was their first experience with a virtual office platform. It proved that remote work didn't have to feel cold and transactional.

Why People Leave Gather

Despite its strengths, Gather has real limitations that become increasingly apparent as teams grow and mature in their remote work practices.

The Price Adds Up Fast

Gather is free for up to 10 users — which is great for tiny teams. But the moment you add user number 11, everyone is on the paid plan at $7 per user per month. A 20-person team pays $140/month. A 50-person team pays $350/month. And that's just for the virtual office layer — you still need to pay for all the other tools Gather doesn't include.

No Built-In Productivity Tools

Gather is a virtual office — not a virtual workplace. It handles presence and spatial communication beautifully, but it doesn't include:

• Team chat (you still need Slack or Teams)
• Project management (you still need Asana, Jira, or Monday)
• Time tracking (you still need Toggl, Harvest, or Clockify)
• Analytics (you still need to piece together data from multiple tools)

This means Gather adds to your tool count rather than reducing it. Your team still juggles 5-6 different apps throughout the day.

No Arabic or RTL Support

For teams in the Middle East, North Africa, or any organization serving Arabic-speaking markets, Gather's lack of RTL support is a dealbreaker. The interface, chat, and all text elements are left-to-right only.

The Novelty Wears Off

The pixel-art aesthetic that feels delightful in week one can start feeling gimmicky by month three. When the fun factor fades, what remains is a virtual office platform that costs money and doesn't include productivity tools — which is a harder value proposition to justify.

Introducing Remotly: The All-in-One Alternative

Remotly was built to address the specific gaps that Gather (and similar platforms) leave open. Instead of being just a virtual office, Remotly is a complete virtual workplace that combines presence, communication, and productivity into a single platform.

What Remotly Includes That Gather Doesn't

## 5 Reasons Teams Are Switching from Gather to Remotly

1. Free Pricing That Stays Free

Remotly is completely free during early access. No user limits, no feature gates, no credit card required. For a 20-person team, switching from Gather to Remotly saves $140/month on the virtual office alone — and potentially $500+/month when you factor in the productivity tools Remotly includes that Gather doesn't.

This isn't a bait-and-switch free tier that expires or gets crippled after a trial period. Every feature is available to every team at no cost.

2. All-in-One Means Fewer Tabs and Less Context-Switching

The average remote worker switches between apps 1,200 times per day, according to recent studies. Each switch costs 20-30 seconds of refocusing time. That adds up to hours of lost productivity every week.

With Remotly, your team opens one tab in the morning. Chat, projects, time tracking, video calls, and the virtual office floor are all right there. No more toggling between Gather, Slack, Asana, and Toggl. Everything lives in one place.

3. Arabic and RTL Support

Remotly is one of the only virtual office platforms with full Arabic language support and right-to-left layout. If your team includes Arabic speakers — or if you serve clients in the MENA region — this isn't a nice-to-have, it's essential.

The entire interface mirrors for RTL languages: navigation, chat, project boards, and settings all render correctly in Arabic.

4. No Downloads, No Plugins, No Friction

Both Remotly and Gather run in the browser, but Remotly takes simplicity a step further with a 60-second setup process. Enter your company name, invite your team, and your virtual office is live. There's no map editor to configure, no tiles to arrange, no avatar to customize before you can start working.

For teams that want to get up and running immediately rather than spending an afternoon designing a pixel-art office, Remotly's streamlined approach is a significant advantage.

5. Built for Work, Not Just Vibes

Gather excels at creating a fun atmosphere. Remotly excels at helping teams get work done. The Kanban project boards, time tracking, and analytics dashboard are genuine productivity tools — not afterthoughts. Teams can manage their entire workflow without leaving the platform.

This doesn't mean Remotly is boring. The virtual office floor creates a real sense of presence and togetherness. The knock feature adds a human touch to communication. But the focus is on productivity first, with culture-building as a natural byproduct of working together in a shared space.

How to Switch from Gather to Remotly in 5 Minutes

Migrating your team from Gather to Remotly is straightforward. Here's the step-by-step process:

Step 1: Create Your Remotly Office (60 seconds)

Go to Remotly onboarding and create your workspace. Enter your company name and your email. That's it — your virtual office is ready.

Step 2: Set Up Your Rooms (2 minutes)

Create rooms that match your team's structure. Common setups include:

• A main floor for general presence
• Team-specific rooms (Engineering, Design, Marketing)
• A meeting room for scheduled calls
• A break room for casual conversation

Step 3: Invite Your Team (1 minute)

Send email invitations to your team members. They'll receive a link, click it, and land directly in your virtual office. No account creation friction, no avatar customization requirements.

Step 4: Set Up Project Boards (1 minute)

Create Kanban boards for your active projects. If you're coming from Asana or Trello, the column structure will feel familiar: To Do, In Progress, Review, Done.

Step 5: Start Working

Your team is now in Remotly with everything they need: a virtual office for presence, chat for communication, project boards for task management, and time tracking for productivity insights. The switch is complete.

What About Historical Data?

If your team has been using Gather alongside Slack and Asana, your historical data stays in those platforms. You can keep read-only access to your old tools during the transition period. Going forward, all new communication, projects, and time entries happen in Remotly.

Making the Decision

Gather pioneered the virtual office category and deserves recognition for that. If the gamified 2D aesthetic is genuinely important to your team's culture and you're happy paying for it alongside a separate tool stack, Gather remains a viable option.

But for teams who want to simplify their remote work setup, reduce costs, and get more done in fewer tabs, Remotly is the better choice in 2026. It does everything Gather does — presence, communication, spontaneous interaction — and adds the productivity layer that Gather has never offered.

The best part? You can try it in 60 seconds without spending a dollar.

Create your free Remotly office now