Slack alternatives · honest verdict

Slack Alternatives: Stop Renting Your Own Chat History

The best Slack alternatives are the ones that stop charging you per seat to read your own messages. That is the quiet scandal here: on Slack's free plan, anything older than 90 days vanishes from search, so the only way to keep your team's history is to start paying for every single person in the workspace. Lurkers included.

We have run teams on Slack. It is a genuinely great messenger. It is also a per-seat meter wrapped in emoji reactions, and the upgrade nudge that finally gets you is usually "where did that decision thread go." You pay to un-hide your own past.

Here is what nobody selling you a workspace will admit: at an early stage, team chat is ten channels and a #general nobody mutes. You do not need Enterprise Grid to coordinate eight people. Below are the five alternatives we would actually wire up, from "free forever, keep every message" to "self-host it and own the whole thing." We take zero affiliate money. Nobody pays us to recommend anything.

◇The contenders we put against Slack

Pumble

Google Chat

Mattermost

Discord

Chanty

The verdict

Most founders should drop Slack for Pumble (free, unlimited message history, no per-seat tax on your own past) or Google Chat if you already pay for Google Workspace and just stopped using the chat you own. Want to truly own your data? Self-host Mattermost. Building a community or a always-on voice team? Discord, free. Tiny team that wants a clean flat bill? Chanty at three bucks a seat. Keep Slack only when its app ecosystem and Enterprise admin controls are genuinely load-bearing, not a habit.

Slack alternatives worth a look

with a genuinely free tier

$0.00/mo

cheapest paid plan

Starting price, per user / month

Pumble

$0.00

Google Chat

Mattermostfree tier

Discord

$0.00

Chanty

◢

The picks that earn their seat

Pumble

The "keep your whole history for free" escape hatch. Looks and feels like Slack, but unlimited users and unlimited message history sit on the free tier, so nobody pays just to scroll back.

$ Free forever with unlimited users AND unlimited searchable history (the thing Slack charges you for). Paid tiers are cheap: PRO around $2.49/user/mo annual, Business around $3.99/user/mo, mostly for group video, screen share, and admin controls.

Use when: You left Slack's free plan only because 90-day history was eating your team's memory. Pumble fixes exactly that for $0 and the migration is close to painless.
Skip when: You depend on Slack's deep third-party app directory. Pumble's integration shelf is far thinner, so a heavily-wired Slack workflow will feel bare.

Google Chat

The chat you already pay for and forgot to use. Bundled into Google Workspace, wired straight into Gmail, Drive, Meet, and Docs, with Gemini sitting in the sidebar.

$ No separate bill. Included with any Google Workspace plan you likely already have (Business Starter around $7/user/mo, Standard around $14/user/mo). If you pay for Workspace, Chat is effectively free.

Use when: Your team lives in Gmail and Drive all day. Spaces, threads, and one-click Meet calls are right there, and the files you are arguing about are one autocomplete away.
Skip when: You want Slack's playful, app-rich vibe. Google Chat is competent and quiet, not fun, and its bot ecosystem is a fraction of Slack's.

Mattermost

The own-it-outright option. Open-source, MIT-licensed, self-hosted team chat that looks like Slack but runs on your own server with your data never leaving the building.

$ Team Edition is free and open-source (MIT) for teams under 250 people, with no per-seat fee and no message cap. Your only real cost is a cheap server. Paid Enterprise tiers (contact sales) add SSO and compliance.

Use when: You have someone technical and a real reason to keep chat in-house: regulated data, security posture, or a deep allergy to per-seat SaaS pricing. A 30-person team can run it for the cost of one Slack seat.
Skip when: Nobody wants to babysit a server or run upgrades. The free tier also skips SSO, so larger or compliance-bound teams get pushed toward the paid plan fast.

Discord

The always-on voice campfire. Built for communities and gamers, now home to plenty of startups who want drop-in voice channels and free, unlimited text without a per-seat meter.

$ Core product is free: unlimited servers, channels, voice, and message history at no cost. Nitro ($2.99 or $9.99/mo) is a personal upgrade for bigger uploads and perks, never a team-wide bill.

Use when: You are running a community, a creator team, or a remote crew that wants spontaneous "hop in voice" energy. The free voice channels alone beat Slack Huddles for casual presence.
Skip when: You need business-grade admin, compliance, audit logs, or a polished work face for clients. Discord still reads as a community app, not a corporate one.

Chanty

The clean flat-rate pick for tiny teams. Slack-style channels, threads, audio and video, plus a built-in task board, at a price that does not need a spreadsheet to predict.

$ Free plan for up to 5 members with unlimited searchable history (again, the part Slack meters). Business is a flat $3/user/mo annual ($4 monthly) for unlimited group calls, screen share, and SSO.

Use when: You are a small team that wants a predictable bill and a no-drama Slack swap. Five people stay free with full history; growth costs three bucks a head, not seven-plus.
Skip when: You are scaling past a couple dozen people or lean hard on integrations. Chanty is lean by design, so power users and big app stacks will feel the ceiling.

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On Slack too? See what your whole stack scores.

Pick your tools, get a Stack Bloat Score, your real annual bill, and a roast you probably deserve. Then exactly what we'd cut. We roast the bloat, not you.

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✂ What to cut first

Before you migrate anything, cut the Slack bloat that is quietly inflating your seat count and your bill. Cut the paid seats for pure lurkers: the advisor who reacts once a month does not need a Business+ license. Cut the 60 dead channels, the four #random clones, and the dozen integrations someone wired during a trial and forgot, each one a notification tax nobody reads. Cut the Canvas, lists, and workflow toys you turned on to "use the platform" and never touched. Nine times out of ten, the real reason you are eyeing the upgrade is the 90-day history wall. That is not a feature you lack, it is a fee to read your own past, and Pumble or Chanty hand it back for free. Only stay on a paid Slack when its app directory or Enterprise admin controls are doing genuine work. Do not pay per seat to make a chat app feel like a bigger company. Turn on the expensive tiers when the team actually hurts without them, not before.

FAQs

Is there a Slack alternative that is actually free and keeps all my messages?+

Yes. Pumble's free plan gives unlimited users and unlimited searchable message history, which is the exact thing Slack's free tier caps at 90 days. Chanty is free with unlimited history too, just capped at 5 members. Both let you keep your team's past without paying per seat to unlock it.

Why does Slack hide my old messages?+

On Slack's free plan, messages stay searchable for only 90 days, then they are hidden (and eventually deleted after a year). It is not a storage limit, it is the upgrade lever. The cleanest way to keep your full history is to move to a tool that gives it away free, like Pumble, rather than paying for every seat to un-hide it.

What is the best open-source, self-hosted Slack alternative?+

Mattermost is the standard answer. It is MIT-licensed, looks and works like Slack, and its free Team Edition self-hosts for teams under 250 with no per-seat fee and no message cap. Rocket.Chat and Zulip are strong open-source options too. All three keep your chat data on your own server instead of someone else's cloud.

Should my startup actually switch off Slack?+

Often, yes, especially if the only reason you are about to pay is the 90-day history wall. Audit first: cut dead channels, unused integrations, and seats for lurkers. If Slack's app ecosystem and admin controls are not doing real work for you, a free Pumble or your already-paid Google Chat covers an early team fine.

Will migrating off Slack lose my history and break my integrations?+

Less than you fear at an early stage. Most alternatives import Slack message exports, and tools like Pumble offer guided Slack migration. Your one or two genuinely-used integrations can usually be rebuilt in an afternoon; the rest you were not really using. Export your Slack data first, move the active channels, and let the old workspace sit read-only while you wind down.

Don't just swap a tool, wire the whole stack

Picking Slack's replacement is step one. The wiring is the win.

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Researched against: slack.com · slack.com · pumble.com · pumble.com · chanty.com · discord.com · workspace.google.com · docs.mattermost.com · github.com · zapier.com · opensource.com · kinsta.com. Opinions are our own, nobody pays us to recommend anything.