In 2016, Microsoft had the opportunity to acquire Slack, however, they decided to create their own collaboration tool—Microsoft Teams.

Ever since, these two platforms have been competing with pretty similar features, but if you look closer, you’ll see that there are slight differences between these two.

Torn between which side to pick in this war between Slack and Microsoft Teams?

We got you covered! In this article we will walk you through the main differences you need to know between Microsoft Teams vs. Slack and help you pick the best collaboration tool for your team. 

Which of them will win? Or maybe a better question is, WHO will win? 

Find out at the end of this article as we explore:

1. User interface comparison
2. Features comparison
3. Pricing Comparison
4. What Collaboration tool you should choose

User interface comparison:

Sometimes people confuse user interface with functionality and believe that the more functions it has, the better the user interface will be, but that’s a misconception that more is better when in reality less is more. User interface is about how friendly and easy it is to navigate your way through a platform and how intuitive or natural is the experience of using it. Basically, the simpler and less congested a platform, the better. Here is an overview on how most users feel about using Slack and Microsoft Teams:

Slack

Ever since Slack appeared on the scene, its workspace has been a sleek and engaging user interface that the industry considers standard by today. There are several color theme options to suit anyone’s preferences and the user interface learning curve is so low that you don’t need a tutorial to get started and use it with your team.

Microsoft Teams

As we mentioned above, when Microsoft had the chance to acquire Slack, they didn’t take the opportunity, but they did take some inspiration from it to build Teams. The interface offers some supporting docs and tutorials to learn how to navigate through the platform and it works great for very large teams. However, even though Microsoft Teams feels very similar to Slack as a platform, it lacks the easiness, engaging, fun, and personalised side of work that make Slack shine through.

Features comparison:

To have a better look, we surfed through Reddit with the search query Teams vs Slack. Here are some of the most recurring features users highlight of each platform and how they compare:

Slack 

Slack is a channel-based collaboration tool that is growing rapidly in the market by offering a more engaging yet professional platform for instant messaging, easy file sharing, and accessibility features. Here are the highlights users have raved about:

1. Collaborate with external partners

With a paid Slack plan, you can access their unlimited external collaboration feature which offers organisations a way to communicate with external parties within the same platform that internal employees use to hub all communication in one place.

2. Audio and video calling

Since not everything can be talked through chat, Slack also offers one-to-one audio and video calls. However, if you want to invite more people into your calls, you have to opt for the paid plan that will allow you to add 15 participants. You might be slightly disappointed about this particular feature when you read about Microsoft Teams features below.

3. Organised channels

Slack organises all of your conversations in channels, which you can set as public or private based on topics, projects, offices, you name it. These channels are open for you to instantly message your team and engage with them further about work directly.

Microsoft Teams

As part of Microsoft Office 365 Suite, Microsoft Teams has naturally become a popular collaboration and communication tool for many organisations. Here are some of the features users highlight the most about this platform:

4. Audio and Video conferencing

One of Microsoft Teams’ main best features is their audio and video conferencing, which lets you do one-on-one calls up to 100 participants in the free version and can even host live events with up to 10,000 participants, which can include internal and external members.

5. Screen sharing

You can collaborate with the screen sharing options from anywhere you want and even control what screen you want to specifically share. This enables your team to be on the same page and to visually explain more complex ideas or plans.

6. Teams

Microsoft teams offers an option to create “teams” for different projects. This feature is specially great for large companies as you can create teams within teams to keep all your projects and conversations organised.

Pricing comparison:

Evidently, when comparing softwares, you aren’t just looking for a great user interface and useful features, but for the most wallet friendly option as well:

What collaboration tool should you choose?

So, we go back to the beginning, who wins in this war? Microsoft Teams is an option you already have available with a 365 Suite subscription and its audio and video conferencing feature excels over most communicational platforms. On the other hand, Slack offers an easy and clear instant messaging platform than Teams and has a much more engaging and customizable interface, but still lacks better task management functionalities like setting goals, creating and assigning tasks, and tracking progress unless you to integrate another third party tool, which means more money to spend on subscriptions. Don’t fret over it, we got you the perfect alternative so you can “excuse yourself from this narrative” and avoid the war between these app

Your team’s own social media platform

MORNINGMATE has a simple and intuitive user interface that doesn’t require a high learning curve, making it easy and seamless to use and integrate to your workflow. The platform has a familiar look and feel design as a social media platform, offering a feed of all work activities for each project board so that you can have everything related to that project or topic in one place. Need to see work differently? MORNINGMATE offers different workspace views such as Task list view, calendar view, and even a timeline view where you can see everyone’s progress, tasks, and meeting schedules all at once. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, here are some of the main features that not only covers what Slack and MS Teams does, but goes the extra mile, offering vital functionalities that you will surely miss not having:

1. Chat, comment, and video call with the best

While Slack and Teams have channels and teams, MORNINGMATE offers centralised communications by context. You can comment directly on work posts to give feedback on a specific topic or task, create one-on-one or group chat rooms to discuss work in real-time, and if that’s not enough, you can hop on a call directly from the chat box with our ZOOM and Microsoft Teams integration (That way, you can still take advantage of the best feature Teams has to offer AND your 365 Suite subscription).

2. Create, assign, and track tasks

MORNINGMATE’s task manager, simplifies creating tasks into 5 easy steps:

1. Write about the project
2. List all tasks
3. Select progress status
4. Assign team members
5. Set deadlines and priority

Yes, that’s how simple it can be to plan and track projects and tasks with MORNINGMATE.

Internal and external collaboration

MORNINGMATE makes collaborating seamless and effortless by allowing you to easily invite external partners and customers into your team’s workflow so that you can keep everything in one place and you can forget about the endless emails and lost files that usually clutter when working with external parties. 

We are barely scratching the surface about the powerful tool MORNINGMATE can be for your team. Check out all the other features MORNINGMATE’s platform has to offer and don’t get stuck between two options to make a smart decision. Try MORNINGMATE for FREE and peace out of this app war you don’t need to take part of.