So how do you enter a market and make a name and place for yourself that is already dominated? How do you disrupt the disruptor? Microsoft seems to have the answer. They are offering more features in the free plan to entice new users hoping they will choose to upgrade rather than change base at a later stage. Let’s take a look at what Slack and Teams have to offer, how they are similar and how they differ, and which one is more suitable for you, the end user. Also Read: How to Send Self-Destructing Messages on Slack
Slack vs. Teams
1. User Interface and Experience
Slack has a clean UI that is very easy to navigate and move around. All the chats, personal and team, are neatly organized in the sidebar. Once you choose whom you want to communicate with, you can do so from the main window. More than one slack accounts? You can switch from the menu icon easily. There is a handy search bar at the top and you can work with 3rd party apps by clicking on the ‘+’ icon near the message bar. If you are new, you will feel right at home.
Teams has adopted the tried and tested layout with channels and team members appearing in the sidebar and conversation in the main window. A search bar at the top and some handy shortcuts like chat, files, and help in the extreme left.
Slack offers a number of themes that you can choose from but Teams has only three options. One is the default and the other two are dark and contrast. The last one is more suitable for people with vision problems. There are some additional tabs available like Wiki under Activity and Files in the sidebar. We will discuss these options later but for now, Teams has an equally functional and well-designed layout which offers a good experience.
2. Teams, Channels, Conversations
This is where most of the action takes place. Where you communicate ideas and discuss deadlines. Both Slack and Teams allow you to create teams inside which you then create channels for different topics or areas of interest or products. You then add members to this team who can either chat directly one-to-one or share stuff in channels which acts as a group. Both slack and Teams handle global search similarly however commands works differently. In Slack, you can use commands in the conversation text while in Teams, you can use commands in the Search bar.
This matters because to use commands in Slack, you need to go to Slackbot channel whereas in Teams, you can use commands anywhere because the search bar is present on all screens.
To format text in Slack, you will have to use keyboard shortcuts or know simple formatting steps. For example, select text and press Ctrl+B or insert * at the beginning and end of the word.
Teams offers WYSIWYG editor which makes it dead simple for users who are not so computer-savvy. Also, there are more formatting options available like font size and color, table, and para options which are missing in Slack.
You can share files in both Slack and Teams and they are easily accessible. You can access it from the menu in Slack while in Teams, there is a separate tab named Files which makes it quick and easy to access.
In Teams, every channel has a unique email ID which is super convenient. You can now forward emails directly to a channel for members to see. This can save so much time as emails are still relevant and very much used. So far, Teams is better designed than Slack. Microsoft recognized some of the irks of Slack and incorporated them in their design process. Files and commands are more accessible and WYSIWYG editor is a welcome feature.
3. App Integrations and Bots
This is a big one and a really important factor in deciding whether you will be choosing Slack or Teams. Slack works with major project management apps like Asana, cloud storage sites like Drive and Dropbox, and more. The API has been designed to scale and there is a long list of supported apps that you can find through here. These integrations are what makes Slack really powerful useful. When Teams was initially launched, there were limited choices. Everyone knew it was going to support Office 365 by default, but what about other apps? Soon, third-party integrations followed and now there are over 180 which is still less than Slack but frankly, quite a lot. Most of the popular choices I mentioned above there.
Both Slack and Teams also support Zapier which itself works with numerous other apps. Same way, Slack has a directory of bots that you can add to channels which will then take the load off of your shoulders. You can rely on these bots to do certain tasks when certain conditions are met. Same way, Teams comes with its own set of bots that you can deploy to take care of conversations and employees. Also Read: Best Slack Apps That Will Make Your Communication Effective Teams take the lead here. See, Slack comes with a default bot called Slackbot that will answer questions for you. Like what you can do and how to use and so on. You can use it to send commands too. Teams have two separate bots. The first one is T-Bot which works exactly like the Slackbot. Microsoft offers two ways to use T-Bot. You can either have a conversation with it, again like Slackbot, or you can go for the usual search and discover interface which will work like Cortana. Think of it as a UI enhancement.
The second one is WhoBot. See the above screenshot. This one is for working with employees, the lifeline of your organization. Using WhoBot, you can pull different types of information about employees like department, package, role, hierarchy in the company and so on. This is very useful for people management. If you have a developer in the house, Slack and Teams have tutorials that you can use to build your own bots. How about that?
4. Other Features
Teams has a lot of cool and nifty features that are hiding in plain sight. For example, when you initiate a video call, there is an option to blur the background. You may want to blur it to maintain the privacy or remove distractions. Memes are cool and both the apps support them however with Teams, you can also create your own memes. Teams has a really functional UI that differs from Slack in small but useful ways. Take the tabs for example. You can create a tab for a note where you can jot down important stuff that you can’t afford to forget. A tab can be anything. It can be used to display rich content and data from the web or an app that the users can interact and work with directly in its own space. Here is a tab with a PowerPoint presentation.
Also Read: 22 Slack Slash Commands for Power Users
5. Platforms and Pricing
Slack is free for upto 10,000 searchable messages with 10 app integrations allowed for teams. You can make voice and video calls but only 1-on-1. Cloud space is capped at 5GB. Teams also has a free version but it offers more. You cannot add more than 300 people in a team. If you follow that rule, you get unlimited searchable messages, no limit on app integrations, 10GB cloud storage restricted to 2GB per user, and group audio and video calling. Slack’s Standard plan will cost $8 per user per month and remove apps and messages restrictions. You can now make group calls with screen sharing. The plus plan will cost you $15 per user per month and offer more admin control and SSO. The free version of Teams is not connected to Office 365. If you want more, you will have to subscribe for Office 365 plans which will not only give you access to Teams and but all the other apps that Microsoft has developed over the years. Office 365 Business plans begin at $6 per user per month and Enterprise plans begins at $8. If you pay $10 per user per month in the Business plan, you also get desktop apps for all Office 365 apps and not just Teams. Both Teams and Slack are available on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Web. However, Slack is also available for Linux, but Team is not at the moment.
Slack vs. Teams: Comparison Table
Closing Words: Microsoft Is Winning
Microsoft has gained a lead not only in terms of the number of customers it has under its belt but also in terms of features. The free plan of Teams offers so much more and when you look at the prices, Slack is not only more expensive, but Teams has the added advantage of being an Office 365 product which brings a host of other apps to manage work.
