Slack Vs Teams Comparison
The mass Hybridization of most organizations and employees caused a great spike in the use of all collaboration workspaces such as Slacks and Teams as well.
The usage of collaboration Apps like Microsoft Teams and Slack has exploded. Microsoft Teams, as a part of Office 365 day by day usage if it is increased hugely in this pandemic situation. Microsoft teams had 44 million daily users which grew up by 12 million in one week alone whereas slack added 2.5 million users in two weeks. With this both Microsoft teams and slack are at the top of the collaboration remote workspace right now.
Depending on the needs of your business needs, features, and price you will choose the preferred platform. Here are some of the key points and differences that are useful in making your choice.
Microsoft Teams:
Microsoft teams is an extremely powerful application that can be used to enhance teamwork through enriched collaboration and communication platform that combines workplace chat, video meetings, file storage, and application integration. It comes with an Office 365 subscription.
Slack:
Slack is business communication platform developed by slack technologies. It is a collaboration hub that can help you and your team work together seamlessly. Slack workspace is made of channels where team members communicate and collaborate work together.
Features and capabilities:
Both Microsoft Teams and slack have many integrated apps. Slack and Teams have slightly different approaches in the integration of apps.
Slack App directory has more than 2000 integration with a variety of different apps. We can only install up to 10 apps when we are using free version. So many different apps available in slack that you can customize your slack workspace to work together effectively with these tools and services.
Teams integrated with 180+ applications. Microsoft Teams offering a full-fledged collaboration platform with many different functionalities. Team is not a standalone tool; it is a fully integrated Office 365 collaboration hub. Teams integrated with all the Office products and it is designed to work seamlessly with Microsoft’s suite, making it the preferred platform for business that use office 365.
Messaging is the major role in any collaboration platform. Both Microsoft Teams and slack have same chat options like group chat messaging with thread functionality, private chat option.
Both offers the ability to do edit, delete and pin the chat and also have option to mention someone and sharing files. GIFs to text option is available in both. Teams has sticker tab on tool bar to create customize meme. But in slack to create customized meme we need to upload a particular size image. It is integrated with Bitmoji, it is not as easily accessible as with Teams. Slack offers 10000 message history in the free plan and unlimited in paid version. Where Teams offers unlimited message history in all plans. Teams do not support threading in one-on- one conversation. Where slack support the threading feature. Both the tools support pin\save option. Microsoft Teams come up with three themes they are Light, Dark and High contrast. Customizing the message interface In Slack you can change the overall appearance that switch between light and dark themes and switch the sidebar colors between almost 12+ options.
Both Microsoft Teams and Slack allows you to create private messaging and channels. In both tools conversations and files in channels are searchable. Slack come up with Private, Public and shared channels. Allowing you to collaborate in real time with clients, vendors. Where Microsoft teams are made up of channels. Each channel is dedicated to separate project or department. The major difference between teams and slack channel is in slack you cannot have a channel within a channel but in Microsoft teams you can create a team and then create a channel within that team. For every team creation for each department or project creates a dedicated office 365 group that integrates with teams with other applications available in Office 365 like SharePoint OneNote and Planner.
Slack and Microsoft Teams both support online audio and video sharing. Teams provide unlimited video\audio conferencing up to 250 users in all its plans (including the free version). On the other hand, Slack provides infinite one-on-one video\audio calling on its free version but in paid plan it offers only video\audio conferencing up to 15 users. Screen Recording supports in Microsoft Teams where it does not support in Slack. Both the tools support Screensharing feature. When you upgrade to the paid plan you can use Teams live events to host large meetings, webinars, and company -wide events with up to 10000 attendees inside or outside of your organization. Microsoft Teams support Background change during video Conferencing. Where it does not support in Slack.
Cross Platform Compatibility:
Both the Teams and Slack have application that can be accessed from Windows, MacOS, IOS, Android and from popular browsers. Slack is compatible with LINUX, but teams is not.
As of now Microsoft Teams and Slack are the leading collaboration platforms. which one is best? That depends on what collaboration platform your company uses. If your company uses Office 365, Teams is the better choice as it allows user to access and integrate Office 365 Products easily and quickly. Moreover, if you are already paying office 365 subscription, teams included for free. However, if your company uses Google Drive for storage, having slack is better option. Depending on Company collaboration and business requirements Microsoft Teams and Slack could be the right collaboration platform for your organization.
