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Intranet software
Intranet software that reaches the half of your workforce the old one missed
A branded web frontdoor, native mobile apps and email in one platform, so news, documents and policies reach the shop floor and head office at the same time.
AOK and Wernsing Food Group run theirs on tchop. Most clients go live in 8 to 12 weeks.
Who the old intranet reached
Head office
Browser, company laptop, work email
Shift workers
No desk, no company email
Field and delivery teams
On the road, phone only
Shop floor
Shared PC in the break room, at best
Built for regulated, distributed employers
What is intranet software?
Intranet software is a private, internal platform where employees find company news, documents, policies and the people and tools they need to do their work. Modern intranet software adds mobile access, search, permissions and two-way conversation, so it works as a daily frontdoor rather than a document archive people visit twice a year.
The category has split. Classic intranet software was a desk-bound website: a homepage, a document library, a search box. That model assumed everyone had a company laptop and a company email address. In manufacturing, healthcare, logistics and retail, that assumption stopped being true a long time ago. Employee intranet software now has to reach people on the device they actually carry. tchop is built around that constraint rather than retrofitted to it.
Why traditional intranets reach only half the workforce
A traditional intranet is a website employees have to remember to visit, usually behind a company login on a company device. Anyone without a desk, a laptop or a corporate email address is structurally excluded. The content can be excellent and still reach nobody on a night shift, a delivery route or a factory floor.
This is the failure mode behind most intranet replacement projects. The intranet is not broken in the technical sense. It works exactly as designed, for the population it was designed for. The problem is that the population changed and the software did not.
Comms teams notice it as a measurement gap first: reach numbers that look fine against desk-based staff and collapse against headcount. Wernsing Food Group, a food manufacturer, uses tchop to close exactly that gap between headquarters and the plant floor.
Intranet software vs an employee app: which one do you need?
They solve different halves of the same problem. An intranet is a place people go to find things. An employee app is a channel that pushes things to people. A modern intranet needs both: a frontdoor for documents, policies and search, and a mobile channel that delivers time-sensitive news to phones. Buying only one leaves a gap.
Most vendors sit clearly on one side. Classic intranet software gives you structure, search and governance, then bolts on a weak mobile view. Pure employee apps give you push notifications and a good phone experience, then leave you without a place to keep the handbook, the shift plan or the policy archive.
| Job to be done | Classic intranet | Employee app | tchop |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reaches staff with no company email | No | Yes | Yes |
| Home for documents and policies | Yes | Limited | Yes |
| Push notification for urgent news | No | Yes | Yes |
| One set of content and permissions | Web only | App only | Web, app and email |
| Carries your brand in the app stores | Not applicable | Varies | Yes, white-label |
| Two-way comments and reactions | Rare | Varies | Yes |
tchop runs both on one platform. The branded web app behaves as a frontdoor intranet for desk-based staff. The native iOS and Android apps carry the same content to everyone else, with push notifications for anything urgent. Email covers formal or opt-in messages. One system, one set of permissions, one place where a document, an announcement and the conversation about it all live together.
If the mobile side is the whole of your problem, the employee app page covers that angle directly. If your remit is broader than communication, the employee experience platform view shows the same frontdoor as a daily home for information and participation.
Replacing a SharePoint intranet: what migration actually involves
Replacing a SharePoint intranet is mostly a content and governance exercise, not a technical one. The work is deciding what still matters, who owns it, and who should see it. Most of what sits in an ageing intranet is out of date and does not move. Expect to migrate a fraction of it, not all of it.
A workable sequence looks like this. Audit what people actually open, which is usually a much shorter list than the site map suggests. Decide what is reference material, what is news, and what is a workflow that belongs in another system entirely. Rebuild the reference material with clear ownership and a review date. Move news and announcements to a channel that can push, because that content was never suited to a page people had to visit.
SharePoint tends to stay in the picture for file storage and Microsoft 365 workflows, and that is fine. The part being replaced is the communication and frontdoor layer, the bit that was supposed to reach everyone and only ever reached the desks. tchop is a no-code, fully managed setup, so the project stays with the comms and HR owners rather than turning into a year-long IT programme.
Cloud intranet software and where your data lives
Cloud intranet software removes the server, the upgrade cycle and the patching from your side of the line. For European employers the question that follows is jurisdiction, not uptime. tchop is GDPR compliant and secure by design, with the option for EU-sovereign hosting so data stays in the EU under European law.
For regulated sectors this is a gating requirement rather than a feature comparison. When a works council or a data protection officer reviews an intranet, hosting location, role-based permissions and access control are the first questions asked, and an answer of "our vendor is working on it" ends the evaluation. AOK, one of Germany's largest health insurers, runs its internal communication on tchop.
Enterprise intranet software: SSO, roles and permissions
Enterprise intranet software has to answer to IT as well as to comms. tchop supports single sign-on, role-based permissions and granular access control, so a site manager, a works council member and a head-office editor each see and publish what they should. Departments and locations can run their own spaces inside one platform.
Scale in an intranet is rarely about user count. It is about how many distinct audiences one system can serve without turning into a permissions maze. A company intranet that cannot separate a plant from head office, or a country from a region, ends up either over-sharing or under-communicating. Structure it once and the same platform serves a single site or a distributed group.
What to look for in intranet software
The shortlist is shorter than most vendor comparison tables suggest. Check reach before features: whether it gets to staff with no company email or laptop. Then check whether it is genuinely one system rather than a web tool with a companion app. Then check hosting and permissions. Then check how long a launch takes.
- Reach
Does it reach people with no corporate email address, on their own phones, without a VPN?
- One system, not two
Are the web frontdoor and the mobile app the same platform, with one set of content and permissions?
- Branding
Do the apps carry your name and design in the app stores, or the vendor's?
- Hosting and compliance
GDPR, EU-sovereign hosting if you need it, SSO, role-based permissions.
- Two-way, not broadcast
Can employees comment and react, and can you see what actually landed?
- Time to launch
Weeks with a managed setup, or a year-long IT project?
- What you keep
Does it sit alongside Microsoft 365 for files, rather than demanding you move everything?
Comparing named vendors? The Staffbase alternative page covers that category directly, and the internal communication platform page covers the comms-team workflow in more depth.
White-label: your intranet, your brand
tchop is fully white-label. The web frontdoor and the native apps carry your name, logo, colours and design, including in the app stores. Employees see their own organisation, not a vendor. For an intranet this matters more than it sounds, because adoption depends on whether the channel reads as official.
An intranet that looks like a generic vendor product gets treated like one. The branding is not decoration. It is the difference between a channel people accept as the company's own and one they ignore.
Launch in 8 to 12 weeks, not a year-long IT project
Most tchop clients go live in 8 to 12 weeks. Setup is no-code and fully managed, so an intranet replacement does not become a multi-quarter IT programme or an agency build. Launching a branded intranet and employee app this way is roughly 10x faster and cheaper than commissioning custom development.
Intranet projects have a reputation for running long and landing badly, and it is usually earned. The scope grows, the launch slips, and the thing that ships still misses the people it was meant to serve. Shipping the frontdoor, the apps and the email channel as a managed platform keeps your team on content and rollout instead of technical delivery.
Intranet software FAQs
What is intranet software?
Intranet software is a private internal platform where employees find company news, documents, policies and key resources. Modern intranet software adds mobile access, search, role-based permissions and two-way conversation, so it works as a daily frontdoor rather than a document archive people rarely open.
What should replace our old SharePoint intranet?
Replace the communication and frontdoor layer, not necessarily the file storage. SharePoint can keep handling documents and Microsoft 365 workflows while a platform like tchop takes over news, announcements and mobile reach, so information gets to staff without a desk or a company email address.
Is an employee app the same as an intranet?
No. An intranet is a place people go to find things. An employee app pushes things to people. A modern intranet needs both: a web frontdoor for documents and search, and a mobile channel with push notifications for time-sensitive news. tchop runs both on one platform.
How do you migrate from SharePoint to a modern intranet?
Audit what employees actually open, which is usually far less than the site map suggests. Separate reference material from news and from workflows. Rebuild the reference material with clear owners and review dates. Move announcements to a channel that can push to phones.
What is the best intranet software for a deskless workforce?
The one that reaches people without a corporate email address or laptop. That means branded native apps with push notifications on employees' own phones, the same content and permissions as the web frontdoor, and no VPN requirement. tchop is built around that constraint.
Is cloud intranet software GDPR compliant, and can data stay in the EU?
tchop is GDPR compliant and secure by design, with the option for EU-sovereign hosting that keeps data in the EU under European law. It supports SSO, roles and granular permissions, which is what works councils and data protection officers ask about first.
How long does it take to implement intranet software?
Most tchop clients go live in 8 to 12 weeks. Setup is no-code and fully managed, so there is no long IT project or agency build. That is roughly 10x faster and cheaper than commissioning a custom intranet build.
How much does intranet software cost?
Enterprise plans usually combine a one-time setup fee, a monthly platform licence and a per-user rate. The variables are workforce size and scope. tchop shares pricing on request rather than publishing a fixed list.
See it with your own branding
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