The 5 best Slack alternatives for businesses in 2024

At Zapier, we're a fully remote team with folks divided across multiple time zones. So we rely on Slack to act as the hub for our entire organization. It's where we post company announcements, collaborate with teammates, and more importantly, create and share (sometimes ridiculous) custom emoji. 

While Slack is a top-notch, feature-rich team chat app—the ability to upload infinite custom emoji alone gets it five stars from me—there are plenty of other options on the market. 

Based on my experience and testing of dozens of team communication apps by my teammates, here's our roundup of the best Slack alternatives.  

5 Slack alternatives

• Microsoft Teams for large organizations broken down into teams

• Google Chat for Google Workspace users 

• Discord for always-on voice chat 

• Zoom for video conferencing and screen sharing

• Element for self-hosted team chat

Why pick a Slack alternative? 

Despite Slack's robust feature set, some teams might come up against a few barriers that make it a less-than-ideal communication solution. Here are some of those key limitations:  

• Audio and video calls aren't the focus. Slack's video and screen sharing features aren't as reliable as some other tools. If your team depends on real-time calls to collaborate, dropped or low-quality calls can really hurt your productivity. 

• Disjointed file sharing experience. Slack supports file sharing. But if your team primarily works with and collaborates on Microsoft Word and Excel files or Google Docs, for example, you'll find it takes more clicks to share these files in Slack than it would in Microsoft Teams or Google Chat.

• Pricing. Slack offers a free plan, but this version lacks many key features that make it useful for the workplace. If you upgrade to a paid plan—$7.25/user/month (billed annually) for the lowest tier—the cost adds up fast. If you're a large business, that's probably not a problem. But for startups and small businesses, this can be a big obstacle. Some of the other apps on this list are included with software you're already paying for.

The best Slack alternatives at a glance

The best Slack alternative for large organizations broken down into teams

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams pros:

• Tight integration with Microsoft ecosystem

• Better audio and video quality than Slack or any Slack alternative 

Microsoft Teams cons:

• Difficult to set up without a dedicated IT team

• Limited options to search through chats 

If you're a Microsoft-focused organization, let me save you from having to scroll any further: the best Slack alternative for you is Microsoft Teams. 

With a Microsoft 365 Business Basics package and above, you get access to Teams and cloud versions of the full suite of Microsoft Office apps, including Word, Excel, and OneDrive. These are live versions of the apps, so you can collaborate on them asynchronously or in real-time via a Teams video or audio call. Slack also integrates well with some Microsoft apps—but as you'd expect, the integration isn't as tight as what you'd experience using Teams.

When it comes to organizing chats, Teams takes a more streamlined approach—it groups them initially by team structure, whereas Slack groups chats into channels by topic. Anyone can create a channel in Teams, but new ones will exist as a subcategory of an existing team. It might sound a little confusing, but the ultimate result is a neat and compartmentalized side panel. Because of all these layers, it does mean you'll sometimes need to do a bit of clicking around to find the channel you're looking for. 

Teams is also compatible with Microsoft Copilot, an AI add-on that costs $30/user/month (quite a bit more than what Teams costs otherwise). It does most of what you'd expect from AI meeting assistants: generate transcriptions, summaries, sentiment analysis—that kind of thing.

The main downside to Teams is how much work it is to roll out: if you don't have a dedicated IT staff, it's going to be tricky to set up. But considering the size of organizations Teams seems to be built for, that's probably not much of a barrier—especially if your team is already using the Microsoft suite of apps. 

You can also use Zapier's Teams integration to connect it with the rest of your tech stack. This way, you can automatically do things like turn a Teams message into a task in your to-do list app or project management tool. For more inspiration, check out other ways to automate Microsoft Teams, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows. 

Microsoft Teams pricing: From $4/month/person to use Teams on its own; from $6/month/user for Microsoft 365 Business Basic, which includes Teams, plus core Microsoft apps like OneDrive, Word, and Excel. 

Check out our full breakdown of how these two apps stack up, feature for feature: Slack vs. Teams. 

The best Slack alternative for Google Workspace users  

Google Chat 

Google Chat pros:

• Integrated with Google Workspace 

• Wide range of search filters with results showing up in real time as you type

Google Chat cons:

• Limited feature set 

If you're deep in Google Workspace apps, you already have access to a solid Slack alternative: Google Chat (formerly known as Google Hangouts Chat). 

Google Chat's interface follows the same design and organization principles as the rest of Google's apps, so there's almost no learning curve. It does lack some polish, though. For example, some seemingly simple actions, like browsing a list of public rooms to join, are mysteriously buried behind multiple clicks. 

Beyond the superficial, Chat gives you chat organization tools similar to Slack. You can send direct messages and group messages, group related replies into threads, and set conversations to be either public or private. 

Where Chat really shines is how seamlessly it integrates with Google's ecosystem of apps. For example, when you paste a Google Doc link in a Google Chat meeting, it automatically changes permissions so that all meeting attendees can access the file. Setting up a meeting is just as easy. Tag Google Meet and your coworkers, and say when the meeting should happen, and it'll create a calendar appointment complete with a Google Meet link for video conferencing. 

Google is also rolling out AI features to companies that subscribe to Gemini Advanced ($20/user/month). With this add-on, you can access Gemini, Google's AI, in the sidebar of Chat and other Google apps. Google has been releasing a lot of AI tools recently, so I'd expect it to become more involved in Chat as time goes on, too.

With Zapier's Google Chat integration, you can connect with the other apps you use most, turning your chat app into a work hub. For example, you can automatically get notifications in the right channel before important events or when a new form response comes in. Learn more about how to automate Google Chat, or get started with one of these templates.

Google Chat pricing: From $7.20/user/month for Google Workspace, which includes Google Chat and other Google productivity apps. 

For a more detailed breakdown, check out our app comparison: Google Chat vs. Slack.

The best Slack alternative for always-on voice chat

Discord 

Discord pros: 

• Easy setup 

• Ability to create separate text channels to organize your conversations

Discord cons: 

• File uploads are limited to 25 MB in the free version; 50 or 500 MB in the paid versions

Listing Discord as a Slack alternative surprises some folks. After all, Discord was originally built as a gaming tool, and these days, it's marketed more broadly to online communities—not companies. But if you look past the branding, you'll find Discord can work for business chat for one key reason: excellent always-on audio. 

If talking out loud is how you get work done, Discord is a great remote co-working tool. Click any voice channel in the Discord sidebar to enable the audio, and you'll immediately be able to hear everyone else who enabled the audio. This means you can talk to colleagues while working remotely in a shared Google Doc, or you could share your screen in any application and collaborate that way. 

Slack's version of always-on audio channels is huddles. For the most part, they're used the same way as voice channels, but the process isn't as seamless and the audio quality isn't as solid. 

Discord also offers regular text conversations with threads and video chats, if you want to see your teammates face-to-face. 

Discord doesn't offer much in the way of official integrations, at least not for business-facing apps. But you can use Zapier to connect Discord to any of the other apps you use, allowing you to build just about any Discord integration you can imagine. For example, you can automatically get an alert in Discord when a meeting is about to start or when a new task has been added to your project management tool. Here are even more ideas for ways to automate Discord. Or click on one of these templates to get started.

Discord pricing: Free for basic features; $3-10/month for the Nitro plan, which includes higher-quality screen sharing, larger file uploads, and more emoji. 

Learn more about how these two apps stack up: Slack vs. Discord.

The best Slack alternative for video conferencing and screen sharing 

Zoom 

Zoom pros: 

• Reliable and easy to use

• Includes collaboration features and allows for video recording

Zoom cons: 

• Not part of a software bundle, which can get expensive in large organizations

Video and screen sharing features aren't the primary features in Slack, which is probably why so many Zapier users connect Slack to Zoom. If these are the key features you're looking for in a Slack alternative, you might want a dedicated video conferencing app instead. 

Zoom consistently tops our list of the best video conferencing apps, and for good reason: it works. 

You can share your entire screen, just one section of your screen, or an individual app. You can also share only audio from your computer, if you want to face-mute while co-working. And you can chat with your teammates during a meeting or outside of meetings in Team Chat. As of right now, Team Chat doesn't offer the same robust chat organization features as Slack, but Zoom is continuing to beef up this functionality. 

With Zapier's Zoom integration, you can take the busywork out of managing coworking sessions. For example, you can automatically attach Zoom links to your calendar events and get notifications for upcoming hangouts. Learn more about how to automate Zoom, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Zoom pricing: Free for up to 100 participants for 40-minute meetings; from $13.32/month/host (billed annually) for the Pro plan, which includes AI features, user management, 30-hour meetings, and reporting.

The best Slack alternative for self-hosted team chat

Element 

Element pros: 

• Fully encrypted messaging built on an open source protocol

• Can install entirely on your own server

Element cons: 

• Setup can be difficult 

Some conversations are too important to host on a third-party server, which is where Element comes in. 

Built on the open source Matrix protocol, Element is team chat software you can install on a private server. It's the most feature-complete self-hosted Slack alternative our team could find. All messages are encrypted. Similar to Slack and other team chat apps, you can group conversations into channels, create threaded replies, send voice messages, host video and audio chats, and even share polls. 

The user interface is extremely streamlined, rare among open source applications, and there are plenty of options for controlling which notifications users do and don't get.

Even better: there are multiple clients, meaning people who don't like the default Element app can install something they prefer instead. It's a great deal of flexibility, and paid plans get even more powerful thanks to bridges. These allow you to connect to Slack, Discord, and Microsoft Teams rooms, either to pull in your archive of messages or to connect to parts of your company still using those services.

Plus, Element doesn't have any AI integrations, which is a huge plus for people who are concerned about the privacy and security implications of that technology—a category of people that overlaps with open source enthusiasts.

Element pricing: Free for up to 200 users; from €5/user/month for the Business plan, which includes a fully managed cloud-based option, complete with video calls.

Which Slack alternative should you use? 

All the apps listed above offer the same thing Slack does: a way to communicate with your team. But how they go about accomplishing this differs from app to app. If you're looking for a no-frills app that makes it easy to voice chat with your teammates, go with Discord. If you want a more feature-rich team chat app that integrates seamlessly with the apps you use most, and those apps happen to be part of the Microsoft or Google Workplace suite of apps, then the answer is obvious: go with Teams or Chat. 

Every app listed here also offers robust free plans (the only caveat being that the free plans for Teams and Chat are limited to personal use). So if a few have piqued your interest, try them out before signing up. And if you end up sticking with Slack in the end, that's still a win.

Related reading: 

• How to communicate with clients asynchronously

• How to overcome the biggest remote work challenges

• How to collaborate across time zones

• Why messaging apps are still useful in the office

• 9 Campsite features to help you simplify team communication