9 Best Slack Alternatives of 2026

Microsoft Teams is the most complete Slack replacement for a small business that also needs proper video meetings. Microsoft's comparison page lists Teams Essentials at $4.00 a user a month, paid yearly, for chat, calling and video conferencing, with real-time collaboration through file sharing, tasks and polling. The same table gives every business plan a 300 participant capacity and a 30 hour maximum meeting length, and Essentials adds meeting recordings with transcripts, live captions in English and 10 GB of cloud storage per user. Microsoft 365 Business Basic costs $7.00 a user a month, paid yearly, and raises storage to 1 TB per user with web and mobile Office apps. Microsoft also lists over 250 integrated business apps for Teams and a free version of Teams. The limits are clear on the page: prices assume an annual subscription that auto renews, plans are sold for 1 to 300 employees, and the cheapest plan's 10 GB of storage per user is small next to Business Basic.

Pumble is the cheapest serious Slack alternative we found and has the most generous free plan for team chat. Its pricing page lists a free plan for an unlimited number of users with unlimited message history, unlimited channels, voice and video messages, one-on-one meetings, a Slack import tool and 10 GB of storage for the workspace. Pro costs $2.49 a seat a month billed annually, or $2.99 billed monthly, and adds group meetings, screen sharing with annotations, 10 GB of storage per seat and up to 10 apps and integrations. Business, at $3.99 a seat a month billed annually, adds permissions, guest users, user groups, meeting recordings, 20 GB per seat and unlimited integrations, and Enterprise is $6.99. Paid features can be tried for 7 days without a credit card. The tradeoffs are the small app catalog on lower plans, with 3 integrations on Free and 10 on Pro, and the fact that multi-channel guests need their own paid seat.

Google Chat makes sense when the company already lives in Gmail and Drive, because it comes with every Google Workspace plan rather than as a separate bill. The Workspace pricing page lists Chat team messaging across Business Starter, Standard and Plus, alongside a custom business email address, Google Meet video meetings for 100 participants on Starter and the Gemini AI assistant in Gmail. Business Starter includes 30 GB of pooled storage per user, Business Standard 2 TB and Business Plus 5 TB. The comparison table also lists Gemini in Chat, which finds, summarizes and translates chats, but marks it as not supported on some plans. Business plans are sold for up to 300 users, Enterprise has no user limit, and new customers can try Workspace for 14 days. From our location the page showed prices in zloty only, so the US dollar price is pending. Teams that do not want Gmail or a full office suite will find a dedicated chat app cheaper.

Zulip is the strongest pick for teams that want the option to run their own chat server without paying for an enterprise license. Its plans page lists a free Zulip Cloud plan with 10,000 messages of search history, 5 GB of total file storage, hundreds of integrations, roles and permissions and guest accounts. Cloud Standard costs $6.67 a user a month billed annually, or $8 monthly, and removes the search limit while giving 5 GB of storage per user. Cloud Plus, at $10 billed annually with a 10 user minimum, adds SAML single sign-on, SCIM user sync, a custom domain and 25 GB per user. The self-hosted edition is free and described as 100% open-source software with all features, though most workplaces get mobile notifications for up to 10 users unless they buy Basic at $3.50 a user a month. Zulip says export and import tools let you move between Cloud and your own servers, and it sponsors over 1500 organizations.

Chanty fits small teams that want task boards inside their chat app instead of a separate project tool. Its pricing page lists a free plan for up to 5 team members with unlimited public and private chats, unlimited searchable history, scheduled and disappearing messages, unlimited one-on-one audio and video calls, built-in task management and 20 GB of file storage per team. The Business plan adds unlimited group chats and group calls, unlimited screen sharing, to-do lists and task boards, calendar and events, polls and forms, 20 GB of storage per user and 3 guest seats per member. Business also lists HIPAA compliance with a BAA, SSO, 2FA, IP allowlists, a 24x7 support line and a 99.9% uptime guarantee, which is unusual at this price level. Enterprise adds SCIM provisioning, white labeling and US, EU and APAC data residency. From our location the page showed euro prices only, so the US dollar price is pending. The free plan's 5 member cap is the main limit.

Discord is a Slack alternative for communities rather than companies: fan groups, open source projects, study clubs and creators who want free voice channels and an active text chat. The app is free, and Discord sells optional personal subscriptions on its Nitro page. Nitro Basic costs $2.99 a month and adds custom emoji anywhere, 50 MB uploads and custom app icons. Nitro costs $9.99 a month and raises file sharing to 1 GB, adds HD streaming, custom video backgrounds, 2 server Boosts with 30% off extra Boosts, messages up to 4,000 characters and membership in up to 200 servers. Discord also lists Xbox Game Pass (Starter Edition) as included with Nitro. For a business, the catch is that every paid perk is bought by an individual member, so there is no per-workspace plan, admin tier or business support to buy. Use it for an open community; use Pumble, Zulip or Teams for an internal company workspace.

Flock is a straightforward team messenger for companies that want unlimited history and group calls at a lower price than Slack's paid plans. Its pricing page lists a free Starter plan for teams of 1 to 20 members with unlimited one-to-one and group messages, 10,000 searchable messages, 10 public channels, 5 GB of storage per team and one-to-one video calls. Pro is aimed at teams of 20 to 100 members and costs as little as $4.50 a user a month on yearly billing. It adds unlimited searchable messages, unlimited private and public channels, 10 GB per team member, multiple admins, group video calls, screen sharing and 24x7 priority support, with a 30 day free trial and no credit card required. Enterprise, priced by quote for 100 or more members, adds Active Directory sync, single sign-on and 20 GB per member. Flock also lists to-dos, polls, reminders and voice notes. The free plan's search and channel caps make Pro the realistic choice for most teams.

Mattermost is the Slack alternative for organizations that cannot put chat on someone else's cloud, such as defense suppliers, security teams and regulated enterprises. Its documentation describes Mattermost Entry as a free self-hosted edition best suited for teams of less than 50 users, and Team Edition as a free, open source, MIT licensed platform deployed as a single Linux binary with PostgreSQL. The pricing page lists Professional for up to 250 users with SSO through SAML, OIDC and OAuth, AD/LDAP sync, self-hosted group audio calls and screen sharing, guest accounts, 20 languages, Jira, GitHub and GitLab integrations and next business day support. Enterprise adds playbooks, data retention, legal hold, compliance export, FIPS 140-3 validated images and HA clusters up to 50,000 users with 24x7 support. Every paid plan is sold through sales, so we could not verify a price. Expect to run your own servers, which makes it harder to set up than a hosted app.

Twist is for remote teams that find Slack too noisy and want written, thread-first discussion that people answer when they are ready. Its pricing page contrasts Slack's one line at a time chat with Twist threads that keep discussions on-topic and in context, and the company describes itself as independent and bootstrapped. The free plan covers up to 500 internal members and 500 external guests but only shows 1 month of comments and messages, with up to 5 integrations and 5 GB of storage. Twist says older messages stay stored on its servers and come back after an upgrade. The Unlimited plan costs US$6 a user a month billed yearly, or US$8 monthly, and adds full history, unlimited integrations, unlimited file storage and priority support. Prices can be shown in 10 currencies. The tradeoff is the format itself: teams that rely on quick real-time chat, huddles or video calls will need another tool alongside it.