With today’s remote and distributed work environments, efficient communication is vital to maintaining a collaborative team that stays on track. Several platforms have emerged over the years to help you stay in touch with your teams. While some have fallen off, others have continued to evolve and are now the gold standard for team communications. Two of those options are Slack and Google Chat. Both of these communication and collaboration tools have extensive histories and are mature products that help you ditch endless email threads.
To help you decide which one is right for your team, we’ll dive into both Slack and Google Chat and explain the strengths and weaknesses of each solution.
What is Slack?
Slack is a dedicated team messaging app that allows you to customize your communication workflow to fit your needs. There are features for basic messaging between individuals, group messaging, and privacy features to limit what team members can see. Created in 2013, Slack has gone through numerous iterations and improvements and has become ubiquitous for both small teams and corporations alike.
Currently, Slack is owned by Salesforce and there are free plans as well as various paid plans which offer more features and advanced customization options.
Features
While seemingly simple on the surface, Slack boasts many advanced communication features that are all easily accessible from the main interface. Below, we’ll review the top features that make Slack a favorite among businesses.
Video & Voice support
No communication tool would be complete if you had to use third-party services for your video or voice meetings. Slack delivers in this regard with its Huddles feature.
The main benefit of Huddles is that the feature is very lightweight and launches instantly from within Slack’s desktop or mobile version. Although lightweight, you can still use advanced collaborative features like screen sharing. You can even add colors and other options to liven up presentations if needed. All Huddles can be recorded and reviewed later. If any documents or files were shared during the meeting, those are stored as well and require no searching to pull them up. There is a limit of 50 people for Huddles on Slack paid plans. On the free plan, simultaneous users are limited to two.
Integrations
Integrations are one area in which Slack shines. Being so popular, Slack has integrations with virtually every business productivity suite and platform you can think of. Even platforms with very few integrations will generally have one for Slack. Currently, there are over 2,600 built-in Slack integrations with other platforms.
So if there is any specialty software or app you currently use for a specific task, like file sharing, you can easily fold that into your Slack workflow with a few clicks.
Customization
One of the great features of Slack is the ability to customize all of our communications on the fly. For example, you can instantly transform a DM between two people into a separate channel for a wider discussion. The same goes for channels or DMs that you want to transform into a Huddle for voice or video. Slack doesn’t lock you into one form of chat and then force you to create another channel. It keeps everything flowing smoothly and also prevents your interface from getting bloated. There’s also robust customization for alerts based on keywords, frequency, and a do-not-disturb feature. Overall, you can customize Slack far more than Google Chat and many other team communication tools.
Canvas For Collaboration
Slack goes beyond just chat, voice, and video collaboration and offers a built-in whiteboard called Canvas.
Slack Canvas comes with plenty of templates for common business uses—these help when you need to pull something up quickly during an impromptu meeting. But you can also fully customize Canvas with automation to provide special features. Everyone accessing your Canvas will be able to use your custom tools and automation as well. Canvas works in any channel within Slack and you can invite others to view, share, or add to it.
Search Functions
Communications and chat functions are great, but if you can’t go back and find the information you need, it can really limit the usefulness. Slack has robust tools for searching your past communications, Huddles, and channels to find what you need. These go beyond just simple keyword searches and you can set advanced filters to narrow down each search result until you find what you need.
Slack Connect
Slack Connect is Slack’s in-app feature that lets you invite people from outside your organization to communicate with your team. This is great for inviting clients, vendors, or prospects into your channels.
Slack Connects allows you to ditch emails and let everyone on your team see what’s going on with outside contacts. You still have full control over what gets shared, so it’s secure and no proprietary information is at risk as long as you properly set up permissions.
Pricing
Slack does offer a free plan, but many useful features and usage allowances require a paid plan.
Free Plan: $0/month
- 90 days of message history
- 10 app integrations or published workflows
- 1:1 audio and video meetings
- 1:1 messages with people outside your organization
- Create and collaborate on documents in channels and DMs only
- 1 workspace
Pro Plan: $7.25/month/user
- Unlimited message history
- Unlimited app integrations and workflows
- Group audio and video meetings
- Group messages with people outside your organization
- Create and collaborate on documents anywhere
- 1 workspace
Business+: $12.50/month/user
- Unlimited message history
- Unlimited app integrations and workflows
- Group audio and video meetings
- Group messages with people outside your organization
- Create and collaborate on documents anywhere
- 1 workspace
- 99% guaranteed uptime
- User provisioning and de-provisioning
- SAML-based single sign-on
- Data exports for all messages
Enterprise: Contact Slack for pricing
- Unlimited message history
- Unlimited app integrations and workflows
- Group audio and video meetings
- Group messages with people outside your organization
- Create and collaborate on documents anywhere
- Unlimited workspaces
- 99% guaranteed uptime
- User provisioning and de-provisioning
- Supports multiple SAML configurations
- Data exports for all messages
- Support for data loss prevention, e-discovery, and offline backup providers
- HIPAA-compliant message and file collaboration
- Built-in employee directory
What is Google Chat?
Google Chat started out life as part of Google Plus. Like many Google products, Google Plus was shelved and the chat features were rolled into a new service called Hangouts. A few years later, Hangouts was rebranded to Google Chat. A bit of a winding journey, but that’s typical for Google products. But that journey has helped Google refine Chat to be a streamlined tool that works seamlessly with its wider suite of productivity apps.
Google is less feature-rich compared to Slack, but in some ways that’s its strength. For teams that need a straightforward tool for tracking conversations and communications, Google Chat fits the bill.
Overall, it uses more of a forum-style approach that shows conversations as threads, similar to Reddit or message boards from years ago. It’s a different approach and works well, but you can’t quickly spin off conversations, which is definitely a downside in some situations.
Features
Despite the simplicity, Google Chat does have some strong features going for it and we’ll outline those below.
Integration With Google Products
This should come as no surprise but Chat’s biggest strength is how it integrates with other Google products. If you work in the Google ecosystem, Chat will immediately integrate with every workflow you already have.
Google Docs or Sheets sent will automatically alert you if there are permissions that need changing before being set. A great feature that prevents additional communications after you send an attachment because someone can’t access the file. You can also launch a Meet, which is Google’s video service, right from Chat.
Overall, this integration is Chat’s greatest benefit and for those not working in the Google ecosystem, you will miss out on most of what it has to offer in terms of workflow.
Works With Large Teams
If you have a need for large team communications in a threaded-style format, there is nothing similar to Google Chat that can be set up as quickly. Chat allows up to 50,000 participants in a Space (Google’s version of a Slack Channel).
These work well for company-wide discussions and other high-volume scenarios. The downside is that Google Chat doesn’t allow you to comment directly on individual messages. You have to either mention someone with an “@” or quote their message, similar to a message board.
Integrations
Google Chat does integrate with third-party apps and platforms, although it’s not nearly as extensive as Slack. Apps like Zapier, Hubspot, and a few other large platforms offer integrations, but the options are limited.
However, it stands to reason since Chat is designed to be used within Google’s other suite of products. Just be aware if you need deep integration across your workflow using various platforms and apps, then Chat may not be a good fit for you.
Great Pricing
Google Chat is available to anyone with a free Google account. Any Google Workspace account will already have access to Google Chat as well, so there is no need to pay extra to enable the feature for professional use. This is a breath of fresh air considering many business software suites like those from Microsoft often charge you for additional tools and features.
For smaller teams, startups on a budget, or temporary teams, it can be a great alternative to investing in an annual plan through Slack.
Notifications
Google Chat has basic but useful notifications to keep you updated on the conversations you’re following. The best feature is the integration with Gmail and the customization to receive alerts or entire comment threads. However, the notifications are basic compared to Slack, so there aren’t advanced features to customize your notifications. This is definitely a drawback for project managers or those who are on several teams at once. In this way, Google Chat never really gives you the tools to manage a high volume of notifications. You’re either out of the loop or being flooded with notifications.
Overall, the notifications are good for basic use but don’t expect full customization. This is one area we would like to see Google improve its Chat product.
Value
Value can be tough to quantify as it means something different to each person. Google Chat comes with a Google Workspace account and those accounts start at only $6/month/user and include other useful benefits. This makes it considerably more affordable than Slack, but it’s a somewhat unfair comparison. Google Workspace gives you a whole suite of productivity tools while Slack is a dedicated communication tool.
If we had to pick one winner for value, we would give the edge to Google Chat based on the included suite of tools it comes with. However, if you need the dedicated features in Slack, then it’s well worth the price by itself.
Pricing
Google has a free version you can access with any personal Google account. All Workspace accounts include Chat with full functionality and integration.
Below are the different Google Workspace plans available that include Chat.
Business Starter: $6/month/user
- Custom and secure business email
- 100-participant video meetings
- 30 GB pooled storage per user*
- Security and management controls
- Standard Support
Business Standard: $12/month/user
- Custom and secure business email
- 150 participant video meetings + Recording
- 2 TB pooled storage per user*
- Security and management controls
- Standard Support (paid upgrade to Enhanced Support)
Business Plus: $18/month/user
- Custom and secure business email + eDiscovery, retention
- 500 participant video meetings + recording, attendance tracking
- 5 TB pooled storage per user*
- Enhanced security and management controls, including Vault and advanced endpoint management
- Standard Support (paid upgrade to Enhanced Support)
Enterprise: Contact Google for pricing
- Custom and secure business email + eDiscovery, retention, S/MIME encryption
- 1000 participant video meetings + recording, attendance tracking, noise cancellation, in-domain live streaming
- 5 TB pooled storage per user
- Advanced security, management, and compliance controls, including Vault, DLP, data regions, and enterprise endpoint management
- Enhanced Support
Slack vs Google Chat: Comparison
These two communication tools are quite different so it makes deciding between the two rather easy.
While they both can satisfy core communication between teams, Slack has far more advanced features that will enhance and simplify complex workflows that demand granular control over chat and messaging.
Interface
Even though Slack has considerably more features, we find its interface to always be the better of the two. It’s easy to use and you can manage all your conversations and channels with very few clicks or taps.
Notifications
Slack wins in this area and it’s not even close. Google Chat really lacks advanced notification features. Not only that, we found many notifications were delayed. This can present a serious problem for time-critical tasks.
Integrations
This one depends on how you currently work. If you’re already in the Google ecosystem, then you’ll find better integration with Chat, at least initially. Slack excels with third-party platforms and works with over 2,600 other apps right out of the box.
Collaboration
Both apps feature collaboration tools. With Slack, their Canvas feature and other tools feel more integrated into the overall platform. With Google Chat, collaborative features are through other Google tools, such as Meet or Drive.
Google Chat does work seamlessly with their other tools, but the integration feels better when using Slack. You don’t get the sense you’re launching a new app when opening a video call or creating a meeting.
Desktop & Mobile
You can use both Google Chat and Slack on either desktop or any supported mobile device running Android or iOS. The Google Chat app works well and has the same feel as most other Google Workspace apps.
Slack’s app has gone through countless iterations and improvements, and it’s noticeable when using it. Virtually every function is available via the app and it all feels natural after using the desktop version.
We give a slight nod to Slack on this topic since the mobile version is more fleshed out and useful.
Slack Vs Google Chat: Wrap up
Overall, these two chat tools can work well in the right situations. For teams who just need core communication functions along with Google’s other voice and video tools, Google Chat does a good job at a very budget-friendly price.
However, if you need advanced communication and collaborative control in a simple interface, then Slack really is one of the best choices available.Slack is popular for a reason and it’s because it delivers the tools teams need to manage complex communications and messaging.
Slack also only has one product, and that’s Slack. With Google, Chat isn’t really a main priority among their countless other projects. This doesn’t mean it’s bad or neglected, but Chat is likely not a development priority, and new features tend to lag behind dedicated tools like Slack.
The good news is that there are free versions of both Slack and Google Chat to help you make your final decision.
