Discord vs Slack – workspace app comparison

Honest thoughts after 2 years switching workspace from Slack to Discord.

It’s now over 2 years since we’ve made this transition and I couldn’t be happier. Zero regrets and I wish I did it sooner. If you’ve been annoyed at Slack’s free plan limitations, I highly suggest trying Discord. It’s not as pretty and does lack some app-integrations and dev-related functions…but still does a handful of essential things much better.

• Most notably of all, Discord’s FREE plan does not hide messages older than 90 days and deleting after 1 year (as Slack’s FREE plan does).

Let’s (quickly) compare Discord vs Slack for professional workspace use. I discuss only key factors in my real-world use, not all the endless nuances. Here are the PROS & CONS we found using them side-by-side on a daily basis.

Quick background of Slack vs Discord

Slack was always (historically) known as a workspace app.

Originally built for internal company use by Tiny Speck (parent company of Glitch game), its acronym stood for “Search Log of All Communication and Knowledge”. Its creator, Stewart Butterfield decided to close down the failing Glitch game and pivot instead to launching his internal workspace app to the public. Slack was publicly released in 2014, and the rest was history. Rapidly growing to 42 million daily users in 2025, and was recently sold to Salesforce in 2021 for $27.7 billion.

It’s wildly popular today across companies of all sizes, from the small one-man entrepreneur to large enterprises with thousands of employees. An incredible tool to keep your whole workforce (and workspaces) connected and organized, compartmentalized and just a click away.

The digital workspace has become ever more popular with the growing trend of remote working, those from home and those overseas. Slack has essentially become the digital office space. It seems anyone who has ever had an office job today has heard of and used Slack. It seamlessly blends casual chats, important tasks, information archives, and group meetings all into one place. Reachable on desktop or phone anytime you want. Creating a real sense of work community online.

Discord was originally built as a chat tool for gamers.

It solved a very simple problem at the time…how do online gamers chat with each other while playing a game? Calling friends on Skype was the only option and cumbersome. You had to switch apps, disrupting your game to make calls or re-add people back into the group…also risk losing the match, or have sound issues caused by audio device conflicts between game vs Skype.

Having a dedicated voice chat app for gamers solved it all. Over time, they added endless add-ons and extra features intended for gaming but actually also served well for other use (e.g. company workspace, project management, niche forums). It grew into an online hangout place to do anything and everything.

Today, Discord has 26 million daily users…which I’m shocked as I thought it’d be much higher. And rapidly growing its popularity as an all-purpose chat & casual information tool among numerous types of users. Not only gamers…but business workspace, topic discussion (like reddit or FB groups), event livestreams, programmer Q&A (like stackoverflow), and more. Seamlessly blending not only text, voice, video, and social media discussion…but also play and work.

More-so…it seems everyone younger than millennials has heard of Discord, 35% of of Gen Z use Discord. With 78% of its users now using Discord for things other than just gaming. So what do we have? A giant growing userbase with familiarity on a platform maturing for all-purpose use.

What both apps have in common – Discord vs Slack

In terms of workspace use:

• Free – costs you nothing to use. Free for as many users and workspaces/channels as you want.
• Useful – both are powerful communication and information tools.
• All platforms – both can be logged in from web (browser), desktop (app), mobile (app). Discord also accessible via gaming console.
• Similar essential features – private and public communication channels, managing users and assigning roles, communicate via text/audio/video. Numerous 3rd-party integrations.
• Great for community use – from small teams to large organizations, close intimate groups or large open board of strangers.
• Fun to use – incredibly important quality not to be overlooked. Both apps were created by game developers who know how to make repetitive tasks feel fun and rewarding. Both apps are fun to use, designed to keep users hooked through gamification mechanics. What a great way to boost productivity, right? 🙂

Slack – advantages for workspace use

Professional vibe and primarily used for work

Seems superficial but actually holds weight in this increasingly chaotic digital world of ADD distractions. Slack is more often used for work matters. Sure…there are people who use Discord for professional work, while following Slack workspaces for gaming or other hobby communities. But the majority of most communities on Slack are work-related channels.

Therefore it’s cleaner to have one place for all your work stuff. Close that app, and work-time is over. Less worry about manually specifying which channels to allow notifications for, like you would deal with if you had work and non-work all on the same app.

Those using Discord already for gaming and now trying to add work stuff to it, will have to spend several more clicks deciding which channels to mute and unmute when switching tasks. Also…becomes easier for non-work to distract from work and vice versa. If you’re not already using Discord, this point doesn’t matter.

Cleaner UI for office-work

Hands-down Slack has a cleaner interface for office use. Everything is visually prettier, more space around the text, more professional font, also bigger font size. The box where you write new messages has more text formatting options and also helpful buttons to add files, voice, video, code blocks, or other integrations.

There’s also a clearer visual distinction between different panels and their purpose. Everything seems organized for professional use. To help you not only chat but to do work things, and find other information or files that are tucked away in other panels. Kudos to Slack for feeling easier and cleaner to use, while actually having more features and more complex UI with more shortcuts to places.

Slack actually seems like a full office workdesk with many tools, not only chatting. While Discord in comparison appears like a simple chat app (or discussion forum), where you switch in and out of different chat threads, where some chats are 1-on-1 and other chats are group chats.

More features for office-work

Generally, Slack excels in office-type work features. Data entry, sharing files, chatting about specific tasks and having meetings.

There are probably 2 dozen most-useful features, perhaps even essential and “can’t live without”. But I can think of several right off the bat:

• Save for Later – you can bookmark, and save any message to reference later. Great for helpful answers or things you want to remember personally.
• Reminder option – set notifications to remind you about a message later. Choose the time and never let slip another critical message or to-do item.
• Larger file attachment limits – Slack allows sending much larger files, I believe up to 1gb. Whereas Discord free only allows 10mb, which feels almost useless (many work attachments are bigger)…and their paid plans allow 50mb & 500mb. With Discord, you’ll find yourself sending Google Drive links often whereas Slack rarely needs that.
• Activity panel – shows all messages and threads you were mentioned in.
• Files panel – conveniently see all shared files in one place.
• Better search function – typing things into search returns a more organized, more visually-helpful, and more useful set of results.
• Better screen sharing – easier setup for screen sharing, draw feature, etc.
• Messages load faster – messages load almost instantly whereas Discord sometimes takes a couple seconds, most noticeable when you’re scrolling further up to older messages. Not a big deal to me but noticeable and can be annoying for some.

More 3rd-party integrations for work-apps

Both Slack and Discord have integrations for the most common essential apps. But Slack has far more integrations and also deeper integrations with work apps. Simply unfurling a link or saving a click isn’t essential for me. Saving time via automation or allowing item edits from within Slack is what matters. You can even get notifications from other apps within the Slack interface.

I won’t bother to list apps. Do your own research and see which integrations matter the most for you, as well as what level of integration. Slack has a very nice “app marketplace” where you can browse and see all available integrations (over 2,000+). Free plan allows you up to 10, whereas PRO let’s you have unlimited. And indeed, these powerful integrations can turn Slack into something more than just workspace chatting and project management.

More organized for enterprise use

Large corporations with large work groups will benefit more from Slack’s greater level of organization. There’s more layers to things and different ways to relate things to each other. Whereas Discord just feels like endless channels and sub-channels. Discord can and often handles much bigger group sizes…but doesn’t organize them well, perhaps its strengths are in bringing people together rather than segmenting them. Slack is better at sectioning off things.

Better security

Slack was built for enterprise-use from the start, making its whole identity in that. Messages have end-to-end encryption and you’re less likely to have issues in the event of a data breach. This compliance allows its use in more security-strict industries (e.g. healthcare, finance, legal, etc).

I’ve heard people ask what if some rogue user breached your Discord server, how long would it take you to notice? To this, you should simply have some rules of requiring users to put their real names and/or don’t put sensitive stuff in public channels. But c’mon now…that’s common sense.

More PRO features for work use

Slack offers more work-specific features in its paid plans. Several productivity tools specifically for work use.

• Canvas – it’s like a mixed-media scrapbook-style, simultaneously-edited group note. Reminds me of the Notes app on OS X devices.
• Lists – very pretty TO-DO list where line items can have notes, assigned person, priority level, date, etc.
• Workflows – it’s like Slack’s internal “Zapier” function, where certain actions can trigger automation events. For example: putting a certain emoji on something makes it a task item elsewhere, filling out a Slack form to create items in another app (GitHub issue, Salesforce record, etc).

Discord – advantages for workspace use

Discord is actually free

Discord is free to start, free to use, all core features included with virtually no limitations, all messages are forever saved and can be seen forever. (No message limit, no history limit.) That underlined part was my main enticement for wanting to leave Slack. Because shortly after Salesforce’s acquisition in 2021, Slack announced massive limitations with its free plan. (Slack’s free version only shows messages up to 90 days old, and messages older than 1 year are deleted. It’s a clever but exploitive incentive to make you pay.)

Slack saying I have to pay or lose messages older than 90 days…essentially makes its FREE plan not useable for work projects lasting longer than 90 days (from conception to completion). And that any important thought must be acted upon within 90 days before its discussion is gone forever.

So with Slack, you have to upgrade to a paid plan to make it useable beyond the bare minimum. Paid plans start at $8.75/month per active workspace user…and you have to upgrade all users on the workspace. (Whereas Discord paid plans are only by individual user, and by individual choice.)

Using Slack since 2015, I’ve only ever upgraded SOLELY for the purpose of seeing older messages. I would upgrade for a month, save an important message and downgrade back to free again. Now that they’ve deleted messages older than a year…I have no reason to do my occasional upgrades.

It’s insulting and I feel platform-trapped into upgrading. Outside of seeing older messages, the paid Slack doesn’t offer me any truly essential feature. All/most of its other paid features or even advantages over Discord can be worked around:

• Integrations will just have to go without. Links don’t unfurl. I have to click to another app to get notified or do things. So be it.
• Making extra sub-channels to better-organize items.

Slack’s paid pricing seems like an unnecessary expense for small groups that haven’t made big money yet, or non-profit organization and hobby communities. The Salesforce acquisition resulted in predatory profit-mechanisms for shareholders rather than focusing on the joy of digital workspace. The mass exodus from Slack will only continue as Discord continues to rapidly mature for non-gaming use.

FASTER delete feature

Honestly, Discord could win on just this feature alone.

I simply cannot understand how this feature isn’t better prioritized and treated like a quintessential feature in Slack (supposed champion of enterprise-workspace). Just hear me out…

The delete function is one of the most important functions in office use. Not just being able to delete, but be able to do it quickly and easily. Imagine if a dental office couldn’t get rid of outdated paperwork, or your computer couldn’t get rid of unnecessary files, or your Gmail couldn’t get rid of unwanted emails…things would get messy so quickly. And thus…workspace apps need to make deleting messages easy!

I hated deleting messages in Slack because it requires multiple clicks/confirmations to remove each item. I tried being “clever”. At first, I searched for integrations that could do it, even tried hiring a dev to build my own but he said it wasn’t possible. Finally I resorted to resizing the app window to a certain width, leave the cursor in place, then repetitively click and press hotkeys to rapidly delete messages. But this ran the risk of sometimes deleting important messages. Why isn’t there a simple way to nuke an entire chat thread? C’mon…let’s make house-cleaning easier. Maybe it’s Slack’s plan all along to push you over their free plan limit of 10k messages. (Seriously.)

Anyways…Discord makes deleting sooooo much easier. You can’t single-click delete entire threads. But you can hold the SHIFT key and delete individual messages with just one click. It’s much faster than with Slack, which requires 3 mouse-clicks and re-aiming from message corner to center-screen confirmation box for each item deletion.

I’m not kidding. The ease of deleting messages in Discord means this much to me. I use it to delete messages that are no longer relevant, leaving only the important stuff.

Useful UI features for work-use

Discord’s UI is not cleaner overall than Slack, but has simple UI differences that allow better visual organization and considered essential to me. Some are so common sense that I wonder why Slack hasn’t implemented them long ago.

• Reorder channels – you can drag channels into any order you want. Most likely, you’ll put them in order of what’s most important to you. With Slack, channels are automatically sorted alphabetically with no option to customize. How effin annoying, I get around it by renaming them with numbers in front.
• Channel groups – Slack lumps all channels into one big grouping. Discord lets you create channel “categories”, essentially splitting them off into groups however you wish. For example…admin, staff, clients, private, public, etc.

These 2 simple features combined give me so much joy that Slack never could. With Slack, a large group would require scrolling through a giant list of channels. Or use the Enterprise plan’s “Grid” feature to create sub-workspaces, which seems overkill.

Adding to Discord’s UI differences is its simpler interface. Discord’s UI starts out with smaller font and less wasted space. So while it’s not as pretty, you do see more information in the same screen-space. Something developers and engineers can appreciate; besides we’re already used to “ugly” command-line fonts in dev-environments.

Discord also has fewer panels and “shortcut” links. A quick glance shows you exactly the area/s that have unread messages. Whereas one new message in Slack can light up 3-4 “unread” areas in the panel…(e.g. Unreads, Threads, DM’s, and the origin channel itself!) It’s funny but I often have clients, who are already use Slack, asking me “hey where did you put the message?” But never had that question in Discord.

Consolidated communication app

I’ve grown to like the idea of having both work and non-work communities on one app. Reason being that you have fewer places to check, and are less likely to miss time-sensitive notifications. My Slack communities have gotten quiet lately, to the point that I don’t check it habitually. It seems MANY companies (especially smaller ones) are moving away from Slack. Not being able to see older messages means people go putting (and searching for) info elsewhere and end up chatting things out elsewhere.

More and more communities that i join nowadays are on Discord and having work notifications there make it far less likely for me to miss them. Slack has become a place I only go for specific clients or communities. It’s no longer my habitual place to be. (A shame, considering their pretty interface.)

There’s also a huge benefit that the younger generation is already using and familiar with Discord, and doesn’t need much time to familiarize. Having your workspace on Discord could mean they’re more likely to see work notifications and stay connected. More likely to get after-hours responses, too.

Better (voice & video) media features

Discord was started specifically for voice chat, and added video-streaming soon after. So it excels in these (especially over the more text-focused Slack). Whether you actually need them for work use depends on you.

• Better media quality – better voice and video quality
• More users on video calls – free Slack only allows 1-on-1 calls, whereas free Discord allows group calls up to 25ppl.
• Live streaming – Discord has live-streaming feature and excels in it. I’ve never used but seems like a great tool for broadcasting demos, casual lectures, or open video conference to an audience who can decide whether or not to tune in.
• Voice channels – Discord has long had voice channel feature that functions like a voice chatroom (or radio broadcast). Anybody can jump in and listen or contribute anytime. Slack only recently added as their “Huddle” feature.

Especially if you’re only comparing free versions, Discord wins by a giant gap.

Paid plans are by individual, not team-wide

Should you want to pay for premium features, it’s refreshing to know Discord paid plans are only $3-10/month per user (and maybe discounted for certain geographical regions). And each individual user can decide whether or not to upgrade and only they will have the benefits, of larger file attachments and higher quality video calls etc. You are not forced to upgrade all users on your server (workspace). Great since most users don’t need the paid benefits anyway! Much more affordable price for companies.

It also helps that Discord’s profit model isn’t based on roping off essential features behind a paywall. Truly feels like you get everything for free, and pay only for extras. Need I say…Slack is a public corporation forced to squeeze out shareholder profit, while Discord is still a private corporation with its origin mission still intact. (It wants to be the best place to hangout during and after people play games.)

Discord has a bigger userbase

Discord has many more users since it appeals to more industries and topics, it’s not just for work. And as if we’ve already established, there’s a good chance your younger market demographic is already on it.

If you’re trying to grow an open community, it’s probably much easier (and not to mention much cheaper) doing that with Discord. I see many Discord communities reaching 10-100k. Slack communities back when the FREE plan wasn’t neutered, was maybe a couple thousand max? And nowadays much much smaller than that.

Better features for community building

While Slack is very work-oriented, Discord is very play-oriented. Features are more along the lines of stimulating communication with fun emojis, server templates and bots, server analytics (to see engagement metrics).

You may wonder “what does this have to do with getting work done?” Well…it might not be related to your work, but perhaps part of your business has an open community aspect. A place where clients, fans, passionate strangers, and potential fans/clients alike can all mix in and build good vibes under the sponsorship of your brand. Discord could very easily grow your brand tribe, alongside your team workspace. Maybe there’s a benefit to that for you.

Bots & Webhooks

Whereas Slack is rich in official work-app integrations, Discord focuses more on bots and webhooks. Useful for automated moderation (bots) and event triggers (webhooks). This is where Discord’s true magic is but I have yet to try it. I have seen large Discord server do really cool things. And theoretically, you could achieve similar 3rd-party app integrations using webhooks or Zapier as you would with Slack…but it’s a bit more work to set up.

Better Privacy

On Discord, direct messages happen directly and outside of any server (“workspace”)…accessible only by the 2 speaking individuals. But on Slack, direct messages happen within the workspace. And on Slack’s paid plan, workspace admins can read any direct messages. Even on Slack’s free plan, a workspace admin can still jump through some hoops to obtain access to direct messages. This distinction can make Slack a pro or a con, depending on your role/intent.

Conclusion – decide your main factors

• FREE or PAID – Discord is basically free (includes all essential features). Slack is a paid tool with very limited free plan, and you might regret losing access to older messages (past 90 days).
• DELETE function – do you like deleting stuff as I do? Discord is so much easier.
• Office vs Community – Slack is a professional grown-up office, and pretty UI. Discord feels like a programmer lounge…casual, simple, nerdy.
• Chat vs Collaboration – Discord is great to chat and share notes, categorize different areas. Slack free does same as Discord. Slack paid has extra collaborative tools (shared, notes, canvas, lists), almost like a mini project management app.
• Voice & Video – both can do text chat well. Discord wins for voice, video, group calls, livestreams, screenshares. Slack free doesn’t even compare, and Slack paid gets close.
• App Integrations – Slack wins easily. Has far more work-app integrations and far deeper integrations.
• Community forum – Discord wins. Perfectly built for large communities, automated bot moderations, fun emojis, massive userbase.

What’s your workflow?

Slack very much feels like a workspace (team chat) app evolving into a mini project management app. It’s hoping to be a friendly familiar all-in-one business app that can manage daily tasks, but also integrates deeply into other apps to the point that your 1-stop shop for everything. And to justify its high monthly price.

• Aside from the excellent chat interface, I see Slack’s primary strength as a collaborative task management tool. Especially excellent for coworkers with daily tasks that are deeply interwoven and dependent on each other’s progress.
• It’s great for discussing specifics with each other, visually-managing your own tasks, while also being able to peek over everybody else’s shoulder.
• Slack feels incredibly organized and natively integrated with usual work apps (Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, Asana, Notion, Trello). A diehard corporate employee will love Slack’s organization and micro-management while dismissing Discord as a disorganized mess, everything thrown in one box with limited ways of assigning contextual relationships and personal priority.

Discord is a community chat app…shifting between intimate personal or small-group chats, and big discussion forums. Think of a bunch of people making random announcements to everyone, chatting freely and casually about things before disappearing off into their own focused space.

• Discord feels like the water cooler where you pass by to chat about work or non-work with coworkers, before heading back to your cubicle.
• It only manages the communication about work, not the work itself. It will not help you keep track of things or other people.
• And while Discord doesn’t have all the UI-pretty work tools, it’s more than adequate for most work. Make tons of channels and separate stuff into each one. Do you really need anymore than that? All the Slack work management stuff isn’t needed if your work isn’t deeply related to anybody else’s. It’s adequate for most micro-businesses and entrepreneurs.

What’s your community demographic?

Overall, Slack feels visually friendlier for non-technical and typical office people. It looks like a community text document, with chats and commenting and call features.

Discord is giant chatroom…lots of chats & side-chats, emojis. Very familiar with younger people, but also longtime-techies (devs, nerds, dark web surfers).

Generally, I try to think of where my crowd is already hanging out. Because workspace apps (or any app in general) can be cumbersome when only used for one particular task. It’s when you have 2-3 workspaces/use-cases that it starts to feel fun, engaging, busy. Familiarity and frequency matter. And these days…I find myself on Discord more and more. Slack is used only for connecting with traditional office-style clients.

So while I still think Slack is awesome & cool, Discord is the easy winner for my use-case and daily habits. Which is small-shop entrepreneur use. Most of my work is solo and not so involved with others.

PS: I made a WPJohnny Discord server, msg me if you wanna join. 🙂

How other people feel:

• Discord is ok (perhaps faster) if used primarily as messaging platform. If you have deeply collaborative work and need work app integrations, Slack is the winner.
• Some say Discord only suitable for small groups (below 10), but above 10 should use Slack. (But keep price in mind.)
• There are also some who mix both Slack & Discord.

But maybe, you’re better off with other options:

• Pumble – perhaps you just want a Slack-clone without the annoying message-archival limitations. Pumble is a good fit for that, looks exactly like Slack (w/o the productivity tools) and currently free. Thing is it looks very polished and will soon charge money, I can bet you that.
• Zulip – another lowcost Slack-replacement. Free or lowcost, has open-source self-hosted option giving you full control of your data. Honestly, very cool! Doesn’t look as polished out the box but good enough. And yes, it has a mobile app…VERY COOL!
• Microsoft Teams – another popular corporate workspace app, and already integrated with Microsoft’s long matured list of office tools. Personally feels overkill and expensive for most. Heck, some people say even Slack is getting over-complicated these days.
• Other team-chat apps I saw – Chanty, Mattermost (self-hoted), Matrix.org (self-hosted), Brosix, Zenzap, Basecamp (old school), Campfire (self-hosted), Fluxer (cool new one, perfect balance between Discord & Slack). Seems this space is so busy now with everyone trying to take a bite of Slack’s pie.