“If your main priority is keeping conversations organized as your company grows, I'd shortlist Slack, Microsoft Teams, Mattermost and Zulip.”
“Slack combines flexible channel creation, discoverability, search and personalized organization.”
“Ease of adoption | Excellent | Good | Good | Requires adjustment”
“Administrative controls | Strong | Strong | Very strong | Strong”
“External shared channels | Yes | Yes | Yes, depending on setup | Limited model”
“Self-hosting | No | No | Yes | Yes”
“### 2. Best for Microsoft-based organizations: Microsoft Teams”
“Its three channel types provide particularly useful access control.”
“Integration with Outlook, Word, Excel and other Microsoft services.”
“Administrative controls | Strong | Strong | Very strong | Strong”
“Teams has a more hierarchical structure, with channels belonging to teams. This requires some planning as your organization grows.”
“Self-hosting | No | No | Yes | Yes”
“### 3. Best for granular control and self-hosting: Mattermost”
“Mattermost is a strong choice when you want greater infrastructure control and the ability to customize how communication is organized.”
“Self-hosting | No | No | Yes | Yes”
“Administrative controls | Strong | Strong | Very strong | Strong”
“The trade-off is more technical administration, particularly with self-hosting.”
“### 4. Best for topic-based conversations: Zulip”
“Zulip is arguably the most interesting option if your biggest problem is conversations getting mixed together.”
“Self-hosting | No | No | Yes | Yes”
“Administrative controls | Strong | Strong | Very strong | Strong”
“Ease of adoption | Excellent | Good | Good | Requires adjustment”
“External shared channels | Yes | Yes | Yes, depending on setup | Limited model”