# Free Alternative to Slack Published January 1, 2026 · Updated August 10, 2026 The best free alternative to Slack ($7.25/month) is Discord. Install it with: `brew install --cask discord`. ## Stop Paying for Slack: The Actual Free Alternatives Worth Your Time Slack started as a fun escape from email. Now it is the corporate establishment. Salesforce bought it for 27 billion dollars in 2020. Pro sits at $7.25 per user per month billed annually as of August 2026, and the price keeps creeping up while the desktop application eats gigabytes of RAM. The breaking point for many small teams happened when Slack altered its free tier. You used to get 10,000 messages of history. Now you only get 90 days. If someone linked a vital Google Doc in July, it vanishes by Halloween. That is completely unacceptable for a knowledge base. I spent the last three months migrating dummy workspaces across different chat applications. I wanted to see what happens when you refuse to pay 8.75 per user per month. Some open-source options are surprisingly polished. Others feel like they require a computer science degree just to configure a basic webhook. You have two main paths here. You can self-host an open-source tool. That takes work but gives you total data sovereignty. Or you can jump to a different proprietary service with a better free tier. I tested both approaches on my M2 MacBook Air. I monitored CPU usage, checked mobile app reliability, and verified whether custom emojis actually sync properly. This guide breaks down the free alternatives actually worth your time. Be honest about the gap: Element, Mattermost, Zulip, and Rocket.Chat can replace day-to-day messaging, but Slack still wins on third-party app polish, corporate SSO muscle memory, and Salesforce-adjacent workflows. Discord is free and delightful for community, yet it is a weak compliance story for regulated workplaces. If your pain is only Free-tier history, Pro may be cheaper than a botched self-host migration. ## Free alternatives 1. [Discord](https://bundl.run/apps/discord) — Voice, video, and text communication `brew install --cask discord` 2. [Element](https://bundl.run/apps/element) — Secure decentralized communication `brew install --cask element` ## Verdict Moving away from Slack is entirely possible. It just requires a mindset shift. You are trading convenience for control. I found that self-hosting Mattermost provides the least friction for a typical office team. If you want a hosted solution, Twist offers a fascinating alternative to real-time stress. The era of free, unlimited corporate chat on proprietary platforms is dead. You either pay the monthly fee or you take ownership of your own infrastructure. ## FAQ ### Why did Slack change its free tier? Slack altered its free tier in 2022. They removed the 10,000 message limit and replaced it with a rolling 90-day window. If you do not pay, your older messages disappear from view. They are not deleted from the servers immediately. You simply cannot see them unless you upgrade. This forced many small businesses to either pay up or find alternatives. It was a clear business decision to convert free users into paying subscribers. ### Can I export my Slack history before leaving? Yes. Workspace administrators can request an export from the settings menu. Slack provides this data as a massive ZIP file containing JSON documents. The free tier only allows you to export public channels. Private channels and direct messages are locked behind the paid plans. You will need a third-party script or a compatible import tool to actually read the exported JSON files. ### What is the Matrix protocol? Matrix is an open standard for real-time communication. It works like email. If you have a Gmail account, you can email a Yahoo account. Matrix applies this logic to chat. A user on one Matrix server can message a user on a completely different server. Element is the most popular application built on this standard. It prevents you from being locked into a single company's ecosystem. ### Is Discord actually safe for business use? Discord is a consumer application. Their privacy policy allows them to collect significant amounts of behavioral data. They do not offer enterprise-grade compliance features like HIPAA or SOC2 on standard accounts. The application also lacks proper threaded conversations. Important business decisions will quickly get buried in the main chat feed. It works fine for casual audio conversations. I would not trust it for sensitive corporate data. ### How hard is it to self-host Mattermost? It requires basic command line knowledge. You can deploy Mattermost using Docker in about fifteen minutes. The initial setup is straightforward. The real difficulty comes later. You are responsible for backing up the database, applying security patches, and managing server costs. A cheap five-dollar virtual private server can handle a small team of ten people easily. ### Does Zulip's threading model actually work? Yes. It takes about three days to rewire your brain. Every message must have a topic. You cannot just dump a random thought into a general channel. This forces people to organize their thoughts before pressing send. It completely eliminates the anxiety of returning from lunch to find 500 unread messages. You just read the topics that matter to you and ignore the rest. ### Can I still use custom emojis on these free applications? Almost all of them support custom emojis. Mattermost and Rocket.Chat allow you to upload standard image files to create custom reactions. Element supports them but the setup process is slightly more technical. You will have to manually download your custom emojis from Slack before migrating. There is no automated way to transfer them. ### What happens to my webhooks if I leave Slack? You have to rewrite them. Most services like GitHub or Jira have native integrations for Slack. If you move to Mattermost, you can often use the exact same Slack webhook format. Mattermost designed their API to accept Slack-formatted payloads. For other applications like Zulip or Element, you will need to generate new webhook URLs and reconfigure your external tools. ### Are open-source chat applications secure? Open-source software is generally highly secure. Anyone can inspect the code for vulnerabilities. Tools like Element and Wire include end-to-end encryption by default. Even the server administrator cannot read your messages. You must keep self-hosted software updated. An unpatched Mattermost server is a massive security risk. ### Do any free applications offer unlimited message history? Yes. If you self-host Mattermost, Zulip, or Rocket.Chat, your history is only limited by your server storage space. Discord also offers unlimited message history for free. You do not have to worry about the 90-day cliff that Slack imposes. ## Sources - [Slack pricing](https://slack.com/pricing) - [Slack Pro](https://slack.com/pricing/pro) - [Mattermost](https://mattermost.com/) - [Zulip](https://zulip.com/) - [Element](https://element.io/) - [Rocket.Chat](https://www.rocket.chat/) - [Discord](https://discord.com/) - [Slack packaging updates](https://slack.com/help/articles/39264531104275-Updates-to-feature-availability-and-pricing-for-Slack-plans) ## Related - [Discord vs Slack](https://bundl.run/compare/slack-vs-discord) - [Discord vs Microsoft Teams](https://bundl.run/compare/discord-vs-microsoft-teams) - [Element vs Slack](https://bundl.run/compare/element-vs-slack) - [Element vs Signal](https://bundl.run/compare/element-vs-signal) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://bundl.run/#organization", "name": "Bundl.run", "url": "https://bundl.run", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://bundl.run/og-image.png", "width": 1200, "height": 630 }, "description": "The Ninite for Mac. 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