Slack alternatives for small teams: history, hosting and price

Small teams usually go looking for a Slack alternative for one of three reasons: the free plan’s 90-day history window starts eating decisions, the per-seat bill grows faster than headcount, or someone wants the data on their own servers. Each alternative below fixes at least one of those. None of them fixes a team that hasn’t agreed how to use chat in the first place, so pair any switch with the rules in our async communication guide.

How we picked

We looked for team chat tools a 10 to 200 person company could switch to this quarter, and compared them on what the vendors publish.

• Free-plan message history: how much of your history you can see and search without paying.
• Self-hosting: whether you can run it on your own infrastructure, and on which edition.
• Price per user: the listed per-user price, monthly and annual where both are shown.
• Guest access: whether contractors and clients can join without a full paid seat.

Prices checked 4 November 2026 on each vendor’s own pricing page. They change; check before you buy.

For reference, Slack’s own free plan keeps 90 days of message history, and Pro costs US$7.25 per user per month billed annually or US$8.75 monthly (Slack pricing).

The alternatives

Microsoft Teams

Good for: companies already on Microsoft 365, or anyone who wants chat and meetings under one cheap licence. Price: Teams Essentials is US$4 per user per month, paid yearly. Microsoft 365 Business Basic, which adds business email and web Office apps, is US$7 per user per month, paid yearly (Microsoft comparison). Free plan: a free version of Teams exists, aimed at personal use, though Microsoft says small businesses can use it too (Teams free).

Teams Essentials includes unlimited chat with guest access and 10 GB of cloud storage per user (Teams Essentials). The business plans list unlimited chat messages and search, meetings of up to 300 participants and over 250 integrated business apps. There is no self-hosted version.

Worth knowing: all of these are annual subscriptions that auto-renew, so a switch is a 12-month decision rather than a monthly experiment.

Google Chat

Good for: teams already on Google Workspace who want to stop paying for a second chat tool. Price: Chat comes with every Workspace plan. Flexible (monthly) prices are US$7 per user for Business Starter, US$14 for Standard and US$22 for Plus. Google says a one-year commitment saves 16% (Workspace pricing). Free plan: none for business use; there is a 14-day trial.

The appeal is consolidation: Chat, Meet, Gmail and Drive share one admin console and one bill. Business Starter includes video meetings for up to 100 participants and 30 GB of pooled storage per person. The Starter, Standard and Plus plans cap out at 300 users.

Worth knowing: Google is running introductory discounts for new customers on the first 20 users for 12 months, so check what you will pay in year two.

Mattermost

Good for: technical and security-conscious teams that want to self-host. Price: quote-based. The Professional and Enterprise plans are sold as prepaid annual per-seat subscriptions, and Mattermost asks you to contact sales for figures (Mattermost pricing). Free plan: the free Mattermost Entry edition limits how many messages are shown in channel history and search. Older messages stay in the database and reappear if you upgrade (Mattermost FAQ).

Self-hosting is available on every plan: on-premises, on AWS or Azure, on Kubernetes, or air-gapped. The same FAQ says moving to the open-source Team Edition unlocks full history, with fewer features. We couldn’t confirm the exact Entry history cap on Mattermost’s own pages. Guests confined to one channel are free up to a 1:1 ratio with licensed seats.

Worth knowing: with no published price, budget a sales conversation before you can compare it with Slack line by line.

Rocket.Chat

Good for: small teams that want a free, self-managed Slack-style workspace. Price: paid plans are quote-based (Rocket.Chat pricing). Free plan: Starter is free for up to 50 users on a self-managed workspace, available from version 6.5 (Rocket.Chat get started).

If a Starter workspace goes over 50 users, Rocket.Chat stops new users being added but keeps existing users and data accessible. You can then trim users, move to the Community plan (no user cap, fewer features) or buy a paid plan. Deployment options run from your own servers to private cloud and air-gapped setups.

Worth knowing: self-managed means you own updates, backups and uptime. Someone on the team needs to be comfortable with that.

Zulip

Good for: teams spread across time zones who want every message filed under a topic. Price: Zulip Cloud Standard is US$6.67 per user per month billed annually or US$8 monthly. Plus is US$10 annually or US$12 monthly, with a 10-user minimum. Self-hosted Basic is US$3.50 per user per month (Zulip plans). Free plan: Zulip Cloud Free includes 10,000 messages of search history and 5 GB of total file storage. The free self-hosted edition includes every Zulip feature.

Zulip’s model is streams plus topics: each conversation has a subject line, so catching up after a day off means reading topics, not scrolling. Self-hosting is available on every tier, including Free. One catch on free self-hosting: mobile push notifications are capped at 10 users unless you qualify as an open-source project, research group or small non-profit.

Worth knowing: the topic model takes a week or two to click. Plan a short training session rather than assuming people will get it.

Twist

Good for: teams that want chat to feel calmer and more like a shared inbox. Price: Unlimited is listed at US$6 per user per month. The page has a monthly/yearly toggle but shows only that figure (Twist pricing). Free plan: one month of visible messages and comments, up to 5 integrations and 5 GB of storage.

Every Twist conversation is a titled thread, which suits async teams. Older messages on the free plan are hidden rather than deleted, and come back if you upgrade. On Unlimited, single-channel guests are free. Twist is cloud-only.

Worth knowing: a one-month free window is shorter than Slack’s 90 days, so the free plan is a trial, not a home.

Pumble

Good for: budget-conscious teams that want unlimited history without paying. Price: Pro is US$2.49 per seat per month billed annually or US$2.99 monthly. Business is US$3.99 or US$4.99, and Enterprise US$6.99 or US$7.99 (Pumble pricing). Free plan: unlimited users, unlimited message history and unlimited channels, with 10 GB of storage per workspace and up to 3 integrations.

Pumble comes from the company behind Clockify, and the free plan is the most generous on this list for history. The free tier is limited to one-to-one voice and video. Group meetings go up to 50 people on Pro and 100 on Business and above. Business includes five free single-channel guests per paid seat.

Worth knowing: three integrations is tight if your team relies on Slack-style app notifications.

Chanty

Good for: very small teams (five people or fewer) who want searchable history for free. Price: Business is US$3 per user per month billed annually or US$4 monthly (Chanty pricing). Free plan: up to 5 team members, unlimited searchable history, up to 10 integrations, 20 GB per team, and one-to-one calls.

Chanty’s Business plan adds group audio and video calls, screen sharing and three free guest seats per paying member. Chanty lists a 50% discount for non-profits and educational institutions.

Worth knowing: the five-member free cap means a growing team hits the paywall quickly, though the Business price is low.

At a glance

We also looked at Discord and Element. We left Discord out because its own site positions it for gaming and communities rather than work. Element’s free Community edition is for non-professional use, and its paid Enterprise plan starts at 100 users, which puts it outside a small-team list.

Choosing in practice

Start with what you already pay for. If you have Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, test Teams or Google Chat for a month before buying anything new; the cheapest chat tool is the one already on the invoice.

If you need history on a budget, Pumble and Chanty keep it on their free plans. If you need data on your own servers, the shortlist is Mattermost, Rocket.Chat and Zulip, and the real cost is the time of whoever runs the server. If your team is spread across time zones, Zulip and Twist’s thread-first models make catching up easier. Write the choice and the reasons into your remote work policy so the next tool debate starts from facts.

A switching checklist to paste into your project doc

CHAT TOOL SWITCH: [old tool] -> [new tool]
Owner: ________    Target switch date: ________

[ ] Export history from the old tool (check its export rules first)
[ ] Decide what moves: channels, pinned docs, integrations
[ ] Recreate channels with a naming rule, e.g. team-, proj-, client-
[ ] Reconnect the integrations people actually use (list them)
[ ] Set up guests: who, which channels, who approves
[ ] Write 5 chat rules and pin them in #general
[ ] Run both tools in parallel for 1 week, old tool read-only after day 3
[ ] Switch off notifications in the old tool on switch date
[ ] Review after 30 days: what's missing, what's noisier