Igloo vs Unily: a buyer’s guide for enterprise intranet software and employee experience platforms

TL;DR 

Unily and Igloo are both platforms used to power employee experience and internal communications through a modern intranet, but they differ in how deeply they support enterprise governance, integrations, knowledge management, knowledge access, analytics, and long-term platform evolution.

• Choose Unily if you need an enterprise employee intranet and digital employee experience platform that scales with governance, integrations, search and findability, analytics, and a more intentional desktop-to-mobile experience. If long-term innovation is a priority, ask about Unily Futures, Unily’s AI-native evolution focused on helping intranets scale, adapt, and improve faster. 
• Choose Igloo Software if you want an intranet solution with straightforward publishing, subscription digests, and multilingual support, and your requirements are unlikely to expand significantly in the next 12 to 24 months. If you’re evaluating because of platform change, treat this as a decision point to revalidate roadmap, pricing, and account support. 
• If you’re replacing an existing intranet, ensure you fully evaluate search relevance, directory experience, analytics depth, and content lifecycle workflows, not just homepage design. Include migration readiness in that evaluation, especially content mapping, permission models, and coexistence plans.

Who this guide is for: 

This guide is written for internal comms, EX/HR, IT, and digital workplace teams evaluating intranet software, workplace solutions, and communication tools for enterprises with 1,000 employees or more, especially in Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace environments and for frontline and desk-based workers. 

Key takeaway 

Start with outcomes, then score both platforms against the day-to-day operational realities that drive adoption, including search and navigation, publishing workflows, permission and governance, analytics, and mobile apps. 

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What is Unily

Unily is an enterprise employee experience platform (EXP) that combines intranet software with broader capabilities to support internal communications, employee engagement, and a connected digital workplace. In practice, Unily is often chosen when teams want a more scalable platform approach that can grow with governance needs, integrations, and experience consistency across desktop and mobile. For organizations planning beyond the next rollout, Unily Futures reflects the platform’s AI-native evolution and ongoing focus on helping teams design, govern, and improve experiences faster.

Where Unily can fit well:  

• Complex enterprises with multiple regions, business units, or audiences
• Teams who need deeper governance and content lifecycle management
• Organizations prioritizing findability, measurable comms impact, and reducing context switching across tools

What is Igloo Software

Igloo Software is an intranet and digital workplace platform designed to help organizations centralize internal communications, content, and resources in one workspace. Many teams adopt it as a destination for news, updates, and documentation, with baseline subscription and broadcast options, communication platform messaging, and knowledge sharing to keep employees informed. If you’re navigating the transition to a newly unified Appspace, it’s worth pressure-testing what “business as usual” looks like across product roadmap, commercial terms, and support.

Where Igloo can fit well:

• Teams looking for an intranet foundation with familiar functionality
• Organizations that value bilingual publishing and consumption workflows

If you’re researching “Igloo vs Unily,” you may also be considering other modern intranet vendors such as Simpplr, LumApps, Workvivo, or Axero. The best approach is consistent scoring across your top use cases, rather than chasing feature checklists. If you’re reassessing due to Igloo’s move into a unified Appspace direction, include that broader platform footprint in your evaluation too, especially if digital signage is part of your workplace solutions roadmap. 

How it works: a practical way to choose 

If you’re comparing Igloo vs Unily, avoid feature-by-feature debates until you’ve aligned on outcomes. Here’s a structured approach that works for most enterprise buying teams. 

1) Define the outcomes you need

Pick 3 to 5 outcomes that matter most, for example:

• Better employee communications reach and engagement
• Faster access to knowledge and policies (findability and knowledge management)
• A “front door” that reduces app switching across the digital workplace 
• Stronger governance and content that maintains quality and trust
• A mobile experience that works for frontline workers and hybrid employees  

2) Map your audiences and usage moments

A strong employee intranet is rarely one-size-fits-all. Identify:

• Desk-based vs frontline workers needs 
• Regions, languages, and compliance constraints 
• High-frequency use cases (HR policies, IT support, onboarding, operations updates) 
• Communication patterns (Agile, broadcast, targeted campaigns, opt-in subscriptions) 

3) Run a scripted demo

Use the same scenarios for both vendors. For example:

• Publish a critical update with approvals and targeting 
• Find a policy that hasn’t been updated in a year 
• Find a colleague, filter directory results, and navigate to expertise 
• Track performance and prove reach beyond “sent” 
• Complete the same journey on mobile 

4) Screen the hard parts, not just the homepage

In multiple enterprise evaluations, teams are often happy with the “destination” concept, but get blocked by operational realities like search relevance, directory usability, analytics depth, automation in workflows, or manual content lifecycle work. Evaluations should explicitly test these areas.

If you’re reassessing due to vendor consolidation, add a workstream for migration planning: content mapping, redirects, and a phased rollout that protects employee journeys.

Igloo Software vs Unily: who each platform is best for

When organizations feel their needs are evolving faster than the platform, the intranet becomes a patchwork of workarounds and custom builds. In these scenarios, Unily is often shortlisted as a platform designed to scale with enterprise needs, not just launch quickly. Moments of vendor change can also create a natural review point, since consolidation often brings updated roadmaps, commercial models, and integration patterns.

If you’re a growing enterprise that has crossed 1,000 employees, this is usually when governance, targeting, and measurement starts to matter as much as usability. 

What to test in demos:

• How often key capabilities are updated and improved 
• The level of support and enablement for enterprise operating models
• How easily you can extend the experience without building and maintaining custom fixes 
• Whether the vendor can show a credible evolution program (for Unily, this is reflected in Unily Futures). 

2) Search and directory experience

Search is one of the most common “make or break” factors in intranet adoption - it expands the platform from a comms destination to a trusted knowledge source. In enterprise evaluations, teams frequently call out frustrations when: 

If search and directory are central to your employee experience strategy, Unily is typically considered when teams want more intentional findability, relevance, and a unified experience that reduces “where do I find this” friction across the digital workplace. This aligns with broader market expectations that enterprise-grade platforms should deliver reliable search and discovery across systems, not just within one site.

What to test in demos:

• Find a policy or page that hasn’t been updated in 12 months
• Search for an expert by role, topic, location, team, or skills 
• Evaluate relevance, filters, and how quickly a user gets to the right answer
• The ability for admins to prioritize and target search results

3) Analytics that prove internal comms impact

A recurring theme in enterprise buying conversations is the need for analytics that go beyond “we sent an update.” Teams want to answer:

• Who engaged?
• Which audiences did not see the message?
• Which content drives repeat usage or task completion?
• What should we improve, retire, or re-target? 
• What are employee perceptions across specific campaigns or announcements?

When analytics are limited, comms teams often end up relying on manual reporting, external tools, or assumptions. Unily is typically evaluated when organizations want more actionable intranet analytics to support governance and continuous improvement. 

What to test in demos:

• A campaign report that shows reach and engagement by audience segment.
• Page-level performance with clear actions for content owners 
• Ability for non-technical users to slice and dice results by campaign or groups
• Executive-ready dashboards that connect content to employee outcomes

4) Content lifecycle, governance, and operational efficiency

At enterprise scale, content lifecycle management matters as much as publishing. Teams often struggle when the platform supports only “published vs archived” states, or when review cycles, ownership, and approvals are difficult to manage without manual steps.

This is where platforms designed for enterprise governance tend to stand out. Unily is often considered when governance, compliance, and content quality need to be embedded into how teams work, not bolted on later. In practice, “enterprise-grade” should also mean fine-grained controls, auditable operations, and clear pathways to improve content quality over time.

What to test in demos:

• Review states and reminders for owners
• Approval workflows that match your operating model
• Reporting that identifies stale, duplicate, or underperforming content

5) Integrations and context switching in environments

In many organizations, the intranet is judged on how well it connects the digital workplace. When employees have to jump between disconnected systems, experience suffers, and adoption drops. A deeply integrated intranet adds sustained value for all employees, it's the true digital front door to the employee experience.

Whether your environment is Microsoft or Google-centric, the platform’s ability to work naturally with your tools matters. Information no longer exists in one place: documents, projects, policies, and documentation might exist across M365/Google Workspace, Workday, and ServiceNow. Your people thrive with a single entry point to access this knowledge and for good reason - context switching between collaboration tools, intranet pages and social features is deeply frustrating.

Unily is frequently shortlisted when the goal is a more unified, integrated experience that helps employees navigate across apps and content without feeling like they are moving between separate worlds.

What to test in demos:

• How content and experiences connect to Teams, SharePoint, and other core tools such as Microsoft Teams, ServiceNow, Confluence, Google Workspace, and Workday
• Whether employees can complete common journeys without leaving the intranet
• How the platform supports unified navigation and discovery

6) Mobile experience expectations

Most platforms offer mobile apps, but enterprise teams often differentiate between:

• a true mobile-first experience that supports frontline workers and hybrid workflows
• and a mobile view of desktop content that does not translate well 

If frontline adoption matters, treat mobile as a first-class requirement. Unily is often chosen when mobile experience is part of the employee experience strategy, not an afterthought.

What to test in demos:

• The same task flow on desktop and mobile
• How content is formatted and consumed on mobile
• Whether your mobile experience offers functionality users now expect from an app: biometrics, text t o speech, document viewers, light/dark mode
• Branding and experience consistency across devices

Common features to validate in your evaluation

These are the practical “does it work in the real world?” items that tend to impact adoption. You’ll see many of these terms in analyst checklists (including Gartner-style evaluation frameworks).

• Social networking and community: forums, wikis, news feed, and social media-style interactions that support team collaboration 
• Communication: messaging, real-time alerts, and communication tools for targeted updates 
• Knowledge and content: knowledge access, knowledge sharing, knowledge management, document management, file sharing, and searchable templates
• Experience building blocks: widgets and templates that help teams streamline publishing and standardize pages 
• Work management (if relevant): task management and automation for approvals, reminders, and repeatable workflows 
• Access control: permission models for role-based publishing and audience targeting 
• Ecosystem connections: Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Google Workspace integrations, and whether there’s an API for your broader cloud-based workplace solutions 
• Adjacent workplace solutions: digital signage for screens in offices or operations environments, if that’s part of your communications strategy 
• Commercial considerations: pricing, packaging, and what is included vs add-on in each proposal 
• Change management readiness: how the vendor supports coexistence phases, migration playbooks, and protecting key employee journeys during transition

Pitfalls and misconceptions 

Misconception 1: “Our intranet project ends at launch.”  

In reality, the long-term success comes down to governance, content quality, and measurement.

Misconception 2: “Search is fine as long as it exists.” 

Search quality depends on relevance, metadata, governance, and how content owners maintain it over time.

Misconception 3: “We can solve gaps with custom development.” 

Some customization is normal, but repeated custom fixes can become ongoing maintenance debt. 

Misconception 4: “Mobile is optional..”

If you have frontline workers or distributed employees, mobile experience often determines overall adoption and engagement..

Misconception 5: “All-in-one is always better.”

An all-in-one approach can reduce complexity, but only if it genuinely streamlines your ecosystem and improves employee outcomes without sacrificing flexibility.

Misconception 6: “Vendor change means we should wait.”

Consolidation isn’t inherently bad, but it does introduce decision points. migrate, coexist, or modernize. Use the moment to choose the smartest path for your organization. 

Next steps 

If you’re comparing Igloo vs Unily right now, here are the next best actions to move from opinions to evidence:

1. Create a demo scorecard based on your decision criteria: Use the criteria in this guide to run consistent demos and avoid vendor-led detours. 
2. Run a focused evaluation: Test search relevance, directory usability, analytics depth, content lifecycle workflows, and mobile apps experience with real employees.
3. Define your operating model: Confirm who owns governance, publishing, measurement, and continuous improvement. 
4. Pressure-test commercial fit: Align pricing and packaging to your must-have use cases, including integrations and governance requirements. 
5. If you’re reassessing due to the Igloo to Appspace transition: document your “must not break” journeys, then validate migration options (including coexistence) before you commit to a path.  

If you’d like an extra benchmark, you can request a Unily demo and apply the same scorecard so the session stays comparable and decision-focused.

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