Searching for the right tool for communication and collaboration can be a real pain in the neck.
You can easily get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of business communication apps on the market, and choosing the right one can look like an impossible problem.
However, in this day and age, you simply cannot avoid online tools, especially since they are becoming a more and more popular solution for workplace communication.
According to Workplace communication statistics (2022), as many as 45% of the surveyed employees are using online tools as primary communication devices.
So, to effectively communicate and collaborate with your colleagues, you need to find the right business messaging tool.
We’re aware of the fact that, at first glance, all communication apps look similar. But, with more detailed analysis, we’ll help you easily make your way through a seemingly never-ending list of features.
In this blog post, we’re comparing two of the most popular team chat apps on the market — Chanty and Slack.
First, we’ll give you a quick overview of both apps.
Then, we’ll compare these two apps in the following categories:
- Pricing plans,
- Interface,
- Communication,
- Notifications,
- Search,
- File sharing and storage,
- Integrations,
- Support, and
- Security.
Finally, we’ll see which team chat app is better and help you reach an informed decision.
Buckle up, and let’s get started!
Table of Contents
Chanty vs Slack overview
First, let’s take a quick look at Chanty and Slack.
Chanty is a team chat app best suited for small and medium-sized businesses. It helps your team communicate and collaborate more efficiently by bringing all aspects of communication and collaboration together:
- Chat,
- Audio and video calls,
- Screen sharing, and
- Project management.
Aside from that, this business communication platform allows you to easily transform conversations into tasks.
Slack is a team chat app that facilitates your internal communication and collaboration.
Aside from allowing you to exchange messages with your team members in a dedicated workspace, this business messaging platform lets you:
- Share files with your teammates,
- Engage in audio and video calls,
- Use integrations with other useful business apps, and so much more.
In the table below, you can see and compare the features of both Chanty and Slack.
| Features | Chanty | Slack |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | — Free (unlimited message history, 10 apps & integrations) — Business: $3 per user, per month | — Free (up to 10k messages, 10 apps & integrations) — Standard: $6.67 per active user, per month — Plus: $12.50 per active user, per month |
| Interface | Clean, standard customization | Clean, custom sidebar themes |
| Communication options | Special places for group conversations — Channels Teambooks — for a more organized communication | Special places for group conversations — Channels |
| Notifications | — DND — You can choose among three levels of notifications | — DND — You can set up notifications for specific channels and keywords |
| Search options | Basic — you can search within a specific time frame, but you cannot further filter the search | Advanced — allows you to search within a specific time frame. Search within documents |
| File sharing and storage options | — Free plan: 20GB file storage for a team — Business plan: 20GB file storage per user | — Free plan: 5GB file storage for a team — Standard plan: 10GB per user — Plus plan: 20GB per user |
| Integrations | — 10 integrations limit in the free plan — 45 integrations in the paid plan | — 10 integrations limit in the free plan — 2,400+ integrations in paid plans |
| Support | — Email/Help Desk — FAQs/Forum — Knowledge Base Chat — Dedicated support line in the paid plan | — Email/Help Desk — FAQs/Forum — Knowledge Base Chat — Customer success teams in paid plans |
| Security | Standard security | Standard security |
Now that we got familiar with the most prominent features of these apps, it’s time to give them a closer look in a more comprehensive comparison.
Chanty vs Slack pricing plans 1:0
For teams with up to 10 members, Chanty offers a freemium version which includes:
- Unlimited public and private conversations, search history, one-on-one audio calls, and voice messages,
- Built-in task management,
- Up to 10 integrations,
- 20GB file storage per team, and
- Community support.
However, if you realize your company has outgrown this package and decide to switch to a paid plan — i.e. the Business plan, for $3 per user/month — you will get everything included in the free plan, plus:
- Unlimited number of integrations,
- 20GB file storage per member,
- Unlimited group audio and video calls with screen share,
- Unlimited one-on-one audio and video calls,
- Dedicated support line.
On the other hand, in its free plan, Slack offers:
- Access to 10,000 of your most recent messages,
- 10 integrations with other apps,
- 1:1 voice and video calls, and
- 5GB of storage per workspace.
Slack’s first paid plan — the Pro package ($6.67 per user per month, when paying annually) — is a bit pricier than Chanty’s paid plan.
It offers:
- 10GB of file storage per member,
- Voice and video calls for up to 15 members, and
- 24/7 support.
Aside from that, starting from September 2022, Slack’s monthly Pro plans will increase from $6.67 to $7.25 per user per month.
To sum up, Chanty is a clear winner in this category — even before the increase in Slack’s pricing plans, Chanty offers a better deal at a more affordable price.
Let’s see a brief overview of both apps’ pricing plans:
| Pricing plans | Chanty | Slack |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | No | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | $3 | $6.67 |
| Overall impression | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Chanty vs Slack interface 0:1
Whether your company is practicing a remote, hybrid, or in-office work model, chances are you spend a great deal of time chatting with your teammates.
That’s why an app’s interface plays an important role when you’re choosing a communication tool that suits your needs.
The first thing you’re looking for is an intuitive and user-friendly interface — because no one wants to spend hours figuring out a tool.
On that note, let’s see what Chanty and Slack have to offer when user experience is concerned.
We’ll start with Chanty’s interface.
Chanty’s interface offers:
- Support for 7 languages, and
- UI and UX customization.
This communication and collaboration tool enables you to customize your notification sounds to your liking.
Speaking of themes, there aren’t that many options — you can choose between a light and a dark theme.
Moving on to Slack’s interface, it’s instantly clear that it offers more options for both customization and localization.
More precisely, Slack’s interface provides you with:
- Support for 10 languages,
- Customization of welcome messages and emojis, and
- An abundance of theme colors to choose from.
Thanks to its more advanced customization options and the support for more languages than Chanty, Slack takes the crown in this round.
| Interface | Chanty | Slack |
|---|---|---|
| Layout | Clean | Simple and intuitive |
| Customization | Standard | Advanced |
| Overall impression | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Chanty vs Slack communication 1:0
When it comes to communication, both these apps offer group (private and public) and direct messaging.
For those of you who crave a better organization, Chanty’s got your back.
Namely, this app offers you a so-called Teambook, where all your tasks, conversations, and pinned messages are neatly organized.
Chanty even goes one step further and introduces a collaboration solution in the form of a task management option.
You can easily create and assign a task, add a due date, and set a priority status — high, medium, or low.
Thanks to the option of organizing these tasks in Kanban boards, you can rest assured that you will never miss a deadline for a task you’re assigned with.
It’s time to take a look at what Slack has to offer.
We already mentioned that Slack lets you communicate with your teammates in private or public channels.
Both Chanty and Slack let you communicate with your colleagues in threaded conversations, thereby keeping your feed clutter-free.
Both these apps are useful for asynchronous communication, and it’s up to you to choose which one you prefer.
However, keep in mind that in Slack’s free plan, your message history is currently limited to 10,000 most recent messages.
All things considered, Chanty is the better of the two in this category — thanks to its more organized structure for both communication and collaboration and an unlimited message history even in the free plan.
| Communication | Chanty | Slack |
|---|---|---|
| Chat history | Unlimited | 10,000 most recent messages with the free plan |
| Mentions and reactions | Yes | Yes |
| Threads | Yes | Yes |
| Channels | Private and public | Private and public |
| Message formatting | Standard | Standard |
| Emojis and GIFs | Yes | Emojis yes, GIFs no |
| Overall impression | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Chanty vs Slack notifications 1:1
When communicating via a team chat app, it’s crucial — but not at all easy — to strike that fine balance between getting distracted with too many messages while working and missing important messages from your team members.
That’s where notifications come into play.
The good news is that both Chanty and Slack allow you to customize your notifications.
We’ll begin with Chanty.
This communication and collaboration app will notify you when:
- Someone sends you a new message,
- Someone mentions you, or
- A task is updated.
Luckily, you can avoid being overwhelmed by messages by choosing between three levels of notifications:
- For all new messages in your conversations,
- For direct messages, mentions, and task updates, or
- No notifications whatsoever.
Slack’s notifications are not so different from Chanty’s — it notifies you when:
- You get a direct message,
- You get a mention,
- You receive a message from Slackbot, or
- You receive a reply to a thread you’re following.
Aside from these settings, both Chanty and Slack offer Do Not Disturb (DND) mode — which comes in handy, especially for all those distributed teams that work across time zones.
In this round, we have a tie because both Chanty and Slack offer advanced options for customizing notifications.
| Notifications | Chanty | Slack |
|---|---|---|
| Notification configuration | Advanced | Advanced |
| DND mode | Yes | Yes |
| Mute channels and direct messages | Yes | Yes |
| Overall impression | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Chanty vs Slack search 0:1
You know the feeling of despair when you’re searching for a piece of information or a file but to no avail?
Yes, searching for information or files can be discouraging, but it doesn’t have to be — when the tool you’re using has a superior search option.
Luckily, both Chanty and Slack help you avoid all the frustration and save you time and nerves, thanks to their advanced search options.
In Chanty, you can search and browse files and links in:
- History timelines,
- Conversation actions, and
- Teambook — where you can toggle between the Table or Cards views.
Chanty also allows you to search for information from a specified date or time frame.
On the other hand, Slack enables you to search within:
- Messages,
- Files, and
- Channels.
That way, you can easily find what you are looking for — but bear in mind that, in the freemium plan, you can access and search only 10,000 most recent messages.
Just like in Chanty, in Slack, you can search within a specific period.
However, unlike Chanty, Slack allows you to exclude whatever you want from your search.
Thanks to its more advanced search modifiers, the winner of this category is Slack.
| Search | Chanty | Slack |
|---|---|---|
| Message and channel search | Yes | Yes |
| File and people search | Yes | Yes |
| Filters | Basic | Advanced |
| Overall impression | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Chanty vs Slack file sharing and storage 1:0
File sharing is essential for a streamlined workflow and effective collaboration.
Picture this: you’re in a virtual meeting with your team, and your colleague talks about a document your manager sent the day before. You’re having trouble finding the document on your computer, and that’s when your colleague steps in — they share the file via the communication app you’re currently using.
So, do Chanty and Slack belong to a group of apps that make file sharing possible?
Luckily, yes.
Let’s start with Chanty.
First of all, Chanty allows easy file sharing directly within your messages.
Additionally, Chanty allows you to share code snippets with your colleagues — which makes this communication and collaboration app especially convenient for developers.
On the other hand, Slack allows you to share files of up to 1GB in size. If you want to, you can add critical details and context to your attachments.
When storage is concerned, the situation is a little more nuanced.
More precisely, Chanty offers 20GB of storage per team in the free plan, while Slack gives you only 5GB of free storage per team.
Furthermore, Chanty’s paid plan ($3 monthly per user) provides you with 20GB of storage per team member, whereas Slack’s first paid plan ($6.67 monthly per user) provides you with only 10GB of storage per team member.
Since Chanty’s paid plan is both more affordable and provides you with more storage than Slack’s first paid plan, Chanty wins the medal in this category.
| File sharing and storage | Chanty | Slack |
|---|---|---|
| Free file storage | 20GB per workspace | 5GB per workspace |
| Secure file sharing | Yes | No |
| Overall impression | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Chanty vs Slack integrations 0:1
Integrations with other apps are a convenient way to improve productivity and ensure a better remote work experience.
Although Chanty currently integrates with 45 applications, in the free plan, up to 10 integrations are available.
When Slack is concerned, the situation is much more promising — rarely does any other app offer more integrations than Slack.
Like Chanty, in the freemium plan, Slack also integrates with 10 apps.
However, Slack’s paid plans offer you over 2,400 integrations — which you can easily browse since they are organized into categories.
Thanks to its abundance of integrations, Slack is this category’s clear winner.
| Integrations | Chanty | Slack |
|---|---|---|
| Number of integrations | 45 integrations with other apps | Over 2,400 integrations with leading apps |
| Overall impression | ⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
Chanty vs Slack support 0:1
Both Chanty and Slack offer a standard support system in their free plans, including:
- Email/Help Desk
- FAQs/Forum
- Knowledge Base
Moreover, in the paid plan, Chanty offers an unlimited dedicated support line.
Unfortunately, not even in its paid plan does Chanty provide you with a customer success team.
On the other hand, Slack’s paid plans provide you with more advanced support.
First of all, with Slack’s Pro paid plan, you have priority support 24/7 at your disposal.
In the next two paid plans, Slack offers you 24/7 support with a 4-hour first response time and 99.99% guaranteed uptime SLA.
Because of its superior customer support options, Slack is the winner in this category.
| Support | Chanty | Slack |
|---|---|---|
| Customer support | Basic | Advanced |
| Knowledge base | Yes | Yes |
| Customer success teams | No | Yes |
| Overall impression | ⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
💡 Pumble Pro Tip
Although Slack took the crown in this round, there’s an even more affordable communication solution that takes great care of its customers. Pumble offers you world-class customer support with an average response time of 1 hour:
Chanty vs Slack security 0:1
Our Chanty vs Slack face-off ends with security, an important feature of any communication tool.
Chanty takes care of your data by offering the following:
- Security protocols for data transfer,
- Data loss prevention,
- Invite-only access to your team space,
- File system and storage encryption,
- Compliance audit policies, and
- Data retention regulation.
Aside from regular security updates, Chanty is compliant with GDPR and CalOPPA.
On the other hand, Slack also supports encryption-in-transit and encryption-at-rest.
Apart from that, Slack is audited against a number of compliance and assurance programs, such as:
- SOC2
- SOC3
- ISO/IEC
- APEC
Moreover, Slack offers multi-factor authentication.
Thanks to this feature, which Chanty lacks, as well as a greater number of compliance and assurance programs, Slack takes the crown in this round, as a more secure communication and collaboration app.
| Security | Chanty | Slack |
|---|---|---|
| Two-factor authentication | No | Yes |
| Advanced security | Yes | Yes |
| Data encryption | Yes | Yes |
| Overall impression | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
💡 Pumble Pro Tip
If you want to get a better grasp on the importance of data security in collaboration and communication tools, check out our in-depth guide on that matter:
Chanty vs Slack Verdict 4:6
The results are in and we can crown the winner — Slack.
| Features | Chanty | Slack |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing (user/month) | 1 | 0 |
| Interface | 0 | 1 |
| Communication | 1 | 0 |
| Notifications | 1 | 1 |
| Search | 0 | 1 |
| File sharing and storage | 1 | 0 |
| Integrations | 0 | 1 |
| Support | 0 | 1 |
| Security | 0 | 1 |
| Total score | 4 | 6 |
We have carefully considered the main factors that might influence your decision about what communication and collaboration tool to choose, and we reached our verdict.
The numbers speak for themselves — Slack has taken the crown with 6 points, whereas Chanty was left behind with 2 points fewer.
But, the final choice is up to you.
Undoubtedly, both apps offer attractive features which might nudge you towards one or another.
However, if you, for instance, find both these apps a little above your price point, we have another suggestion for you.
Looking for a Chanty or Slack alternative? Try Pumble
If neither Chanty nor Slack has won your heart, you could have a go with Pumble, a free business messaging platform.
The most compelling reasons you should choose Pumble are the following features it offers:
- A clean and intuitive interface,
- Unlimited users and chat history,
- 1:1 voice and video calls, as well as
- 10GB of free storage space per workspace.
All the features listed above are included in the free plan, which is free forever, so you don’t have to worry about a trial period — there isn’t one.
Additionally, Pumble offers you an amazing customer experience, with priority customer support in its paid plan.
Aside from that, Pumble’s paid plan is a lot more affordable than Chanty’s or Slack’s — for just $1.99 per user monthly, you can enjoy all the perks Pumble has to offer.
However, you can always start with a free plan and check out if this tool suits your communication needs.
So, sign up for a free Pumble account now and see for yourself.
✉️ What about you? What communication and collaboration tools do you use for your workplace communication? Have you tried the apps we analyzed in this blog post? We’re interested to hear your opinion. Let us know what you think at blogfeedback@pumble.com and we may include your answers in this or one of our future posts.
