How to collaborate in Adobe After Effects [2026 guide]

Finding the right collaboration tools for your creative team can be a challenge. For Adobe After Effects users, it becomes even more difficult due to the data-heavy nature of digital compositing. 

But doing great video editing work usually requires great collaboration, so finding a way for your team to brainstorm and edit together is a necessary part of seeing a project through. 

Whether you’re new to remote collaboration or you’ve got an experienced remote-work post-production team and are looking for new tools to make the process feel less, well, remote, you’re in luck. There are plenty of tools that are compatible with After Effects and will enable your team to stay in sync from the first asset to the last. 

‍

Does After Effects offer a native collaboration feature?

Adobe After Effects includes a built-in collaboration feature called Adobe Team Projects, available through eligible Creative Cloud plans.

Team Projects allows multiple editors and motion designers to work on the same shared project hosted in Adobe’s cloud infrastructure. Instead of sharing project files manually, collaborators can publish changes to a shared project and pull updates from teammates as work progresses.

Unlike traditional shared project locking systems, Team Projects uses version control and conflict resolution to manage changes across contributors.

Pros and cons of Team Projects

Pros: 

• Integrated directly into After Effects
• Cloud-hosted project sharing (no manual file swapping)
• Version history and conflict resolution tools
• Auto-save and cloud backups reduce risk of lost work
• Works across supported Creative Cloud applications

Cons:

• Not true real-time co-editing (users must publish and sync changes)
• No built-in live audio/video communication tools
• Requires all collaborators to have compatible Creative Cloud subscriptions
• Performance depends on internet connectivity and project complexity
  
  

Team Projects makes it significantly easier for distributed motion teams to share work without duplicating project files. However, it remains a project management and versioning solution—not a live collaboration environment.

It does not include built-in voice, video, or real-time creative review tools. While Adobe’s ecosystem includes integrated review workflows through services like Frame.io, teams that need live feedback, real-time playback, or synchronous brainstorming typically rely on additional collaboration platforms.

We’ve compiled some of our favorite tools that help creative teams collaborate more effectively in After Effects—whether or not you’re using Team Projects.

‍

Tools that can help your team collaborate in After Effects

Tool #1: Evercast

Evercast is a video streaming and communication platform specifically built for creative teams that need to stream professional editing tools while chatting with their team.

It was built by creatives, for creatives, with a design intended to get you as close as possible to the feeling of a live in-studio editing session. 

Now, you can bring in your digital lighting tech, character animator, and director into a virtual studio together and edit live while discussing new ideas and trying out different options. It’s an entirely new virtual collaboration experience. 

Pros:

• Ultra-low latency (less than 100ms on average) means that you’ll be able to chat and take notes as close to real-time as possible.
• On-screen annotation and timestamped notes help you keep project notes organized and frame-accurate
• The platform allows for simultaneous video chatting, text chatting/note-taking, workstation streaming, and screen-sharing, all under one clean interface.
• White-glove customer service available 24/7 to handle any technical issues 
  

Cons:

• Requires some setup time and configuration for editors who want to stream their workstations (this is just a one-time setup).
• A bit more expensive than other tools for small teams, but since you pay by the room and not by the user, it can cut costs for larger teams.

Tool #2: Frame.io

Frame.io is a fantastic platform that you can custom-fit to your workflow to allow you to share, annotate, and manage all of your media throughout a project.

Thanks to their acquisition by Adobe, you can now render your timeline to Frame.io within After Effects, making it easier than ever for everyone to collaborate on projects.

Pros:

• Integrates directly with Premiere Pro
• Comments made on projects in Frame.io will automatically appear as markers in Premiere Pro.
• One-click comment/task clearing
• Version tracking for all video editors
  

Cons:

• While everything can be done inside After Effects, there’s no video chat integration, so you can’t talk face-to-face while you edit.
• You need to upload your project files to make comments and notes, which can take time for more extensive projects.

Tool #3: Wipster

Wipster is a video review and proofing platform that was built to help video streamline their draft review and approval process for both internal collaborators and external clients.

Pros:

• Supports the review and approval of a wide variety of media files such as video, audio, PDF, and images.
• Includes version tracking so you can see how the project has changed over time and which versions are currently in review.
• Includes on-screen annotation and other feedback tools to make it easy for collaborators to make clear notes on the master project.
• People just giving feedback don’t have to download additional software.
  

Cons:

• Not designed for a “live” feedback session. Instead, files are uploaded, and then collaborators make notes as they choose. System memory and local storage could still be limiting.
• Not a lot of storage is included in the free or team accounts. 
• Team accounts are priced by the user, which means costs can add up quickly.
  

Tool #4: Vimeo

Vimeo has recently released a set of collaboration tools designed to allow video creators to collaborate remotely. It includes tons of annotation tools similar to Wipster and Frame.io and has some features unique to its platform, like video notes.

Pros:

• Review features are supported on any device
• Includes unique feedback tools like video notes where collaborators can record themselves giving feedback and get notifications when team members view or comment on their recording.
• All plans include ample storage space (1TB minimum) for larger assets.
  

Cons:

• Not designed for a “live” feedback session. Instead, files are uploaded, and then collaborators make notes as they choose.
• No direct After Effects integration
• Lowest-cost plans have a weekly upload limit of 20 GB, which may not work for larger projects. You don’t want to find yourself back at square one, sharing Dropbox files.

‍