The best slack alternatives are in your hand now to enhance the business revenues and make work less cumbersome. While we are experiencing an unquenchable thirst to win in the race, don't be slack to choose a right option for you.

In any collaborative environment, it is paramount to have a smooth-running tool for intra-entity communication. However, there is still a sneaking suspicion out there in some congregations that chat applications could be a distraction. Do they really help or gnaw into employee productivity?

Is the data secure? These and several other issues have left many prevaricating. Email- the predecessor to chat apps, is still the preferred mode of communicating for millions across the world. But, emails for team communications cannot yield better productivity from the employees either.

Against this “to-be-or-not-to-be” backdrop, enters Slack – the harbinger of new times in chat arena. It smashes trepidations of the doubting with its “wonder” features. Slack quickly became the go-to for several enterprises leading to the displacement of many other tools. The success story of Slack has opened up the floodgates as more and more newbies have started parading their wares for the gleefully growing user-community. 

Not the one to be left behind, I too started digging out (that’s my main vocation) to see what else the market holds for the discerning users. Take a look as I try to lay bare the top seven Slack alternatives that have the ability to communicate in real-time making any collaboration simple, seamless, secure and steadfast. Business chat applications could reduce the troubles that emerge in asynchronous communication.

Troop Messenger

Troop Messenger is yet another team collaboration app but with a freemium feature. With the entire company at your fingertips, this a powerful Slack alternative that comes with robust management functionalities. One-on-one and group chat are an effective way to get more done without hustling in visiting one another’s desks. Troop Messenger pitches itself as a real-time communication platform for text, audio and video chats, screen sharing, smart search filters, third-party integrations and many task-made-easy functionalities. You can even preview all media before downloading by not letting your storage space cramped.

The most fatal flaw of Slack is that you have to pay every single time. Either if you want to add another member or guest, you have to pay. Isn’t it expensive? Troop Messenger pricing is actually quite simple as it offers an enterprise plan for a month worth $5.00 per user/month. Nevertheless, there is also free and premium plans with associated features aimed to assist all kinds of organizations.

Troop Messenger lets your work stream go smooth, build fluid teams, communicate without obstructions without breaking your bank. With this instant messaging service, you would never run out of messages limit, storage, and team creations. One feature I really adore in this instant messaging application is that users’ profile is composed of basic information such as name, designation, contact information (email and mobile number). Also, one can even look for the status availability which aids in not bugging the person constantly to revert

Mattermost

Mattermost is an open-source on-prem software, one of the best Slack alternatives. Both the applications ultimate purpose is to bring the team communication at one place with messaging across the web, PC, mobile with constant syncing. However, Mattermost uniquely provides the privacy, scalability, supremacy that are required for all the enterprises. 

This application is mostly written in Golang with a good chunk of JavaScript under the React framework. It is easy to deploy, manage, and upgrade. With Mattermost, you can do more in less time using smart search filters, easy messaging and cross-device accessibility.

Mattermost is clearly a Slack competitor as when you deploy the software on your own server, you have the permission to add the encryption on the communication channel. Also, you can even control that only your organization has access to the database, unlike Slack which does not support end-to-end encryption.  

Yammer

On the surface, Yammer seems more like Slack. However, Yammer is an enterprise social network with a wide range of features to enhance the team communication whilst Slack is a messaging app for teams. Yammer must be your choice if you want to work smarter and faster. This team collaboration app allows users to create groups, share fields, organize projects, gather feedback, transfer files. Company profiles can be set up with each users’ basic information.

An inducement to use Yammer is the fact that it can store all sort of information, categorize them in a historical database. Any party can access the information with the synced devices either in-house or anywhere else. Yammer is more like Facebook to your organization. Conversations can be ignited by creating a post which obviously lands in feed, others can be the comment or like etcetera. Users can check the status availability of other members and @mention function serves well in group communications. The priority messages tool allows users to deal with the important things first which are an upper hand feature to be considered.  

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams has risen to the pinnacle of the Business communication platforms pile within a short time. This instant messaging-cum-team workspace software has won many major customers since its birth. You can have a one-on-one conversation or include all your teammates in group chats. Unlike Slack which limited the content search with the logs when they hit 10,000 messages; Teams throws open the search option for unlimited messages.

If your organization is already running in a Microsoft environment, this is a great way to extend the collaboration of familiar and productive tools like docs, Excel, PowerPoint, Onedrive and many more. Microsoft Teams seamlessly blends with 140+ integrated apps and services. On top of everything, this application is multi-lingual with more than 35 languages. 

Rocket Chat

Rocket Chat is a Web Chat Server developed in JavaScript using the Meteor full stack framework. It is a free and open source tailor-made application for communities wanting privately to host their communication. This software can be entirely customized if your programming skills are decent enough to build your own chat platform. Rocket Chat supports many features for free which Slack doesn’t even provide in paid versions.

With this application, you can even customize the emojis. What else would be more amusing than reacting with your teammate’s witty face? Isn’t it? Additionally, you can switch to video or audio calls with screen sharing for more efficient teamwork. Those who want to get the standard Slack features at zero cost should seriously consider this app.   

Conclusion :

At last, the best platform for your enterprise depends on your business. Better late than never, move to a tool that has all the features essential for your business and compatible with the devices you are using and of course, comes within your budget. With hundreds of Slack alternatives available in the market, don’t be slack in your efforts to locate the right one for you.