Slack, Microsoft Teams, Buj

Microsoft Teams and Slack are the leaders in the Collaboration software market . Ever since Microsoft Teams accelerated its progress to compete more directly with Slack — especially for the attention of the SMB market — the two business chat apps have converged more than ever. As the market leaders become harder to differentiate from each other new disruptive AI driven solutions like Buj are raising the bar in the market.

It may be challenging to differentiate between the two leading team communication services at a high level, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. Let’s take a closer look at Microsoft Teams and Slack to understand how they are in contrast with each other.

Chat models

Microsoft Teams and Slack both have fairly similar chat models comprised of conversation threads for messages. Having said that it should be noted that Microsoft Teams is more conversation thread based and the UI is designed as such, while Slack is less conversation thread focused evidenced by its somewhat clumsy UX when it comes to threads. Plain text, tagging, stickers and GIFs are supported, by both solutions although Microsoft Teams has a more robust sticker store to browse through, and integration with GIPHY, as well as its own meme generator (Slack does offer integration with things like Bitmoji, but it isn’t as native as the Teams options). This may be an important factor depending on how meme happy your office mates are.

As far as customizing the message interface is concerned, Slack offers various options of themes and color to try until the user gets the look they want. In contrast Microsoft Teams only has three different color options for its UI.

Data size

The free plan for Slack gives you 5GB of file storage for a team. The paid plans increase this to 10GB per user and 20GB per user, respectively. There’s also a cap of 10,000 on message history for the free version, which is removed for the paid versions.

Microsoft Teams offers 2GB of storage per user and 10GB total shared storage per team for the free version. Upgrading to Office 365 increases that to 1TB of storage for the team. Microsoft Teams does not have any limitations on message history.

Video calls

Slack’s free tier provides unlimited 1:1 voice or video calls. However, if you are looking to include more people in the calls, you’ll have to get the paid version, which allows for conference calls with up to 15 people.

Microsoft Teams, meanwhile, has far superior web conferencing capabilities. On all tiers, including the free version, users can have online meetings with video or voice with up to 250 participants. Microsoft Teams also provides the ability to record conference call (which is not offered by Slack) and offers screen-sharing (which is only offered premium tiers of Slack). Obviously, this is a boon for team-oriented or larger companies where this type of conferencing is common.

App integration

In its free tier Slack is limited to 10 app integrations. Premium, paid, plans have no limit on the number of integrations, and you can pick any from the 800+ integrations for Slack. It is probable that Slack has an integration for any software that you use at your job. Microsoft Teams handles this differently.

The number integrations allowed in Microsoft Teams is unlimited for all tiers, paid and free. However, notably, but not surprisingly, Microsoft Teams integration with Office 365 is the best. For a business already committed to Office 365 this could be a compelling reason to favor Microsoft Teams.

Operating system support

Both Slack and Teams are available on Windows, MacOS. iOS, Android, and as a web client. However, Slack also adds compatibility with Linux, which Teams doesn’t currently support.

Chatbot assistants

Both apps come with bots that help out new users and make it simpler for users to find specific information on the platform. Slackbot is a private chat window that can be used to store links, experiment with new app integrations, or get answers for general questions. Microsoft Teams has, a little more complex, T-Bot. T-Bot is a helper bot that you can use for answering basic questions and information, along with some FAQs and training videos. However, with Microsoft Teams users can also access WhoBot, which is a more advanced bot with Graph AI that can find users more information about specific teams or employees — like their specialties, managers, departments, and more. WhoBot can also answer general questions with employee recommendations for those who need help or are putting together teams. Finally, it’s worth noting that both services allow you to integrate additional bots if you want, although these will be less useful for support and training.

Cost plans

Both chat apps offer freemium models, which is specially attractive for smaller businesses that want to save money. These free options come with some basic features. Microsoft Teams offers unlimited messages, screen sharing, guest access, and 10GB of total storage. Slack gives unlimited public and private channels, a 10,000 message searchable history, file sharing, 1:1 video calls, and 5GB of total storage.

Both services have premium levels that add extra features. Slack has a standard plan at $8 per user (monthly) that adds things like screen sharing, unlimited app integration, and guest access, and a $15 per user (monthly) Plus plan that adds a lot more support and options for integration with other software. Microsoft Teams offers an upgrade to a lot more storage if you access it as part of Office 365 Business Essentials $5 per user per month plan (1 year commitment) — which also includes access to other Office 365 services. Other higher priced Office 365 plans include Teams too.

Who is best?

The fact is that both Slack and Microsoft Teams are very good chat applications for organizations and companies. In the end, the choice between the two depends on what you are looking for in a collaboration app. If you need a certain type of app integration, make sure you double-check that your app is supported, too.

Slack is a little friendlier for smaller, independent users. It’s also not a cloud and operating system company that might work better for a group that’s more platform-agnostic.

Microsoft Teams has an advantage if users by larger companies with complex organisations. If a company is already an Office 365 subscriber, connecting up with Microsoft Teams is a great option in terms of features and cost. In particular, the more robust video conferencing solution should be attractive to companies with remote members.

But neither software goes much further than traditional group chat, much like IRC — essentially technology created in the late 1980s. If you are looking for a solution that helps your teams communicate, without getting distracted by it, and leverage AI that learns from your habits and helps you filter out the noise from signal try Buj. To see how it compares to Chat apps like Microsoft Teams and Slack check this article out.