Google Chat, formerly Hangouts Chat, is a collaboration tool competing with Slack, designed to make it easy for teams to be able to get their work done in one place. From direct messages to group conversations, Chat helps teams collaborate, and with dedicated, virtual rooms to house projects over time — plus threaded conversations — Chat helps users track progress and follow up tasks. Chat currently supports 28 languages and each room can support up to 8,000 members.
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Slack
Score 9.0 out of 10
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Slack is a group messaging or team collaboration app that aims to simplify communication for businesses. Features include open discussions, private groups, and direct messaging, as well as deep contextual search and message archiving, and file sharing. Slack integrates with a number of other tools, such as MailChimp, Dropbox, and Google Drive. Slack was acquired by Salesforce in December 2020.
The product is free to use, and also has paid plans with more features and greater controls.
The…
$0
per month per user
Pricing
Google Chat
Slack
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Free
$0
Pro
$7.25*
per month per user
Business+
$12.50*
per month per user
Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google Chat
Slack
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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*Per active user, per month, when paying once a year.
Pro is $8.75 USD per active user when paying month to month. Business+ is $15.00 USD per active user when paying month to month.
Google Hangouts is the better app for saving chats. With Slack, you'll need to buy a premium license and if your team reaches more than 20 members then things can get expensive. Slack may be cheaper initially but as soon as somebody adds new employees or contractors they will …
The main reason why we chose it - the overall G Suite solution, that we bought. We have Google Calendar, GMail & Chat built in. In order not to waste money - we decided to use Google Chat. It works fine, however, as said before, if you had experience with Slack - then you might …
Google hangout is very easy to install and you do not have to purchase this feature additionally, this comes with the google product. You can use this product even without installing the additional software. You can work while chatting with your colleagues easily. It can work …
All work but Slack works the best for our needs. Our users are familiar with Microsoft Teams, Google Chat and Skype but for integration with what we do our users have told us that they are more comfortable using Slack. I have not had to add or remove accounts for the other …
Microsoft Teams, Google Chat and Skype for Business were no match for Slack's features, ease of use and integrations. The other products feel like an afterthought or bundle as part of a more extensive offering, so they can't compete with Slack. Slack is easy to use for novice …
Slack is more full-featured than Google Chat. The ability to setup multiple channels within one space is far superior to having to setup multiple spaces in Google Chat. I also find Slack more fun and enjoyable to use -- the user interface is far superior to that of Google Chat.
Verified User
Director
Chose Slack
We also have Google Chat integrated with our Google Workspace. While some people within our organization still prefer to use Google Chat, Slack has much more robust functionality and most people within our Marketing and Communications unit use Slack. Google Chat is really only …
- MS teams Vs Slack - Slack athread View is incredible - API integration helps with our product - Multiple Domains Login is seemless - Google Chat Vs Slack - google is too messy. Great for chatting and productivity as individual tools. But as integrated productivity …
Slack is an integral solution for team communication, with an easy to use interface, intuitive access to its different modules, and lighter than its closest competitors. Even though more resource consuming than Google Chat, all the additional features justify the cost-benefit. Th…
Google Chat isn't as robust and doesn't have enough features to completely replace Slack. We use GChat as an emergency backup if we are unable to use slakc
Verified User
Professional
Chose Slack
The level of complexity for Power users is unparalleled in Asana. The only advantage Google Chat has is its linkage with Gmail, another indispensable tool. Google's meetings are better and connectivity-related issues are fewer. Microsoft Teams too is similar to Google Chat is …
Slack is a way better tool as compared to Google Chat or Google Hangout. Pumble gives a Slack alike feel and could be a good option. However, Microsoft Teams can be a tough competitor as Teams has good integrations with all Office products, Outlook, and web conferencing. And …
Verified User
Manager
Chose Slack
GChat is fine, but it doesn't have near the functionality or user-friendly interface that Slack has!
We have observed that Skype doesnt fit for our business needs as it has various limitations across adding people to the calls. creating the war channels is a very heptic task and long running Skype doesn't work on the mobile very well
Verified User
Executive
Chose Slack
Slack is far superior. Easier to use, less expensive, and simpler to set up. All of the others felt more clunky or harder for people to use on a daily basis. Slack is the best option in my opinion and the others are very far behind. I would suggest Slack over the competitors.
Slack can be personalized and used for a company. It has web access and also a great app. It has now great integrations and new features as calls, sharing screen, marking on screen shared, camera, channels, mentions, notifications on desktop and mobile app, status integration …
I think Slack is way better for chatting than Google, 100%! I think Team works great, but it might be tricky to use at its fullest capacity. Slack is more intuitive and easy to adapt to workflows. It's great that you can connect even with people outside your organization …
Slack is the superior offering for what we do and who we communicate with. The other programs offer basic features, but Slack continues to innovate and is business-first, which is very helpful for our small team. The feature set and integrations are better in Slack than other …
Slack is easy to use. Call scheduling, quick chats, different departments channels, etc. and other features attracts a lot. It is said to be the Social-Media of Business organization.
While Slack isn't perfect, Google and Microsoft don't hold a candle to Slack. They feel like they were built 20 years ago and nobody likes to use them. Occasionally, I'm forced to use those and the teams don't communicate nearly as effectively. Slack is a joy to work in. The …
We got slack primarily because it is more professional and especially geared towards work collaboration. Opposed to this, I think Discord is better suited for personal communications. Slack offers more options in sending documents and projects than Discord. Also, it is easy to …
Verified User
Employee
Chose Slack
Not even comparable. Slack has so many additional features outside simply messaging people, making it not comparable.
I didn't like it at all. Hard to keep track of messages and wasn't as user-friendly.
Verified User
Account Manager
Chose Slack
I think Discord is a better product in general - it allows for additionally functionally with bots BUT it does not have the integration with outside systems like google that Slack has. Slack also has a better search system where I think it just indexes previous conversations …
The main feature that keeps Slack above them all is the integration of various apps. One can never fully understand how many apps you can integrate with slack and make your professional life a lot simpler. Another important point is the price at which Slack is offered. It is …
Well suited for businesses of all sizes. HOWEVER, I would say keep the chat groups limited at the departmental level, ensure that your moderator or the individual responsible for the group keeps it on topic, and have your IT team monitor it from time to time. Google Chat gets used so much in our organization that we have rules and regs in our Employee Handbook regarding its proper use (and when used PROPERLY, it can be very effective).
I would definitely recommend Slack to everyone who needs a messaging platform for work. The thing that I most appreciate on Slack is the possibility of talking to my coworkers without using my personal number or personal apps. This way, I can separate what is work and what is not. Slack even has the option to mute notifications after work hours. I'm able to keep track of every project and discuss them in an easy and fast way. Another great thing is that you can keep and check the history of channels and groups, this way the discussions are never lost when someone joins the project in the middle of it or someone leaves, the history is always there. The only thing that bothers me in the platform is the system of threads, where you can easily lose the messages cause they look kind of hidden. If you have multiple subjects with someone and the person only responds in threads, it's very common to lose their messages.
While threads exist to keep conversations organized, managing and finding threads within channels can be cumbersome. Enhancements in thread management and search capabilities could be beneficial.
Slack has a limit on the size of files that can be directly uploaded. Increasing this limit or providing smoother integration with external file-sharing services could be beneficial.
Managing guest access can be cumbersome, and simplifying the process for inviting and controlling guest users would be beneficial.
Slack primarily operates within individual workspaces, making it challenging to collaborate across different workspaces. Enhancing features for inter-workspace communication could improve collaboration for organizations with multiple Slack instances.
The updates, support, general reviews on Google Chat are great everywhere. The development of the features is ongoing and this adds a great value to Google as a big company in the market. Other applications are limiting communication while Google Chat is allowing communication to grow. It is very easy to use it and teach others how to use Google Chat.
As useful as Slack has become within our company, I feel fairly confident we will continue to use Slack as a communication tool. They continue to improve their software and add value to its use within our office. Customer service delivers, which is an absolute must. Looking forward to how they improve.
It's not perfect. There are occasional glitches, drop-outs, and it takes a bit to get everything loaded and working. But it is significantly better than Zoom or GoToMeeting when you're in instructional settings. I know my teacher friends here like it and the administrators and parents seem to be satisfied too.
As long as you use the basic chat features and nothing more, it really is super easy to understand and use. Once you want to take advantage of some of the more advanced features and capabilities, that's when things get complicated. Anyone who has use SMS or a chat program before will be able to figure out the basics though, so rolling this out should be relatively straightforward and not required exhaustive training. Teaching chat etiquette is something else though.
I have not needed to contact the support folks for Google Hangouts Chat, so I can't speak to this with any accuracy. The online instructions are fairly clearly written, so it is fairly intuitive to start with. I did not feel the need to use the support people anyway.
I've never had to contact support for Slack which is a great testament to its ease and use. Adding people outside of the organization takes a little getting used to, but ultimately allows for greater collaboration between FTE and contractors. There is no clear alternative to this software, so it's the best we can do for now.
It always helps if you communicate to everyone in the organization how important it is to drop whatever other chat tools they are using and jump quickly to Slack. They will all fall in love with it.
Prior to Google Hangouts, our company used Spark. Spark was not integrated into our email, therefore it couldn't be easily accessed in the same browser. With Spark we also couldn't search our emails for keywords in a conversation, searching had to be done manually. The one feature I enjoyed about Spark was a request to get a user's attention: If I had an urgent question and I wanted to ensure the recipient saw my message/question, I would request their attention and the message screen would pop up on their screen.
Microsoft Teams got very confusing for me with all of the tabs and different things to learn how to use it. I felt that Slack has a much cleaner look and makes it easy for anyone to learn how to use. I also like how it integrates seamlessly into our Google/mac workspace!