Slack changed workplace communication when it launched back in 2013. Before Slack, teams were drowning in email chains or using clunky instant messengers that felt ancient. Slack made team chat actually enjoyable with its channels, threads, search, and integrations.
But here's the reality: Slack gets stupidly expensive once you grow past 5-10 people. At $7.25-12.50 per person per month, a team of 20 costs you $1,740-3,000 annually. For startups or small businesses watching every dollar, that's brutal. Plus, honestly, the notification overload can wreck focus if your team doesn't set boundaries.
That's why we're seeing more teams explore alternatives. Some want the same features for less money. Others are looking for something simpler that doesn't tempt people to create 47 channels that nobody reads. A few teams need self-hosted options for security or compliance reasons. Whatever your situation, check out team communication tools that might fit your needs better.
Why Look Beyond Slack?
The pricing is the elephant in the room. Slack's per-user pricing made sense when they were competing against enterprise chat systems that charged way more. Now you've got competitors like Discord offering flat-rate pricing or way cheaper per-user costs. When you're a 15-person team, paying $2,000+ per year for chat starts feeling ridiculous.
Notification fatigue is real with Slack. Every message, every mention, every emoji reaction can ping you. Yeah, you can customize notifications, but most people don't bother learning the settings. The result is constant interruptions that destroy deep work time. Some teams switch to focus-friendly alternatives specifically to reduce this chaos.
The free tier is basically unusable for serious work. You get 90 days of message history, which sounds okay until you need to reference something from three months ago and it's just gone. 10 integrations max feels arbitrary and annoying. Slack clearly wants to force you onto a paid plan, which is fine, but other tools offer more generous free tiers.
Vendor lock-in worries come up with bigger companies. Slack is owned by Salesforce now, which is great for CRM integrations but makes some IT departments nervous. If your company has specific data sovereignty requirements or needs to audit every line of code, Slack's closed-source nature becomes a problem.
The threaded conversations work great when people actually use them correctly. In reality, half your team replies in threads and half replies in the main channel, creating this confusing mess where you're never sure if you've read everything. Some alternatives handle conversation structure differently in ways that click better for certain teams.
Search is powerful but can be overwhelming. Looking for something someone said six months ago about a project? You'll get 40 results and spend 10 minutes clicking through trying to find the right one. Reddit threads from last year are full of people complaining about Slack search being both too powerful and not useful enough at the same time.
What Makes a Good Slack Alternative?
Core chat features are non-negotiable. You need channels, direct messages, file sharing, and search that actually works. These are table stakes. Any tool missing these basics isn't a real alternative, it's just a downgrade.
Pricing models vary wildly and this matters. Per-user pricing (like Slack) works fine for tiny teams but scales horribly. Flat-rate pricing makes way more sense if you're growing. Free tiers with reasonable limits let you test properly before committing. Look at your team's actual size and growth plans before picking.
Migration path from Slack determines if switching is even feasible. Can you export your Slack history and import it? Will your team lose years of conversations? Some alternatives like Mattermost make this relatively painless. Others require starting from scratch, which might actually be fine if your Slack history is mostly noise anyway.
Integrations with your existing tools can be a dealbreaker. If your workflow depends on Slack connecting to GitHub, Jira, your CRM, and six other services, make sure the alternative supports them. That said, take a moment and honestly ask yourself: do you actually use all those integrations, or are they just cluttering your sidebar?
Mobile apps matter more than people think. Your team will use chat on their phones constantly. If the mobile experience is janky or slow, people will hate it and complain. Test the mobile apps thoroughly before switching everyone over.
Self-hosting requirements vary by company. Most small teams are fine with cloud-hosted solutions. Bigger companies or those in regulated industries might need to run everything on their own servers. This requirement immediately narrows your options to open-source alternatives detailed in Slack vs Mattermost comparisons.
Learning curve impacts adoption success. If the new tool is too different from Slack, your team will resist the change and some people will just continue using email or text instead. Look for something that feels familiar enough that onboarding takes hours, not weeks.
Microsoft Teams
Best for Microsoft 365 Users
Microsoft Teams is the obvious Slack alternative if you're already paying for Microsoft 365. It's included with most M365 subscriptions, which means you're already paying for it whether you use it or not.
The pricing advantage is massive for companies in the Microsoft ecosystem. If your team uses Outlook, Word, Excel, SharePoint, and OneDrive, adding Teams costs nothing extra. Meanwhile, you'd be paying separately for Slack on top of those Microsoft licenses. For a 20-person team, this saves thousands annually.
Integration with Microsoft tools is seamless in ways Slack can't match. Schedule a meeting in Teams and it goes straight into Outlook calendars. Share a file and it lives in SharePoint with proper version control. Edit Word docs collaboratively right inside a Teams conversation. If your company is Microsoft-heavy, this tight integration removes a ton of friction.
The interface is, honestly, kind of clunky compared to Slack. Microsoft has improved it over the years but it still feels more corporate and less polished. Navigation takes more clicks. Finding settings requires hunting through menus. It works, but Slack is definitely more enjoyable to use.
Video calls and meetings are way better in Teams than Slack. The video quality is solid, screen sharing works reliably, and meeting recordings integrate with your Microsoft account. Slack's video features feel like an afterthought in comparison. If your team does a lot of video meetings, Teams has a clear edge here.
Threaded conversations work differently than Slack and some people find it confusing. Teams has this concept of posts versus chat messages, which is supposed to help organize discussions but often just creates confusion about where to reply. Your team will need a week or two to adjust to how Teams structures conversations.
The free tier exists but is pretty limited. Small teams can use Teams for free with basic chat, video calling, and file sharing. You won't get the full Microsoft integration without a paid M365 subscription though.
Best for: teams already using Microsoft 365 who want to consolidate tools and stop paying separately for Slack. Also good if video meetings are critical to your workflow.
Microsoft Teams allows you to collaborate with your team with chat, AI and on video.
Discord
Best Free Alternative for Small Teams
Discord started as a gaming chat platform but has become weirdly popular for remote teams, online communities, and creative groups. It's not technically designed for businesses, but a lot of teams use it anyway.
The free tier is insanely generous compared to Slack. Unlimited message history, unlimited integrations, voice channels, video chat, screen sharing. All free. Discord makes money from Nitro subscriptions ($10/month for users who want custom emojis and bigger uploads), not from forcing teams onto paid plans. This makes it perfect for early-stage startups or volunteer-run organizations.
Voice channels are Discord's secret weapon. Instead of scheduling a Zoom call or starting a Slack huddle, you just have a voice channel that people drop into whenever they want to chat. It feels more casual and spontaneous, like working in the same office. For distributed teams, this creates connection that text chat can't match.
The vibe is less corporate than Slack or Teams. Discord has emojis, GIFs, custom reactions, and an overall feel that's more playful. Some teams love this. Others think it's unprofessional and too informal for business communication. You need to know your company culture before picking Discord.
Organization uses servers and channels instead of Slack's workspaces and channels. A server is like a company or community, channels are topics within that server. It's basically the same structure but with different terminology. Your team will adapt in about a day.
Security and compliance are where Discord struggles for business use. It's not built with enterprise security requirements in mind. No SSO, no advanced admin controls, no compliance certifications. If your company needs to pass security audits or has strict data policies, Discord probably won't fly with your IT department.
Integrations exist but are more focused on gaming and entertainment tools. You can connect GitHub, Google Calendar, and other work tools, but the integration ecosystem is smaller than Slack. For simple team chat, this might not matter. For complex workflows that depend on dozens of integrations, it's a limitation.
Best for: startups, creative teams, remote communities, or any group that wants powerful chat and voice features for free without corporate overhead. Check out Slack vs Discord for a deeper comparison. Not great for regulated industries or enterprise environments.
Mattermost
Best Self-Hosted Open-Source Alternative
Mattermost is the open-source, self-hosted Slack alternative that companies pick when they need total control over their data. If security, privacy, or compliance are big concerns, this is where you should look.
Self-hosting means your team's messages and files never leave your servers. For government agencies, healthcare organizations, or companies handling sensitive IP, this is essential. You control the infrastructure, you control access, you control everything. Slack can't offer this because they're a centralized cloud service.
The interface is very similar to Slack, which makes migration easier. Channels, direct messages, threads, search, file sharing—it all works basically the same way. Your team can switch from Slack to Mattermost without a steep learning curve. There's even a Slack import tool that brings over your channels and messages.
Pricing models are flexible. There's a free self-hosted version that's actually full-featured, not crippled. Professional and Enterprise tiers add AD/LDAP integration, advanced compliance features, and support. Unlike Slack's per-user pricing that never stops growing, you can run Mattermost for a flat infrastructure cost plus optional support contracts.
Developers love Mattermost because it's hackable. It's open source, has extensive APIs, and welcomes custom integrations. If your team needs to build custom bots or workflows that connect to internal systems, Mattermost gives you that flexibility. Slack's API is good, but you're still working within their constraints.
The catch is you need someone to manage the infrastructure. Self-hosting isn't free in terms of time and expertise. You need to handle updates, backups, scaling, monitoring, and security patches. Small teams without dedicated IT might find this overwhelming. Mattermost offers cloud hosting to solve this, but then you lose the main benefit of self-hosting.
Mobile apps are solid but not quite as polished as Slack. They work fine for basic chatting and keeping up with conversations. The experience is functional rather than delightful. For teams that spend most of their time on mobile, this might be noticeable.
Best for: companies that need self-hosted chat for security/compliance reasons, engineering-heavy teams comfortable managing infrastructure, or organizations that want to avoid vendor lock-in with open-source software.
Rocket.Chat
Best for Omnichannel Communication
Rocket.Chat is another open-source, self-hosted Slack alternative with a slightly different focus than Mattermost. It's particularly strong on omnichannel communication, bringing customer chat into the same platform as internal team chat.
Omnichannel features let you handle customer support conversations from WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, SMS, email, and website live chat all inside Rocket.Chat alongside your internal team channels. This is huge if you're running customer support and tired of juggling five different tools. Slack doesn't really do this, and Mattermost's omnichannel features are more limited.
Self-hosting gives you the same data control benefits as Mattermost. Your messages stay on your infrastructure, you comply with data residency requirements, you avoid vendor lock-in. For companies in Europe dealing with GDPR or businesses in regulated industries, this matters a lot.
The marketplace has hundreds of apps and integrations. You can connect Rocket.Chat to basically any tool through pre-built integrations, webhooks, or custom apps. The ecosystem isn't quite as large as Slack, but it's more extensive than Mattermost. People on Reddit have built integrations for pretty niche internal tools that you'd never find in mainstream platforms.
Video conferencing is built-in using Jitsi. You don't need Zoom or another separate video tool for meetings. Audio and video quality is decent for most use cases. It's not quite as polished as Microsoft Teams or Zoom, but it works fine for daily standups and quick conversations.
Pricing follows the open-source model. Self-hosted community edition is free forever. Cloud-hosted plans start around $7/user/month. Enterprise features (high availability, advanced security, dedicated support) cost more but are still competitive with Slack. The key difference is you can start free and scale up based on what you actually need.
Setup and maintenance require technical knowledge. Like Mattermost, you're responsible for infrastructure if you self-host. Updates, backups, security, monitoring—that's all on you. Rocket.Chat offers managed cloud hosting if you want the benefits of open source without the operational burden, but you pay for that convenience.
Best for: companies that need both internal team chat and customer communication in one platform, teams with IT resources to manage self-hosted infrastructure, or businesses wanting open-source alternatives with strong omnichannel capabilities.
Zulip
Best for Organized Topic-Based Chat
Zulip is the weird one on this list because it fundamentally rethinks how team chat should work. Instead of Slack's channels with endless scrolling, Zulip organizes everything by topics within streams. This is either brilliant or confusing depending on your perspective.
Topic-based threading is Zulip's core differentiator. Every message goes into a specific topic within a stream. This means conversations stay organized and you can follow multiple discussions in the same stream without everything turning into chaos. Slack's threads try to solve this but they're bolted on. Zulip built it from the ground up.
This structure scales way better than Slack for high-traffic environments. If your team is really active with hundreds of messages per day, Slack channels become impossible to follow. You either read everything (exhausting) or miss important stuff (risky). Zulip's topics let you scan subject lines and only read what's relevant. People who switched from Slack to Zulip specifically mention this as the killer feature.
The learning curve is steeper than other alternatives. Your team is used to Slack's model after years of using it. Zulip requires everyone to understand streams versus topics and change their habits around how they post messages. Some teams adapt quickly. Others resist the change and complain that it's too complicated. Plan for a week or two of adjustment period.
Powerful search and filtering make finding old conversations way easier than Slack. You can narrow by stream, topic, sender, date, keywords, basically any combination. Slack's search is good but Zulip's is better for teams with lots of history. I take that back actually—Slack's search is fine, Zulip's is just more precise because of the topic structure.
Open source and self-hosted options exist just like Mattermost and Rocket.Chat. You can run Zulip on your own servers for free, or pay for cloud hosting starting around $6.67/user/month with generous discounts for nonprofits and education. The free tier gives you 10,000 messages of searchable history, which is way better than Slack's 90 days.
Integrations cover common tools like GitHub, Jira, and major dev tools. The integration ecosystem is smaller than Slack but focuses on what engineering teams actually use. Most developers seem happy with the available integrations, though you might need to build custom webhooks for internal tools.
Mobile apps work but the topic-based structure is harder to use on small screens. On desktop, topics are great. On mobile, they add extra taps to navigate conversations. This isn't a dealbreaker but it's worth testing with your team before committing.
Best for: engineering teams, open-source projects, research groups, or any organization with high-volume chat that needs better organization than Slack's flat channels. Not great for teams that want dead-simple onboarding or mostly use mobile.
How to Switch from Slack
Export your Slack data before doing anything else. Slack lets you export your workspace's messages, files, and settings. This process takes a few hours for large workspaces. Most alternatives can import this data, though the quality varies. Mattermost's Slack importer is probably the best—it preserves channels, threads, and formatting pretty well.
Pick a migration date that makes sense. Don't switch in the middle of a critical project deadline or during your busiest season. Give people at least a week's notice. Some teams run both systems in parallel for a week or two, which is chaotic but helps people adjust. Others just rip the band-aid off and force the switch on a specific date.
Communicate why you're switching. If it's about cost, be honest about that. If it's about features or control, explain what problems the new tool solves. People resist change, especially in communication tools they use 50 times a day. Clear communication about the benefits helps with adoption.
Set up channels and structure before inviting everyone. Don't just dump 50 people into a blank workspace and let chaos reign. Recreate your important Slack channels, set up reasonable defaults, maybe trim channels that were just noise anyway. A fresh start is a good opportunity to simplify your channel structure.
Train your team on the basics before go-live. Record a 10-minute video showing how to send messages, create channels, share files, and search. Not everyone will watch it, but having it available helps. The people who do watch will become your internal advocates who help others figure things out.
Prepare for complaints and resistance. Someone will loudly proclaim that Slack was better and the new tool is terrible. This is normal. Some of it is legitimate feedback about actual problems. Some of it is just resistance to change. Listen to the real issues, ignore the rest, and give it two weeks before judging if the switch was successful.
Keep Slack read-only for a month if you can afford it. Downgrade to a free tier but don't delete your workspace immediately. This lets people search old conversations if they need to reference something. After a month or two, most teams find they never go back to check Slack and you can archive everything.
Integrations will need reconfiguring. Your GitHub notifications, calendar reminders, and other automated messages were all sending to Slack. You'll need to update those webhooks and integrations to point at the new platform. Make a list of all your integrations before switching so you don't miss any.
Which Slack Alternative Should You Pick?
Picking the right Slack alternative depends on what's actually driving you to switch and what your team needs.
If you're already paying for Microsoft 365, Teams is the obvious choice. You're literally already paying for it. The integration with Office apps is seamless and the cost savings are massive. Yeah, the interface is clunkier than Slack, but you'll save thousands of dollars per year. That buys a lot of tolerance for worse UX.
For cash-strapped startups or small teams, Discord is weirdly perfect. The free tier is stupidly generous, voice channels are great for remote work, and it has way more personality than corporate chat tools. Just make sure your team is comfortable with the informal vibe before committing.
Companies that need self-hosted infrastructure for security or compliance should look at Mattermost first. It's the most mature self-hosted option, closest to Slack in terms of interface, and has strong enterprise support if you need it. Rocket.Chat is worth checking out if you also need customer communication features.
Engineering teams or organizations with really high-volume chat should seriously consider Zulip. The topic-based structure scales way better than Slack's channels once you get past 20-30 people all talking at once. There's a learning curve, but developers who switch to Zulip tend to love it and never want to go back.
Honestly, most teams overthink this decision. Try 2-3 options with a small group for a week each. See what feels right. The best chat tool is the one your team will actually use without complaining constantly. Sometimes that's just whatever's cheapest and good enough.