The primary distinction between the two is their intended audience.
With millions of gamers utilizing the platform for screen-sharing, live chat, and other functions, Discord has virtually become associated with gaming.
Slack, on the other hand, is solely for business communication. Let’s have a closer look at how these two apps differ and which one is best for you to use.
What Is Slack?
Downloadable Slack tool that serves as a meeting place, bulletin board, and phone tree for your whole organizing team.
Slack may replace email, text messaging, and instant messaging for your team while keeping all communication modes in one platform.
Even if you can’t all be in the same room at the same time, it’s a terrific way to coordinate and work, as well as a fun place to get to know your fellow activists and organizers.
It’s a tool that you can use on your computer and phone to communicate with your team and keep everyone up to speed on the latest news and events.
Slack has grown in prominence in the organizational world in recent years.
Even if you can’t everyone be in the same area at the same time, it’s a terrific way to stay connected and engaged with a large team.
It enables real-time collaboration and communication while also allowing users to easily catch up if they have been gone.
Slack Pros And Cons
Slack is a good alternative for small teams who want a work-related communication tool.
It allows file sharing up to 1 GB, has over 2,400 integration programs, and there are eight themes that you can choose from.
It also provides multilingual customer support and has a storage capacity of 10,000 messages in Slack Free.
However, Slack’s free plans limit users to 10 integrations and two-user calls. It also lacks push-to-talk capabilities.
While the video and voice call facilities in Slack are basic, you can improve them by integrating the slack app on Zoom.
What Is Discord?
Discord debuted in 2015 and is an app for those with similar interests to exchange and connect.
It is very well-known in the gaming community as it lets video game players speak with one another and build a community outside of the games itself.
The platform is powered by servers.
These are created with a specific subject or theme in order for individuals to connect online and talk and exchange photographs, links, and information.
These servers provide both text channels and voice chat using the device’s microphone.
Joining community servers and talking with others who share your interests is a terrific way to meet like-minded people on the platform.
Whether you’re playing games or simply chatting with other server users, you may meet individuals from all around the world.
Discord Pros And Cons
The merits of Discord are its voice and video call features.
The program allows for phone conversations for two to 5,000 users (depending on the package), video calls for up to 25 individuals, and even push-to-talk capabilities and bot integrations to improve voice and video chatting.
Discord, on the other hand, isn’t ideal for file-sharing or professional communication.
Discord Free limits file sharing to 8 MB, whereas Discord Nitro and Discord Nitro Classic limit it to 100 MB (Guilded VS Discord).
Discord’s bots are also largely targeted toward gaming, which means you can’t use bots to combine Discord with your existing work processes.
Slack Vs Discord
User Interface
The user interface of Discord is quite similar to that of Slack. On the left are your contacts, and on the right are your discussions.
However, Slack’s UI appears to be superior because all of the channels, direct messages, and applications are readily visible on the right.
Users may quickly log in and access several channels on the server to speak with various team members.
In addition to contacts, users may see all channels and messages in the upper left corner of the screen.
Discord, on the other hand, is more complicated. Direct messages and channels have their own menus.
Furthermore, all channels are displayed on the left, while messages are presented on the right.
You may select a dark theme color as well as a bright mode in Discord.
Slack, on the other hand, just lets you personalize the sidebar with contacts and applications and select one of the 21 available colors.
If you know how to code, you can even alter the entire Slack design by utilizing custom CSS and editing the desktop app’s CSS file.
Slack has a lot of customization choices, and it’s no longer just a chat platform. In fact, it becomes more difficult with each passing year.
Communication
Slack allows you to connect with one another in a variety of ways, including direct messaging, private channels, and public chats.
Slack allows you to respond to comments immediately through a thread, which is useful because messages in chat applications tend to build up.
Inside the channel, a thread will display in a different window to the left, making it easy to follow. The direct messaging method in Slack is quite typical.
To initiate a private chat, simply click on a person’s symbol.
While Discord is ideal for audio and video communication, users may also exchange text messages via text-chats and direct messaging.
Text conversations on Discord are also themed, such as #notes, and direct messages are quite regular. To initiate a chat, you click on a person’s profile.
Unfortunately, Discord’s text functions have a significant drawback. Because Discord threads may quickly become overcrowded, it’s easy to miss fresh messages.
However, Discord has a “See New Messages” function that might be useful in this circumstance.
Notifications
Both Slack and Discord provide a plethora of notification customization options. Almost everything in Slack is customizable.
You may customize your notification schedule down to the minute, establish distinct settings for desktop and mobile, customize the style and sound of your alerts, and much more.
You may mute certain servers, channels, or even bothersome people that keep spamming the main channel in Discord.
Furthermore, you may customize notifications for each channel and create distinct notification preferences for desktop and mobile.
The notification settings in Discord are entertaining and very adjustable, but Slack is the obvious winner since you can personalize absolutely anything.
While Discord allows you to silence channels for a specific period of time, Slack allows you to configure notification schedules and even reminder notifications.
Slack also lets you set up notifications for certain terms, so you’ll be informed whenever they appear anywhere.
Video Calls
When it comes to video communication, Discord takes the lead.
The disadvantage of Slack video chat is that just two individuals may communicate under the Free plan.
Paid plans, on the other hand, allow you to add up to 15 people. However, Discord’s video call features are more advanced.
Certain conversation features, such as noise suspension and echo suppression, are customizable.
In addition, by pressing an unique button, you may go from a phone conversation to a video call and talk with up to 25 people at the same time.
Voice Calls
Slack voice calls are more deliberate. A voice call may be initiated by pressing the ‘call’ button in direct messaging or a channel.
It’s worth noting that the free plan only allows for two phone calls, but the subscription plans allow for up to 15 people.
Discord takes communication to a whole new level by allowing up to 5k people to join a phone call.
Discord’s voice channel allows communication to be even more effective by eliminating the need for users to set up separate calls; instead, you can just join a channel and begin speaking in real-time.
A voice call might be either public or private. The ‘push to talk’ function of Discord’s voice call is another baggable feature.
This function allows you to activate your microphone by pressing a certain button; this capability is useful when speaking with a big number of people.
Overall, Discord’s audio calls are more creative since it caters to gamers who desire rapid and easy real-time communication without interruptions.
File Sharing
File sharing in a chat application is essential for busy teams.
You may transmit a document to your whole team in seconds with file sharing, saving you time and keeping your documents safe.
Slack lets you exchange files from two different locations: Google Drive and your PC. Slack allows you to share 1 GB of data at a time when uploading a file from your device.
The storage capacities of Slack are plan-dependent. Slack Free allows you to store up to 5 GB, while subscription plans allow you to keep up to 10 GB per user.
Discord, on the other hand, lets you transfer files from your smartphone via text-based channels and direct messaging.
It provides each user with limitless file storage, but sharing is severely constrained.
Discord Free allows you to exchange files of up to 8 MB while Discord Nitro and Discord Nitro Classic allow you to share files of up to 100 MB.
With this in mind, Slack is your best choice if your team needs to share files on a regular basis. It enables the sharing of bigger files including Google Drive documents.
Cost
Pricing is another illustration of Discord’s community focus versus Slack’s focus on corporations.
When it comes to Slack, the free edition is severely lacking in critical functionality.
The message archive, in particular, is restricted to the last 90 days—anything beyond that cannot be searched for or scrolled up to.
Huddles, which are restricted to two individuals on the free plan, are also gone.
There is also no method for a single user to upgrade—the admin must pay, and the cost is per user. Pro, the most affordable option, costs $8.75 per user per month.
That soon adds up, especially in an online community. This type of pricing is most likely only viable for enterprises.
However, operating a Discord server is free and includes almost all functionality.
Individual users may pay for Nitro to have access to more features such as more custom emoji and larger upload sizes.
Individual users can also choose to enhance servers, which enables more emoji slots and animated server icons.
It is entirely up to community members to contribute these rewards if they so want, and the distinctions are mostly aesthetic.
Third-Party Integrations
Slack has thousands of connections with enterprise tools ranging from Google Drive to Zoom to Twitter.
Discord does not provide official integrations, instead making you depend on bots made by third parties.
These are less concerned with getting work done and more concerned with developing communities, which is understandable given each app’s target demographic.
With this in mind, Discord is probably not the ideal choice if you rely on native integrations with SaaS platforms.
Security
Slack and Discord both encrypt your data and enable industry-standard security standards like two-factor authentication and SSO, but Slack is more dependable.
In essence, Slack was designed for organizations that require stricter data security procedures, whereas Discord is a community-based platform.
This implies that you have less control over your servers than Slack administrators do over their workplaces.
However, keep in mind that if you want to use Discord for business, you will have considerably less control over your conversations, particularly DMs.
As previously said, DMs are separate and independent from servers, and you must rely on individual users to adhere to the greatest privacy and security policies.
Customer Support
Slack provides its users with high-quality, well-coordinated customer assistance.
They guarantee the finest possible resolutions for every type of client feedback and the most difficult inquiries.
The support staff, who are up to speed on the newest feature information, will assist users by ensuring that the program runs smoothly.
Slack’s help website allows you to access the application’s communal knowledge base.
Discord provides outstanding round-the-clock assistance to its users.
Aside from its 24/7 help center, its support crew is active on major social networks, including Twitter and Reddit.
Its dedicated help center website has all the information you need, from account settings to permissions.
Learn about its announcements, trust and safety, community initiatives, and much more on their website’s assistance center page.
Final Thoughts
There are compelling reasons to use either app. As previously said, the decision between Discord and Slack is entirely dependent on your goals.
Discord is ideal for group calls, expanding communities, and tight costs.
Slack, on the other hand, is great for professional teams, organized text-based communications, and access to premium (but expensive) tools.
Professionals will like Slack’s ease of use and corporate-casual style.
Discord’s chat walls and phone conversations are ideal for online communities and buddy groups.
Both are simple to use and offer competing features, but Slack will almost certainly cost you money.
