Chanty

We’ve Tried 9 Slack Alternatives (Our Team’s Feedback)

It looks like you’ve tried Slack and it doesn’t meet your needs. You’re not alone.

Perhaps you’re looking for a tool that’s faster, less complicated and more affordable than Slack.

We’ve been there too and we’ve actually tried a few Slack alternatives to find the app that suits our needs the best. Here are the apps we tried: 

  • Chanty
  • ClickUp
  • ProofHub
  • ✓ Pumble
  • Fleep
  • Flock
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Ryver
  • Google Chat

We’ve used Slack and realized that it doesn’t meet our needs perfectly. Since we realized that there’s a market for a team chat app that’s less complicated and more affordable, we decided to create a tool of our own – this is why we created Chanty.

Chanty is a super simple team chat app. Before we created the app, we spent at least a few weeks researching and actually using our competitor apps which we mentioned above. So, this article is based on our own experience with using these apps.

The apps mentioned on this list are the few that we’ve chosen as the very best Slack alternatives. These are the apps that are the top Slack alternatives, in our humble opinion.

There are 100+ Slack alternatives. Or are there?

If you do a quick Google search for “slack alternatives”, you’ll find lots of results that mention various apps as Slack competitors. The problem is, a good number of these tools are CRM apps which are hardly a Slack competitor, which can be confusing you. 

The reason for listing CRMs (and other types of apps) as Slack competitors is probably just to add some numbers to their posts. If you want to know the real number, you can head to alternativeto.net and find out that there are more than 100 different Slack competitors out there. However, we are here to focus on quality, rather than quantity, so here are the very best.

Why do people choose Slack?

There are three main reasons why people use Slack as their application of choice. Communication, collaboration, task management, and integrations. It lets you chat with your team, share files, and use different integrations, as well as stay up to date with notifications, all the while taking your communication away from your email inbox. Here is what we had to say about Slack in a video:


Slack

If you want to find out more about Slack in detail, you can read our Slack review. Let’s briefly discuss the advantages of using Slack instead of its many competitors.

  • It’s hip. While talking to a large number of CEOs and founders, I found that they all love Slack. No matter their management styles, their industry, niche market, or size of their company, everyone knows about Slack. It also has this air of being cool, probably thanks to its fancy bots and the fancy copy on its website. Usually, when I ask people what’s cool about Slack, they have a hard time explaining it. It mostly boils down to “It’s popular and everyone else is using it”. Integrations are one of the best parts of the app, but very few Slack fans actually integrate Slack with their other apps at work.
  • Integrations. At the moment of writing, there are more than 2400 different integrations for Slack. If you don’t know what integrations are, here’s the best way to explain them. When you integrate your other work apps with Slack (such as MailChimp, Zendesk, Salesforce, etc.), you can get notifications from them within Slack in real time. You don’t have to open any of these apps and check them all the time – you have everything in one place. It acts as a single notification hub for your workplace.
  • Powerful search. When you create a lot of messages daily, you’ll have to search for them quite frequently. Slack allows searching through messages and files, and even the content within the files. More precisely, you can search through Google Docs, Office and Dropbox files that you shared in Slack. There are advanced search operators (such as quotation marks) that let you search for a specific phrase, for example.

Okay, now that was enough about Slack, let’s take a look at some of the top Slack alternatives. Hopefully, you’ll find the one that suits your needs the best.

The top Slack alternatives

Chanty

It’s our blog, after all, so we’re putting Chanty as the first one on this list. We’ve been building Chanty for the past 7 years as the strongest Slack alternative out there. Putting our love for technology and communication together, we’ve created an app that people love using. If you haven’t tried Chanty yet, this up-and-coming team chat app is worth your time.

Chanty

Chanty vs Slack. How is it different?

The main goal of Chanty is to create an intuitive experience for our users. For this reason, we focused on making our onboarding and user interface as simple and clean as possible. You may get the feeling that using Slack is getting more complicated, with more features being added every day. At Chanty, we want to keep the right balance between features and usability. This is why we stay simple but also have enough powerful features that teams need to work effectively.

Compared to Slack, Chanty is more affordable (up to 75% cheaper) and doesn’t limit messaging history.

Chanty also comes with a built-in task manager – you can turn any message into a task, assign it to your team member and get notified when it’s done.

Chanty offers audio and video calling with screen sharing.

You can view all your files, links, tasks and conversations in our Teambook.

By the way, there are unlimited messages, even in the freemium plan. That means that you can have an unlimited number of messages and search for them. On the other side, Slack only allows access to the past 90 days of message history in their free plan.

Here is a neat video on how you can use Chanty to improve your team’s productivity:
video chanty
In the past few months, Chanty has rolled out useful features. You can now connect a large number of apps using our Zapier integration. Moreover, you can use high-quality audio and video calls with your team members. Also you can send voice messages besides just writing text.

We are strong believers in work-life balance. We continue improving our app so you can spend less time working and more time getting some rest. Feel free to give Chanty a try, we look forward to your feedback!😊

ClickUp

Unlike some of the other tools we tested, ClickUp did not begin as a video conference or chat app. Instead, it took a task-first approach to work management and collaboration, incorporating chat as a direct part of a broader project management system. Their goal is to be the “one app to replace them all,” aiming to either replace or integrate will all your other tools to help you keep track of all your work from one place.

ClickUp vs Slack: what’s the difference?

ClickUp and Slack take opposite approaches to workplace collaboration. While Slack begins from the perspective of messages and notifications, ClickUp begins with the work being done and builds its messages and notifications on top of that.

Here’s what makes ClickUp different from Slack:

  • Includes a full project management functionality, including multiple project views to improve how your team collaborates (Table view, Board view, Gantt view, Calendar view, Whiteboards).
  • Messages and notifications are directly tied to specific tasks or ongoing projects.
  • Gives you a place to store files, notes, or reminders (that does not require your to send them to yourself), and includes a search function to help you find them later.

Our experience using ClickUp

We asked the ClickUp team which features Slack users might be interested in exploring, and they did not disappoint. To begin with, ClickUp offers a built-in chat feature that operates similarly to a Slack channel but can be added anywhere within the ClickUp hierarchy to discuss ongoing projects.

In addition to this Chat feature, ClickUp lets you add chat-like comments on any of its tasks, Docs, or whiteboards. This is especially useful when paired with Assigned Comments, which turn chats or comments into action items for you or your team that can be tracked towards completion alongside ongoing tasks or projects.

ClickUp also has granular notification settings that help you control exactly when and how you receive notifications – not just for tasks or projects, but for assigned comments or “@ mentions” as well. While ClickUp does not have the same “chat” feel that Slack does, it is very effective at driving conversations about work towards actionable outcomes.

It’s not all sunshine and roses, however. Some ClickUp users have complained about noticeable slowdowns, and while their SVP of Engineering addressed these concerns in a blog post, it is difficult to estimate when these changes will be implemented. Unless you’re planning on importing a library’s worth of information into ClickUp, you probably won’t have to worry.

ClickUp summary

You will like ClickUp if:

  • You need to keep track of all your work in a single place, with a single platform, or via integrations.
  • You want to collaborate on work from the same place you are tracking it.
  • You work with dispersed or remote teams.
  • You’re ready for a new approach to workplace collaboration.

ProofHub

An award-winning business collaboration app, an easy-to-use interface, and an almost never-ending list of features are the USPs of ProofHub. Besides standard Group chat, ProofHub also provides its users with a dedicated space where they can carry out real-time discussions. You also get an online proofing tool, which is fantastic if your team has to collaborate quite often on creative files. The tool is available in more than half a dozen languages, which makes it truly global.

ProofHub

ProofHub vs Slack: which one stands out

ProofHub stands out for being a lot more than just a simple communication tool. It has an easy-to-use interface, with features that can help teams in overall work management.

Here’s how ProofHub stands out from Slack:

  • Makes working in teams easy as teams can create custom workflows using Kanban boards.

  • Brings flexibility in the way teams can work with its multiple project views (Table view, Board view, Timeline view, Calendar view).

  • Helps in keeping things organized with in-built Note-taking and advanced file management capabilities.

  • All-in-one tool for planning, collaboration, and keeping work organized.

  • Built-in calendar and time-tracking software to help manage all your tasks.
  • Simple, no per-user pricing (unlimited users and unlimited projects) means that ProofHub proves to be a highly cost-effective option where you don’t have to pay for standalone tools for every team member.

Our experience using ProofHub

As a communication tool, ProofHub allows to carry out one-to-one conversations, as well as group chats. You can share files, and links, use emojis, and carry out all the basic functionalities that are available in Slack.

However, when compared to Slack, ProofHub has the advantage of having some top project and task management capabilities.

For instance, it has online proofing features that make collaboration on creative files a breeze. It has this cool feature called Quickies in which you can add quick links or jot down random information to keep it handy – it works just like quick notes.

The interface is super-easy to use, and despite having all the advanced features this all-in-one project management and team collaboration software has little to no learning curve.

ProofHub summary

ProofHub is a must-have app if:

  • You use several apps for managing your daily tasks.

  • You are tired of paying for a per-member subscription for all the apps.

  • You want your team communication tool to be as easy to use as possible.
  • You want a tool that can help you with more than just communication.

Pumble

Pumble

Pumble is an excellent Slack alternative that allows teams of all sizes to collaborate for free. 

It enables real-time communication through 1-on-1 and groups direct messages, as well as public and invitation-only channels. Additionally, Pumble users can easily share files, save messages and set reminders about important tasks. When sending text messages is not practical, users can take advantage of sending voice messages or making voice and video calls with a screen-sharing option. 

Pumble vs. Slack: What’s the difference?

Compared with Slack, Pumble provides a better cost-value ratio, which is the main reason why users switch to this business messaging app, aside from an easy and user-friendly approach to communication. 

On top of that, unlike Slack, Pumble lets you see message history for free. 

Namely, while Slack offers access to the past 90 days of message history and file storage, Pumble users see the entire message history of all conversations from the beginning for free. 

Furthermore, in Pumble’s free plan users have 10GB of free storage space for the whole workspace. 

However, while Slack allows 3rd party app integrations, Pumble still doesn’t have this feature (it’s in the planning stage). 

Our experience using Pumble

Generally speaking, Pumble is very similar to Slack in terms of user-friendliness and functionality, but far more affordable than Slack. Plus, it’s very easy to sign up and set up. 

Unlimited free chat history is undoubtedly the greatest advantage, which is very important for many departments. There’s also a notification preferences feature, which allows you to customize web and mobile notifications and schedule messages.  

The quality of both voice and video calls is excellent, but there’s still no option for group calling. 

Pumble Summary

You should opt for Pumble if:

  • You want a more affordable team messaging app than Slack
  • You need maximum data security 
  • You need to keep track of conversation history from the beginning
  • You want an easy-to-use and user-friendly messaging app

Fleep

The first thing you should know about Fleep is that you can send a message to anyone who uses this app. All you need to know is their email and you can connect with any Fleep user out there. In theory, this app should fit somewhere between email and a team chat app. Instead of creating a sandbox such as Slack, Fleep’s idea is that you can communicate with anyone who uses the app.

Fleep vs. Slack – how do they stack up?

We personally asked the Fleep staff about the differences between Fleep and Slack. This is what they answered us:

  1. Fleep is an open network and you can chat with anyone who’s using the app. If you want to be a member of several teams or projects at once, you need one account only. In Slack, you need an account for each team you’re in.
  2. Fleep is completely free if you don’t need admin controls, i.e. you don’t need to control your company’s accounts and conversations. The cheapest paid package is called Fleep for Business and it costs 5 Euros per user per month.
  3. In the free Fleep package, you get unlimited message history and unlimited integrations.

Fleep_interface

Our experience using Fleep

The way that Fleep is set up, with users being in the focus, actually makes it more complicated for use in teams. It’s similar to Skype but with the option of sending and receiving emails. This isn’t such a bad idea, but then again, Skype is not ideal for team communication.

Just like Slack, Fleep also has the option to send a message to yourself. In other words, you can click on your own name and send yourself a note or copy and paste a link so you can save it for later. Fleep has the same option and you can create unlimited monologues with yourself. It’s kind of easy to get lost in them, but the good news is that you have the option.

Fleep summary

You should use Fleep if:

  You communicate more outside of your team than with your team members

  You’re not a fan of emails

–   You need more than access to the past 90 days of message history in Slack for the free plan

–  You require more than 10 app integrations for work on a free plan

Flock

Founded in 2014 in India, Flock is a messaging app that has been around almost as long as Slack. Besides standard messages, it supports group chat, video and audio calls, screen sharing and more. You also get polls and to-do lists, which require third-party integrations in Slack. Flock is available in several languages, including Spanish and Portuguese.

Flock

Flock vs Slack. What’s better?

We went and asked the guys from Flock what makes them better than Slack. Here are some of their points:

  Flock claims to have a better UI than Slack. We decided to test this out and we spent a week using Flock. We found out that the 5-column interface can be a bit complicated.

  According to load time and file sharing tests, Flock is faster than Slack.

  Flock is cheaper than Slack.

  Flock offers a limited 10,000 searchable message history and unlimited integrations in the free plan.

flock_interface

Our experience with Flock

Compared to other team chat apps on this list, we’ve used Flock the longest. The interface and design are pretty good. We especially loved their parakeet green color for the app. As mentioned before, the interface is split up in 5 columns, which is a bit too busy. However, Flock turned out to be fairly easy to use.

We had one big issue though – we lost our message history one day and couldn’t access it for over 8 hours. It happened on the third day of testing Flock. We couldn’t access a single private or channel message, which slowed us down for the day significantly.

Flock summary

You should use Flock if…

  The disappearing message history in Slack makes you mad

  You don’t mind being left without your message history for more than 8 hours

  You want a cheaper price than Slack

  You want a Spanish or Portuguese interface in your team chat app

–   You want more than 10 integrations that Slack Freemium offers

Microsoft Teams

The main target audience for Teams is the enterprise sector. However, it had some inspiration from Slack, judging by the way it looks and feels, so we decided to take it for a spin.

microsoft teams

Microsoft Teams vs. Slack. Are they similar at all?

One of the biggest selling points of Microsoft Teams is that the app seamlessly integrates with Office 365. This makes it especially useful if you already depend on this suite for your daily operations. 

If you’re interested, we have an in-depth comparison of Microsoft Teams vs Slack on our blog.

Our experience using Microsoft Teams

Setting up this app was not an easy task. We assigned it to the most patient guy on our team, who spent an entire day setting it up as part of the Office 365 Business Premium package. If a guy with over 15 years of experience in development can’t install and set up an app within a day, something’s not right.

Particularly annoying is the fact that you have to set up a unique email for each user in your team, such as user@teamname.onmicrosoft.com which you have to use every time when you log in. If you forget your email or password (which happened to me, twice), tough luck – it’s another 30 minutes of struggle to get them back.

If you want to properly set up Teams by yourself, make sure to have an experienced admin on your team. And by the way, as of recently, the app supports drag-and-drop uploads. 

Microsoft Teams is a great product. However, the user experience leaves much to be desired. According to our team, although it is difficult to set it up, Teams meets their business needs.
Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams summary

You should use this app if:

  You already have a contract with Microsoft and have no choice but to use this app

  You have no problem with technical obstacles when using apps

  You use other Office 365 products every day

  You have a boatload of patience

Ryver

Launched in 2015, Ryver came into the team chat app game when Slack was already doing great. To get the upper hand, Ryver decided to attack Slack by using Twitter ads.

The main selling point of Ryver is the combination of team communication and task management. It’s something like putting Slack and Trello together. The idea of this mix sounded interesting, so we were eager to try it.

Ryver vs. Slack – what’s the difference?

According to the Ryver team, having both communication and task management in a single tool is crucial for productivity. Besides the native task management feature, they also have integrations with Google Drive, Dropbox and Box, so you can choose and upload files directly from the cloud. The app allegedly integrates with more than 2000+ different apps through Zapier.

Compared with Slack, setting up Zapier is much more complicated. Each integration you set up has to be tested, which can take quite a bit of time and a few errors. In case you’re interested, we wrote an in-depth comparison of the two tools on our blog. The main takeaway is that Slack’s search options, notification management and integrations are much more advanced and intuitive. 

Of course, price is one of the main considerations. The freemium Slack plan is fairly limited, so you will have to switch to a Pro plan or Business+. Ryver’s pricing has changed over the years and since December 2018 they no longer have a freemium version, even for small teams. 

Ryver also comes with audio and video calls as native features. We tested them out and the quality was pretty good. However, there were no advanced call features. You cannot record calls (like in Microsoft Teams) or react with emojis to what a colleague has said in the call (like in Slack). However, the quality was pretty good.

In Slack, there is a limit of 15 people in audio and video calls. If that’s not enough, you can use any video conferencing tool for meetings with your entire team.

Our experience using Ryver

The first time I opened Ryver, it seemed confusing and not very intuitive. What’s the difference between Forums and Teams? What do I do with All Hands? Tasks were split up under Task Stream and Personal Tasks. Overall, the user experience seemed like it could be much better.

Ryver

Ryver conversations are organized in Open forums, Private teams and Direct messages, similar to Slack. Also, there are Topics, similar to threads in Slack.

We also tried the task management part of the app, which didn’t go as smoothly as planned. I wasn’t able to assign tasks to my colleagues from the messages that I sent to them. Search results couldn’t find any forums or teams I was looking for, while the Assign field was disabled. Therefore, I couldn’t assign a task to any team members

Ryver summary

You should use Ryver if…

  You like using Kanban for your projects

  You don’t mind potential UI and UX issues

  You need lots of integrations and you’re already paying for Zapier

– You prefer a flat rate plan rather than a per member per month plan (not sure if needed)

Google Chat

Google Chat available as a part of the Google Workspace package and it’s deeply integrated with the rest of the Google Workspace tools. One of the major perks is being able to view files from Drive and Docs directly in conversations.

Similar to Slack, there is a dedicated space for group conversations in Google Chat. It’s called Rooms and it’s something like a channel in Slack. Also, you can send private and group messages within the tool. There are more than 50 integrations available, including tools such as Asana, Box and Zendesk, but there is no Zapier integration.

Google Chat vs. Slack – which works better?

First of all, Google Chat doesn’t have a free version of the app, unlike Slack. Second, Google Chat organizes communication in threads, while Slack has public channels.

Third, all Rooms in Google Chat are private by default. Unless you invite someone to a room, no one in your Google Workspace can view or join it. On the other hand, when you create a channel in Slack, you can choose if it’s private or public.

Our experience using Google Chat

When we explored Google Chat, we found some pretty unique features. For example, there is a Smart Reply feature, similar to what you have in your Gmail inbox. When you start typing, Smart Reply will suggest the right word or phrase to you.

Google Chat summary

When comparing their functionality, Google Chat seems not to be as good as Slack, but it is fairly easy to use. 

If you have a Google Workspace subscription, using Google’s messaging platform seems like a reasonable choice. However, bear in mind that you cannot use Google Chat for free. 

If you do choose this app, you need to be comfortable with using Threads to communicate. Also, make sure to check if your favorite integrations are supported.

Will Google Chat replace Slack at some point? It’s difficult to say.

The result

The Chanty team has used different team chat apps for several weeks. Our goal with Chanty is to create a team chat and collaboration tool that ranks higher than the competition. We want to create something easy to set up and most importantly something that meets all your business needs at work. Feel free to give it a try and let us know what you think!

Chanty team

Chanty is a team collaboration hub with unlimited searchable message history. Chanty offers team communication, audio calling, video conferencing and task management with the help of the Kanban board.

93 comments

  • Hey Olga,

    Thanks for sharing your experience. So far we’ve tried Slack and Flock with our team, but they don’t seem to satisfy all of our needs at the time. Chanty sounds like a breath of fresh air. I’ve signed up for your beta test and looking forward to try it out.

    • Hi Angela, thank you for your comment. We’ll make sure to give you Chanty early access as soon as possible 🙂

  • Cool stuff, Olga! We have a similar dilemma. Half of the company is using Slack, while others go for completely different messengers.

    I’m not the biggest fan of Slack, because it’s way too complicated, heavy and has the 10k message history limit. I really enjoyed the way you’ve make a side to side comparison of messengers and how openely you write about it.

    Hope to see Chanty in action soon.

  • This is a great blog post. I appreciate the humble mention of chanty and the detail you’ve gone into about the other slack alternatives.

    Signed up for beta access. Looking forward to checking it out.

    • Hi Rob, I appreciate your comment. We’ll make sure to give you early access as soon as possible. It would be great to receive your feedback on our product.

  • This is truly a helpful article. I’m looking for a collaboration tool for my client and I. My client is all over the place so some of the apps listed here I’ll definitely consider.

    • Hi Aurora, thanks for your comment. Hope you’ll find the right tool for your client. Feel free to sign up for Chanty early access, we’ll be happy to receive your feedback.

    • Hi Jabbar,

      Thank you for your comment. We don’t have the exact pricing yet, however, the monthly plans should start at $4 per user per month, or $3 per user per month when billed annually. Also, if you are a small team and you need a simple communication tool, freemium Chanty version should work great for you.

      Should you have any other questions, please, feel free to contact us at info(at)chanty.com

      Best,
      Olga

  • Hi, We’re using Ryver, and start April.. it’s not Free anymore (well, it’s still free for 6 user though..:( ). It’s seem they start to pivot their business model, and current model is simply not good for company’s long term. Having Communication+Task Management is a plus. But for SMB, that has roughly around 20 team member, pricing is little bit pricey compare to some other platform. Anyway, the need to change their message from “Team communication tools must be free” to “Team communication tools must be $99”

    Nice Articles !

  • Hi Olga,

    Does Chanty have the capability to make threads in conversations or files shared? For organization purposes.

    Thanks

    • Hi Andrés,

      Thank you for your interest in Chanty. Unfortunately, there is no threads functionality yet in the current version of Chanty.
      However, we’ve received a number of similar requests from our customers, so we’ve added this feature to our 2018 roadmap.

      We could contact you once this feature is delivered if that’s OK.

      Meanwhile, feel free to get in touch with us in case you have more questions regarding Chanty.

      Cheers,
      Olga

      • Every app that adds threading after the fact fails at it. Slack threading sucks, Flowdock’s is slightly better but still fails. Threads have to be designed in from day 1, like Zulip or Twistapp.

        • Hey Bryan,

          Thank you for your comment. As we get to threads functionality at Chanty, we’ll totally take a look at Zulip and Twistapp vs Slack and Flowdock. UX is a high priority for our team, therefore, we’ll make sure our threads don’t suck 🙂

          Cheers,
          Olga

    • Hi Jeff, thank you for your interest in Chanty. In fact, we plan to roll out integration with Zapier and IFTTT in Q3 2018. This way you’ll be able to integrate Chanty with a custom CRM. As for public API, unfortunately, we don’t plan to work on it in 2018.

      Cheers,
      Olga

      • Hi there, Olga, and guys at Chanty

        This is Sergio I am interested in an API as well. I am performing workflows in Pipedream, an integration platform. We create code, that gets executed based on any trigger, with no infra. I would like to create a couple of workflows in Pipedream interfacing with Chanty, where the API comes into play. Any update on whether the API was rolled out or is in plans in the foreseeable future, i.e. 2020 and on?

        Best,
        Sergio

        • Hi Sergio,
          Thanks for the information. We are not planning API for 2020. If anything changes we will announce it on our blog.

    • Hi Chris,

      Thank you for your comment. As Chanty is currently in beta, we don’t hide the fact that some of the features are still missing in our team messenger. However, we are working hard to deliver the great product to you guys. That said, we’ll be certainly adding Chanty analysis once we reach that public launch milestone.

      Feel free to reach out in case of any other questions.
      Cheers,
      Olga

  • This is really useful, are you planning to include authentication with active directory and/or identify providers such as Okta with Chanty? I’ve signed up for the beta trial and looking forward to seeing how it stacks up against the competition

    • Hey Nick,

      Authentication is important for us and we’ve got SSO via GSuite on our roadmap.
      Sure, we will consider other services and add them to our roadmap once we make a public launch later this year.

      Cheers,
      Anastasia

  • Hi Olga,

    I just wanted to point out another worthy alternative for the list Crugo.com I hope you will give it a try and let us know what you think 🙂.

  • I’m impressed with the organization and real world data collected for this marketing/competitive review. I’ll be giving it a try.

    • Hi Skip, thank you for reading our article. Looking forward to receiving your feedback on our tool. Good luck!
      Olga

  • one more problem with flock. if you sign up using google auth, it asks for the following permissions – and you cant login without granting them.
    1. all your contacts
    2. all users on domain
    3. manage all calendars
    4. manage all files on google drive

    growth hack much ?

    • Hey there, thanks for addressing the issue. I’ll be soon revisiting the Flock section of the post and pay closer attention to granting permissions.

  • Now that stride is going away maybe a new market for chanty ? I’ve been using discord and is working just great…. not perfect as any solution

    • Hi Eduardo,

      You are right, the market is changing. Now when HipChat and Stride are soon shutting down, many people are looking for affordable yet effective team communication tools. Since Slack doesn’t offer on-premise solutions, a lot of HipChat users are unhappy about having to migrate to Slack. Others aren’t ready to pay $6.67 per user per month. Slack is getting more complicated becoming a really cool, but advanced tool. At the same time, we are aiming to stay simple and easy-to-use for small and medium teams that are not ready to spend days to customize the app to fit their needs. We want to be that instant fit for them. The market is big enough and I’m sure there’s enough space for every team communication tool out there.

      Cheers,
      Olga

  • I am surprised that you don’t consider G Suite a competitor to Slack, whether you think G+ is a viable platform or not.

    • Hey Larry,

      Thank you for another comment. We’ll be soon adding Hangouts Chat review to the list. Meanwhile, you can check our recent article on HubSpot covering the top Slack alternatives including Hangouts Chat: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/slack-alternatives
      Should you have more questions, feel free to contact us here in comments or email us at info (at) chanty.com

      Best,
      Olga

  • Chanty does sound great! We thought we’d found our Slack alternative with Stride only to be let down again after their announcement that they’ll be migrating their users to Slack… Hoping with can get on Chanty sooner rather than later!

    • Hi Adriana, thank you for your comment. We aren’t going to migrate our users to Slack so you can feel free to give it a try:)
      If you contact us at info (at) chanty.com we’ll make sure to grant you an access. Looking forward to hearing from you!

  • Hey Chanty developers, add end-to-end encryption to your application and you are good to go and there will be flood of users soon.

  • I just sign up to test with my team. We are a new team that work until now in tow differents countries and we at first use Skype but we were just 4 guys, now that the team inchrease we need a better tool to communications and i found very interesting Chanty. Looking forward to see the video and voice calls these year. I hope this is the right tool for us.

    • Hi Viktor! We’ve just released voice and video calls in Chanty. You are welcome to test them. Looking forward to your further feedback!

  • I like the tone of the Slack support team. They are very patient.

    One thing i like about Slack (or the Slack concept) is that its reasonably platform agnostic, and the features in the Windows and Mac applications are similar if not identical.

    Similarly for the mobile apps.

    What I can’t stand is the failure on the Mac and iOS side to fully utilize and integrate the tools available within the Mac OS and iOS. i.e., on the mac side, there’s virtually no use of Apple’s contextual menu / right click feature on selected text.

    Slack doesn’t even have their own custom dictionary so you can’t add words inside Slack’s spell check.

    On the iOS side, there’s no way to pick a louder sound from the iOS choice, you either have to use these tinky soft sounds that Slack uses, or accept the old tri tone that Slack misnames “Device default” or something but its not.

    Also, can’t drag images from Photos into Slack, and there’s no preview so if a user drags the wrong photo in, they have to wait for it to be loaded (and seen) before deleting it.

    Does anyone know if any of these Slack alternatives better implement the Mac and iOS feature set?

    TIA

    • Hi jf. Thank you for your thoughtful comment. Good point about ‘drag&drop pictures’! As for the rest, I’m not sure there’s a team chat tool on the market that implemented each of the macOS/iOS features you are talking about. But it’s great to hear your ideas on improving the apps. Regards!

    • slack is a hybrid app – so it only has OS container differences. Anyone creating a cross-platform app in 2019 would be crazy to invest in native when even Apple are moving to hybrid.

      It surprises me when people create different experiences for different platforms ignoring the fact some people use multiple.

  • Thought most of your negative points about Rivvr where unusually specific. You didn’t ever talk to their strong points, I’m guessing this is really your main competitor? I guess you had to ‘honestly’ bag the competition as this is really a sales-leader, not a technical comparison as you are a competitor, something not made clear in the title – great mislead to onboard customer – ethics much? conflict of interest much? The title leads the reader to think you were looking for something, when in fact you are comparing YOUR competition.

    Hangout is _really_ unintutive, yet you suggest it could take over slack… #right.. Hangouts AI suggestions now also suffer from being US centric, so outside the US, you have to use US-centric responses rather than common local terms. (used to work great when devs where in AU)

    Unfortunately ethics seem to be missing in most US #startups these days – seems like a right of passage to mislead to onboard early on.

    • Hi Dawesi, thanks for your feedback, I really appreciate it!

      We do talk about Ryver’s strongest point which is the Kanban-based task manager. We mention it in both – Slack alternatives and Ryver vs. Slack – articles.
      The concept of ‘Slack alternatives’ is about the unbiased comparison. We’ve tested these tools with our team and expressed our honest opinion. Also, we don’t keep back that it helps us in building our own Chanty team chat. As for Hangouts Chat, I don’t really suggest it could ‘take over Slack’. There’s a question mark in the article title. Hope you understand what I mean.

      Regards, Aleksey.

  • I mentor high school business classes – Virtual Enterprise International. Starting last year, I introduced them to BaseCamp3 (free to students). Both classes did well (top 6 in CA completion and 1 in top 10 in NY International business plan competition. They loved the features of BC3 and have already established new accounts for next year. Our key focus this summer will be training and refining productivity features.

    • Hi Bill. Thanks for your comment!
      I don’t think Basecamp can be considered as a Slack alternative, as it’s a project management – not communication tool. In case you are interested, we compared the apps in our ‘Slack vs Basecamp – Who Is to Win?’ article.
      Glad you’ve found a PM tool that works for you and your students. If you ever need a team chat, we highly recommend you try Chanty.
      Regards!

  • Hi, interesting article, I still missing https://www.hibox.co/

    they have a very powerful approach, even more, close to your features.

    Have a look and maybe in the pipeline for the next comparison.

    • Hi Francisco,
      Thanks for your feedback. Hibox being a task management tool doesn’t really seem like a Slack alternative. We’ll consider including the app in other reviews, though.

  • What’s up to every single one, it’s really a pleasant
    for me to pay a visit this web site, it includes important Information.

  • I came here as I was searching for a way to replace Slack with Discord on my business teams and also for supplemental family communication purposes. But having seen this site and browsing along, I am now more… confused as I am now considering your product named Chanty. I work for my a government agency in my country. I don’t know whether to thank you or to say ”darn it” 😁. I guess I should thank you for the comprehensive comparisons and for offering another product to seriously consider.

    • Hi Jeffrey,

      Thank you for your comment, we’ll be happy to have you among our customers. You should certainly give Chanty a try, you won’t regret it 🙂

      Cheers,
      Olga

  • all the reviews are written in tandem with Olga. seems like all of them are sitting in the next cubical to Olga… its so like crypto scene language…

  • Where are your comparisons to messaging stables like WhatsApp, WeChat and Telegram? I just downloaded Slack and was quite surprised at the price. With three free alternatives I cannot fathom the motivation to pay money for something I already get for free.

    • Hi Charlie,

      You can find Slack’s comparison with WhatsApp in our earlier post: https://www.chanty.com/blog/whatsapp-vs-slack-team-spotted-champ/
      WeChat and Telegram will be added shortly, stay tuned. As for free vs paid team chat, there are quite a few advantages of a work chat compared to a personal chat. In fact, it makes a big difference – you get a dedicated workspace where your sister and law and your best friend don’t disturb you with the non work-related messages. You can view and manager your links, files and messages. You can turn a message into a task and assign it to your colleague. There’s much more than that, you can actually read more in our WhatsApp vs Slack article.

  • Hi Olga,
    I work for a small (less than 10 people) not for profit organisation in the UK. I was about to trial Flock with a view to using the paid version if the trial was successful. The reason for choosing Flock over Slack was that Flock operate a $1 per user per month pricing for not for profits whereas as Slack’s price is way higher. As a charity we have a legal duty to get the best VFM in the UK so we would have to have a compelling business reason not to use Flock. (We need the extra functionality that comes with the paid version.) I have just come across your system and, before I leap into a Flock trial, I thought I’d ask if you have a NFP price plan? If you have I’d appreciate a quick Skype call to check out whether we are going for the best product for our needs.
    Thanks for any help you can give
    Adrian

    • Hi Adrian, thank you for reaching out. Absolutely, we provide 50% discount to the non-profit organizations. I’ve passed your email to Nikita, our business development manager, he’ll contact you shortly and explain all the benefits your company will get with Chanty.

  • This article needs to be updated regarding Ring Central GLIP.
    1) The video conferencing component of GLIP is now integrated into the application. RingCentral Meetings as a separate application is no longer required. It should also be mentioned that the video conferencing runs on the Zoom platform, which is one of the most robust and well-known interfaces.
    2) I have used GLIP for 5 years and have never experienced the loss of data. The “disappearance” of the message stream seems bizarre. The most likely explanation is user error — one of the team members inadvertently deleted messages, or deleted and recreated the team (which would reset the messages).
    3) No mention is made of interoperability in the article. GLIP has one of the best and feature rich mobile applications.
    4) GLIP’s primary market is corporate, where the users will have the same domain for emails. Therefore, GLIP automatically creates a team for emails on the same domain, and treats those with the same domain as “co-workers.” Any number of teams can also be created by inviting “guests” with different email domains to join a team. There is no restriction on the number of guests that can be added.
    5) Last, and most important, unlike the competition, GLIP is virtually free to use. The only practical restriction is 500 minutes (over 8 hours) of video conference per user per month. Most users will never need to consider the $5/mo paid account. The full version GLIP is also included in the RIngCentral Office VOIP phone plans which start at $25/user(line).

    • Hi Joe,
      Thank you for the detailed feedback. We will definitely take it into consideration. We are glad you read our blog!

  • Thanks for sharing this informative blog. It is really very impressive as it leaves never ending impression to its reader. The way blog content is interpreted is appreciable. This blog contains a collective list of auto approve blog commenting sites which helps bloggers to get some valuable backlinks for their site. Keep going..

    • Hi Botulf,
      Thanks for the suggestion! We might actually get to review their solution and add their tool to our chart as well.

      • Hello, Please let me know if you need help getting started with Mattermost. We’d love to be included in the review.

        • Hi Leah, thanks for reaching out to me. Sure thing, I’ll get in touch with you for more details. Have a great day!

    • Hi Donald,

      We are glad to hear that you want to try our team chat app. Please share your feedback about Chanty.

  • Thanks for the tips. We will be reviewing Chanty soon. Alternatives to the big name brands are what we specialize and with it being 75% more affordable we can’t wait to test it out.

  • Hi Olga,

    Thanks for sharing this information, I just browsed around and found Chanty as one of our possible option. So far we’ve been using Slack and there are some features that we think can be improved to boost our productivity. I think we will give Chanty a try on the free plan.

  • Great post Olga!

    Thanks for sharing this content, Our team have been using Slack for years, and after reading this post I think we will give Chanty a try as there are some features that are interesting to try.

  • Thanks for the helpful article. I’m also wondering why the Utopia p2p app is missing from the list? In my opinion, it is also a worthy alternative to Slack, which, moreover, is all in one tool and guarantees complete anonymity and security of personal data.

    • Hello Willy! I want to thank you for reading our blog and for providing your feedback. You’re right! There’s plenty of worthy Slack alternatives with their own outstanding features.

    • I used this app too. I didn’t think that ordinary users already knew about it, it seemed to me that this application is used only by crazy geeks cracked on their safety, like me. =) Probably with the release of the mobile version even more people will learn about it.

    • I’ve read enough about this application. Tell me, is it free? Is it suitable for teamwork? I would like to use it with my colleagues. Hasn’t the mobile version been released yet?

    • YES, this is a pretty good app. To be honest, at first I didn’t really trust this application. I was especially confused by the closed source. However, I have studied enough user reviews and at the moment I think this application is a good alternative to most popular, but unreliable applications.

  • Mattermost is a pretty good match for large companies’ requirements and, just like Slack, it works for all sorts of industries and teams. It can be self-hosted or cloud-based and it’s very flexible. When compared to Slack, the most significant difference here is in terms of security.

  • I’ve used slack before. Thats a great tool to communicate with team.

    Its interesting thats a tool called chanty that have many same feature.

    • Hey there! Thanks for your comment. Team chats have some common features, but at the same time, they have something to stand out.

  • Good list of Slack alternatives. Additonally, one can also use tools like on premise R-HUB web video conferencing servers, Webex, Gotomeeting etc. for all online collaboration needs. These are easy to use and work well.

Get more work done, together

Join Chanty – all-in-one collaboration tool
to make your team super productive.
Unlimited message history. Free…Forever.

Improve your team communication with Chanty

Improve your team communication with Chanty

Get in touch!

Your feedback matters. Please, share your thoughts and ideas, describe a problem or give us information on how we can help.

Hi there! 👋 A quick question:
Do you have a team at work?

Yes
No

Times change...
When you do have a team, come back and give Chanty a try!

Let me try now

Sounds great!
Do you think your team can be more productive?

Yes
No

Teams using Chanty save up to 3 hours daily.
Would you like to give Chanty team chat a try?

Yes
No

Small businesses love Chanty.
If you change your mind, feel free to come back!

Join Chanty

We'd love to tell you more!

Learn how your business can benefit from Chanty on a demo call with our team. Bring your colleagues. Zero technical experience required.

Choose wisely! Thank you, I'll schedule my demo call next time.