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Ask HN: What do you think about a Slack alternative

by alexpham14 on 6/19/25, 3:50 PM with 4 comments

I am getting ready to launch a product that lets people chat in groups and focuses on work and workspace collaboration.Like Slack and Discord, the pre-preview version will not have all the features they do. For now, it will only have text chat. The difference is that it costs less and makes the most of AI's presence and support in the workflow. I’m a fan of Slack, but honestly, its pricing is a barrier for me, and I believe it’s the same for any team.

I know it’s not something new, but is this a good idea, and does the community also care about it and want to see it? I would appreciate hearing your thoughts and feedback.

  • by codingdave on 6/19/25, 4:18 PM

    Slack is free for small teams that don't need lots of chat history. By the time you get big enough to need those features, you probably have some standard platform in place for email, almost all of which also have chat solutions from the same vendor.

    So I'm not terribly interested in new competitors in this space because for larger orgs, chat is an add-on to other services, and I don't want to bring in a new vendor just for a chat alternative, even if the existing solution has problems.

    Basically, price isn't the true barrier - simplicity in vendor relations and enterprise tech footprint is the bigger concern.

  • by toomuchtodo on 6/19/25, 3:57 PM

    How would you compare what your idea is to https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost ?

  • by owebmaster on 6/20/25, 1:36 AM

    Nobody is looking to leave Slack. People use slack and teams because they have to, not because they care.