Overleaf is a collaborative writing and publishing system designed to make the process of producing academic papers much quicker for both authors and publishers, from Writelatex Limited in London.
Overleaf is great for writing scientific and research documents, especially when there is a lot of technical detail and mathematics involved. It shines when using complicated formats such as double column, or changing font sizes and still maintaining professional looking formatting. One of the best features is the collaborative writing with people in your team. You can work on a document together, leave notes and comments for the other person to read, and if you have the paid subscription the version history feature is great. The only time I think Overleaf is not suitable is when the document complexity does not justify it - for a simple document without mathematics and just a few paragraphs, or a rough document which does not need to be shared - a simple Microsoft Word document will be better
It's easy to use for a variety of skill levels. It has most features you could want from an text editor and LaTeX editor. Collaboration is easy for all skill levels including for first time users. The UI is pleasant enough and the website is quick to load. All the packages you need are available.
Alongside Overleaf, we have tried using Microsoft Word and Google Docs to write reports. While they all let you write in the same document at once, Overleaf just works better for us. Microsoft Word locks the paragraph someone else is working on to avoid others messing with it before the original writer is done. However, it is often slow to open those paragraphs up for others to edit. Google Docs is the hardest one of them to make a good layout on, though with the app, it can be good for proofreading on the go.
