What’s wrong with Slack?

Slack is made for businesses — and that’s not changing

Slack has made it clear to me they are 100% focused on internal communication for businesses. They have no plans to support large communities. I’ve reached out to them several times, but their stance is firm.

It’s not built to handle groups this big

With 4,000 members, many of us are already experiencing performance issues — and it will only get worse as we grow. The free plan also limits file uploads (5GB) and message history (10,000 messages). We reached our file limit months ago, and message history is practically useless. With an average of 6,000–10,000 messages a day, this is an all too familiar sight:

Unfortunately, we can’t “upgrade our team.” Paid plans start at $8/user/month. Not only would a paid plan be scary expensive; it would become more expensive over time. Even if we could afford a paid plan, it wouldn’t matter in the end because…

Slack has a hidden user limit

Yeah. That’s right. The pricing page says there is “no limit to the number of people you can invite to Slack,” but some communities have run into an undocumented user limit: 8,462. When a Slack team hits this limit, invites are disabled permanently. This has bitten at least two large communities in the past. We will suffer the same fate if we stay.

Knowing all this, I see no reason to wait for the inevitable conclusion. The longer we wait, the more difficult the move will be. I want this community to thrive for many years to come. To do that, we need a platform that supports us. We need a platform that wants us to thrive.

Right now, I believe that platform is Discord.