Modern day technologies have made team collaboration and communication easier than ever before. The emergence of such applications has made it much simpler for distributed teams and collocated teams to carry out their work. Slack and Discord are popular examples of collaboration tools that are widely used today. In this article, we look at an in-depth Slack vs Discord comparison.
Also Read: Skype vs Discord – Comparison
Slack is a set of team communication and collaboration tools that are based on the cloud technology – it was launched by Stewart Butterfield in 2013 and now operates under the group name Slack Technologies. Slack is an acronym for “Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge.”
Discord, on the other hand, is a freeware Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software that was originally developed for communication between gaming teams and communities. It was launched by Discord Inc. in 2015.
Now that you know a brief history of both Slack and Discord, let us move forward with our Slack vs Discord comparison.
Slack vs Discord – Comparison:
Slack is a fairly popular choice for business teams and project management while Discord is renowned in the gaming community. The question here is: how do these tools stack up against each other? In this section, we take a look at several comparison factors to distinguish between Slack vs Discord.
Slack vs Discord – Pricing:
Discord offers most of its feature free of cost and while there is a paid optional upgrade available with the application, it does not give the ‘premium’ users a substantial advantage over ‘free’ users. On the other hand, Slack has a very limited free version and you cannot access most of the basic features (such as chat channels and group calls) without upgrading to the paid version. Therefore, in this Slack vs Discord analysis, Discord wins with a feature-rich free version that is best suited for small businesses and start-ups.
Slack vs Discord – Target audience:
Despite the fact that both Slack and Discord are team collaboration tools, they have been designed for different target audiences. Slack is targeted towards the business and work audiences and has the focus on features that are business oriented – such as audit, document management, identity management, and searching. Discord is targeted towards the gamers and it has its focus on features such as chat, voice calls, and high-speed performance. Each tool has its pros and cons depending on the target environment that you use it in which is why this Slack vs Discord analysis is a tie.
Slack vs Discord – Server management:
Discord has a server management system that makes it easier to keep track of your friend list on a day-to-day basis. It also makes server switching very simple with a single click. On the other hand, Discord does not allow the tracking of friends lists and their activities neither does it give you the control over which server you are on. In this Slack vs Discord analysis, Discord is the winner again.
Slack vs Discord – Message logging:
This is a battle between accountability and privacy. Slack favours accountability and it has an absolute message logging feature in its free version while the message logging is monitored by administrators in the paid version of the application. Discord favours privacy and does not have logging in the free or paid version – once a message is deleted, it can not be retrieved.
Slack vs Discord – CPU Usage:
Users that have made use of both applications have reported Slack is more CPU-intensive than Discord. According to these user statistics, Discord uses around 5.6 MB per every 60 requests made on the web while Slack uses around 9.5 MB for the same number of requests. Even the desktop application of Slack is heavier than Discord. This is the reason that Discord wins in this Slack vs Discord comparison.
Slack vs Discord – Supported platforms:
There is not much difference in the supported platforms for Slack vs Discord. Both of them cover all of the most popular platforms that include Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Chrome OS. Discord has a slight advantage here since it even supports the Linux platform which Slack does not support.
Conclusion:
Most people often argue that Slack and Discord are applications that have been made for different purposes. However, if you consider both of them to be team collaboration tools then Discord has the edge over Slack. In the 6 comparison factors that we have considered in this comparison article, Discord stood out as the winner in 4 while the remaining 2 were a tie between the tools. If you are looking for an affordable and powerful team collaboration tool then we recommend that you use Discord.