17 Alternatives To Slack - PCMag

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17 Alternatives to Slack
Slack may be the buzziest business messaging app, but that doesn't mean it's the right one
for you. This story can can help you sort through the competition to find the best Slack
alternative for your team.
By
Jill Duffy
January 31, 2019
The team messaging app Slack made waves soon after it first launched. It caught on quickly as
one of the best business messaging apps. Plenty of early adopters used it for non-business
purposes, too. Some took to the emoji and animated gifs. Others appreciate the integrations with
hundreds of other apps and rich customization options. As much as some people love Slack, the
app isn't for everyone. Thankfully, there's no shortage of alternatives to Slack.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/17-alternatives-to-slack 1/26
Some have criticized Slack for being too busy, too expensive, or too distracting. Depending on
how it's used, it can also create a horrific signal-to-noise problem, meaning important information
tends to get buried among chatter. While Slack is certainly one of the most capable team
messaging apps on the market, some of those capabilities come from third-party integrations or
bots that you have to create. In other words, you have to build and build upon Slack to get it to
do what you'd like.
Here are our top alternatives to Slack, with details on their relative strengths and weaknesses. For
those among these services that we've reviewed, there are ratings and links to the full reviews. If
you have an opinion about how these services stack up against Slack, or if you think we missed
another competitor, be sure to let us know in the comments.
Brosix
Pricing: Free for individuals; $4 per person per month for Pro; $6 per person per month for
Ultimate
Brosix feels more like a '90s era instant messaging app (think AIM) than a team chat app. If
you care deeply about enhanced privacy, however, it's a great alternative to Slack. The app
lets you and your teammates swap secure messages one-on-one or among a group and
share files in a peer-to-peer network. The app also lets you share your screen. Voice and
video calls are supported, too. Most importantly, Brosix encrypts all messages and takes
other measures to enhance the privacy and security of your communication.
With most team messaging apps like Slack, you create channels that people on your team
explore and decide to join. With Brosix, though, you create groups with specific people and
swap messages and files with them. It's a completely different approach. Brosix has apps
for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone, and the web.
With a Pro account, you can create a private team network and have control over user
accounts on your team. The Ultimate account adds the ability to have multiple
administrators, lets you broadcast messages, provides additional integration options, and
more.
ChatWork
Pricing: Free with limitations (14 group chats, one-on-one video calls only, 5GB storage); $4
per person per month for Personal plan; $5 per person per month for Business plan
ChatWork is a messaging app that combines light work-management features and a team
communication platform. You get all the team messaging features you might expect, such
as channels for group chat, direct messages, video calls, and screen-sharing. On top of
that, Chatwork adds a to-do list via which you can assign tasks to other people on your
team. You also get some a contact management tool, and you can add people and their
information even if they aren't a part of your team's account.
While ChatWork is less expensive than Slack, it doesn't let you customize the app to
anything like the degree that Slack does. Slack has many more options and settings, as
well as integrations with third-party apps. One finer point of distinction is the language
support each of the two apps provides. ChatWork is available in English, Chinese, Spanish,
Thai, and Vietnamese. Slack offers English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish.
Cisco Webex Teams
Pricing: Starting from $14.95 per person per month for a host account (See Cisco's Webex
pricing page for details, as the price includes other services.)
Cisco Webex Teams is a collaborative space where team members communicate and
collaborate. It's designed to be sold as a package with Cisco Webex Meetings, a video
conferencing service. The Teams app offers messaging, file-sharing, video calls, audio calls,
screen-sharing, whiteboarding, and more. It has a good amount of administrator controls
to make sure that only the right people are added to certain discussions.
After a redesign in 2018, the app looks sharp and uncluttered. It also has a section called
Schedule from which you can see what's coming up on your calendar.
Overall, this app isn't as intuitive to use as Slack is, however. Additionally, Cisco Webex
Teams lacks some of the attention to detail that makes Slack shine, like the ability to
control your do-not-disturb hours or post a status message letting people know when
you're unavailable and when you might return. Cisco Webex Team is a fairly well-rounded
team messaging app, and it's worth considering if you also are interested in getting a
Cisco Webex Meetings account.
Discord
Pricing: Free
Originally created as a voice-communication platform for video gamers, Discord has been
co-opted as a team messaging app for other purposes. In Discord, you start with a server,
which can be your team or organization's name. Then, Discord lets you create channels,
just as Slack does, where you and your teammates can chat about anything you like. The
big difference with Discord, however, is that a channel can be for voice chat. It has text
chat and video chat, too, but the audio chat is what makes it unique.
It can take a while to set up and configure a Discord server because it has a ton of settings
and options. By default, servers are open for anyone to join, so if you want to create a
private server on Discord, you'll need to configure all the settings correctly.
Flock
Pricing: Free with limitations (limited search, 10GB storage shared across the team); $6 per
person per month or $54 per person per year
Of all the alternatives to Slack, Flock may be the most similar. Though it has a more sedate
look, it does just about everything Slack does. It lets you integrate with a wide variety of
other apps, from Google Drive to GitHub. It manages to blend productivity features with a
bit of fun by maintaining a good library of emoji and animated gifs. And it hits all the high
notes of team messaging apps: video calls, audio calls, screen-sharing, process automation
(which is not unlike some of the things you can do with a Slack bot), reminders, and so
forth.
Similar as Slack and Flock may be, Flock does have some advantages. For starters, paid
accounts cost less with Flock. Secondly, with a free account, you get twice as much storage.
Finally, Flock comes with a few extra features that Slack doesn't have, such as shared notes
and a shared to-do list, all accessible via Flock's right side toolbar.
That said, it's easy to find some small details that are better in Slack. The left side menu
bar, where you find a list of all your channels and direct messages, is easier to see and
organize in Slack. Plus you can change the color theme of your interface, a minor point
until you're dealing with eye strain and need some fresh tones on your screen.
Because they're similar, Flock's a great app to check out if you like nearly everything about
Slack except its interface and price.
FlowDock
Pricing: Free for five people or fewer; $3 per person per month; $9 per person per month for
enterprise-grade plans
FlowDock is a team chat app that's similar to Slack in a number of ways. It contains
everything you'd expect in a chat app, such as group chat, threaded conversations, direct
messaging, file-sharing, custom emoji, bots, as well as mobile apps for Android and iOS.
While FlowDock does not natively offer video calling, you can get them through an
integration with Appear.in.
FlowDock integrates with other tools, too; in fact, it may be the only other app to come
close to Slack's list of possible integrations. FlowDock connects with a long list of apps, but
seems to offer the greatest number of options in these categories: version control,
performance and data monitoring, and project management. It also has an open API for
creating custom connections.
Slack and FlowDock are also near equals in terms of how you can customize them. One
advantage FlowDock has over Slack is in how it displays threaded messages. In FlowDock,
you can color-code them, and they are laid out in a more orderly way that makes it easier
to read them. Overall, FlowDock is a wonderful option if you're seeking a team messaging
app that's very similar to Slack, only less expensive.
Glip by RingCentral
Pricing: Free with limitations (500 minutes of video calls shared across the team); $5 per
month per person
Glip is a team messaging app made by RingCentral, a VoIP company with deep roots in the
communication and collaboration space. As such, Glip offers more ways for teams to work
together than text-chat and video calls, which is how it primarily differs from Slack.
For example, Glip lets you and your teammates collaborate on documents together, share
to-do lists, and manage a group calendar. You can annotate images and PDFs from within
Glip, too, using included markup tools. It has video calls, as well a digital whiteboard that
you can use collaboratively in real time. Another difference is that Glip has a more
generous free plan than Slack.
Slack has a few advantages over Glip, however. The most significant one is that you can
join multiple Slack accounts and even log into them all from the same Slack window. With
Glip, you're limited to one account per email address.
Google Hangouts Chat and Meet
Pricing: Included with G Suite; expected to be available to all Google users sometime in 2019
If you've used Google to chat with colleagues or friends in the past, don't be misled into
thinking you've experienced Google Hangouts Chat. The latter is a wholly different team
messaging platform originally intended for business customers. But it won't be solely for
business use for long. Sometime in 2019, Google will phase out the Hangouts and replace
it with Hangouts Chat and a second app called Hangouts Meet for video calls.
What makes Google Hangouts Chat different from other messaging apps is that it is tightly
integrated with G Suite. You can upload files from other G Suite apps, such as Docs and
Sheets, to collaborate on them, and see notifications when other people edit or comment
on files that are within your purview. That's all nearly identical to what happens when you
use Slack and integrate it with Google Drive. In Google Hangouts Chat, however, you also
see notifications when someone requests access to one of your files or when someone
shares a file with you.
While Hangouts Meet is technically a separate app, you'll need it for video calls and
screen-sharing, whether one-on-one or with a group. The new Hangouts Meet comes with
a bot that integrates directly with Google Calendar to schedule meetings for you.
Together Google Hangouts Chat and Meet makes a good alternative to Slack, especially if
your team already uses Google products and wants a messaging app that integrates
tightly with them.
Mattermost
Pricing: Free limited version to try; paid accounts starting at $39 per person per year
Mattermost is a self-hosted team messaging app aimed at large enterprises. You can
deploy it in the cloud or on premises. The fact that you self-host it means your
organization has greater control over how the app handles privacy and security.
What separates Mattermost from Slack really comes down to security details. With
Mattermost, you can be sure that your business meets whatever legal requirements it
must. You can also run the messaging platform behind your organization's firewall.
Additionally, when you use Mattermost, you're not dealing with a provider who can see all
kinds of metadata and detail about your usage.
As to feature differences, with Mattermost you can tailor the interface to match your
company's branding and muck around with the code if you want to change the user
interface itself. Mattermost also supports more languages than Slack, with the following
options: Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Dutch, English, French, German,
Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and
Ukrainian. Mattermost is an alternative to Slack if your organization is large enough to
warrant a self-hosted team messaging app.
Mattermost
Microsoft Teams
Pricing: Free with 2GB of storage per person and 10GB shared, and other limitations;
starting from $6 per person per month as included with Microsoft Office
Microsoft Teams is Microsoft's take on team chat software, and it comes included with
most Microsoft Office business grade subscriptions. The app uses a layout similar to
Slack's, with a rail on the left for navigating conversations and seeing how many messages
you missed. But it adds horizontal navigation at along the top of the window where you
can tab to other work-related information, such as files your team is working on, group
wikis, and so forth.
As expected, Teams and other Microsoft Office apps work together well. For example,
there's a section called Meetings, where you can see upcoming events on your Outlook
Calendar or schedule a meeting on the spot. Integration with OneDrive is also tight, letting
you access files easily and discuss them with others. Audio and video calling, as well as
screen-sharing, are powered by Skype for Business.
Microsoft Teams has some handy convenience features, such as the ability to give a private
group chat a name that's more descriptive than simply a list of all the people in it. But it
misses other conveniences that Slack gets right. Status messages in Slack, can be whatever
you want. You can type in them freeform and even add emoji. Microsoft Teams, however,
only has more traditional options: available, busy, away, and do not disturb. Still, Teams is a
good alternative to Slack if you already have a Microsoft Office subscription, want a
messaging app that's tightly knit with other Microsoft products, and are paying for it
anyway.
Riot.im
Pricing: Free (as of this writing), with plans in development for paid, hosted accounts
Riot.im, formerly Vector, is an open-source team chat app that lets you message with
people who use other team chat apps. Say, for example, you want to include your PR
representatives in a discussion, but they work at an agency that uses Slack. With Riot.im,
they can stay on Slack and you can build a bridge that essentially patches them into your
conversation on Riot.im. You can bridge people in from Slack, Gitter, IRC, Twitter, and SMS.
Because Riot.im is open-source, you have the option to host it on your own servers if you
like. In terms of features, you'll find good options for notification settings, such as the
ability to mute any conversation, or only get notified when someone uses an @ before
your name. On the whole, Slack has more features, integrations, and options. But Riot.im is
an alternative to Slack worth considering if being able to bridge people in from other apps
and services is important to you.
Ryver
Pricing: $49 per month for up to 12 people; $99 per month for unlimited team members;
enterprise-grade plans starting at $399 per month
Ryver positions itself as a collaboration and communication app that provides the same
capabilities as Slack and Trello combined. In other words, it's both a team messaging app
and a task-management app. The idea is to assign, schedule, organize, track, and discuss
tasks in the same place (which I'm sure Trello fanatics will tell you is already possible in
Trello alone, but this is the idea).
As a team messaging platform, Ryver covers all the bases, offering group chat, threaded
messages, direct messaging, video calls, audio calls, screen-sharing, and so forth. You get
unlimited storage with any plan. As a team task-management app, you can turn any
message into an item on a to-do list and assign it to yourself or another person. Ryver
initially launched as a free team messaging platform, but it now charges based a flat
monthly fee based on how many people are in the account.
SpiderOak Semaphor
Pricing: Free for five people; $10 per person per month thereafter
SpiderOak Semaphor is a group messaging app focused on security and privacy. The
company that makes the app, SpiderOak, is better known for its security-focused online
backup services. So it may come as no surprise that Semaphor uses end-to-end encryption
and private blockchain technology to protect your team's conversations.
In its design, Semphor takes a mobile-first approach. Compared with Slack, its Android app
and iPhone app are more streamlined and easier to navigate. But Slack has the upper hand
in terms of offering more features, such as voice and video calls (which Semaphor doesn't
have), and customization options.
Symphony
Pricing: Symphony offers an Essential membership for free; a Business account for $240 per
person per year; and an Enterprise account with custom pricing
Symphony is a team messaging app for people who work in finance. It connects you to
colleagues who are both in your organization and outside of it. You can chat with them in
channel-style messaging boards, or privately either one on one or in groups, just as you
can on Slack. Like Slack, Symphony also supports video calls.
But Symphony is built specifically for the financial industry. Its privacy and security setup
comply with laws that apply to banks and other financial institutions. It also has modules
you can add to stream in stock prices and other relevant news and information.
There's no reason anyone outside the financial industry would choose to use Symphony.
But if you're in that sector, it's an option.
Twist
Pricing: Free with limitations (5 integrations, 5GB of storage, limited search); $6 per person
per month or $60 per person per year
Twist was created by a group of people who work remotely across several time zones. They
felt that Slack and other chat apps were designed for instant communication but didn't
handle asynchronous messaging very well.
Three key differences between Twist and Slack are that Twist: 1) looks less busy, 2)
organizes messages better, and 3) integrates easily with Todoist, a task-management app
made by the same company. Twist gives you an inbox where it collects all the messages
you've missed while you've been offline. It lays them out in threads so that you can see a
preview of each one before opening it, similar to the design of an email app. Additionally,
each message thread has a unique URL, which you can add to task assignments in Todoist.
If the main reason you need a team chat app is for fast, real-time communication, then
Twist probably isn't right for you. But it's good for teams who are spread over many time
zones.
Wrinkl
Pricing: $5 per person per month or $36 per person per year
Wrinkl takes the idea of team chat and tries to make it more productive. For example, you
can easily turn any message into a task on an included to-do list.
Wrinkl has a few tools and features that Slack doesn't have. These tools are designed to
steer conversations back to the point of getting work done. One is the ability to email an
outside contact from within the chat app and receive a reply right in the same channel.
Another is called 1:1 sidebar. Here, you can have a private thread with one other person off
to the side of a larger conversation. So instead of jumping between direct messages and a
channel, you can talk to someone privately while still tracking the primary discussion. Third,
Wrinkl lets you bundle messages into conversations, meaning you collect several messages
together, give them a name, and share the final product or save it for future reference.
Slack does have some advantages over Wrinkl, however. With Slack, you can pin important
messages to a channel, giving them greater visibility. Slack also lets you snooze
notifications for a set time period, which you can't do in Wrinkl. With Wrinkl, you can set
your activity status to away or do not disturb, but you can't customize it with text or emoji
the way you can in Slack.
Zoho Cliq
Pricing: Free with limitations (channels capped at 100 people, 100GB of shared storage);
$1-$3 per month per person
Zoho Cliq is a team-chat app from Zoho, a company that specializes in making
inexpensive, cloud-based business software. Like Slack, Cliq offers group video calls as well
as screen sharing, mobile apps, and everything else you expect from a team messaging
app. One key reason to choose Zoho Cliq as your team chat app is if you already use other
Zoho apps, such as Zoho CRM or Zoho Invoice.
Cliq differs from Slack in three key ways: 1) Cliq costs less, 2) it integrates effortlessly with
other Zoho apps, and 3) it has a completely different look. Cliq lays out your chats and
direct messages in a column-style view. That way, you can see more than one conversation
at once, which means you don't have to flip back and forth among channels. Compared
with Slack, Cliq has fewer native integration options and fewer emoji in the off-the-shelf
package. But it's a strong choice for organizations already using Zoho apps or looking to
keep costs low.
Go Beyond Team Chat
Choosing the right team chat app is important, but messaging is only one part of the
larger productivity picture. Check out our roundup of the best productivity apps across
other categories, such as collaboration, social media, and workflows.
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tips on how to lead a better digital life.
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