Before we go on to what features distinguish Teams from Slack and which collaboration hub you should use for your business’ internal/external communications, consider this:

Microsoft is a Behemoth. Slack Technologies — Not so much. Though Microsoft Teams is the new kid on the block, things are already looking like David and Goliath between the two. Why? Because Microsoft Teams already has around 20 million daily active users whereas Slack has only 12 million. I’m not kidding, FYI.

And if you’re wondering which one to go for, think again. Because choosing between the two is like seeing The dress photo. The color of the dress depends on the viewer.

But do not fret; we got you covered. Let’s see some similarities and differences between Microsoft Teams and Slack so that you can decide for yourself which one serves your business’ needs well.

Search Bar

Both Microsoft Teams, as well as Slack’s search bar, lets you search for messages across your conversations as well as find shared documents. With Slack, if you have a Google Drive Integration, you can search for phrases inside a document and the document will show up under search results. Likewise, for Microsoft Teams, with the Office 365 integration, of course.

But when it comes to messaging history, Teams offers unlimited searchable message history for all tiers whereas Slack supports only 10k searchable message history on free and unlimited on paid. Teams-1 Slack-0.

Quick Commands

With Slack, you simply type a slash “/” into the message bar, and a list of quick commands appears. With Teams, you can type either “@” or “/” into the search bar and choose from the list of commands. With these helpful, quick commands, you can easily take a shortcut for specific actions within the tools, such as changing your status or adding a user to a team. Simple yet effective.

Conversational Threads

Slack and Microsoft Teams offer similar conversation threads for messages, including plain text and tagging. You can start threads in private conversations as well as in group conversations in both.

Pricing

I’ll let you compare the pricing for both the collaboration hubs so that you’ll get an idea of where your business’ budget lies.

Teams

Free

Office 365 Business Essentials

$5.00 user/month (annual commitment)

Office 365 Business Premium

$12.50 user/month (annual commitment)

Slack

Free

With 10k searchable messages, 10 apps and integrations, 1-to-1 video calls, and two-factor authentication, the free version gives your team access to Slack’s basic features.

Standard

For small and medium-sized businesses

$2.67 USD

per person, per month, when billed yearly

$3.20 USD/person, per month, when billed monthly

Top features:

Unlimited message archive

Unlimited apps

Group calls with screen sharing

Guest accounts & shared channels

Plus

For larger businesses or those seeking advanced administration tools

$5 USD

per person, per month, when billed yearly

$6 USD/person, per month, when billed monthly

Top features:

99.99% guaranteed uptime SLA

User provisioning and de-provisioning

SAML-based single sign-on (SSO)

Corporate exports for all messages

Enterprise Grid

For very large businesses or those in highly regulated industries

To get a price estimate for Enterprise Grid, please contact Slack’s Sales team

Top features:

Unlimited workspaces

Support data loss prevention (DLP), e-Discovery and offline backup providers

Designated customer success teams

HIPAA-compliant message and file collaboration

Mobile and Desktop Versions

Both apps have mobile and desktop versions. The main difference with their mobile device versions is that Microsoft provides a cloud-based service called Intune that allows you to manage your organization’s mobile devices.

This app allows you to ensure corporate data is protected as it gives you control over your workforce’s mobile devices and mobile apps.

Deployment

This is one area where Slack has a clear advantage over Teams. Slack is easy to sign up for and to invite other users to join. Depending on your users, this deployment can take just a few minutes. On the other hand, Teams has more steps to sign up and add team members. Since Teams is built for larger enterprises, its deployment process requires more effort and time. In deploying Teams, it is more effective to have administrators take control of this process. Teams-1 Slack-1.

UX

As for customizing the message interface, Slack offers a better variety. You can switch between light and dark themes to change the overall appearance. For a more customized feel, you can switch the sidebar colors between 10 options, such as Dagobah and Nocturne, that complement your overall theme.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s client merely swaps between three general themes: Light, dark, and high contrast. There are no specific color options despite the client’s Windows-based roots. Teams-1 Slack-2.

But Teams comes with a convenient tab-based structure, making it easy to access the apps and services integrated with Teams → Teams-2 Slack-2.

Both support GIFs, though Teams simply provides a more robust way to fully convey your messages. For instance, to insert a GIF into your Slack message, you must enter a command, like “/giphy image name.”

In Teams, you’ll find a toolbar at the bottom providing access to a library of GIFs and stickers. Even more, click the Stickers button to create a customized meme. Slack does offer integration with Bitmoji and similar services, but it isn’t native and easy to access as seen with Teams.

The Microsoft Office team has also revived Clippy as an app to provide animated Clippy stickers in chats in Microsoft Teams. Headline? Relive the 90s nostalgia.

Storage

Let’s compare the storage limits for the different tiers for both Slack and Teams.

Slack

5GB total on free

10GB per user on mid-tier

20GB per user on the highest tier

Teams

2GB per user + 10GB shared on free

1TB per user on paid tiers

Teams-3 Slack-2.

App Integration

For third party integrations, Microsoft Teams will be the better choice for most. You get 250+ integrated apps for all pricing tiers, including the free version of Microsoft Teams. More importantly, Microsoft Teams is perfectly integrated with Office 365.

It becomes very easy to collaborate within documents and files through the Office 365 integration, and you can even use Microsoft Team’s search bar to search within documents themselves. This integration beats anything Slack can offer in this regard.

Slack can have up to 10 app integrations for free, and up to 1134 if you pay. For most people though, 10 is more than enough. 1134 is overkill.

So, it really comes down to whether your team would find benefit in the Office 365 integration or not. Teams-4 Slack-2.

Sharing Content

One of the major perks of both collaboration tools is the ability to easily and quickly share content with your peers. This was a notable and exciting feature of Slack when it was first released, but now Teams is a close rival in this category. From within Slack, you can effortlessly create or share Google Drive documents. If your company’s main file collaboration source is Google Drive, then this is an advantageous feature.

With Teams, you can also easily share files; however, these files are from the Office 365 platform. If your company uses the Office 365 package, then this gives Teams a big edge over Slack. Another interesting feature of sharing content in Teams is that you can view and collaborate on files within Teams. If someone sends you a Word document, you can edit it in Teams without having to leave the platform. However, with Slack, you would need to download the attachment and then edit it externally. Teams-5 Slack-2

Both platforms offer a variety of bots via their app directories. Most bot developers see the value in providing their bots for both platforms, and nothing is stopping them from doing so.

This means you can expect popular bots like Polly and Zapier on both platforms, and integrations through platforms like Trello and SurveyMonkey are of course available on both too.

The only major difference comes from both platforms' built-in helper bots. Slackbot vs WhoBot. You can chat with Slackbot to get answers about how to use Slack or to get custom responses created by owners or administrators. You can create personal reminders and automated responses too.

Microsoft Teams used to offer T-Bot for help with learning Microsoft Teams, but it has since been scrapped for a traditional help system. WhoBot, on the other hand, can be useful for gathering quick data about employees to build new teams or collaborative tasks.

Slackbot certainly gets the crown for this one – if you like automation through custom reminders, automatic responses, and FAQs about Slack or your team, Slackbot is the better choice. Teams-5 Slack-3

Video Conferencing

Though Slack is aesthetically pleasing with all the visually appealing features, it’s Microsoft Teams which has a simple and clutter-free interface. Microsoft Teams has a left navigation bar with almost everything you’ll need from the application. One major advantage of Microsoft Teams is the number of people that can join the calls. Microsoft Teams allows up to 80 participants to be present on the call, while Slack is limited to only 15 participants. Hence, Slack won’t be suitable for enterprises with large teams that need regular collaboration.

More features Teams is slated to receive:

• Live captions and subtitles. Allows meeting participants to read speaker captions in real-time. Great for people who have poor hearing or are in loud environments.

• The ability to blur your background on video calls or to apply a custom background. Great for times when other people behind you don’t want to be on camera, your surroundings are busy enough to be distracting, or simply too messy or unprofessional for the nature of your call.

• Whiteboard masking. When someone is drawing on a whiteboard, Teams can capture the whiteboard and make the presenter’s body translucent so you can see what’s on the whiteboard with them standing in the way, instead of having them block your view of the board.

Teams-6 Slack-3.

Data Protection

Beyond the protection measures you can enforce with Microsoft Intune; Teams also provide data loss prevention to stop leaks. Slack does not have a similar service.

Both tools provide security measures to encrypt messages, files, and data. They also both come with two-factor authentication. However, Teams has the upper hand again with its admin controls because of its integration with the Microsoft Admin Center

Teams-7 Slack-3.

The Winner?

Hmm… That’s tough… Because at the end of the day, it all comes down to whether your business already uses Office 365, in which case, hey, come on, would you spend another couple of bucks on Slack when you already have a free similar tool?

Did you know you can turn your Teams/Slack channel into an internal IT help desk for offering on-the-go self-service for employees/first-line workers? Check out this blog on how you can use Workativ Assistant to create AI-powered conversational bots with automated workflows for Workplace IT Support! P.S. It really doesn’t matter if it’s a Slack Blog, everything discussed in the blog applies to Teams as well