Are you deciding between Slack and Discord for building your online community? Consider a full-fledged community platform like Tribe and check out this detailed comparison based on 35+ points to select the right solution.
| Tribe | Slack | Discord | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suitable for |
Brand-led online communities
|
Business communication
|
Real-time communication in a group setting
|
| Primary communication mode |
Text with rich media
|
Text
|
Voice (Supports text)
|
|
Pricing
| |||
| Subscription fee |
Free
Plus ($59/mo) – 2,500 members Premium ($299/mo) – 25k members |
Free
Standard ($8/user/mo) Plus ($15/user/mo) |
Free
Nitro ($9.99/user/mo) Nitro Classic ($4.99/user/mo) |
|
Features
| |||
| Rich composer |
Text formatting, media uploads, mentions, embeddable content
|
Text formatting, media uploads, mentions, embeddable content
|
Text formatting, media uploads, mentions, embeddable content
|
| Upload and attach media files | |||
| Embeddable widgets |
Add components of the community in web app, mobile app, and website
| ||
| Searchable messages | Unlimited | Up to 10k in the free plan and unlimited in the paid plan | Unlimited |
| Audio calls |
One-to-one in the free plan
|
Supports 5,000 concurrent users
| |
| Video calls |
One-to-one in the free plan
|
Group video calls with 25 members
| |
| Spaces (Groups/Channels)i |
Public, Private, and Secret
|
Public and secret channels
|
Public and secret channels
|
| SEO benefits from user-generated content | |||
| Discussions threads | |||
| Community moderation tools i |
Both automation rules and manual tools
|
Need to install third-party moderation bot
| |
| Configurations for member permissions | |||
| Gamification tools |
Badges, leaderboards, reputation scoring based on contribution quality
|
Badges
| |
| Single Sign-On (SSO) |
JWT, OAuth2.0, SAML, and Custom SSO
|
Only SAML-based SSO
| |
| Social login |
Log in with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, etc.
| ||
| Private messaging | |||
| Integrations | Popular tools for community management and key processes | A wide range of third-party tools |
Limited (focused on gaming) |
| Built-in apps for community management |
Extend the functionality with native apps like Virtual currency, Signup Wall, and more
| ||
| Activity feed |
Similar to modern social media sites
| ||
| Reporting and analytics |
Built-in dashboard for key community metrics and Integration with Amplitude and Google Analytics
|
Limited data on usage and member activity
| |
|
File usage
| |||
| Storage | Unlimited |
5 GB for total members in free plan 10 GB – 20 GB/member in paid plan | Unlimited |
| Single-file upload limit |
500 MB in the free plan 1 GB in the paid plan | 1 GB |
8 MB in the free plan 50 MB in the paid plan |
|
Data ownership
| |||
| Export member | |||
| Export content |
Requires subscription to the Plus plan
| ||
|
Design and branding
| |||
| Fully white-label |
Requires subscription to a paid plan
| ||
| Custom domain support |
(e.g., community.site.com and site.com)
| ||
| User interface | Inspired by modern social networks | Designed for workplace collaboration |
Design is similar to Slack (with a casual tone) |
| Customization | Highly customizable in terms of the UI and community components | Limited to colors and themes | |
|
Developer friendliness
| |||
| API | |||
| Webhooks | |||
|
Language support
| |||
| User interface localization | |||
| Allow members to select the preferred language | |||
|
Support
| |||
| Email, live chat, community, training |
Limited
|
Immediate Access. No Credit Card Required.
Head of Community, Schoolhouse
your customer retention
of your customers engaged
Slack is primarily a business messaging app designed to centralize all the internal communication of an organization. This is currently the ubiquitous app that a vast majority of the companies use for employee collaboration. It allows real-time messaging, offers channels to categorize discussions, and integrates with popular third-party tools. The free plan allows you to search the recent 10k messages.
Discord, on the other hand, started as a platform to host gaming communities and communications tool for gamers. However, recently the positioning has changed to showcase that it can be used to host any kind of discussion for a group of people with a shared interest. The key difference is the superior voice messaging capability and a free plan with unlimited message history.
Since you are looking at potential solutions for building an online community, why not look into a full-fledged community platform? Introducing Tribe Platform — a fully customizable and white-label platform for brands and creators to launch communities with social media best practices. You can get started free (up to 500 members), host the community under your domain name, and customize it based on your branding.
Read on to compare Slack, Discord, and Tribe with greater details.
If you are creating a brand-led community or creator community, consider factors such as customizability, data ownership, organic growth via SEO, analytics, and customer support. However, the most important point is to consider a solution that has been purpose-built to support online communities.
Check out the summary of key elements that you should consider when selecting your community platform.
