One of the things that has left us 2022 is the rise of teleworking. This year, in which we have learned to live in society by following the rules of distancing, we could safely say that Online communications in both education and work are here to stay.
One of the most used apps for telecommuting is Slack, since this offers chat rooms organized by topic, private groups and direct messages, thus integrating services such as Google drive, Dropbox, Heroku, IBM Bluemix, Crashlytics, GitHub, Runscope, among many others.
Although the eyes of telecommuting are on on Slack as the main platform, here we are going to expose you other platforms that work as some Equal or more efficient alternatives than Slack.
List of the best alternative tools to Slack for teamwork in your company
Next we will see some tools that will help us to enhance teamwork, without the need to use the powerful Slack platform.
Go for it:
SpikeNow.com
What stands out the most about this platform is the way it managed to reinvent online communications through its messaging and chat format: The visual representation in the form of a dialogue, dispensing with the subject line and signature. In other words, its platform is as formal as email would be, but adding the touch of naturalness that direct chat messaging has, this allows you to follow the correlation of messages in a longer discussion.
Besides all this, in Spike you will find other resources such as group chats, sending files, video calls and it also allows managing a calendar. It is important to note that In Spike you don’t need to create an account, you can use your existing email. The free version applies to all those natural individuals who have an account with a provider such as Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook. If you want to use Spike for your own email domain you should lean towards the version premium.
Rocket.Chat
Released to the web in 2016 and with members of the developer community of GitHub, is an improved version of Slack and open source. The detail that is open source is what will allow business developers to have a fully customizable communication system, and also free. You only need to download the application so that your confidential data is saved on your servers.
This platform it brings together all the traditional messaging features plus team chats, projects and private channels that are closed, encrypted and not archived. In addition, you can add unlimited guest users and channels to live sessions, offering you the assurance that there will always be one for file sharing. two-factor authentication.
There is a Rocket.chat paid version for all those developers who want to have technical support. This paid version also includes a scalable cloud option. They offer you three subscription plans: Brozer, Silver and Gold, whose difference, basically, is in the amount of terabytes with which you will have in the cloud and in the speed of response of the technical service.
MatterMost.com
It is another alternative that includes open code that allows internal communication between companies through their own servers, giving the security that the data provided will be more secure on their own servers. In addition to private messages, the service allows VoIP telephony, instant message calls and video conferencing.
All you have to do to associate your server with this platform is select it during installation and specify the domain. Similarly, the program will ask you to determine if it can send push messages, check spelling or start automatically when the system is turned on.
Like the others has a free edition for teams and two versions for business, these include encrypted push messages, AACP for optimal security, additional authentication, extended support for the data center and enterprise analytics.
Facebook Workplace Groups
It is part of the work suit that Facebook offers, It has channels (group chat), private messaging, message search, screen sharing, post chat timeline, video conferencing and live video. It is free and is used by small businesses that want to reduce costs for video calls that generally have a cost on other platforms.
Further, one of its great benefits is that it gives individual groups a kind of forum or help desk that can be ideal for companies or groups where members live in places with different time zones. Although it is free has some restrictions per user, which are: 5GB per user, no third-party tool integration and conferencing limited to 20 people.
Chanty.com
It is a tool that includes many functions in addition to a simple chat. Apart from the basic functions such as instant messaging and video calls, will allow you to assign tasks to each of the group members. It is an alternative for those small companies that need a communication platform for free.
It is quite intuitive and easy to use, although it also handles some restrictions such as: 20GB of storage per group, up to 10 users per group and 10 third-party integrations and there are no group video / audio calls.
Fleep.io
Being from the same Microsoft messaging development team, Skype; Fleep is a cloud-based communication platform that works on operating systems like Mac, Linux and Windows, both in the web browser and on the desktop, and on systems like Android or iOs.
In its version for companies (premium), it allows you to configure an administrator account where you can invite users and create chat rooms, but beyond the internal communication of the company, it allows to have conversations and chats with other teams and other companies. They will have a storage space of up to 100 GB. In account management, you can block or remove spammers and inactive users.
In its free version, you will have access to the number of users and conversations you want, you can upload files, manage activities and settings, as well as establish and manage tasks with a memory of up to 10 GB for you to store your tasks. Its only disadvantage would be that it does not include hosting on its own servers.
Microsoft Teams
After the Microsoft team launched its pioneer in business communications, Skype for Business, they decided to offer medium and large companies a platform that was adapted to them, thus Teams was born. Unlike other platforms that we have pointed out, this one cannot be downloaded and used as a single tool, you must first purchase a Business suite; but it has the advantage that it is compatible with all Office applications.
Teams contains, among others, all the essential features of this type of platform: instant messaging chats, you can share files through the OneDrive cloud, make high-quality video calls, where more than 250 people can connect; and its developers added the Outlook calendar integration where the team receives notifications of upcoming meetings.
Twist.com
It is a platform that uses a thread-based model for its instant messages, so that in this way, they look ordered and allow users to focus on the messages that are really relevant to them. It is available for both web, desktop and mobile (Android / iOS).
It is admired for its clean interface, because The messages in each channel are divided into threads, which is why it keeps things organized so that all members are aware of their projects. In addition, the users / guests are unlimited, the messages are also unlimited, you will have 5GB of storage and it has up to 5 third-party integrations; undoubtedly a good alternative for Slack.
Bitrix24.es
It is not just a real-time communications application, it is described as a free marketing and communications suite. It offers services like channels, creating tasks, video calls and more, as well as e-commerce tools.
As well It has CRM and software for contact centers, these characteristics make it exclusive among many communication platforms. It is a good alternative to Slack, since apart from offering all the basic services it also has the classic messaging model, which makes it quite easy and intuitive to use.
Glip.com
It was acquired by RingCentral to merge with offers in 2015. Glip is a team collaboration app that offers task management features to keep your team in tune with the business. Like the ones we have noted above, it is a simple interface and very similar to the instant messaging of many other platforms. It also has additional functions such as creating calendars, notes and tasks directly from messages.
Slack vs Trello What is the best tool to work together and be more productive?
Nowadays, discovering which is the best platform to be able to carry out the work of your team or company is of vital importance for it. All users look for the same from a communication platform: Easy use, speed and organization.
In these three aspects, it should be noted that both platforms shine, and in fact the opinions of users are quite similar for both, so it is important to know which are the most important comparative points between these platforms:
PRICE
• Slack: € 8.00 / month
• Trello: € 12.50 / month
FUNCTIONALITIES
• Slack: Mentions, API, Real-time Updates, Document Archiving and Preservation, Two-way Videos and Files, Video Assistance, Authentication, Full Text Search, Activity Tracking, SSL Security, File Transfer, Video Conferencing.
• Trello: Mentions, API, Real Time Updates, Document Storage, Secure Data Storage, Collaborative Booking, Activity Tracking, Project Time Tracking, Task Tracking, SLL Security, Data Synchronization, SSL Security, Data Synchronization, Transfer files, multiple projects, filtered views, voting.
INTEGRATIONS
• Slack: Aircall, Asana, Bitium, Breezy, Datadog, Dropbox Business, Help Scout
• Trello: Avaza, Bitium, Cronforce, Dropbox Business, Hubstaff
It’s important to know what Slack in general terms it has more functionalities, but Trello has more functionalities aimed at the basic activities of the members of a company or team, which makes Trello with better ability to sustain communications and interactions within a company. However, it is important to highlight why you need a communication platform, how you want to guide it and what results you hope to obtain in order to decide which one best suits your needs.