In the past few years, voice and text chat apps have become a very essential part of team communication. A good team communication app can really help an organization to stand out in terms of collaborative efforts.
Discord is one of the popular team communication software, especially for gamers. It is a good application but it has some disadvantages when it comes to bigger teams or end-to-end encryption. But thankfully, there are some great and powerful alternatives to discord that can help you to move one step ahead from your competitors.
Why You Should Use An Alternative To Discord?
While Discord is well-liked for its neat UI, ease of use, private servers, and gaming-related features, there are some major drawbacks too which are usually not discussed. Here are some major drawbacks of Discord:
- Discord does not support End-to-End encryption (not even for private messages)
- Maximum file upload limit is 8MB
- Frequent security issues with their private servers.
So now you know the reasons to look for discord alternatives, let’s dive into the top 10x discord
alternatives worth using in 2020:
Top Discord Alternatives In 2020
Mattermost: Flexible Discord Alternative
This is a highly flexible, open-source chat platform making way for secure and safe team collaboration.
Pros: It is one of the very few collaboration applications that serve as social networks at the same time. It works best for teams and industries and is way more affordable than Discord.
Cons: The paid package of Mattermost offers limitless customization options and improved security, but the restriction is that there must be a minimum of 10 users for purchasing this app.
Hangouts Chat: Affordable Alternative To Discord
This alternative to Discord boasts of virtual rooms with the potential of holding around 8000 individuals.
Pros: It comes loaded with features like threaded conversations. Direct messaging and bots can integrate with the G Suite applications along with the third-party organizations. Hangouts Chats works in 28 varied languages and even has its focus on the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence for finding out the requirements of the users.
Cons: It is not a free service, but it can be affordable.
Microsoft Teams: Best Discord Alternative
This is a fully dedicated team communication app that integrates very easily in the users work and makes way for smooth communication among the team members.
Pros: The greatest advantage of this app is that it offers exclusive features like meeting recording and scheduled meetings.
Cons: It might take a bit of time for the users to get started. And yes, storage is limited with 2GB available per user and 10GB shared among the team.
Skype: User-Friendly Discord Alternative
Skype has got some unique features. These include screen sharing, along with video and audio sharing.
Pros: Skype lets its users enjoy the notification system, which works very smoothly. The users can even communicate with individuals outside their team. Best of all, Skype can be used even without an internet connection.
Cons: Skype will not be the best app for major team collaborations involving several members.
TeamSpeak: Best Alternative To Discord
Teamspeak is a superb alternative to Discord. It provides crystal clear sound with lag-free performance. Security is high as it comes with military-grade security.
Pros: Provides Lag-free communication with automatic microphone volume adjustment, background noise reduction, and echo cancellation. User can access over 100 add-ons, skins and voice packs.
Cons: The graphical user interface (GUI) of TeamSpeak is not very appealing.It does not provide video support. You can only communicate with those who have TeamSpeak
Best Free Alternatives To Discord
Mumble: Free Alternative To Discord
Mumble is a free alternative to Discord. It is developed for users who like to chat while gaming. Mumble provides quality audio even at very low bandwidth.
Pros: Mumble is open-source and it’s free to use. It allows authentication and encryption to ensure a secure environment and user authentication is done by codes.
Cons: If you run a lot of PUGs, getting them all up and running in Mumble can be quite a challenge.
Slack: Best Free Discord Alternative
Slack is one of the best team communication software available in the market. Unlike Discord, Slack easily integrates with various third-party tools like Trello, GitHub, MailChimp, and many others.
Pros: The interface of slack is very organized and user friendly. It provides over 2000+ integrations. You can easily ping people to get their attention even if they are not online by @mentioning them.
Cons: There is minimum file storage. When files are sent through Slack instead of email, it can be difficult and frustrating because you only get as much storage as you choose to pay for as a company and Slack slowly deletes files over time. It can be distracting, If you lose focus, you can get easily stuck in different threads.
Conclusion:
The aforementioned applications are some of the best alternatives to Discord. You can let us know if you have better suggestions for discord alternatives, All the above-mentioned applications come with their own pros and cons. Make sure you are well aware of the advantages and disadvantages of each application before using them.