Slack vs Discord – Which One Is the Best Fit for Business Users?

Working in a large team requires a solid communication platform, and Slack has solidified its position as one of the first-choices for many businesses. Over the years, however, Slack has been garnering competition as well – sometimes from the most unlikely places, such as Discord. So let’s see how Slack vs Discord showdown looks like.

Discord surfaced as a bit of surprise for Slack, given that the two platforms have a fairly different target audience. While Slack is business oriented, Discord built its popularity as a platform for gamers and an impromptu social network. Then why are so many business owners interested in Discord? Let’s see.

Slack

Slack is probably one of the most popular team communication and collaboration platforms. You name it, Slack has it, but for the purposes of this comparison, we will provide you with a detailed list of Slack’s features.

Slacks collaboration features include:

• Audio/Video Conferencing
• Brainstorming
• Chat / Messaging
• Document Management
• Project Management
• Task Management
• Activity / News Feed
• Audio / Video Conferencing

Slack comes with the comprehensive employee, internal, unified and team communication features, as well as file sharing possibilities. Since it is a well-established platform, it integrates with hundreds of work management apps.

Upsides

• Simple
• Multi-faceted
• Reliable

We use Slack at LeadQuizzes so we may be a bit biased, but the platform really has it all. It is easy to set up, simple to navigate, the dashboard is ridiculously simple, the design is on point and Slack covers pretty much everything we need in terms of communications. We do our scheduled daily reports on Slack, make daily and weekly plans, communicate individually and as a team, and exchange documents.

Basically, what Slack promises it delivers. However, if you are running on a tight budget or have a very specific workflow, Slack may fall short for you.

Downsides

• Limited free version
• Can get pricey
• Limited privacy

Although Slack is a great communication tool for business teams, it does lack comprehensive project management features. We make up for it by using Trello for tracking our projects, but as I said, businesses with a restrictive budget may face problems. Moreover, Slack’s free version has a limited backup, so you can store up to 10,000 messages – this may prove to be problematic if you want to have an archive of your internal business communication.

Furthermore, if your business communication involved sensitive information, you may be unsettled by the fact that Slack’s encryption is controlled by the company itself. What does that mean for you? They can read your messages, and your information can be hacked or subpoenaed.

Pricing

Slack’s free plan comes with 10K of your team’s most recent messages, 10 third-party or custom integrations, mandatory two-factor authentication, one-on-one voice and video calls, and 5GB storage. Paid plans offer more flexibility, but the value for the price really depends on the number of active users.

Discord

Discord is the app aimed at gamers who need a solid tool for talking to each other and organizing complicated actions. It makes sense why some businesses would think about using Discord for professional communication. At the moment, Discord has 90 million users, with 14 million people logging on a daily basis. Obviously, they are doing something right. But is their “right” enough for your business?

Well, specific businesses also require constant communication between team members. With a growing popularity of outsourcing, many businesses need a solid communication tool to make this kind of organization possible – and this is where Discord steps into the game beyond its primary target audience.

Discord strongest asset is a palette of chat options – imagine Skype and Slack wrapped into one with an even sleeker, simpler interface. This means you have a fully functional text and voice chat program that won’t slow down your workflow, no matter how demanding it is for your computer.

While you can make your own chat room that can be broken down into smaller channels, you can also join open rooms or “servers” dedicated to topics of your interest. This can be incredibly useful if you are trying to be up to date with the latest news in your business niche, or you simply need a piece of advice from a community of professionals or aficionados.

Upsides

• Unlimited storage
• Solid voice call features
• CPU friendly
• Free

Discord is super accessible, simple to use, easy to set up and provides more versatile communication features compared to Slack. While Slack’s free version limits you to 100 people overall, Discord puts a limit on the number of chat rooms you can belong to (up to 100). Some of the features that are included in Slack’s paid plans are available on Discord for free – such as a group voice call and unlimited storage.

Since it was made with gamers in mind, Discord is very sparing with CPU usage, allowing you to run it simultaneously with dozens of robust programs.

Discord provides you with more flexibility regarding your privacy – you can decide whether your room will be public or private. Also, deleted messages are not stored on Discord’s servers, you type an unwanted message, you are free to delete it and it goes off the servers.

Finally, Discord’s main features come for free.

Downsides

• Overly-simple
• Community
• Gamer-oriented nature

As I already pointed out, Discord was developed with gaming audience in mind, so don’t expect too many features that will support formal business communication and project management. Discord has a casual vibe and it doesn’t plan on giving up on it.

Its community-oriented nature also comes with a downside of, well, any large community. Discord found itself in the middle of scandals involving far-right groups, targeted abuse, and online harassment that took place on their servers. So, before you get involved with the community, make sure you know who you are letting in and what you share.

Pricing

Discord is free. It does have a paid upgrade Nitro that costs $9.99/month per user, but it won’t provide you with any significant advantage over free users (at least in terms of business users). It is aimed at gamers.

Final verdict – Slack vs Discord

We usually conclude these comparisons with a disclaimer – the quality of a certain app is not decided by a sheer number of universal pros and cons. It is decided by your needs, specifics of your daily workflow, team, and business goals.

Slack and Discord were developed for different users, and they are efficient and reliable tools that meet their needs. However, some of their features do overlap, and Discord can be a good alternative to Slack for some businesses.

Ultimately, our advice is to decide based on your answers to three important questions.

1. Am I fine with text-based chat, or my team needs to be in touch for hours on end? If it is the latter, go with Discord.
2. How sensitive is the information my business team shares? If you’d rather keep it all to yourself, go with Discord.
3. Is my budget scarce? If it is, go with Discord.

However, if these three considerations are not particularly important for your business, Slack is a well-rounded reliable option for your team communication. If you are worried that Slack’s free version does not provide you with all the tools you need and you feel that Discord is too casual, consider using additional tools to manage your projects.