Slack Alternative: You Should Know These 11 Messengers

If you want to stay in constant contact with your employees within your company without having to visit them personally for every little thing, you can’t avoid using Team Messenger. And why, too – after all, they are efficient, make organization in a team more accessible, and can also manage projects much more quickly.

Team messengers are now a must-have for many companies, not only in times of the coronavirus and the associated home office. Slack is one of the market leaders among the messengers themselves, used by around 10 million people every day. But is there an alternative to Slack that is just as good? We have selected the 11 best team messengers for you.

What Is Slack?

Before you deal with the numerous Slack alternatives, you should know beforehand what the Slack program is all about. Slack is a communication tool, more precisely a chat program, aimed primarily at companies that do not want to host project collaboration and document sharing themselves. The device is straightforward to use. You download the program for free or in the paid version, provide some information about the industry and the number of employees, and you can then start directly.

At Slack, the focus is on the channel. Here you can create different chat rooms and add team members. So you can talk to your whole team, but of course, everyone can also start private chats with teammates. Slack itself does not have any content management functions, but various tools, such as Google, can be integrated. The following apps are also integrated into Slack:

• Zendesk
• OneDrive
• Asana
• Twitter
• Dropbox
• RSS feed
• Salesforce

Slack Alternative To Support Corporate Communications

Corporate communication includes both internal and external communication towards the market. So it is essential to keep in touch with your employees and customers, suppliers, and business partners. Corporate communication should ensure that all content is passed on to all-important contacts clearly, and timely. Most contact persons are now mainly online, where they are most likely to be reached via messenger services.

That is why more and more companies are using messengers to ensure efficient and secure communication. Some providers provide free versions for this. In the following, we would like to introduce you to the best providers for team messengers who are ideal Slack alternatives.

The 11 Best Team Messengers As A Slack Alternative

Slack is especially useful for communication within workgroups. Because of its ease of use and versatile functions, this provider is popular with so many people. But precisely because of its great popularity and a high number of users, the likelihood of attacks on the messenger service also increases. In addition, there are still enough entrepreneurs for whom Messenger is not satisfactory enough. For this reason, among other things, we are now introducing you to eleven providers that are at least as good, if not better, than Slack.

Discord

The Discord software is a free messenger that you can also use for your corporate communications. Discord can be exciting for communication within the company due to the following features:

• Individual, group and team chats,
• Audio connections via Opus codec (very high sound quality),
• Server creation (chat environment with topic-related subchannels can be created by yourself),
• Accounts (across servers),
• Connectivity to other services (friends can be added via Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Reddit or Steam),
• team-independent adding of friends,
• Settings options for notifications or design,
• Service is free (no monthly fee, as with other messenger services),
• Compatibility for apps (Android, macOS, Windows, Linux and iOS operating systems).

In principle, Discord offers its service free of charge, but there is a voluntary monthly subscription. This gives you access to animated avatars, optimized screen sharing quality and 50 MB upload size for your images. You can also use custom emojis provided by Discord.

Sid

Another of the free Slack alternatives is Sid. This team messenger provides you and a company with features similar to those found in comparable messengers. Sid’s particular strengths are mainly:

• Chats and data transfers (in encrypted form with Salsa20 or Curve25519),
• Setting up addresses without an email address or telephone number,
• Peer-to-peer connection (between everyone involved and the devices they use),
• Multi-client links (for team chats with several participants),
• Transfer of music, documents, videos and photos (no size limit),
• Storage of data (in a separate area, exclusively on the coupled devices).

With Messenger from Sid, you have a service where data security is a top priority. You can use it for communication with your teams as well as for chats with business partners. Due to the non-existent size limit, you can even send huge data packets. This is important for extensive documents because they often cannot be sent by other messengers due to their size.

Telegram

If you want to use one of the Slack alternatives that guarantee the security of your data, Telegram is the right team Messenger for you. The software fulfills all requirements that can be very important to you as an entrepreneur:

• Data security (pictures, videos, messages are encrypted with AES encryption, RSA encryption and the Diffie-Hellman method),
• Security through self-deletion of the data,
• Instant messaging,
• Telegram Cloud (for storing all data, no storage space consumption on the device),
• Synchronization (simultaneous access to data from different devices possible),
• Team chats (also for large groups),
• Availability of secret chats (with end-to-end encryption),
• Telegram Passport (authorization with personal identification),
• Connection using global data centers,
• API chat clients (open, usable on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux or the web),
• Use is completely free.

Telegram is considered by many to be the fastest app available worldwide. The ability to create groups with a large number of participants makes Telegram very suitable for organizing teams. The excellent security precautions in ​​data protection also benefit your company, as you no longer have to worry about them.

Wire

The team messenger Wire is still relatively unknown but offers some good features and consistent reviews from users. A wire is a so-called open-source messenger that is provided free of charge for the first 30 days. The service has several features that are also of interest to a company:

• Individual and group chats (ideal for team coordination),
• End-to-end encryption,
• Use of administrators possible (serves to control the teams),
• The server is in Europe,
• Videotelephony (for professional video conferences with up to 4 participants),
• Sending videos, images, GIF files, voice messages and other files (as zipping, PDF or other file formats),
• Creation of several accounts at the same time (private and professional),

If you decide to use the software after 30 days, you can choose between different packages here. Wire Pro costs four euros and Wire Enterprise 8 euros a month. If you want to use the Wire Enterprise technology, you have to personally get in touch with the company.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Messenger is also an excellent Slack alternative. The team messenger was launched in 2017, but only in the paid version. Since July 2018, teams have also been available free of charge for small and medium-sized companies. Up to 300 employees can use a limited range of functions. These include:

• Unlimited sending of messages
• An extensive list of Microsoft Teams integrations (140)
• Up to 10,000 participants in a group chat
• Convenient conference calls with calls, calling plans, telephone system and direct routing
• Files such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel can be accessed, shared and edited in real-time
• Diverse functions for scheduling and time management
• Easily manage teamwork, meetings, phone calls and applications in one place
• Offers intelligent discussion and telephony solutions on devices optimized for teams

Circuit

The Circuit is a Slack alternative that is even “Made in Germany.” The cloud-based platform enables high-quality voice transmissions, video chats, and data sharing and screen sharing. Guest access can also be set up so that customers can be directly involved in the communication. With Circuit, you can also:

• Connect Messenger to Microsoft Outlook
• Easily find content using search terms and filters
• Access private or business Exchange contacts
• Start and accept PBX calls via the Circuit client
• Hold meetings via the video chat in HD quality
• Transfer calls from PC to smartphone without interruption
• Have encrypted conversations

If you want to test the free version, you can include a maximum of 100 team members and hold conference calls with up to three people. In addition, only one GB of memory is available. Otherwise, Circuit costs between 3.95 and 14.95 euros per user per month. 

Rocket Chat

Among the possible Slack alternatives, Rocket Chat is one of the most intuitive apps to use. This is an open-source solution that your teams can quickly adapt to their own needs. Of course, Rocket Chat can be used to hold audio and video chats, there is a help desk chat to contact visitors to the website, and all kinds of data can be exchanged. You can also use the following functions:

• Send team, project and private messages
• The choice between public and encrypted channels
• B2C live chat
• Unlimited adding of users, guests and channels
• Messages are encrypted end-to-end
• Two-factor authentication for file sharing
• It can be easily added to the existing infrastructure
• Supports 5037 languages

For 50 US dollars a month, teams with 500 members can exchange unlimited data and access 50 GB of storage. If that’s not enough, you can switch to larger packages.

Twist

Twist doesn’t just want to be a vile Slack alternative; they want to do it differently and better. When you visit the site, you notice that the app seeks to support calm and mindful communication. This should be achieved, for example, by eliminating the hectic search for specific content from chats. The application is a mix of online forums and chat. Features include:

• Threads that organize the conversations and make them accessible to everyone
• Channels contain cables by department and project
• Messages can only be sent with individual colleagues or a whole group
• No online/offline ads
• Selection of notifications
• Guests can be invited to specific channels
• Linking different tools like GitHub and Todolist

If you want to use Twist, you can choose between a free and paid version. The free version gives you access to news and comments for a month, up to five integrations, five gigabytes of file storage and an unlimited number of guests. In contrast, the paid version is available for five euros per user per month and offers you continuous functions of the free version.

Google Hangouts

Google wants to expand its hegemony to all areas and has given Hangouts a significant overhaul to make it one of the best Slack alternatives. Hangouts now consist of two apps: Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat.

“Meet” is an improved version of the Hangout video call. Up to 30 people can meet for a video conference, whereby third parties can be brought in without registering. “Chat,” on the other hand, emerged as one of the best Slack alternatives to overthrow the market leader. It is a fully-fledged alternative for G-Suite customers. The content is stored in the Google cloud and can be shared and viewed directly from it. Other functions are:

• Uploading files from Drive
• Working together in docs, tables and presentations
• Easily search for members of chat rooms, conversations and shared data using Google search functions
• Google bot informs about released data, comments or access requests
• The meet bot integrated into Google Calendar helps you to schedule appointments
• Always stay in touch with the right app when you are out and about

ETTALKS Meetings

ezTalks Meetings is a video conferencing solution that impresses with its easy access for every person and several work features. It is essential to mention that there will be costs. Here are the integrated features:

• It is possible to have meeting reminders sent (of course adapted to different time zones).
• Interactive whiteboard to brainstorm ideas together and work on a project at the same time.
• Messages, videos and calls can be sent to the recipient via all major platforms, such as Facebook.
• Share screens and documents.
• Produce and share online presentations.
• Webinars for up to 10,000 participants (in the Enterprise version).
• Registration via Google and Facebook.
• Configuration with the calendar.
• Individual user management. Each user (even within a team) can, for example, set their features and external apps.

The price for the professional version is $ 12.99. For the free version, however, meetings can only be held for up to 40 minutes.

JOIN.ME

Join. me is excellent for start-ups and companies that still operate in a smaller circle. The free features are also quickly listed:

• The meeting link can be freely selected and adapted for the video conference
• Sound transmission
• Webinars
• records
• Scheduling
• Screen sharing

However, in the free version, only conferences with up to 3 people are possible. Registration for a video conference takes place immediately and therefore without prior registration. In this way, every meeting can be set up quickly if time is tight. The entertaining trademark of join. me are probably the circles in which every video participant appears on the desktop during the video chat. These can be pushed back and forth. Quite funny, but ultimately not a significant advantage for companies.

If you are willing to pay for premium or business access, you can also interact with several people at a conference.

Conclusion

There are plenty of team messengers out there that are equally good alternatives to Slack. Many of them can also be used free of charge in their basic version. So if you want to look around for an alternative to Slack, you won’t have to search long but will find the right program very quickly. If you are looking for other options for classic programs, you can look at our article on PowerPoint alternatives.

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