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Microsoft Teams vs Slack: What Suits Your Team Better?

When Microsoft announced team, the main concern was will it replace slack, after five years, following the acquisition of Slack, both technologies are in use and meet various needs, but the question remains teams vs slack which of them suits the workspace better?

team vs slack

For organizations to be productive today, they must be entirely digital.

Companies are beginning to adopt collaboration tools to establish and sustain cohesion between team members across regions and time zones as workplace attitudes continue to change.

The undisputed market leaders are Microsoft Teams and Slack. Even though both tools include chat, automated notifications, and many other features, there are a few key differences.

We’ll analyze features, price options, and more in our Microsoft Teams vs. Slack comparison so you can decide which one is best for your company. 

Brief History

n 2009, Stewart Butterfield and three other founders created Slack as an internal tool for their business, Tiny Speck.

It was first made available to the public in 2013 and went public in 2019 with a massive IPO that put a $19.5 billion value on Slack.

Salesforce purchased Slack in 2020 for $27.7 billion. MS Teams began as an internal initiative to compete with Slack.

Initially launched in November 2016, MS Teams’ free version was made available in 2018. Since 2016, both sides have engaged in legal and marketing jujitsu, guaranteeing ferocious rivalry.

Similarities Between Teams vs Slack

Both tools share similarities, when you look at their features, you’ll find some similarities between them.

Features of Microsoft Team

Navigation: With Microsoft Teams, messaging is the primary focus, and the interface is much more streamlined and corporate-looking.

In order to assist those who are blind, it also provides three customization options for the sidebar: default (bright), dark, and high contrast.

Streamlined Conversations: With Microsoft Teams, you can organize conversations into channels, interact with internal and external users, and make audio or video calls to your team.

Connected Apps: Create a genuine workplace for teamwork by integrating your favorite apps into Microsoft Teams. These include the Microsoft Office 365 cloud-based programs.

Voice Calling: You may have smooth one-on-one voice calls with team members within your company using Microsoft Teams.

More Features of Microsoft Teams

team vs slack which is better

Video Conferencing: Microsoft Teams excels in video calls, allowing up to 250 participants in a single conversation.

The robust video chat features of Microsoft Teams make it the perfect choice for medium- to large-sized enterprises.

Screen sharing: Microsoft Teams provides a wide range of screen-sharing options when you’re in an audio conversation with coworkers. 

Search capabilities: All shared documents in Microsoft Teams are stored in the cloud, so you can always be confident you’re working with the most recent version without having to do any searching.

Features of Slack

Navigation: Both tools include sidebars on the left side of the screen that houses its primary navigation

Organized Conversations: Slack makes it simple to create channels for teams, projects, and office locations. Within these channels, you can exchange messages and share files.

You can use emojis to spice up messages even if Microsoft Teams has more comprehensive text formatting options.

Screen sharing: Because meetings are for exchanging ideas, Slack enables you to present your screen, write notes on it, and allow others to do the same.

Simply click the “Share your screen” icon in the page’s center to get started.

More Features of Slack

 Search Capabilities: Every file sent through Slack is indexed and searchable, according to search capabilities.

You may locate all the pertinent messages, files, and channels by using basic search modifiers and next-level shortcuts.

Voice Calling: Slack’s voice calling feature allows you to call other team members and share your screen with them so they can see what you’re seeing. 

 Video Conferencing tool: When you click the phone symbol in Slack’s video chat function, you may start video calls with up to 15 participants. 

Screen sharing: Because meetings are for exchanging ideas, Slack enables you to present your screen, write notes on it, and allow others to do the same. Just click the “Share” button.

Differences Between Teams vs Slack

differences between team vs slack

Let us take look at the key differences between team vs slack:

1. Integration and Bots

Compared to the MS Teams app store, the Slack app market has more than twice as many apps. Additionally, Slack offers a wide variety of apps, from entertainment to productivity. 

Slack must rely on third-party connections with limitations, but the sheer number of apps more than makes up for the loss of this functionality.

MS Teams offers the extra benefit of easy integration with the office suite, allowing you to share, read, and edit documents, Excel sheets, and power points on teams.

The native Slack bot has features that can help you with Slack’s functionality as well as set reminders and streamline chores, among other things.

2. UX

Compared to Slack, getting started on MS Teams takes more time and patience, and only an IT administrator has that.

It becomes even more difficult without a Microsoft 365 account because your team will have to start with a business email ID before entering CC and other information.

On the other hand, Slack is simple to use and similar to joining in with a Gmail SSO and downloading an app from the app store.

Compared to MS Teams, it is even simpler to invite and add coworkers to Slack because users must be added via the Microsoft 365 admin interface.

Slack’s user interface is maintained basic and does not have as many items on the left tab as MS Teams has. 

3. Messaging

Standard group chat, personal chat, and thread messages are features of both tools.

Slack was created as a team messaging tool, and since search and indexing are more sophisticated than MS Team, it has a bit more complex capabilities than that of MS Team.

Emojis, GIFs, and message notifications are the main features of both tools.

While Slack has positioned itself as a place for workplace fun, MS Teams has made an effort to outdo Slack with features like its in-app meme generator, which is very well-liked by users.

4. Meeting Experience

With their experience integrating Skype into Teams, MS Teams easily wins this contest.

You can hold team meetings with up to 250 people using Teams, and the video and audio quality is at least as good as that of Zoom.

5. Security and Support

You can get the majority of your questions answered by the in-app bots in each of these applications.

If it doesn’t solve your problem, there are a ton of FAQs and user-submitted questions, particularly for MS Teams, which boasts a user base of over 140 million.

Both products offer uncompromised security, but the MS team easily outperforms Slack.

There are 4 tiers in the cybersecurity compliance framework. The maximum level of compliance commitment is attained by MS Teams, which is designated as Tier D, and all of its services are turned on by default. 

6. Cloud Storage

As seen in the table, MS Teams allows 2 GB per user in the free tier with a shared 10 GB space (primarily for Office 365 content), and 1 TB for the entire organization in the subscription tier.

Slack has a 5 GB limit in the free tier and 10–20 GB per user in the paid tier. The size of Microsoft’s own native cloud services is advantageous for MS Teams.

7. Channel/ Team Grouping

When it comes to grouping teams and their documents, MS Teams has streamlined knowledge management.

For example, when a new team is created, a new Office 365 group is created in parallel that comprises all the documents, including one-note, Sharepoint, Planner, Wiki, etc.

Whereas with Slack, you’ll need to integrate third-party apps to have the same capability, this makes it easier for teams to handle projects.

Slack allows you to safely add people from other businesses and automate emails to channel participants. (Consultant on the client-based project)

Wrapping Up

We can compare Slack and MS Teams based on things like “How many things can you get done without leaving the app,”

Even though we can’t say with certainty which one is superior.

Microsoft Teams undoubtedly provides beneficial native apps and features, such as Office 365, the cloud, and Microsoft Power BI, which is a standard requirement for many businesses.

Slack is undoubtedly a more advantageous solution for large and early-stage businesses that prioritize mobile communication because it is easier to use.

Frequently Asked Questions

Slack has the advantage despite having higher prices than Teams due to its greater adaptability.

Like Slack, Microsoft Teams provides 1:1 voice calling using the Microsoft Teams mobile app. It also allows you to plan voice and video meetings with particular participants inside a channel.

 Microsoft Teams integrates seamlessly with Office 365 tools, is less expensive, and has slightly better free options.

Slack is more popular because of its versatility, giving it an edge over Team

Teams is not bigger than Slack instead, Slack can support more users per organization than Teams (100,000 members vs. 25,000).

In 2020, there were reportedly 18 million active Slack users. That number likely now exceeds 20 million.

The best team messaging app is Slack because it offers all the conversation features we could need in a simple-to-use UI.

Slack’s secret ingredient that makes it popular is making work-based communication enjoyable and engaging.

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